If you head to flyover country, you’ll see that 50% of the commercial buildings have “Available” or “For Lease” signs.
I would agree the NE has an element of artificially supported prosperity.
The person who observed the “Eating” out in the NE not being impacted, isn’t getting the picture right.
I live in the wealthiest part of NJ. Yes, those chains are PACKED, but not by people who work for a living to pay our insane mortgages and property taxes. No, those places are packed with immigrants and welfare kings/queens, who worry about nothing and spend their free money on those places and Xboxes and nice car leases.
Trust me. You don’t want to eat in their company anyway. For us hardworking upper-middle classers, the choice is eat in, or eat out at the high-end. In my case, I’m lucky if we can do the high-end once every two months. Mostly we have to buy all our food in at costco and make good use of the freezers. Again, its the ridiculously inflated home prices and the insane property taxes that do it.
And no, I’m not looking for sympathy of any kind. I am hardly in the worst spot, although the same socialist policies are making it almost impossible for us to break through to the next tier, we’re frozen for now, on a downward trajectory in the medium term.