The government has always been here. So why was the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80, 90s COL here so affordable?
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Anonymous
The government has been spending like drunken sailors since 2001. This is infusing a lot of money into the economy and has created a lot of inflation and have driven millions of people to the area. This will be our children's albatross. |
Anonymous
| Enormous real estate boom of the late 90s made housing out of the reach of even middle class renters/families. |
Anonymous
| In 1998 I was paying 600 rent monthly for a turret apartment in Dupont Circle. By 2003 my building had been bought and sold and new owners wanted 2500 a month (in spite of "rent control.") |
Anonymous
PP. I think you're right. Perhaps we could encourage our local governments to do more to promote middle-income housing options? It's so lopsided right now. Close-in housing options are very high end and programs for very low end but nothing in between. |
Anonymous
That first study is, frankly, kind of crap. You can't say anything credibly just by looking at correlations across cities without taking into account other economic differences (e.g. industry and demographic composition) Also, I think it's well-acknowledged that many or most cities in the U.S. are still able to price new construction housing at close to marginal cost of construction. It's a handful of high-cost cities that have this problem. Including those low-cost cities without appropriate controls tells us nothing. The second study appears to be well done and interesting. What the paper tells us is that land prices respond immediately to upzoning, but construction does not. It's possible that construction just takes longer. Chicago is not an especially high cost city, so it's also possible that current prices just aren't high enough to justify the construction yet, or that uncertainty is enough that it's better to what and see what becomes of the neighborhood before beginning a project. In both cases, we'd still expect the expected value of future construction to be priced into the land, which is what we see. But that doesn't automatically mean that the demand curve slopes upward. Indeed, even the author is cautious about drawing strong conclusions from it, saying that he believes that upzoning is probably still beneficial at metro scale. |
Anonymous
Except that suburbs have grown faster than any urban growth in any American city. The region has grown. Look at the population of the US: US population in 2000: 287 million US population in 2018: 327.2 million That's another 50 million people. And there's your answer for why DC is so expensive. At least one of them. The DC region has grown faster than the supply of housing can keep up. |
Anonymous
More like - “Thanks, Barry.” Within Washington DC, Marion Barry and his corrupt, inept government acted like a drag on DC real estate prices for 15 years, say compared with Boston. Once Barry left the mayor’s office, and especially once Tony Williams (best DC mayor ever) came in, prices began to increase sharply. |
Anonymous
A very good argument for stopping illegal immigration! |
Anonymous
Because AAs chose to burn down the city in the 60s so no one with a brain wanted to live here for a few decades? |
Anonymous
Growing population and a wealthy one too. Average household income in DC is second-highest in the US after the Bay Area. That’s a lot of money to chase houses. |
Anonymous
Seriously? This comment in today's day in age? Proof that DC has some of the most provincial minded people EVER...yuck. Start reading worldly publications! |
Anonymous
As someone who has lived in several cities throughout the US, I found this quote highly suspect. DC to me has relatively low incomes- Government & non profit jobs don't pay well. After living in NYC, SF, Dallas & Houston, the general population made WAY more money. There is also a big difference between the district and Northern VA. NOVA is separate from DC. I only saw ONE publication that supports this claim- every other one was different. |
Anonymous
It's census data that looks at median household incomes by metro area (including NOVA). My guess is that your perception of the "general population" is skewed by the people you know. There may not be the same number of really high earning people in DC as in NYC, etc., but that's a small sliver of the population in every metro area. Government jobs *do* pay well compared to the average job in many metro areas, which are things like retail, warehousing, etc. Here's some data on median household incomes by metro. DC is almost $100k, which is second to SF: https://www.statista.com/statistics/234251/median-household-income-by-largest-metro-area-us/ |
Anonymous
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Not a single person on my block or any of my kids parents friends work for the Govt.
The estate sales and elderly in area were more likely to work for Govt. Quite frankly I can't afford to work for Govt. Homes now cost 1.1-1.4 for a good home with good schools. College even for state schools if kid live on campus runs 35k a year. I need to save for retirement as no more pensions. A Dad with a SAH wife, 3-5 kids in the 1950s -1970s could pull this off working for Federal Govt. In 2019 a man would need a 300 to 400k salary to pull it off. More likely two incomes are needed of 150k to 200k each. Or one spouse Govt and other higher paid job Or have rich parents or grandparents or trust fund or go into eyeballs in debt keeping up. Also give pension is not worth as much as who can retire early. 55 year old men are no longer retired with grown kids. They often have a kid in HS and two in college and a mortgage. They need 250k minimum salary just not to go under till retirement at 65. So we go prices up so goes up salaries and longer we work. Pensions and medical and WFH are perks of Govt but you can't have 250k of expenses on 100k salary |
Anonymous
It started with Reagan doubled defense spending back in the 80s. That's when all that crazy development happened around Tysons and Herndon. Bush+Chenney did take it to an all new level with the creation of new departments and the neverending war efforts. |