I f perchance the economy goes into a long depression...

If we have a depression, crime rates will not stay low. There will be mass rioting. Everything will be torched and stolen.

people will go insane

are guys trying to turn me on? it's working!

Well, I feel that if the schools lose too much funding, families will leave the city. Used to be that once your kids were old enough to go to school, you'd move to a good public school in the burbs... That changed within the last 15 years as the quality of public education increased... however, if there's a tanking of quality education and too much money is cut from the education budget... people will not jeopardize their kids education, and move (of course, the renters will be able to make that transition easier than those who have bought and have to wait to sell). Right now parental donations have been covering a huge gap in public school funding, however, with increased budget cuts, how much more can parents make up out of pocket? Lots of public schools ask for a minimum of $750 annually - many families contribute more through additional fund raising activities.. All this may change very quickly in the next few months. I think the key to keeping families in the city, is to keep education at the level it's at. otherwise "white flight" for the burbs once again.

You only need to look to Japan in the 1990's to see what would happen: A 75% decline in prices is what they had.

Flight to the suburbs!