New York has 116 billionaires. London has fifty-one. Los Angeles has fifty.48 Many of them only live there part-time. As the city’s essential workers, its senior police officers and school heads are priced out of town, they are replaced by wealthy cosmopolitans who divide their lives between different locations. The number of unoccupied apartments in New York rose by almost three-quarters at the turn of the century to thirty-four thousand in 2011.49 London has witnessed similar growth. The new residents then lock in their gains by restricting land use, which keeps values high.
