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Originally Posted by iheartphilly
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I wouldn't go into generalizations too much. There is a natural ebb and flow to the growth are shrinking of big cities-say from retirement to the friendly tax states like Florida or cheaper cost of living in retirement down South, but the NorthEast States have predominately held higher paying jobs to support the higher rents. People that hold college degrees and advanced degrees on average have higher salaries to support higher rent. Cost of living is higher in bigger and more dense cities. And, I think the housing and rental markets will adjust accordingly to supply and demand. Especially if the vacancy rate is high on rentals, no landlord will want to sit on a building not filled at least 80%. The same is true for suburbs and housing costs (both rentals and home-ownership). The same rules apply in that salaries must also keep pace with the average increase in the cost of homes. Otherwise, no one will be able to afford homeownership in the more coveted towns (due to high ranking school districts, quality of life, etc.) and home prices will have to come down if people want to sell and move on (i.e., once they are empty-nesters, or they retire and move into the city or another state).
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Well, this is a more philosophical and macro discussion more suited to my urban planning work. But most people WON'T be able to afford homeownership in coveted cities, and density and requirements for certain amounts of designated affordable housing can only do so much to mitigate that in the longterm. This is because cities have finite amounts of land and yet our population continues to grow.
Absent a cultural reversal and significant drop in the desire to live in dense walkable neighborhoods with lots of amenities and lots to do, eventually all neighborhoods in the key cities are going to be like that and going to be prized, and accordingly expensive. But we have lots of usable land in relatively close proximity to our large cities that can develop to be a satellite and still allow people who can't afford to live in them to live near, work in, and spend time in our top cities. It's going to take a long time before we get to this point nationwide (less time for places like the Northeast Corridor but still a long time), but I really think this is the best guess on where we are ultimately headed.