All other things being equal, Boston's pretty unequal, study says

It isn't about you. Or him. Or me.

It is about analyzing data on the economy, for purposes of understanding trends. Understanding trends enables planning and intervention - and that intervention may be in the form of zoning, or public transit, or tax policy, health care policy, etc.

Understanding the potential impacts of policy decisions is critically important for making good public policy decisions about things like, oh, massive relocation of jobs and workplaces because of the Olympics.

I concur with what Jim is saying, or maybe not, as I too find many of today's meme's of 1%'ers nothing but envy.
I don't care what other people make. I don't care what the owner of my company makes, nor others around me.
I don't care that I can't afford shopping on Newbury Street although it seems many can.

The chanting of slogans vilifying the evil rich lost me even more during the Occupy mess. It was underachievers jealous of high achievers. When they interviewed one of the head protesters at that mess admit that yes, he was offered a job but it was not good enough for him, that was it in a nutshell.

Wage inequality is real, but sloganizing it loses me. I see it used more as a political tool used to divide more for the purpose of votes, than anyone really caring.

It starts with education, initiative and hard work. In my opinion, the best way to deal with wage inequality is making sure all children have a chance for a good education. What they do with it is up to them.

Odd that Boston prides itself on progressivness yet fails miserably at these type things.

While humanity's overall wealth has increased over time, not all resources do (eg, most of the world's not creating more useful land on any significant scale - filled back bays and weird ass islands in Dubai notwithstanding).

So while it's not quite a closed amount, the growth of wealth is more limited at this point in history than our population. So the relative value of people's income is an important factor in how well we live.

Here's a massively simplified and borderline-insulting example:

Imagine a troop of monkeys who live in a forest of fruit trees. In Year 1 (Monkey Era), some monkeys, by dint of social position, brute strength, guile, or government connections, are able to procure a bigger share of the available fruit. But there's still enough fruit so that all monkeys, even the little shy ones, the lazy ones, the injured ones, the old ones, and the unlucky ones, are able to get enough fruit to survive. Happy happy monkeys!

Now it is Year 100 ME. The troop has expanded - both in numbers and territory. There is now half again more fruit available - but twice as many monkeys. If the amount of fruit were evenly distributed, there would still be more than enough for all the monkeys to live fat happy monkey lives. But unfortunately, the top monkeys now control much more of the total fruit harvest. Now the top 1% of monkeys keep about a third of the fruit, and the bottom 20% of the monkeys have just 1% of the fruit.

Even though there is more fruit-wealth than ever, many monkeys will suffer, some may die. And a lot of that fruit wealth will sit (and rot) and do no monkey any real good.

That's why relative income is important. We're not just monkeys.

Actually, all the pricy cities are exporting people to the less pricey. California to Oregon and Washington, etc.

Boston is a pricy city, and people who build equity here can buy for cash in a less pricy city, driving that city's prices up. Many of the people who are driving prices up in Boston have been here all along, or at least since they started their undergraduate education. They just aren't moving to the suburbs to buy like people in their income bracket used to.

Like the guy in my office who just bought a condo in Southie? Grew up in Malden.

Your "outsider invasion" description is telling, though.

Frederick Law Olmsted cut his teeth on Boston! I mean--lets start with the Common which is the oldest if not the most glamorous, then the a Public Garden which is pretty world class. And then add in Olmsted and the Emerald Necklace and Franklin Park (maybe I'm biased as a neighbor but I think it's one of the most beautiful spots in the city.) Plus we have the Esplanade and the waterfront is getting better all the time, IMO. AND the Arboretum which may not count as a park per se but is also pretty amazing. What more could you want?

I said exactly what I wanted said and exactly how I wanted it said. If you boil it down and lose the importance of the fact that I don't claim that "rich people are by definition exploitative", then that's on you, not me.

I don't solely describe a "vampire squid" as the only way to make money from money. For example, how many of those entrepreneurial do-gooding biomed/tech billionaires in the Boston area are on the Boston2024 committee? I haven't heard too many of them speak out about it. Do you think the construction mogul running the shindig is angling for the government to help in bringing the Olympics here purely out of an altruism for his fellow man and the comraderie of good international sporting games? That tower downtown isn't called "The Bose Building". It's the Pru and the Hancock. We have lots of insurance money and healthcare money here in Boston too, literally made on the backs of the injured.

Furthermore, local rich people likely pay *less* than their fellow rich people, because our flat state tax system and zero city tax rates allow them to. http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/03/13/why-does-massachusetts-ea...

The $860,000+ crowd only pay a share of 4.9% of their income into state and local taxes. That's half as much as what California's richest have to pay from their income. So, they're doing a lot better to live here than, say, San Francisco. In terms of the inequality our tax schemes create as a result of requiring a larger share from the lower 20% than the upper 1%, we're 24th in the nation...right down the middle.

http://www.itep.org/whopays/