{"id":772,"date":"2007-04-12T21:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-13T04:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/?p=772"},"modified":"2014-01-09T10:16:15","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T18:16:15","slug":"on-luxury-cars-and-world-class-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/12\/on-luxury-cars-and-world-class-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"On Luxury Cars and World Class Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

My car is so great. It has a built-in CD player, a driver’s seat with four independent adjustments, a tasteful spoiler, a spacious trunk, climate control, a powered sunroof, and gets over 30 miles to the gallon. It’s comfortable, good-looking, and fun to drive. My car is comparable to a BMW or a Lexus, and is a great fit for me. Did I mention how much I like it? I mean, BMW or Lexus are a good fit for some people, but they don’t really fit my style. You know though, it really is surprising how cheap it was for me to buy, considering how much other<\/em> luxury cars go for these days…<\/p>\n

So why am I rambling on about my car? What could this possibly have to do with home prices in Seattle?<\/p>\n

Every once in a while someone tries to make the case that high home prices in Seattle are justified (or even that prices are too low<\/em>) on account of what a swell city this is. Their argument goes something like this:<\/p>\n

Seattle is so awesome! In fact, Seattle is so swell that it is completely reasonable<\/em> to compare home prices here to cities such as New York and San Francisco, where homes are much more expensive<\/em>! Seattle is after all a hip, up-and-coming world class city<\/strong>, probably even the hippest<\/em>, most<\/em> up-and-coming world class city around. So you see, it totally makes sense<\/em> for home prices to shoot through the roof around here. We’re just catching up to other comparable cities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I definitely agree that Seattle is a great place to live. Much like my car, Seattle has many attributes that I really like: low pollution, beautiful scenery, proximity to nature, and a decent job market, to name a few. That being said, comparing Seattle to New York or San Francisco is just as ridiculous as comparing my Saturn SL2<\/a> to a BMW or Lexus. They’re just not in the same league.<\/p>\n

Although I already knew this was the case, since I don’t travel much (never been to New York, Boston, San Diego, and have only visited San Francisco once), it didn’t really personally hit home with me until my recent business trip to Chicago. Even though I only spent one afternoon cavorting about and seeing the sights, I was immediately struck with the impression of “this is what a real<\/em> world class city looks like.”<\/p>\n

These are a few of the things I noticed (and later researched) about Chicago.<\/p>\n

Chicago<\/strong><\/p>\n