For decades, people broke into the ranks of property ownership via the starter home. Often modest, quirky, and in need of various repairs, this was not to be the ultimate family home. But the starter home allowed people to shift from renting to equity-building. Alas, that dream has become more elusive, as The New York Times reported in 2022.
Many factors have dampened this dream, but almost all of them begin with the letter “R” and end with “egulations.” More and more Americans have seen the pathway from starter home to family homestead vanish amid a sea of red tape growing exponentially in front of them like kudzu along the interstate. Now another milestone on the road to adulthood — namely the ability to hit the open road — is being closed off.
Writing at Discourse Magazine, Addison Del Mastro charts the death of the starter car — small, economical, affordable, unsexy vehicles that offered people the opportunity to move from walking, public transit, or, God forbid, cycling into the resplendent joy that comes with travel in the climate-controlled cabin of your own automobile. As with starter homes, many factors seem to have contributed to the death of the starter car. Most of them emanate from the penumbras the idiots known as elected officials see when they strain really hard in an attempt to protect us from ourselves, rather than from themselves.
But there might be other factors at play. Years of a generally growing economy and cheap credit might
