Refugee Resettlement

I forget the source, but I was reading on immigrants and housing markets several years ago—something about refugee resettlement centers. Anyway, it did great things to the central city, because the immigrants suddenly filled up previously vacant housing stock, raising rents and property values. The increase in car-less population then justified a major transit investment, which then began to revitalize the center-city in general. It’s important to realize that prices are not set by the stock of something, but by the stock in comparison to the demand for it.  There is  a whole economic development literature on Direct-Indirect-Induced economic impacts, the nut of which is that ‘growth begets secondary growth’.