This article is well worth the read.<p>This is a perfect example of what makes history fascinating - its ability to make sense of the present and the future.<p>His conclusion, for those who can't get through it: housing is a dead end investment. It's a liability, not an asset in economic terms because it discourages mobility and doesn't have good (any?) returns. We should abolish policies that promote each man his own home, encourage renting, and come up with housing infrastructure solutions that are economically stimulating (in terms of mobilizing the workforce and bringing talent together).<p>The housing market seems ripe for technological innovation. Any ideas?
This is a great article.<p>One point (only tangentially related, at most, to the article's thrust) that always bothers me when it comes up is this:<p>"On one level, the crisis has demonstrated what everyone has known for a long time: Americans have been living beyond their means, using illusory housing wealth and huge slugs of foreign capital to consume far more than we’ve produced."<p>Can somebody explain this to me? I mean, the amount that Americans overconsume should be bounded above by the trade deficit, right? That's the net imbalance in flow of goods and services from other nations to us. We've demonstrated that we can actually produce everything else that we consume ourselves. So we're talking a maximum overconsumption of like seven hundred billion-ish dollars a year, which is about 5% of our GDP.<p>Are people really worrying about removing the 5% overconsumption, or am I missing something?
This book<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Nations-North-America/dp/0380578859" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Nations-North-America/dp/03805788...</a><p>seems to have some connection with the content of this article. The article mentions some cities that are key to their regions. The book breaks up North America into nine regions with economic and cultural connections, and names a "capital" city for each of them. For example, Miami as the "capital" of a region including the Carribean. I think the article mentions some of these same cities as being important centers for their regions.<p>EDIT: wiki page might be better for facilitating discussion:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations_of_North_America" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations_of_North_America</a>
> The solution begins with the removal of homeownership from its long-privileged place at the center of the U.S. economy. Substantial incentives for homeownership (from tax breaks to artificially low mortgage-interest rates) distort demand, encouraging people to buy bigger houses than they otherwise would.<p>He's right, but getting rid of that those deductions is a political non-starter. There's no way it could ever pass (as he mentions, home ownership is 70% of the population, good luck with that).<p>If anything, politicians seem to be doubling-down on homeownership in this recovery, trying to prop up prices in order to recover.
has been posted previously. Fantastic article on Economics of Geography.<p>I've spent a lot of time trying to map out the world with data and I've come to the same conclusions: Boston-Wash-NYC corridor (I would almost count in Toronto and Montreal as adjacent to it; I guess, then you could just simply call it the industrial Northeast), Pacific Northwest, Northern continental Europe (Northern France, Belgium, Netherlands, Northwest Germany). I also like the Southern Germany-Austria-Switzerland-Northern Italy cluster. The London cluster is overpriced IMHO, but still has excellent public schools. California seems overpriced and the state budget is in bad shape.
Fantastic article. The history really puts things into perspective.<p>This is interesting: "The geographic sorting of people by ability and educational attainment, on this scale, is unprecedented."<p>The jab at Tom Friedman is fair. I've seen the trailing Paul Romer quote at least three times within the past week, though. There certainly is truth to it. Reinforcing "idea infrastructure" like internet connectivity seems crucial.<p>Here's to affordable housing in talent-rich and diverse Manhattan and San Francisco...
Fantastic article... I think everyone who reads HN can relate to the theories and thoughts the author outlined. Interesting to read when you consider where to start your next business.
"What will this geography look like? It will likely be sparser in the Midwest and also, ultimately, in those parts of the Southeast that are dependent on manufacturing." Sounds like something the Republican party will fight against tooth-and-nail.