When people are trying to assess the economic viability of a city, they tend to focus on the value of the real-estate market. It’s not hard to understand why. The median price of houses and condos are concrete figures, and therefore less prone to arbitrary, race-and-class-blurred measurements like crime and employment. And though the 2014 census put home ownership rates at 64 percent nationwide, there are plenty of people among the remaining 36 percent to whom the idea of buying a house is as unfathomable and out-of-reach as the idea of building one. Which is to say: It’s technically possible, I suppose, but let’s be serious. It’s probably never going to happen.
More to the point, however, housing prices are a reliable indicator of how much money people make in a given city. They don’t tell you much about the actual quality of life there. For example, the news that Seattle’s median home price in 2016 was $624,000 might lead a sensible person to wonder why so much of the culture that made the city interesting and beloved has been forced to find a new place to live.
