> In fact, metros with greater shares of renters have higher wages, higher productivity (measured as economic output per capita), and greater concentrations of high-tech firms, according to Mellander’s basic correlation analysis.
People are attracted to where the jobs are, and so everything gets bought up and inflated, and the late comers have to rent.
In related news, you never see rental apartment buildings among rural grain elevators. Gee, why is that?
Correlation analysis? Yeah, we wouldn't want to jump to any premature conclusions like that the jobs and presence of industry leads to renting; there is a glimmer of hope that we might be able to prove that renting actually causes higher wages, higher productivity and the presence of high-tech. It could be that people come to the city just for the privilege of participating in expensive rent. Then when their bank accounts drain dangerously low, they realize they need high wages, and so they create companies and give themselves salaries.
Fact is that renting is not some way of the future or a shift. Even if 99% of the people rent, it will be because they have to, and all will continue to foster the dream of owning a home, and continue to envy the squirrels in the park that de facto own their own space in the hollow tree, or the birds that have their own nest, and don't pay a fucking thing to anyone.