We can agree on that much at least.
FWIW, I'm from the Boston area and live here now, but I moved to the D.C. area in 2004 not long after college and was there for a few years. And coming from Boston, it seemed really affordable to me at the time, and I'm sure it still is relative to Boston. I was able to easily afford to rent a large condo in a gated community with an in unit washer/dryer and nice amenities like a pool and a gym.
Your parents' house would be worth $750k-1 million in the Boston area. To get a single family in that price range in the Boston area, you'd only have a few options in some shitty suburbs like Revere or Everett. Definitely not more desirable suburbs like Cambridge, Arlington, Somerville, Watertown, Newton, Brookline, etc. The cheapest single family in my hometown of Cambridge is $825k. Next cheapest is $1,095,000.
It used to be that someone could come here from Ireland or Italy or the US South with nothing and work hard at a blue-collar job and afford to invest in a house. Those days are over. Fiscal conservatives and neoliberals blame the individual but it's clearly a systemic issue. Hopefully we can agree with that and work together to solve it whether we're aligned with the left or the right.