I deleted a previous comment because I didn't accurately convey my thoughts, but I'm hoping this is more accurate.
My hometown is one of the cheapest, yet most uneducated and violent cities in all of California. There was a huge class divide amongst my peers, none of whom were rich; Some could afford to move elsewhere, and others couldn't. Of those that couldn't, I would say approximately 20-30% are in prison, and the rest are stuck in <$10/hr jobs probably for the rest of their lives.
Of those who could move elsewhere (not rich, mind you, just well-to-do enough to move to a different city in CA, like say Sacramento or San Bernadino), most have decent middle class blue collar jobs (~$40k). About 10% of the group that was better off ended up going to college, and I would count myself amongst maybe 5 people (out of a class of ~400) that have truly jumped class barriers.
When you can only afford to live in one place, you are limited by the options of that one place. Even tiny increments in income/wealth open up exponentially greater opportunities, for the sole reason that they allow you to move elsewhere. For this reason, I concur 100% with Yglesias' theory: Housing regulation and laws, which have a disproportionate effect on housing affordability, are a huge impediment to class mobility.
Seattle, I hope you shape up before you turn into San Francisco. Thankfully, I can afford to live here, but my presence in Seattle is crowding out people that are exactly like me from 2-3 years ago. Accommodate them and build new housing, or you will cause their demise.
Unfortunately, the big reason why Seattle is getting so expensive is just because there are lucrative jobs to be had here. Same reason why Silicon Valley is so expensive, but still on a smaller scale at this point. I think we're going to see more and more of this: the cities with a lot of jobs getting very expensive to live in, and the cities with fewer job opportunities staying flat or even getting cheaper--because their economies are dying.
So, unless your income is very high, to avoid having your income canceled out by the local costs, you will either need to find a rare high-paying job in a low-jobs, low-cost city, or find rare low-cost housing in a high-jobs, high-cost city.
Not that this isn't already the case--just saying, I think America's "jobless recovery" is going to make this effect more extreme in the near future.
Seattle has a lot of high paying jobs, sure. But because Seattle artificially restricts housing supply, the high paying jobs bring in people like me that can absorb the cost, pushing out people that can't absorb the cost. Those people tend to work in jobs that keep other living costs low, meaning that if they continue to exist at all, they exist at higher prices...exacerbating the effect.
Seattle needs to stop focusing on raising pay. Their focus on wages for Airport workers and Fast Food workers completely misses the point: Those wages are already high from a US market standpoint...they are too low here because living costs are too high here. If you set a wage floor, the employers disappear. Alaska Airlines will move their hub to Portland or Vancouver, and all the Fast Food chains will cut their losses and close shop.
A focused effort on destroying barriers to new housing development effectively reduces the cost of living and increases living standards for everybody, without pricing out the lower-wage employment.
But because Seattle artificially restricts housing supply, the high paying jobs bring in people like me that can absorb the cost, pushing out people that can't absorb the cost
I do know that the pace of new housing construction in the Seattle metro area is very low, and last winter the housing supply on the market hit its lowest level since late 90s dot-com boom. Now I don't know if this is truly due to artificial/legal/zoning restrictions as you say, or if it's just due to the geography and the fact that the areas within reasonable commuting distance of Seattle are pretty well built out already--or some combination of both. But the fact is, people are moving here much faster than we are building housing for them, and it's pushing up prices very fast.
My hometown is one of the cheapest, yet most uneducated and violent cities in all of California. There was a huge class divide amongst my peers, none of whom were rich; Some could afford to move elsewhere, and others couldn't. Of those that couldn't, I would say approximately 20-30% are in prison, and the rest are stuck in <$10/hr jobs probably for the rest of their lives.
Of those who could move elsewhere (not rich, mind you, just well-to-do enough to move to a different city in CA, like say Sacramento or San Bernadino), most have decent middle class blue collar jobs (~$40k). About 10% of the group that was better off ended up going to college, and I would count myself amongst maybe 5 people (out of a class of ~400) that have truly jumped class barriers.
When you can only afford to live in one place, you are limited by the options of that one place. Even tiny increments in income/wealth open up exponentially greater opportunities, for the sole reason that they allow you to move elsewhere. For this reason, I concur 100% with Yglesias' theory: Housing regulation and laws, which have a disproportionate effect on housing affordability, are a huge impediment to class mobility.
Seattle, I hope you shape up before you turn into San Francisco. Thankfully, I can afford to live here, but my presence in Seattle is crowding out people that are exactly like me from 2-3 years ago. Accommodate them and build new housing, or you will cause their demise.