San Francisco is a living crystal ball of what happens when a city refuses to build enough housing to accommodate the dense clustering of high-tech and service workers natural to modern industries.
The median rent has skyrocketed above $3,500/month and over 12,000 residents have been evicted from their homes. All the while, the Mayor’s office has dangled pricey carrots for tech companies to keep their headquarters in San Francisco, after the industry’s massive profits helped residents weather the recession with an envious unemployment rate of 4.8% and a 2% increase in wages.
One of the technology industry’s most significant transformations of modern life snuck up so slowly that it was hardly noticeable: the migration of jobs to big cities and the corresponding need to transform suburban neighborhoods into high-rise metropolises.
Indeed, a 26-year-old MIT economist recently turned heads with analysis showing that almost all income inequality growth over the last half-century can be blamed on the rising share of wages spent on housing (climbing an astounding 20% in 15 years, from 25% to 30% of income).

from Forbes – Tech http://ift.tt/1SbemHb
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