Two new studies released this week on Rust Belt metro area housing markets, one for Chicago and the other for Detroit, illustrate the unique challenges that face Rust Belt metros. Researchers focused on data related to housing stock, affordability, market activity and demographics, and group them into eight distinct housing markets, irrespective of their location or proximity to other housing markets. Unlike, say, New York or Washington, high density urban housing, despite its flaws and challenges, is available. Chicago's challenges lie in stimulating moribund housing markets, not in building more homes. Both cities, and far more in the Rust Belt and elsewhere, would do well to address the concerns inherent to the housing markets they have, rather than the housing markets they wish to have.

Source: Forbes July 28, 2017 20:37 UTC