WASHINGTON (AP) – It’s still possible in Boston for a mail carrier, an accountant and a Harvard-trained psychiatrist – basically, the crowd from “Cheers” – to live as neighbors.
That finding by the real estate brokerage Redfin makes the capital of Massachusetts a rarity at a time when neighborhoods in most U.S. cities are increasingly isolated from each other by income and home values.
Redfin analyzed home sales over the past 24 months in 20 major U.S. cities, breaking down the data by neighborhood. Many of the cities reflect home values that have outpaced wages over the past 15 years and contributed to a widening wealth gap among neighborhoods that mirrors a national trend.
San Francisco, for example, enjoys the benefits of tech fortunes, but its homes are largely unaffordable for the police officers, firefighters and teachers the city needs. And while housing in Baltimore seems affordable, low and unstable incomes there have depressed home ownership rates. Ribbons of highways have also ferried the middle class out of cities such as Detroit, leaving behind concentrations of poverty.
Redfin said its analysis is a first step in examining changes over time in neighborhoods and in economic mobility.