There is huge tension. We've forced ourselves into a situation where it is difficult to fix things because housing is such a huge portion of many people's wealth. Policies that improve things for the poor and lower middle class in meaningful ways will crush the upper middle class, who have a lot of local political influence because they've got enough money to have free time but there are still a lot of them. Somebody with a mortgage 4x their gross annual income is going to fight hard to prevent their house from tanking in price, even if that means promoting anti-social policies.

It is a mess.