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[at] wrote:
> I can tell you as a state employee (and as one who is paid, in state
> terms, very well) that you'll be able to count the number of state employees
> living in a condo downtown on one hand - the prices are way beyond the reach of
> a typical civil servant.
>

Well, a *modestly* priced unit (35th percentile) will set you back
$2000/month mortgage + $500-$1000/month condominium fee. Using the "no
more than 25% of gross salary" rule, this would require an income of
$120,000 - $144,000 -- probably slightly more than the average state
employee makes.

I think part of the problem is greed and lack of real competition: the
downtown developers seem to be trying to make profits of 100%, which
seems a little high, and there's no competition thanks to things like 36
distinct overlapping Capital View Corridors which blanket downtown in
every direction, severely limiting the number of sites available for
condo construction.

Every single city in Europe (with the sole exception of London), China
(excluding Hong Kong), and Japan (but including Tokyo, Berlin, Paris,
Barcelona, Madrid, Prague, Beijing, Shanghai, Frankfurt, Milan, etc.)
offers affordable, in many cases downright CHEAP, downtown housing.
There is absolutely no real reason why we can't have the same. If we
believe that being able to see the Capital from Sam's Barbecue's
outhouse while taking a dump is more important than offering affordable
housing to the city's most critical residents (teachers, fire fighters,
and so on), then so be it. I personally see this as having one's
priorities WAY screwed up; similar to vetoing a 47 billion dollar health
care plan for children on one day, and then asking for an additional 47
billion dollars to give to Halliburton and other Iraq war contractors on
the following day -- an absurdity which of course would never happened
in any civilized country, since anyone (no matter how immoral) with even
one lick of common sense would be too embarrassed to do such a thing; I
must have made that up.

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