There's a sense, too, that in tough economic times, the astonishing prices commanded by the domaine are somewhat surreal.
That potential can be seen in the prices commanded by apartments and houses near the canal in recent months.
For example, no rational person would pay the high prices commanded by real estate in Manhattan in order to plant wheat there.
The original collection suffered from family disputes and their declining fortunes, but also from the rising prices commanded by the artists they had championed.
Yet the high prices commanded by bluefin tuna and the demise of wild stocks have led many people to attempt to raise them in captivity in order to supply the same demand.
A subtler but unmistakable indication that works of art are now bought as tokens rather than for their intrinsic merit was provided by the breathtaking prices commanded by watercolors and prints.
Tickets for the ballet start at just £3 and are capped at a reasonable £42, a fraction of the prices commanded by the Royal Opera House's biggest shows, in a move to draw a younger crowd.
In fact, because the prices commanded there have soared since the inception of the program, H.P.D. will not offer subsidies to the developers chosen to rehabilitate the 34 properties in Harlem in the final phase of the program.
"If you have a rough Daytona coupe, you can spend more on a restoration than it's worth," he says, naming a Ferrari that sells far below the stratospheric prices commanded by rarer models.
