please feel free to correct any vastly incorrect assumptions i make.
well, ok, premise 1: housing costs in downtown and similar urban areas (read: cambridge/boston, manhattan, seattle) shooting high.
premise 2: according to several reports, residential populations are generally booming in most usa downtowns.
yet housing costs still are terribly high and the growth within the city is not nearly as significant as the growth at the fringe of the city.
so i'm just wondering, from what little i know about economics, high costs for such small homes/apartments in downtown and like urban ares is because there's a high demand for housing there? whether the lifestyle, the environment, the location, etc. if there's high demand there, and if people (as evidenced generally by census 2000 and fannie mae, etc.) are moving more into these downtown areas, then woudln't it be far more profitable, from a marketing standpoint, to redevelop land in or near downtown with high units to a) tap into something else other than the luxury market which seems to be tapping out b) to do this by having many units to reduce general costs and to make a dent into the demand?
well, i suppose vast generalizations aside, the question is, why isn't more development happening within the city core when there seems to be a high demand for such development? (relatively) is it the high overhead costs? or what..?
(non-yuppie complaning at the seemingly over-yuppiness of downtowns)
well, ok, premise 1: housing costs in downtown and similar urban areas (read: cambridge/boston, manhattan, seattle) shooting high.
premise 2: according to several reports, residential populations are generally booming in most usa downtowns.
yet housing costs still are terribly high and the growth within the city is not nearly as significant as the growth at the fringe of the city.
so i'm just wondering, from what little i know about economics, high costs for such small homes/apartments in downtown and like urban ares is because there's a high demand for housing there? whether the lifestyle, the environment, the location, etc. if there's high demand there, and if people (as evidenced generally by census 2000 and fannie mae, etc.) are moving more into these downtown areas, then woudln't it be far more profitable, from a marketing standpoint, to redevelop land in or near downtown with high units to a) tap into something else other than the luxury market which seems to be tapping out b) to do this by having many units to reduce general costs and to make a dent into the demand?
well, i suppose vast generalizations aside, the question is, why isn't more development happening within the city core when there seems to be a high demand for such development? (relatively) is it the high overhead costs? or what..?
(non-yuppie complaning at the seemingly over-yuppiness of downtowns)
). A couple of items I'd add to his list: Will I have to deal with union labor, as opposed to the non-union shops in the 'burbs? On a related note, will prevailing wages apply to my development (usually they will in larger urban developments)? Development costs related to labor alone are often so much higher in urban areas that a developer's ROI is eaten up to a point that it's just not worth it.