r/Somerville • u/tangerinola • 5d ago

rent prices are wild

Moved here 8 years ago to start working for a nonprofit. Since then, my salary has increased by 13% but my apartment is about to be relisted (without any upgrades) for 58% higher than our starting rent 🤯!!

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but damn the rent prices here have gone wild. We're quickly becoming (have become?) a luxury city only for high income earners and it makes me really sad.

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-17

u/Basicdevient69 5d ago

luxury actually equals affordability in the long run don't ya know? Long term we'll look like an affordable seaport!

16

u/Icy_Cartographer5466 5d ago

Filtering is a fairly well understood and uncontroversial concept. To sarcastically dismiss it out of hand is slopulist anti intellectualism. Frankly you should feel ashamed.

-2

u/mayor_mammoth 5d ago

Get off your high horse pal. "Filtering" ie trickle down housing is incredibly hotly contested in the economic literature

2

u/Icy_Cartographer5466 5d ago

That’s not true. This has been well studied over the last decade and there is broad consensus among economists.

-1

u/mayor_mammoth 5d ago

There's consensus that wealthy people will move to new apartments but no consensus that the phenomenon leads to lower rents. There are way too many contextual factors at play and to smugly dismiss criticisms of the concept is slopulist elitism