"Superstars"

Inelasticity, willingness-to-pay, and MSAs are all terms we’re familiar with, but how do they relate to “superstars,” and what is a “superstar” exactly? Authors Joseph Gyourko, Christopher Mayer, and Todd Sinai have created a working paper in which they’ve categorized several cities as “superstars” or cities with an inelastic supply of housing. In other words, construction is difficult within these cities due to geographical constraints or zoning. Similar to arguments set forth by other scholars we’ve read, such as Jan Brueckner, the authors of this paper assert that an increase in high income families has resulted in higher income families outbidding lower income families for scarce housing in preferred locations. The authors found that Los Angeles and San Francisco were the only two cities which qualified as “superstars” during the years ranging from 1960-1980. However, during the years ranging from 1970-2000, twenty more cities fell within the “superstar” classification, two of which were Boston and New York. Below are the links to an abstract and another description of the articles. You must subscribe in order to obtain a copy of the working paper.
http://papers.nber.org/papers/W12355
http://www.planetizen.com/node/23302