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At least NYC builds up, so they fit all of their foreign real estate money in not much space. London is in a much worse position - huge foreign demand with very
by jcdavis 12y ago
At least NYC builds up, so they fit all of their foreign real estate money in not much space. London is in a much worse position - huge foreign demand with very little new housing supply has made anything remotely close absurdly expensive, which forces everyone to move further and further away and spend $5k+/yr commuting 1hr+ each way on trains.
- arbuge 12y ago>> huge foreign demand with very little new housing supply has made anything remotely close absurdly expensive I think this accurately describes NYC too at this point...
- _delirium 12y agoManhattan, at least, hasn't really had an increase in housing supply. The population is actually lower today than it was in the post-WW2 era (down ~20%, from just under 2 million then, to around 1.6 million today). Some of that is because of changing demographics (e.g. apartments that once held 4-person families now holding a 2-person couple), but the housing-supply constraint has been a pretty hard cap on population. There has been a lot of construction, but it's gone into mainly: 1) expanding commercial real-estate; and 2) replacing older, smaller residential units with newer, bigger ones. Redevelopment of the 2nd variety sometimes even reduces the number of housing units (but each unit is nicer).