One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston currently houses more universities and colleges than any city in the country. Once the home to those that begun the Revolutionary War, Boston today is still the city of champions, with both the Red Sox and New England Patriots sitting high atop a mound trophies and vanquished foes.

The city itself has only 573,000 residents and is actually geographically quite small for a major city.

Right now, Atlanta is one of the most exciting cities in the country. Having been relatively poor during the seventies and eighties, its quality of life has been steadily improving for about two decades now. Since 2000, its median income has been increasing about a thousand dollars a year. For the past six years, its population has grown faster than any other city in the United States.

For a good number of years now, renters of NYC apartments have had the extreme displeasure of paying the highest rents in the country. A new report suggests that the city is entering 2008 with a continuing hold on the unfortunate and smudged crown which signifies its role as the most expensive city for renters in the country.

The new report by the major California real estate investment firm, Marcus & Millichap suggests that, at least insofar as median rental rates, NYC apartments far surpass those any other city in the country.

I would imagine that at some point soon, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve will start receiving thank-you notes from New York City realtors: The falling dollar has made New York apartments an incredible value for those that earn their salaries in currencies other than the US dollar. Even the Canadian Dollar is worth more than the US dollar these days.

There hasn't been a year like 2007 for Manhattan real estate in a long time. And there probably won't be one like it for just as long. It saw a confluence of conflicting trends and market events that were enough to make the most brilliant economists' heads swoon. While the national housing market had literally its most devastating year since the Great Depression, New York homes shot up in value to levels that set new records in all sorts of categories.