America’s 'missing middle' and the struggle for affordable housing

When Richard Amaechi, 27, lost his job as a financial planner in North Carolina, he decided to pull up stakes and return to San Francisco, where his parents still lived. The question was: Had his hometown become too expensive to welcome him back?

The City by the Bay has been stretching budgets for years with a cost of living that routinely ranks among the highest in the nation. San Francisco apartments typically rent for almost twice what they do in Charlotte. Homes sell for three times the price.

“I was just so discouraged,” says Amaechi, a CFP who had to move back with his parents when he returned in 2023. “It’s a tough adjustment moving back to mom and dad, trying to tell you to wash dishes.”

San Francisco is among many U.S. cities that have become especially tough on those who want to stay. Decades of restrictive zoning, rising construction costs and community resistance to multifamily housing have created what housing experts call the “missing middle,” a term used to describe a lack of affordable options for average-income residents that are the lifeblood of a city.

“If the only people that can live in the city are rich people, that doesn’t make the city diverse and vibrant and artistic,” says Alexander Sturke, director of communications for the Mayor’s Office of Housing in Boston.

In response, state and local governments are rethinking how and where Americans can live by changing the laws to push denser, more affordable housing and assisting low-to-medium-income buyers with financing.

“I think the danger is really that widening gap between people who can access a home and homeownership and people who can’t in our city,” says Laia Mitchell, a director at the City and County of Denver’s housing department. “If we’re not really pushing for...