John Keith does a great job debunking the notion that housing costs are the primary cause of Massacusetts’ loss of young professionals.
The [Center for Urban and Regional Policy] lecturers spoke at length on two subjects. First, their research has led them to the conclusion that 20-34 year old residents of Massachusetts are moving out-of-state due to the high cost of housing. Second, they believe there is a huge need for affordable housing, in Massachusetts, and that one way to deal with it is for the state government to get involved.
…. I don’t believe that 20-34 year olds have moved out of Massachusetts due to the high cost of housing. Rather, the high cost of housing, which for most of us is actually the high cost of living (housing, plus health care costs, plus taxes, plus transportation expenses), is but one of many secondary reasons that people of this age group have departed, over the past four years.
The number one reason that 20-34 year olds have left Massachusetts is because of a lack of job opportunities, as a result of the 2001-2003 recession.
Of course the bigger point to make is that housing demand rises in tandem with employment; the reason housing costs have risen for the region in the first place, adjusted for the price of borrowing money, is that an economic boom brought more people working and living in the Boston area and kept current residents from moving elsewhere.
A larger question I have: What is the problem if the state loses people? Are there real economic problems to a declining population? Is it bad as symptom of something else? Or is it simply the matter of injured pride? I sense a whiff of Creative Class thinking behind the CURP’s analysis.
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