Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
The relevance of this thread is that it tells a much deeper story than merely everyone’s little yearly look at ACS population estimates, with the typical oohs and aahs over the horse race of which cities are gaining more people the fastest.
There is much, much, much more to that discussion. Some stagnant or even slightly shrinking cities are gaining high income households at an impressive rate, while some booming cities aren’t. Tells a much more nuanced and fascinating story that coincides with the gentrification (or lack thereof) that is being seen on the ground in so many places.
It also tells a story about city propers and suburbs, and where wealthier households tend to be locating. It would be neat to see MSA data for more than just NYC, LA, and Chicago.
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The issue I see is you want a balance of incomes ideally, a big bell curve with most people within a couple deviations of the mean and a good amount of wealthy people.
This gives you the labor force and capitol source for a well rounded robust economy.
Now when you have way too many rich people in your region it becomes outrageously expensive (see the bay area) where the rich "wall" themselves, sometimes literally, off from the rabble outside. It gives you places with a total split personality, one of Utopian paradise for the wealthy and a miserable nightmare for everyone else.
You also dont want too many low income residents as that drags on income growth and puts the whole region in a weird stagnant drag more prone to booms and busts and severely lacking in cultural amenities that are only possible with higher property values and the demand from a wealthier group of residents.
And thats not getting into aging populations vs young populations when it comes to consumer spending or the young being priced out of housing etc etc.