This is what happens to places where the rich want to live, under an oligarchy:

Inflation Adjusted Manhattan Real Estate Prices

Inflation Adjusted Manhattan Real Estate Prices

Yee-ha!

Yeah.  I dunno.  I could write a bunch of stuff, but the chart kind of speaks for itself, doesn’t it?


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More recent, but also striking, is this chart, on commute distance in San Francisco:

San Francisco Commute Dstance

San Francisco Commute Distance

This, by the way, is why the idea that countries like the US and the core European countries can’t tax people is bullshit.

There just aren’t that many cities rich people want to live in, and for Western elites, they are essentially all in Western Europe or the US (maybe Canada, in a pinch). They want to live in your country, or do business there? Then you can tax them. This is especially true of the US, Britain (London), and France (Paris, south of France).

As for the peons, let them live in Detroit. Or Flint, wherever Flint is, in the scabrous country beyond where people who matter live.