Hey, if there's something I am confused about the US is that areas that are supposedly more "tolerant" generally have higher property values than places that are full of "normal" people.
As I'm trying to look for my own place to live, I'd like to live in an enclave with "weirdos" and other people that don't fit in. Blue states are at least slightly more friendly to non-conformists, and get a lot of hate from the US at large for being okay with non-model-citizens, yet housing in blue states is by far more expensive than my home state that is about as red as Mr. Krabs.
I'll be answering my own question a bit by saying that I noticed that there is a lot of NIMBY activity here, but then suburbs in red states have HOAs.
What's going on? Explain to this humble babby brain.
Blue states usually urban. Urban more pricy
Red states usually more rural. Rural less pricy.
Rural parts of blue states pretty cheap, urban parts of red states pretty expensive (Raleigh, Miami, and Phoenix are some of the most expensive cities to live in in the country)
Blue states urban centers seem to be getting cheaper if the states aren’t run by pier ghouls (Minnesota for exp passed a ban on single family zoning in highly populated areas)
To add to this, cities in red states tend to be much less dense, often just the same density as a town, just in a larger contiguous area. Example: Houston. Big city. Urban. Sprawl.
As property values are driven by natural monopolies on proximity to the other properties they interact with (in addition to financialization), sprawly areas can maintain lower prices. Take the people in a high-rise in Manhattan and spread them out in single-family homes: now they're all screwed out of the possibility of walking to their jobs, amenities, or using any coherent transit, so there's literally less value in location and they all have to drive cars to do anything, each getting about the same shitty experience.
"blue states" and "red states" is a bad way to approach any issue, the whole thing was invented pretty recently for political spectacle purposes and falls apart once you think about it
I live in a rural area of a blue state and housing is relatively cheap here. Probably correlated with poverty but idk
There's probably differences in population densities and urban-rural ratios that correlate both with voting democratic and with rent prices. In other words, democratic/republican doesn't determine rent prices, other social structures determine both things.
I think you really have to compare things city to city, using the Red vs Blue lens of analysis at the state level will probably not give you useful information. Things will always be cheaper outside the city because no internet and no jobs.
if you're looking for affordable housing in a weirdo enclave, your target is narrow and is going to be something like a college town in a rural/red state. it would probably have some public transportation, some bike lanes, public art/civic engagement but be warned... though the housing would be more affordable than the national average, these places are now highly targeted by institutional investors because of that same reasoning, so prices that have long been lagging behind are moving up fast.
the need for student housing historically pushed down pricing decades ago, but as student populations are increasingly narrowing to wealthier families, this is less of a force at play and become more of a cash cow for landlords and universities providing housing for revenues.
I'd imagine, it's all about demand. Young professionals are probably keen to flock to places like California, where the mayor isn't some hot dog necked ghoul standing in front of a Confederate flag. I think it's more city focused than state, that's why a lot of California overflow in Texas is going to Dallas and Austin and not Houston and San Antonio, well that and the race thing. With more and more people looking for homes and the money to spend it and no regulation, you get to the point where no one can buy a home.
And California has Prop 13 from the 70s, which caps the limit property tax can go up per year by 2%.
So in another state if your home goes up in value 10% a year you'll need to pay more. And if you can't keep up eventually you cash out and move.
But in California you stay in place and fight all new construction to the death. That's one factor in why home prices are insane here. And naturally the existing homeowners love it so it is hard to repeal
I think this is two different phenomena being lumped together. US party messaging/brand awareness is that Dems display themselves as educated PMCs whereas the GOP is strictly the salt of the earth party, thus people living in cities recognize themselves on Dems more than on the GOP and the inverse goes for people that perceive themselves as "rural". In parallel cities tend to suffer from shitton of housing problems due to heavy demand. It's correlated but there's no causality anywhere and electoralism is all vibes.
I was going to argue that cities tend to vote for more progressive parties but this isn't strictly true. Mexico City for example is a progressive bastion and has been for decades, but in Lima people overwhelmingly voted for Keiko Fujimori and not Castillo. I actually think Mexico City is an outlier in some regards.
because blue states perform rent seeking behavior via property tax on even people with only one house
If you have some flexiblity in where you can live, and you're looking for an area that's both cheaper than average and has a tolerant/progressive culture with lots of misfits, PM me. I honestly feel extremely lucky to have landed where I did.
