Isnt the disparity in housing values incredible from region to region!! (how much, find a job)

[MattDen]

I was just wondering I would looking at the Census bureau 2005 community survey and it is just amazing how much the housing value disparity has became from region to region.

There is the west with Seattle and Portland with high housing values, then coastal California with amazingly high housing values that are clearly unsustainable when looked in comparison with per-capita incomes in those places. Then in the rest of the western cities you have more reasonable housing values, albeit still mainly above average by national standards

Then in the midwest you have a large area with extremely, extremely low housing values especially in these inner-cities where many of the midwestern cities have seen massive population decline's with-in their inner cities and have an amazing surplus of vacant housing units with-in their cities. Most of the adjacent suburbs to the midwestern core cities have much higher housing values then their core cities but still pale in comparison to coastal cities.

Then in the south it seems typical to the midwest except because of annexation the core cities have higher housing values although not by much and the suburbs tend to be about the same housing values as the midwest. Overall, the south is not as affordable as the midwest but one can see why people would be moving in large numbers to the south compared to the coasts.

Then in the east it seems like most of the housing markets have values similar to Portland and Phoenix out-west with excpeptions being the areas around Washington DC, NYC and Boston.

Overall, its just amazing how much higher lower values are in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Erie then in Riverside, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

[norm]

Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Erie are cities that have been abandoned by the industries that supported their economies. Pittsburgh is now considered one of the most livable cities in the country but most former industrial cities have become run down and not a place the average person would want to live in.

[Katarina Witt]

Pittsburgh is a nice place to live if you can find a job. However, don't believe all the hype from "Places Rated". My niece just moved back to Denver from Pgh and says it's nice to see people outside, riding bikes, etc, stuff she didn't see much of in Pittsburgh. Of course you don't see that in Pgh, it's hilly and rains a lot.