Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/18/these-are-the-top-10-impossibly-unaffordable-cities-and-some-affordable-ones.html
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Libertarians and moneyCons are fond of saying the housing affordability crisis in global cities is simply a matter of suppy and demand, and berate people who complain as “spoiled” and tell them “just live somewhere else.” As this report shows, the problem is (unsurprisingly) more complex.
As I’ve said before, it becomes a serious problem when the people who make a city work have no hope of ever living in that city. That’s especially true when the city in question is underserved by regional and local public transit.
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Los Angeles too. Local transit is getting a bit better, but the sprawl there is a big hurdle to overcome even with the best efforts.
Also, once again an economic issue is fueling conspiracism in the U.S. Right-wingers have added BS stories about the sinister motives behind “15-minute cities” to the classics about out-of-control “urban” (read PoC) crime. Of course, many if not most of those spreading the scare stories live happily in the same cities they decry. Anything to distract from the “investors flooding the market” part…
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What’s a “top 10” list maker to do if there are 23 equally top …tens?
(“do what i do: add another factor”)
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Finally a post actually linking to the research and data! CNN and other outlets had the top 10 and referenced no data whatsoever the other day.
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Toronto squeaking into a Top Ten Anything list at #10 is peak Toronto.
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I don’t think affordable means desirable. Blackpool is very run down as soon as you get of the promenade.
As for Glasgow
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What’s funny to me is that the list includes 11 cities, so if you counted like a normal person Toronto wouldn’t even make the list.
If two athletes tie for 2nd place they don’t usually give them both silver medals and then hand out a bronze to a 4th person.
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I lived in the San Diego area for a while. Beautiful but very expensive. Like ridiculously expensive. 
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Like my-doctor-sister-who-makes-over-$200k/year-can’t-find-a-house-she-can-afford-there expensive.
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Dang, visited there for a LTT expo a few years back and it was really the nicest city i’ve ever visited…
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I knew I lived in an impossibly unaffordable city, and I knew it must be one of the US’s most unaffordable, but I didn’t realize it was the most unaffordable. Not that it surprises me any. To add insult to injury, though, San Jose is very much a nothing city. Not a lot in terms of arts and culture or amenities or retail for a city that, in theory, has a lot of wealth, and around a million people. (It was over a million people, but it’s been losing population even before covid, thanks to the cost of living. It lost more than 4% of the population during covid, as people realized they could telecommute and live somewhere affordable and/or nice, and it’s still declining.)
The local government has always had a real small-town quality, and I mean that only as an insult. Decades of efforts to make it a “real” big city (even after it actually became one) missed out on what makes big cities livable/desirable (the aforementioned arts, culture, amenities and retail, plus usable public transit). To be fair, they’ve gotten more serious about public transit, but I don’t expect it’ll be usable during my lifetime. (Or maybe ever - the city allowed too much sprawl, and with population decline and climate change, I could see things getting worse rather than better.) Meanwhile some of the city council are pushing for big electronic billboards so part of the city can “be like Times Square.” Except minus the people or reasons for being there. Because apparently they think people go to Times Square for the billboards. Honestly, I despair.
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Pretty remarkable how many people forget that it even exists considering that it’s the 10th most populous city in the country and has a greater population than its neighbor San Francisco.
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It’s kind of funny to see it described as “forgettable.” I wouldn’t say it’s even forgettable, because there’s nothing to forget. I’ve had co-workers who, granted, were relatively new to the Bay Area, but when I told them I lived in San Jose, they’d not even heard of it. (And that didn’t strike me as odd, because why should they have?) When I tell them it’s the largest city in the Bay Area, it’s like I did a magic trick where I made a large object appear where none was before. Which would turn into an even bigger magic trick if they ever came here, as the big city would suddenly vanish again. I know people who moved here without knowing anything but the most basic facts, and when they got here, and started exploring the downtown area, their response was, “That’s… all of it?”
It’s fitting that the only real popular song about San Jose asks if anyone knows where it is, and how its only redeeming quality is… the space. (Something that wasn’t true even when the song was written.)
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Hell yeah Cleveland (video based on 100% true facts)
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Every city is affordable if you just put in the work to build a secret underground bunker to live in rent-free.
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