Read this post at Digg by Adwait Patil. The post is largely a repetition of 15 tweets by the CEO of Redfin, the online real estate site (annual revenue ˜$1 billion). I’ll just quote one of them (not retweet):
11 of 15: This migration to lower-cost areas may lead to lower workforce participation. For many families @Redfin has relocated, the money saved on housing costs lets one parent stop working. A wave of Redfin customers are retiring early.
It’s interesting. To whatever degree his observations are correct they comprise more evidence that the new normal will be quite different from the old one. Who works, where, how, and why are all changing.
Update
I can’t resist—here’s another one:
14 of 15: it’s not just income that’s k-shaped, but mobility. 90% of people earning $100,000+ per year expect to be able to work virtually, compared to 10% of those earning $40,000 or less per year. The folks who need low-cost housing the most have the least flexibility to move.
Kvetching about “equity” is not going to solve that problem. State and local governments are doing almost the opposite of what they need to be doing while the federal government is helping them to it. That will aggravate their problems rather than solving them.
Rich get richer, poor, poorer.
Verse und verse.