Ever been to the Champs-Elysées in Paris? It’s really quite nice! There are a lot of luxury shops there too – Louis Vuitton, car companies, that kind of thing.
Just in case you were wondering what the tangible effects of wealth concentration really were, commercial rent on the Champs-Elysées, flooded with Chinese and Korean tourists looking for 10,000 euro handbags, is going up next year.
Rents are set to rise 38.5% for 2014 from a base of 13,255 euros per square meter. (Americans: that’s $1655 per square foot.)
Just last year they went up 30%.
The money isn’t shifting slowly to one group of people – it’s rushing toward them, and they are at pains to find ways to spend the money.
You wonder if France has any history with this sort of thing…
