WashPost OpEd: Young Americans ‘Must’ Shrink Their American Dream

President Donald Trump says he’s running to restore the American Dream by cutting migration, but the Washington Post says young Americans should resign themselves to small houses in a nation packed with millions of government-imported renters and buyers.

“The new American Dream should be a townhouse,” two Washington Post journalists declared in the headline of their October 21 op-ed, adding:

The American Dream is fundamental to what it means to be American. Keeping that dream alive for millennials, Gen Z and beyond requires right-sizing it by building more apartments, condos, duplexes and, especially, townhouses.

“In an age of tight money and its Toyota Camrys and Kirkland wine, it’s time to readjust the scope … townhouses consume less energy and foster healthy habits and social connection better than single-family homes,” a Washington Post opinion editor added on October 21.

The progressive cheerleading for pushing young Americans into small houses with postage-stamp lawns, steep stairs, minimal parking, and little privacy comes as Democrats insist on continuing President Joe Biden’s high-migration policies.

Kamala Harris, for example, is promising to build 3 million homes by 2028 — yet her high migration policies are likely to import 12 million more migrants by 2028. Her scheme may get some votes, but it also would help Wall Street investors buy the extra homes for profitable rental back to low-income Americans.

Donald Trump, however, promises to cut migration and restore the middle-class American Dream of a family and house, vacations, and retirement.

“It’s all about the American Dream,” Trump told a roomful of business elites and billionaires at the Economic Club of New Yor in September, adding:

We will make housing much more affordable… [and] we will get [mortgage rates] back down to 3 percent … [so] young people will be able to buy a home again and be part of the American dream ….  [Democrats] don’t want to talk about the American dream because they are the exact opposite.

Immigration “is a big driver of housing costs,” Sen. JD Vance told a Detroit audience in October:

The media, they don’t like to talk about the fact that one of the biggest drivers of housing costs, one of the biggest reasons why our young people can’t afford to buy a home is because under Kamala Harris’s leadership, we have let in millions upon millions of people who don’t have any right to be here.

Immigration, Wages, and Housing

Reporters at establishment media outlets do not have the authority to describe the establishment’s recognition that President Joe Biden’s policy of welcoming 10 million migrants is suppressing wages, boosting housing costs, and raising mortgage rates.

But they are allowed to describe housing-related problems providing there is no link to the establishment’s top priority of doubling the nation’s population growth with migrants, including the “dreamers” who are brought to the United States as children by their illegal-migrant parents.

“Many swing states, particularly along the Sun Belt, experienced an influx of new residents during the pandemic, driving up demand for housing … That burst of [domestic] demand, combined with constrained supply, led to a rapid run-up in prices,” the Washington Post admitted on October 20.

“Higher interest rates have made borrowing more expensive, wages have not kept up with rents and there is a shortage of affordable units, ” the New York Times wrote on October 21:

In interviews with dozens of voters in and around Las Vegas, the rising cost of housing was routinely cited as the most persistent financial difficulty weighing on their minds. That was particularly true for Black and Latino blue-collar workers, voters who have moved away from Democrats, according to recent polls.

…

“The dream of having my own home is not a dream I’ve had since I was 21 [in 2019],” Mr. [Armando ] Garcia said, sitting in his mostly barren living room, adding that it “feels too bold” now. “It just feels unrealistic. It doesn’t feel like I can, like, daydream about it for very long because it just feels like I have realism around me all the time.”

Mr. Garcia is unlikely to vote for Ms. Harris next month, he said, though he will support local Democrats, and instead will write in another candidate or simply not cast a presidential ballot.

In a separate housing article, the Washington Post offered a quote from Tina Rhodes — a former California liberal now living in Delaware:

Yet the Washington Post’s cheerleading for small houses excludes any rollback of the post-1990s migration policy that is intended to extract workers, consumers, and renters from poor countries. That inflow is intended to benefit consumer-economy investors on Wall Street, such as Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon.com.

Nor does the Post suggest the suggested shift in national economic policy to a low-migration, high-productivity, high-tech economy that would raise Americans’ wages at all levels.

Polls show that Americans are increasingly opposed to migration and its economic damage.

Sixty-one percent of registered voters told a Washington Post September-to-October survey that illegal migrants “generally make the communities they live in worse.” Just 7 percent say the migrants make their communities “a lot better.”

An April-to-October survey by the University of Michigan shows that a plurality of voters now say migration is bad for the economy.

The poll asked 5,700 people: “Which would be better for the economy as a whole—if immigration into the U.S. increased, if immigration into the U.S. decreased, or wouldn’t it make much difference to the economy?”  The “more” response dropped from 36 percent in 2020 to 26 percent in 2024.  The “less” response climbed from 24 percent in 2020 to 43 percent in 2024, marking a 29-point shift over the four years.

Democrats shifted by 23 points, college grads shifted by 32 points, and the “middle third” of stock owners shifted by 33 points.

Shrinking the American Dream

But the Post‘s op-ed ignores the impact of migration as it tells young Americans to literally shrink their American Dreams, to think small, and to accept cramped living conditions alongside many millions of supposedly vital new migrants:

Owning a home has long been a core part of the American Dream. Today, however, there simply aren’t enough affordable options, and that ideal is increasingly out of reach. There’s a sensible way to address this shortfall, but it requires moving beyond the antiquated vision of a big house with a fenced yard in the suburbs.

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[Real estate] developers have found a sweet spot with townhouses. They are cheaper to build. They usually face less “not in my backyard” resistance. And buyers love them. Townhouses have all the trappings of a classic dream home, but they cost less to buy, offer a low-maintenance lifestyle and are more climate-friendly.

Economics is driving the downshift to cheaper — but denser, smaller, and less private — housing, the op-ed notes:  “This is one reason the size of newly built homes has been shrinking for over a decade, and people are moving south and west, where housing is cheaper.”

State and local government should accelerate the trend by bulldozing the zoning rules that prevent small lots, the op-ed says:

We need to shift that. It starts with zoning. Any lot that currently allows one single-family home should be granted the ability to put two or three homes on the lot, such as a duplex or triplex.

“It’s the American Dream, but with a smaller yard,” the pro-migration Post said.