Homeownership Means Little to Economic Growth

Professor and author among his any titles, Richard Florida does some faciniating research on America's cities, employment trends, and other statistical analysis.  I would encourage readers to check out any of his books.

Florida is also an editor at The Atlantic where one of his latest articles comes from regarding homeowner ship and it's relations with economic growth.  Full article here.

• The economic growth and development of cities and regions is generally thought to be driven by three key factors: innovation, human capital, and productivity. Homeownership, it turns out, is not related to any of them.
• It used to be that homeownership signaled and led to economic growth. But that relationship was tied to the industrial era, when building and buying more homes primed the pump of America’s great assembly-lines, increasing demand for cars, appliances, televisions, and all manner of consumer durables. Those days are gone. 
• Instead of leading to economic development, higher rates of homeownership today are associated with lower levels of it. Homeownership is either not correlated or negatively correlated with the big drivers of economic development.