Yet even if the baby-bust demographic is in fact a straw man in this city, that doesn't mean buying here is without hazard. In some ways, owning property here is not just like playing the stock market, it's almost literally playing the stock market -- as if by placing a bet on an Upper West Side two-bedroom, you might as well be going long on Cisco with your kid's college education. The frenzied stock market remains the real peril. Still, the economics of the new New York seems to be flattening that risk too.
"This boom is built on a better kind of bedrock," argues Halstead. "There are burgeoning industries in New York that didn't exist in 1987, such as the new media. These developments have diluted the influence of the stock market. There are a lot of other people driving the engine these days." Besides, he says, "the market is strong, but the boom is motivated primarily by the florid renaissance that New York is undergoing, the Giuliani Halo, if you will. This is the World City. Now, everybody wants to be here."
So the news isn't necessarily bad. In post-Seinfeld America, cities are where the heat is, and New York in particular has rarely had it this good. So relax. Your investment in your Upper West Side prewar is at least as solid as those shares of Dell you just bought.
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