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July 28, 2008
Glaeser on the State of the City
Harvard urban economist Ed Glaeser's NY Sun op-ed last week on Houston's success in maintaining an affordable standard of living generated a lively debate among the blogosphere's urban policy wonks, both for and against. So, Glaeser tees up the Houston debate again yesterday at the end of this Wall $treet Journal interview regarding the state of the city:
If you think about the lifestyle of ordinary Americans living on the fringe of Houston or Dallas, for example, compared to what their lifestyle would be in an older European city -- living in a walk-up apartment there compared to a 2,500-square-foot house here they bought for $130,000 with a 24-minute commute -- it's extraordinary in the low-cost areas of this country what a $60,000 family income gets you.
There's a reason Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Phoenix are our four fastest-growing areas. They offer an astonishingly high standard of living for ordinary Americans.
New York City is a great place to be really rich and not a terrible place to be really poor, but it's a pretty hard place to live on $60,000 a year. You don't experience anywhere near the basic standard of living you would in Houston on the same income.
Ryan Avent is still not convinced.
Posted by Tom at July 28, 2008 8:08 PM
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