Creatives already ahead of the financial crisis
Perhaps too many people buying homes they couldn’t afford wasn’t the problem behind the Wall Street collapse, but a symptom. The real problem may be that there are too many homes out on the market that people could never afford in the first place. In other words, the average U.S. American can’t afford $300,000 for a home, as is the going rate in many cities. So rather than lend out more money to buy homes people can’t afford, that banks can’t back, perhaps the real solution is addressing the lack of supply of homes that the average U.S. citizen can actually buy.
The creatives, aka the renaissance generation are already on it. They’re into ‘not so big’ homes, quality over quantity – the average space/occupant was 290 s.f. in the pre-auto era, 939 s.f. today. They’re into urban and walkable, not suburban/exurban and drive-thrus, and they have a much more international, cosmopolitan viewpoint of housing size – bigger is not better. They know ‘bigger’ requires more maintenance, is more costly to air condition, has a larger carbon footprint and most of all, is much more difficult to keep making payments on simply because bigger costs more.
So, the next time you hear the blame being passed around on who got us into this mess, maybe it’ll be more productive and inspiring to focus on those who are already investing in what may get us out of this mess, like truly attainably-priced green condos in the heart of the city.
Image: The 380 s.f. one-bedroom ipad in the UK.
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