tl;dr: It feels like generational warfare because it is.
If you're not lucky in the job / skills market and don't have family willing to lend you money, housing prices in desirable metro areas are so out of control that there's a good chance you'll never be able to afford to buy one without making big sacrifices to save way more than the average rate.
Those "desirable metro areas" were not always that way. In 1963, my grandma spent $9000 to have a big house built on some undesirable empty hills that were a good distance from downtown. It's the geographic center of San Francisco.
Everybody wants to skip the "wait 56 years" step. Nobody seems to like building a house on some undesirable hills away from downtown and then waiting 56 years. People are even pushing to degrade her peaceful neighborhood, the one that exists because of people like her, with more crowding.
I'm not sure I agree with that because of one thing: commutes. How long was your grandma's commute from her empty hill to the places she wanted to go 56 years ago? How long is a commute from some empty hill in the east bay to downtown SF today? People would be really happy to move to some run-down emptyish area if it didn't mean the tradeoff of 3+ hours a day wasted.
It's also important to note that 56 years ago economic opportunities tended to be spread out a lot more than they are today, so it's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison.
If you're not lucky in the job / skills market and don't have family willing to lend you money, housing prices in desirable metro areas are so out of control that there's a good chance you'll never be able to afford to buy one without making big sacrifices to save way more than the average rate.