The challenge to affordable housing in successful cities

The great conundrum: Cities with a high quality of life rapidly become unaffordable to the average citizen. Is it a real estate issue… or a wage issue? Excerpt: "Leading the buzz kill was Robert Hickey from the Center for Housing Policy, a division of the National Housing Conference, who quantified the scope of the problem—that incomes have simply not kept pace with housing costs. Citing a study of Chicago, Hickey said a growing number of families simply don’t earn enough to buy a typical home. Renters are the majority in 10 major cities from Miami to L.A., but the news is equally bad if not worse in that department: rents are up 40 to 80 percent. Households with severe housing cost burdens—shelter costs eating up the family budget and leaving little left over for anything else—have spread from low income to middle class." Read the rest here.