Why is Real Estate More Expensive in Some Cities? A Tale of Two Town Houses

Virginia Postrel reports:

In 2000, my husband and I moved out of our mid-1970s three-bedroom town house in Los Angeles and into a brand-new three-bedroom town house in Uptown Dallas. At the time, the two were worth about the same, but the Dallas place was 1,000 square feet bigger. We’ve moved back to L.A., and we’re glad we kept our old house. Over the past seven years, its value has roughly doubled. By contrast, we sold our Dallas place for $6,500 less than we paid for it.

You can read this whole one now that The Atlantic's firewall is down.This is one of the best articles on real estate prices.