Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
I think the two numbers would generally be closely correlated. Why wouldn't they be? Certainly Dallas is gaining HNW faster than Philly, because the overall population is growing faster. You're gonna get more rich folks when the overall pie increases.
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Of course there's some correlation, but why doesn't Sao Paulo show better, then? Or Mexico City. Or Delhi. Or why does The Bay Area have more than LA despite LA having twice as many people? Or why Zurich has twice as many as Seoul despite being less than a fifth as populous? As I said, of course there is some correlation, but population alone is a really poor indicator of how many "rich people" live in a given area. Perhaps you don't understand what "correlation" means?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
... it isn't clear why a downtown construction boom would have anything to do with relative growth of HNW.
Are you saying that much of the HNW population in Chicagoland is employed in the development and construction industries, so a development boom is a proxy for a wealth boom? Not really plausible, and Chicago, if anything, is a relative development laggard.
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Oh for crying out loud, who said anything about development? The word "boom" doesn't only mean development, and I thought by talking about population readers would understand I was talking about population growth with the word "boom," but perhaps I was expecting too much of you?
I'm talking population, and where that population is choosing to locate. The development is only a symptom and is happening because people want to move downtown. The development is not a driver and I never said or even implied that it was - you did all that reading-into on your own.
People want to move to downtown Chicago because that part of Chicago is popular and that part of Chicago is playing a large part in creating and growing Chicago's wealth and income. Certainly if the parts of Chicago that are growing are where it takes wealth and income to live, it's an indicator that wealthy, high income people like Chicago and that at least some of them are relocating here or becoming wealthy while here - the growth in demand in the Central Area cannot only be explained by movement within the metro area.