The way I see it, if you paid everyone who works in the very expensive and concentrated downtown area more the land value and rent would go up with it because it is caused by a housing supply issue. The reason for a tiny one bedroom apartment to cost over a million dollars isn’t cost of construction, it is scarcity and people who control the housing supply will charge whatever people are willing and capable of paying for it.

Either find a way to densify habitation more to make it more affordable or relocate your activities somewhere less saturated. Sadly businesses seem to love concentrating their offices in expensive and difficult to commute to areas.