Oh dear god, these people figured out another reason come out from under their rock again.
I’m not reading the enire study because I’ve read similar versions a hundred times, feel free to point out if they covered this but I doubt they did.
Walkable areas in san Francisco and Chicago tend to be older areas, older areas are less likely to be purchased during the bubble tha suburbs. That’s it, magic. Comparing two houses that both have a mortgage is not an equal comparison, comparing two houses purchased on the same date, with the same debt ratio is. Notice they didn’t include bubble built walkable areas like downtown san diego.
The study was done by the national resource defense council (kinda sounds like a government agency, but it’s an environmentalist organization akin to greenpeace) which has an agenda. I don’t hate them, they believe what they believe, some of it’s o.k., but lobby groups with agendas need to be taken with a grain of salt especailly when they produce report on economic issues and get out of their area of expertise, like, say, global warming.
