Speaking of Fleeing Boston
Via CNN Money:
[insert sarcastic "Gee, I'm stunned." comment, or equivalent, here]
Nooooo!
OK, this one's always puzzled me - the need to "improve" housing affordability. The same people who are now calling for the government to come in and provide more affordable housing in Boston are, for the most part, the same ones who, years ago, were calling for the government to come in and help clean up their dilapidated neighborhoods. And what happened then?
The neighborhods got cleaned up.
The crime rate went down (for a while anyway).
More people wanted to move into these neighborhoods as a result.
Number of available housing units decreased.
Real estate prices went up.
That free market's a bitch, eh?
That said, we could bring back "affordable" housing in a matter of months. It wouldn't be all that difficult.
Just re-open all the crack houses, dump the garbage back in the gutters, and put the graffiti back up in some of these recently improved neighborhoods. The illegal drug trade will flourish once again. Crime will go up. The quality of life will go down. People will move out in droves, returning control of the streets to the criminals and bums.
Or, if you want to do it over a slightly longer period of time, don't change a thing. Just continue the current game plan of taxing the "rich" (aka: anyone with a job) into extinction.
Given the nation's most liberal welfare program, state-controlled auto insurance rates that extort money from the good drivers to subsidize the bad drivers' insurance coverage, a legislature that just tried as hard as they could to levy an illegal retroactive tax hike on its citizens, and city councilors who want to charge you a tax for the "privilege" of driving into Boston, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that,eventually currently, a large number of people will find are finding it unacceptable to live in (and fund) such a "progressive" paradise, pull pulling up the tent stakes, and make making a beeline for the New Hampshire border.
In either scenario, the number of available housing units in these neighborhoods will increase dramatically as a result, causing selling prices to drop accordingly.
Presto! Affordable housing.
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.
(CNN link via Countertop)
In Massachusetts, a quarter of the people in the state said they would leave if they had the opportunity, according to a poll by MassINC, a non-profit public policy think tank. They would join some 170,000 Bay Staters who left for other parts of the United States between 2000 and 2004.
[insert sarcastic "Gee, I'm stunned." comment, or equivalent, here]
The No. 1 reason cited by those who want to leave: The high cost of living.
Nooooo!
And the No. 1 area needing major improvement: Housing affordability.
OK, this one's always puzzled me - the need to "improve" housing affordability. The same people who are now calling for the government to come in and provide more affordable housing in Boston are, for the most part, the same ones who, years ago, were calling for the government to come in and help clean up their dilapidated neighborhoods. And what happened then?
The neighborhods got cleaned up.
The crime rate went down (for a while anyway).
More people wanted to move into these neighborhoods as a result.
Number of available housing units decreased.
Real estate prices went up.
That free market's a bitch, eh?
That said, we could bring back "affordable" housing in a matter of months. It wouldn't be all that difficult.
Just re-open all the crack houses, dump the garbage back in the gutters, and put the graffiti back up in some of these recently improved neighborhoods. The illegal drug trade will flourish once again. Crime will go up. The quality of life will go down. People will move out in droves, returning control of the streets to the criminals and bums.
Or, if you want to do it over a slightly longer period of time, don't change a thing. Just continue the current game plan of taxing the "rich" (aka: anyone with a job) into extinction.
Given the nation's most liberal welfare program, state-controlled auto insurance rates that extort money from the good drivers to subsidize the bad drivers' insurance coverage, a legislature that just tried as hard as they could to levy an illegal retroactive tax hike on its citizens, and city councilors who want to charge you a tax for the "privilege" of driving into Boston, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that,
In either scenario, the number of available housing units in these neighborhoods will increase dramatically as a result, causing selling prices to drop accordingly.
Presto! Affordable housing.
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.
(CNN link via Countertop)
