Debt, Gen Y and 100 years from now

Vancouver is the second least affordable city in the world, according to Demographia.

I ask, does valuing the high prices of living in this city outvalue the worth of a livable city?

Does the society benefit when the values are so high, when more young people are renting than ever before? When consumer debt is highest? What happens twenty years from now? Is this tenable, to put our net worth in our houses, only to find debt increasing, the housing market thoroughly unsustainable, Generation Y having to cross the country to find work?

Who's putting all this together? 100 years from now will we see this as part of the problem?

I think it's also telling when the median wage for Gen Y is $23,400 and the most commonly held job is "merchandise displayer". The second most common job is clothing lines rep, third is cellular phone rep. It's the service sector.

This is the service sector, which I think is a vampiric sector that doles out meager pay to low-skilled (and quite likely educated) employees. Most likely the products they sell were not made in Canada. Most likely the companies reap billions. And the jobs they create, despite their not being "good" jobs, are added to the employment numbers.

This was the case in America when employment rose, but they were in low-wage jobs in the service sector. Let this Young Turks segment fill out that and more:

Anyway, that's an aside.

What matters is that 100 years from now, they're going to look at these things and say, yep, that's part of the problem.