Today we’re getting really wonky. Paul Romer, who’s currently at New York University’s Marron Institute has just been appointed to be the chief economist for the World Bank. Personnel decisions involving technocratic positions at global NGOs is about as wonky…
What City Observatory did this week 1. Homeownership: A failed wealth creation strategy. Its an article of faith that owning a home is the most reliable route to wealth building in the US. But this hasn’t been true over the…
Last April, I wrote my first ever post for City Observatory, which unfortunately began with a David Foster Wallace quote. But it was up and up from there. Over the last year-plus here, City Observatory has given me an incredible…
Recently, we made the case that promoting homeownership as an investment strategy is a risky proposition. No financial advisor would recommend going into debt in order to put such a massive part of your savings in any other single financial…
In yesterday’s post, we described why homeownership is such a risky financial proposition for low income households, who tend to be disproportionately people of color. From a wealth-building standpoint, lower income households tend to buy homes at the wrong time, in…