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This post is a bait and switch. The title and first few paragraphs talk about America, but all the analysis is focused solely on the Bay Area. No justification
by bradleyjg 10y ago
This post is a bait and switch. The title and first few paragraphs talk about America, but all the analysis is focused solely on the Bay Area. No justification is given for why the results for the Bay Area should be generalizable for America writ large.
There's nothing wrong with focusing on the Bay Area, that's certainly a big enough problem to tackle. But the title, graphics and first few paragraphs should be changed to reflect that.
- jra6 10y agoI don't disagree with your comment -- none of us are necessarily great blog writers :). I would say the way we think about this is that there is both a cyclical and structural housing problem in American cities. The structural piece is that: 1. there is a limited supply of land in near proximity to economic opportunity -- most of this land is concentrated in cities. 2. cities need a wide variety of people to live in them to function properly. 3. even if we paid all of those people a median wage, the median person will struggle to accumulate significant wealth while paying rent. 4. the banking system cannot be expected to take low down payment risk without making the entire system vulnerable to another housing crash. 5. therefore if no 3rd party equity exists, then the only people that will be able to acquire any land holdings will be the sons/daughters of those with existing land holdings (intergenerational wealth transfers)
- wbl 10y agoAnd this isn't a problem if cities permitted adequate housing growth and goverments didn't encourage detached single family homes in urban areas with massive subsidies.
- xrange 10y ago> No justification is given for why the results for the Bay Area should be generalizable for America writ large. Hockey. Stick.