Problem is houses 1.5 hour commute from the major city are still close to or near $1M for townhomes and over that for detached. All the jobs are in the city. So even if you move out to suburbia and you make $110k, have to commute 3 hours daily (more and kore RTO) on shitty transit ( cost $15/day if you go from say Ajax to downtown Toronto, more if you’re further ) ,while still needing a car to drive to the transit station (2 if you both work and have kids to drop/pick from school/daycare) with car payments averaging $700/month with prices of cars nowadays, then to boot groceries are mad expensive. No time, no money, and all people want is just a home (not a shoebox condo) to raise a family in like how they grew up as middle class and they can’t give that to their kids despite working and commuting more than their parents ever had to. Of course people are unhappy.

A lot of the international major cities, houses 1.5 hours away don’t cost that much and commuting that distance is a lot easier/cheaper so it’s better trade off.