{"id":6102,"date":"2014-10-31T00:46:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T16:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=6102"},"modified":"2014-10-31T00:46:56","modified_gmt":"2014-10-30T16:46:56","slug":"why-middle-class-americans-cant-afford-to-live-in-liberal-cities-the-atlantic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2014\/10\/31\/why-middle-class-americans-cant-afford-to-live-in-liberal-cities-the-atlantic\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Middle-Class Americans Can&#039;t Afford to Live in Liberal Cities &#8211; The Atlantic"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>In a recent article, Kolko divided the largest cities into 32 \u201cred&#8221; metros where Romney got more votes than Obama in 2012 (e.g. Houston), 40 \u201clight-blue\u201d markets where Obama won by fewer than 20 points (e.g. Austin), and 28 \u201cdark-blue\u201d metros where Obama won by more than 20 points (e.g. L.A., SF, NYC). Although all three housing groups faced similar declines in the recession and similar bounce-backs in the recovery, affordability remains a bigger problem in the bluest cities.<br \/>\nSuper-Liberal Cities, Super-Unaffordable Houses<br \/>\nTrulia<br \/>\n&#8220;Even after adjusting for differences of income, liberal markets tend to have higher income inequality and worse affordability,\u201d Kolko said.<br \/>\nKolko&#8217;s theory isn&#8217;t an outlier. There is a deep literature tying liberal residents to illiberal housing policies that create affordability crunches for the middle class. In 2010, UCLA economist Matthew Kahn published a study of California cities, which found that liberal metros issued fewer new housing permits. The correlation held over time: As California cities became more liberal, he said, they built fewer homes.<br \/>\n&#8220;All homeowners have an incentive to stop new housing,&#8221; Kahn told me, &#8220;because if developers build too many homes, prices fall, and housing is many families&#8217; main asset. But in cities with many Democrats and Green Party members, environmental concerns might also be a factor. The movement might be too eager to preserve the past.&#8221;<br \/>\nvia <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/business\/archive\/2014\/10\/why-are-liberal-cities-so-unaffordable\/382045\/\">Why Middle-Class Americans Can&#8217;t Afford to Live in Liberal Cities &#8211; The Atlantic<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a recent article, Kolko divided the largest cities into 32 \u201cred&#8221; metros where Romney got more votes than Obama in 2012 (e.g. Houston), 40 \u201clight-blue\u201d markets where Obama won by fewer than 20 points (e.g. Austin), and 28 \u201cdark-blue\u201d metros where Obama won by more than 20 points (e.g. L.A., SF, NYC). Although all &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2014\/10\/31\/why-middle-class-americans-cant-afford-to-live-in-liberal-cities-the-atlantic\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Why Middle-Class Americans Can&#039;t Afford to Live in Liberal Cities &#8211; The Atlantic&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reposts","category-society"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}