A good start, let's hope it continues. Rents are still roughly double what they were 15 years ago, when decent studios in central neighborhoods went for under $1000/mo.
Yeah it's better for everyone. The people who like the city life can enjoy it at much cheaper cost, the people who don't like it get to have good jobs that would otherwise have required relocation.
Wonder if it is because it is a University and Government town. Stable mostly higher-paying employment means more people in a position to buy their home, so less land for apartments. Also the captive market of students that had continued to grow puts upward pressure on prices for studios. Shrug.
In some of the 'worse' parts of town rent dips into the upper $700-800s or if you get very far from downtown into the suburbs in older buildings. The eyeball-average price for suburbs/outer areas for a studio is $900-1000. The median appears to be in the $1100-1500 range overall [0].
I lived in a sub-500 apartment with roommates so I was probably just wholly unaware - thinking back more deeply one friend lived in a studio the size of a closet that was just shy of 900.
You're comparing housing prices to rents. In that bubble they disconnected. During the bubble you could rent houses and apartments for around half the monthly mortgage. My friends and I were renting a million dollar house for 2200/month.
To be fair, we could say you 'cherry picked' by selecting the 20 year mark. It's just as cherry picked as picking the peak: it's a discrete moment in time, compared to the present, in either case.
