The regular New York Times feature "lifestyles of the not quite rich enough" is amusing because usually the people in question are, even by New York rich white people standards, far from poor. I mean, you don't actually have to be able to afford private kindergarten for Adelaide and Chad along with your 3 vacations per year. Still there is a very real issue for the great masses of people in places like New York and San Francisco who didn't inherit real estate in that even if you are pretty damn high income by any measure, the prospect of having enough money to have a family-sized place (by NYC standards, I don't mean a 2500 sq. ft. detached home) in Manhattan or Brooklyn so that you can plot a life that involves maybe settling down and having kids, is aspirational at best.
Ok in your 20s, but after that? Those places are expensive.
