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ashtonianthedevyesterday at 8:55 PM1 replyview on HN

Just want to comment, I think if you were to overlay where people work vs live, most people probably do not have reasonable access to housing @ 225k.

Also I think much of this problem is zoning, which coincidentally Houston has none and has some of the lowest housing costs in the nation, especially for a city of its size.

I suspect much of the housing crisis on the west coast is because of poor zoning laws and could be fixed with a stroke of a pen, at the expense of the local housing market value.


Replies

ethbr1yesterday at 10:27 PM

On the location vs price front, I think that's a bit of a red herring.

Because people generally want to live close to their jobs.

If cities have a lot of demand, it's partly because they have a lot of jobs, which means that the price of housing in cities relative to income is still an important metric.

Viewed by holding more of those things constant, the urban medianHousePrice : medianIncome is how much of people's lives we're requiring they dedicate in order to have a roof over their heads.