[zeroonetwothree]

In 1980 median house price in SF was $200k. Median US household income was $17k. So it wasn’t exactly affordable and of course the Bay Area is much more appealing now so it makes sense that relative prices have risen.

In Manhattan rent in 1980 was around $1200 for a one bedroom, so it’s not even significantly different.

[coldtea]

"Average rents may have been pretty high, but crime rates were high and many parts of New York were more than gritty. As such, there were a lot of cheap places to live, especially Downtown and in Brooklyn. The Lower East Side offered a lot of options for the $300 price range; June 1982 ads show a Ludlow Street studio and a two-room East 2nd Street apartment (in a "well kept locked building") both for $275. For a real bargain, one could rent a four-room unit at 332 East 4th Street for $295. Across the river, a "charm 4 rms" on a "beaut blk" near BAM was listed for $325, while units in a Williamsburg walk-up were asking $275 to $325."

[ip26]

Ah, the weak-on-crime approach to creating affordable housing?

[paulddraper]

Sounds bad (?)

[kristianc]

> In Manhattan rent in 1980 was around $1200 for a one bedroom, so it’s not even significantly different.

A 1BR in Manhattan is around $3500 now. Have salaries really tripled in that time?

[jrochkind1]

Well, more or less, yes, actually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_Indexed_Monthly_Earnin...

But it does seem to me that rentals in Manhattan have gotten a lot less affordable since 1980. (Manhattan in the 80s was not a particularly posh place, at least not throughout. There was probably more divergence in rents between neighborhoods in the 80s than now). It would take some more specific investigation than national median wages to investigate that. (Note, though, the median income in Manhattan specifically may have outpaced inflation as lower-earners get priced out).

But, as far as inflation and wages, yeah, inflation year after year means salaries in the 80s seem like very low numbers to us now.