The findings of a recent study concerning growth in suburbs and cities…
Housing prices (based on the median asking price per square foot) were up 11.3 percent in urban neighborhoods, versus 10.2 percent in suburban neighborhoods.
Housing prices rose even faster in “high-rise” neighborhoods, “where more than half the housing is in buildings with 50 or more units,” which saw a 11.9 percent gain.
Diversity pays when it comes to housing prices. Housing prices in “gayborhoods,” where gay or lesbian couples make up more than one percent of households, rose by 13.8 percent in gay neighborhoods and 16.5 percent in lesbian neighborhoods.
Housing prices rose by 14.3 percent in racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods defined as those “where no group makes up a majority of the population.”
Now that the suburbs have been decimated by the greed of bankers, capital turns to the inner city. The rising values in environmentally sound and culturally rich city cores should alarm all of us. We want Manhattan, but we also want Houston—meaning, we also want a city that is affordable. Rising values only add hot air to a bubble. And what the market wants more than anything else is another bubble. And the burst of a bubble always comes down to a massive transference of value from the many to the few.
