If housing prices were tracked like the stock market, urban cores would be soaring to new highs.
Joe Cortright describes the findings of a study by the investment ratings company Fitch as the most underreported news of the week, and possibly the year, for urbanists. "Here’s the simple number," writes Cortright, "since 2000, home prices in city centers have outperformed those in suburbs by 50 percent."
"If you care about cities, and you’re looking for definitive evidence of the verdict of the market on urbanism—this is it," he adds. But Cortright is also willing to admit that an analogy might be necessary to bring home the importance of this data to armchair enthusiasts, casual observers, or even the indifferent.
His analogy: the stock market.
Image a CNN business reporter saying:
'In the market today, city centers were up strongly to a new high'
Or a Wall Street Journal headline
'A bull market for city centers'
This article includes more about that analogy and the story it relates. An earlier blog, also by Cortright, broke the news of the new data and also looks into the causes of the trend.
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