Abstract
The striking economic agglomerations emerging in affluent democracies are generating, reproducing, and expanding inequalities. A major mechanism for this is housing, which is both a repository for wealth and, under these conditions, a magnifier of wealth. Access to urban areas – the site of educational, labor, and marriage market advantages – is contingent upon access to housing. We use comparative analysis of cases in Europe (London and Paris) and the United States (New York and San Francisco) to consider the capacities of different societies to limit or ameliorate these new sources of diverging opportunity. These seemingly local issues remain shaped by distinct national political contexts, which vary dramatically in their capacity to support local affordable housing and reduce the collective action problems confronting major metropolitan areas.
Highlights
The striking economic agglomerations emerging in affluent democracies are generating, reproducing, and expanding inequalities
We use comparative analysis of cases in Europe (London and Paris) and the United States (New York and San Francisco) to consider the capacities of different societies to limit or ameliorate these new sources of diverging opportunity. These seemingly local issues remain shaped by distinct national political contexts, which vary dramatically in their capacity to support local affordable housing and reduce the collective action problems confronting major metropolitan areas
The available options and pressures these actors face are shaped by changes in the global economy, including the transformation of financial flows and the growing metropolitanization of capitalism. We examine these interlinked processes in four “superstar cities,” the highincome, globally connected metropolitan areas diverging from the rest of their respective countries: New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, Paris, and London
Summary
The striking economic agglomerations emerging in affluent democracies are generating, reproducing, and expanding inequalities. We provide evidence of the patterns of house price increases in London, Paris, New York, and San Francisco.
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