Meanwhile, in New York, progressives cheered as Amazon announced its decision to cancel its new Long Island headquarters in response to backlash over its impact on housing affordability, among other concerns. As Rep. Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted: “Displacement is not community development.” (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Post.)

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It is easy to see why these issues loom large for coastal Democrats. In California, the median home price is beyond the reach of 3 out of 4 residents. In the D.C. area, where rent prices for the poor are spiraling upward, activists also worry that Amazon’s arrival will displace residents.

But nationally, gentrification is an issue in only a handful of booming cities. Democrats hoping to lay out a vision to recapture the presidency in 2020 would do well to craft a more inclusive housing strategy that also addresses the challenges in heartland metropolitan areas such as Milwaukee, Detroit and St. Louis.

Indeed, in much of the country, there’s plenty of inexpensive housing. Many metros have too many vacancies, which lowers the value of existing property and raises the risk of crime. As usual, minorities, who make up a disproportionate percentage of the population in these Rust Belt cities, pay the heaviest price for these trends.

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It’s not news that such Middle American metros are struggling. But too often, politicians and activists treat the challenges facing heartland metros as distinct from the ones facing coastal super-cities. That’s a mistake. Skyrocketing rent in San Francisco and empty storefronts in Milwaukee are two sides of the same coin: The clustering of economic opportunity means that thriving megacities have more educated professionals than they can handle, while the rest of the country doesn’t have nearly enough.

How do we fix this imbalance? History provides a prescription. During the 20th century, the federal government established a strong competition policy regime that prevented large corporations headquartered in a handful of metros from snatching capital and talent away from everywhere else. Antitrust enforcers blocked powerful companies from acquiring rivals and broke up businesses that had cornered too much of any particular market. Airline regulation kept the price of flying from one city to another the same on a per-mile basis, ensuring that people and businesses in midsize cities could affordably access bigger markets.

This robust competition policy has been widely forgotten, but it was wildly successful. Beginning with the New Deal and continuing through the late 1970s, the per-capita income of different U.S. regions converged. In the mid-1960s, the 25 richest metropolitan areas were spread out across the country and included the likes of Milwaukee, Des Moines and Cleveland.

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But in the 1970s and 1980s, politicians and judges began unraveling these regulations, convinced by conservative economists that the free market would keep the playing field even. Ever since, money has flowed out of interior metros and toward a small collection of cities with a high degree of political and economic power, just as globalization began to hollow out the country’s manufacturing core. Middle America’s major companies have found themselves bought out by firms headquartered in places as far away as Belgium. Today, all but five of the 25 wealthiest metros in the United States are located on the East or West Coast. Minneapolis, which clocks in at No. 23, is the only entrant from the Midwest.

To help solve our housing crisis and foster metropolitan equality, policymakers need to focus on reconstructing the kinds of vigorous competition policies that kept the playing field level for decades. This means blocking mega-mergers that increase the concentration of wealth in already wealthy cities. It entails breaking up companies that, like Amazon, already dominate markets. And it requires giving midsize metro areas more affordable airline connectivity, something they enjoyed until airline deregulation let a dwindling number of air carriers raise prices and cut flights to much of the U.S. heartland.

These policies will give educated professionals an opportunity to live in a variety of places, rather than cramming them all into cities such as San Francisco. Heartland metros, after all, have plenty of houses and infrastructure. They can easily accommodate an influx of white-collar workers who would, in turn, likely appreciate the relief it would bring their wallets. But people go where there’s opportunity. It’s up to policymakers to create an economic system where metropolitan regions everywhere offer good jobs.

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That’s not to say Harris’s, Booker’s and Warren’s proposals are bad. Millions of Americans are struggling to pay rent, and they need relief. But fixing our broken competition policy requires a more comprehensive strategy.

For Democrats looking to win in 2020, this approach could help articulate a vision that plays as well in the Rust Belt as in the Bay Area. To defeat President Trump, the party must turn out voters in the swing-state metros of Middle America. And what motivation is better than policies that would bring more opportunity to their hometowns?