Quote:
Originally Posted by badrunner
If they're paying more presumably they are getting more, like better access to jobs, better local infrastructure, better climate, local attractions etc. Things aren't just more expensive for absolutely no reason otherwise no one would pay the premium.
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The factors you cite play some role, but being that the primary driver of COL differences between each city is real estate/housing, it's actually quite simply a supply vs. demand issue relative to housing availability.
In other words, if developers in cities like New York or San Francisco built, say,
100,000 top-of-the-market housing units
each month within the next year, does anyone honestly think that prices would remain at stratospheric levels?
The fact that the most expensive cities in the US simultaneously have some of the strictest zoning/lack of land availability in place is obviously not a coincidence.
Yes, of course the fact that NYC and SF have many lucrative jobs, countless amenities and supreme culture plays a role in creating that demand, but that's much more subjective and far less easily quantifiable in the real estate equation.
It's a fact of the matter that the "wealthiest" cities have become MUCH moreso due to the deliberate exclusion of the middle and lower classes through the lack of housing available to them.