Why does it cost so much to live in Boston? Why is housing so expensive?
Simple question, and there's a simple answer: supply and demand. Too many people want to live in too few homes.
Solving the problem is where things get tricky. Do you increase supply? Do you decrease demand?
High housing prices obviously limit demand, but no one would thing that's a good idea - you keep making people not want to live here and eventually they won't live here.
Increasing supply is trickier because, as we all know, much of downtown Boston is off-limits to any sort of residential development, due to its historic nature (and, something called NIMBYism).
The US Census Bureau collects data that shows just how bad things are.
Boston's housing stock is old. Like, older than just about any other major US city.
This handy little chart compares Boston to San Francisco, New York, and several other major US cities (these are city statistics, not "metropolitan areas"). It shows that in Boston, 57% of its housing stock (condos, single-family homes, apartments) was built before 1939. Other cities are different: half of San Francisco's housing stock was built prior to 1939, but look at Las Vegas and Miami; not surprisingly, little of their residential housing is old.
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