[extropy-chat] World's most and least expensive cities

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004, Amara Graps wrote:

[snip]
> Another anecdote: A man who manages
> the CNR network at my location lives in Milan and commutes, and he
> says that my town of Frascati (population 15,000) is more expensive
> for flat rentals than Milan! :-(

Amara, this doesn't make sense.  I've been to Italy [Rome, Florence,
Genova, Venice] (in the mid'70s and mid'80s) and to Heidelburg (in the
mid '90s).  None of those locations are exactly screaming out for lack
of surrounding land on which to build apartments.  (I'd guess that
for Genova and Venice, maybe Heidelburg one might argue for geographic
barriers -- but given modern transportation systems these and the
fondness for trains in Europe this should be a significant problem.)

There is not exactly a lack of laborers for construction given immigration
from Africa (or is there???).

So something strange is going on (bureaucracy? politics? culture?) if
there is a lack of affordable housing.  Or is wood based housing in
the U.S. really *that* much cheaper than brick or concrete based
housing in Europe?

Robert