Roughly 40 percent of households in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, parts of Connecticut and Colorado, and Washington, D.C., earn more than $100,000 annually, compared with just 22 percent nationwide, according to the Census Bureau. But the share of their residents who own homes has been declining, one reason the national homeownership rate is 64.4 percent, the lowest since 1995.
Areas that do offer inexpensive housing across the Midwest's industrial corridor -- Akron, Ohio, say, or Fort Wayne, Indiana -- lack the same breadth of career possibilities.
"You need a job to even think about living arrangements," said Stan Humphries, chief economist at the real estate marketplace Zillow.
This trend has likely helped hold back U.S. economic growth. Cities with the strongest job markets, such as New York and San Francisco, would grow even faster if more people could afford to live there, noted Jed Kolko, chief economist at the online real estate firm Trulia. The additional population would help spur further job growth, which, in turn, would strengthen the local economy and foster more of the middle-class jobs that the nation lacks.
More @ SJ Mercury News
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