A Portland economist predicts that buyers soon will choose where to live based on what they would spend for gasoline.
That, eventually, will devalue suburban housing while strengthening in-city home prices, says Joe Cortright, whose Portland consulting firm, Impresa, recently released a report saying as much to U.S. mayors.
"The new calculus of higher gas prices may have permanently reshaped urban housing markets," said Cortright, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit Washington, D.C., think tank. "What this really means is that as people move, they're going to look for places that enable them to drive shorter distances and avoid places where they have to drive a lot.
One little problem: Seattle isn't prepared. Whether it's our inadequate alternative-transportation infrastructure or our ugly multifamily housing neighborhoods, Seattle can and should do better. That's why Sound Transit expansion, streetcar network expansion, and the multifamily housing zoning code are issues we're closely tracking.