[Summit] the price of housing and the economy

[Greg Gerritt]

I needed a change from dog poop, and thought this was a good follow up for
the mayoral forum.  greg


I read an article today saying all the cities with a rapid inflow of people
have low cost housing, and that seems to be one of the major drivers of
growth.  It did not say what those carbon footprints were like or whether or
not the cost of transportation ate up the housing savings.

One can ask a variety of questions about this simple fact and how this
information relates tot heir own community.

Providence has expensive housing.  And all of the development schemes we see
seem to want to make the housing even more expensive, as  people want more
money every time they turn over a piece of real estate.  I have reminded
folks for years that we need less expensive housing if we want our economy
to work well, and this article lends my argument some credence even if comes
at it from the other direction.

So my challenge to all the politicians and pundits in RI:  How are you going
to bring down the price of housing so that it both matches the incomes of
the people of our community, and so that it draws migrants?  Clearly
expensive housing does us no good.  Greg gerritt  8/5/14



Here is the article
https://portside.org/2014-08-05/affordable-housing-draws-middle-class-inland
-cities  


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