Sublime

With Paris being such a desirable place to live, rising housing prices are here to stay. As I learned in San Francisco, if I was going to remain in Paris, the best assurance of staying for the long term was to own a place of my own.

Prices are like messengers conveying news—sometimes bad news, in the case of beach-front property desired by far more people than can possibly live at the beach, but often also good news.

Everything eventually costs more.

My point is that, for all the free market’s chatter about “choice,” in the absence of accessible non-market options for housing, real choice is something we rarely possess.

“A rich husband,” Amelia had said, “doesn’t change the fact that Persephone’s main residence is in an undesirable location with no view whatsoever. Just think of the difficulties in leasing it out during the off-months.”