Housing
Housing Shortage in Paris? Blame the Foreigners!
At least that's the popular attitude. But the truth is much more complicated.
"The best of America," wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, patting himself on the back, "drifts to Paris." Today, we might revise that tribute to Parisian allure to say that the rich of America drift to Paris. So do the rest of the world’s wealthy. And Parisians aren’t happy about it.
The average price of an apartment in Paris has grown enormously over the last fifteen years, from 150,000 Euros in 1999 to 375,000 Euros in 2008 [PDF]. The Minister of Housing has called the shortage of apartments a "major crisis." In a famously cosmopolitan city running out of cheap rooms, the refrain is this: "If the prices are going up in Paris, blame the foreigners!"