Boomtowns? Not necessarily the cities you might expect any more. There is a growing flight of fed-up workers from the world’s great cities — people looking for less expensive housing and a better quality of life.
But people alone cannot make a boomtown. There must be a flight of jobs to these new locations.
There are inevitably a limited number of jobs in any country. And there are also a limited number of employees (particularly true in countries with aging populations and governments determined to curtail immigration). So to some extent, boomtowns springing up in unlikely locations in any country must be draining jobs from hitherto high flying cities with jobs and employees.
When we look at cities such as New York in the U.S., Toronto in Canada, London in England, are we looking at tomorrow’s bust towns?
It happens. Detroit, Michigan is a classic example. When the American automotive industry decentralized, jobs and employees left Detroit. The city was hollowed out.
Are currently high flying cities are running scared? It hardly seems so. A very few — Tokyo for example — have home building plans that deliver housing in the hundreds of thousands of units annually. More on Tokyo’s foresight here: Affordable Housing=Tax Breaks+Multiple-Funders+Partnerships + . . .Oh, Screw It! Just Build More!
In most others, complacency rules. Take San Francisco with its impossibly high housing prices. Annually, citizens in every neighbourhood block affordable housing projects, often for years. Affordable housing in San Francisco is a faint dream, lifetimes away. For more on more on San Francisco’s specialized ‘charm offensive’ against affordable housing: The Many Colors Of NIMBY: The Neighbourhood Character
Most world-class cities with the world-class affordability problems are content with symbolically tackling the subject. Toronto has a waiting list to rent its aging social housing that runs close to 100,000 households. In 2018, Toronto’s ambitious goal is 893 affordable rental units and 300 affordable houses for purchase. From the CBC: Mayor’s executive committee OKs plan to build more than 1,000 affordable housing units. It’s a far cry from Tokyo’s approach to preventing an affordable housing crisis.
Is a ‘hollowing out’ exodus from Toronto on its way? Consider this: My Way Is The Highway: Toronto Renters & Buyers Losing Faith With Government, Consider Heading For The Hills
In America the flight from expensive ‘world-class’ cities is intensifying. Read a detailed article on the subject in Real Estate: The new boomtowns: Why more people are relocating to ‘secondary’ cities
If you are a complacent citizen in one of tomorrow’s possible bust towns, you might start wondering what kind of future your town holds for you.
