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Find a new city

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Re: Find a new city

#41

Post by anamoulous »

dionidium wrote: post #18
jrochkind1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you make a good point that 'cheap' is very relative to your means and access, and the LES may not have been cheap for _everyone_ even in the 80s. Definitely important to remember. But I'm inclined to believe Smith that it was cheap for her and people like her in a way present-day NYC isn't, for similar people today. I guess we could try to look up rent statistics over time etc. > if you want that in NY now yo…

>idle googling suggests median Crown Heights studio apartment price today is $2000. It's not quite that bad. Here are some actual listings for one-bedrooms in Crown Heights that rent between $1500-1700: https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17067721.-1-bedroom-1-bat... https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17206256.-1-bedroom-1-bat... https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17246561.-1-bedroom-1-bat... But everything is relativ…

I don't think it's worth splitting hairs on Crown Heights real estate prices being exorbitant. They are. I moved here two years ago right when the 2nd wave of gentrifiers flooded the area. It's stark.

You might be able to get a 1500-1700 if you _compete_ for one because landlords are beginning to mobilize crappy housing stock (like these apartments).

Re: Find a new city

#42

Post by rpazyaquian »

dionidium wrote: post #39
rpazyaquian wrote: post #34

This jumped out at me: > “I’m trans, so I need to live somewhere progressive so I feel safe day-to-day and don’t feel like I’m going to get beat up for using the wrong restroom.” This is a pretty damn good reason to live somewhere like Seattle or Boston, and a pretty damn good reason not to live somewhere like (edit:) North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia. The reality is that many of us are limited by not wanting to…

It jumped out at me, too, but as a wild exaggeration that could only be made by somebody unfamiliar with a place like Kansas City. I live in St. Louis where there is a thriving gay community. It's a red state, but urban centers are reliably blue. I know people have this idea that our schools all teach creationism and gays aren't welcome, but it's simply not true.

Kansas City only came to mind cause I was at the last RailsConf and thought that KC was actually in Kansas. Don't take me seriously on that one :p

Re: Find a new city

#43

Post by rpazyaquian »

initram wrote: post #37
rpazyaquian wrote: post #34

This jumped out at me: > “I’m trans, so I need to live somewhere progressive so I feel safe day-to-day and don’t feel like I’m going to get beat up for using the wrong restroom.” This is a pretty damn good reason to live somewhere like Seattle or Boston, and a pretty damn good reason not to live somewhere like (edit:) North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia. The reality is that many of us are limited by not wanting to…

For me it's not only about being safe. I don't have to worry too much about that sort of thing because I blend in most places in my country. But I've lived where people had different values than me and it just gets exhausting. Constantly being bombarded with messages you fundamentally disagree with 24/7. Billboards; local TV; newpapers/web sites; overhearing conversations of the people around you; having odd things s…

It does suck. That's a big reason why we can't just concentrate progressivism in pinpoint areas like New England or Washington State. We need sweeping, national change in order for things to really get better.

Re: Find a new city

#44

Post by anateus »

Tech is here because the money for tech is here. It started with the US Gov't putting money into military bases and later Lockheed and other mil contractors. During and after WWII tax regulations changed in such a way that VC become more and more profitable, and the industry grew alongside the talent pool that was being drawn in.

This created a feedback loop of talent and money. But the money is the primary driver here.

It's why if you're an entertainer you go to LA (often after NYC), or go to NYC for finance.

Going somewhere cheap and being in a garage in a vacuum does nothing for you if the climate that allows something like the Homebrew Computer Club (or an underground music club, etc.) to exist isn't there in place already. As much as it has done, the internet hasn't wholly replaced that aspect of things yet.

Re: Find a new city

#45

Post by dionidium »

anamoulous wrote: post #41
dionidium wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>idle googling suggests median Crown Heights studio apartment price today is $2000. It's not quite that bad. Here are some actual listings for one-bedrooms in Crown Heights that rent between $1500-1700: https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17067721.-1-bedroom-1-bat... https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17206256.-1-bedroom-1-bat... https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17246561.-1-bedroom-1-bat... But everything is relativ…

I don't think it's worth splitting hairs on Crown Heights real estate prices being exorbitant. They are. I moved here two years ago right when the 2nd wave of gentrifiers flooded the area. It's stark. You might be able to get a 1500-1700 if you _compete_ for one because landlords are beginning to mobilize crappy housing stock (like these apartments).

Plus, let's not forget that $1500 is still a lot of money to most people.

Re: Find a new city

#46

Post by fowkswe »

For people looking for that 70s NYC like experience, with proximity to NYC, I HIGHLY suggest checking out the Albany / Troy area.

Both are gritty little cities with a bunch of interesting people living there doing interesting shit, all for next to nothing. You can rent a townhouse for under a thousand / month. Shit, you can BUY a gorgeous 19th century townhouse for under a 100k - the same thing that would be 3 million in the Brooklyn where Patti Smith and Robert Maplethorpe lived.

I'm not going to go on about how much there is to offer there, because I could do that for paragraphs. You should just go check it out for yourself.

Re: Find a new city

#47

Post by danvasquez29 »

rmason wrote: post #32
Apocryphon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Detroit is an actual city with deep history. It may be in decline, but it still seems like to have more going on, or at least the potential to have more going on, than small towns. There's likely a lot of other second- or even third-tier cities that are overlooked, but are still more interesting to live in than a town in "Northeast Ohio." Austin, Portland, Boulder are becoming the new NY/SF because of the process of…

Though primarily my Detroit friends are entrepreneurs or engineers working for them I've noticed that there has been a wholesale movement of artists to the city. Though in the last five years it's gotten kind of pricey in the downtown area I keep discovering clusters of artists out in the neighborhoods in my travels in the city. https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/new-york-i-love-you-but-i... Buildings are really chea…

downtown Detroit is in a weird state right now where it's bounced back enough and gotten enough hype that it's gentrifying, but the development efforts haven't quite finished fast enough to catch up to demand.

My rent from 2013-2015 went up 35% and I eventually moved to a suburb. I tried to buy a place and even when I convinced myself to overpay would be beat out by a better all-cash offer within 24 hours of a place going on sale. It's nuts here right now.

3 years ago it was a great place to move in cheapish and be around a burgeoning scene, right now it's expensive as hell, and in 2 years will probably be back to being able to support that student/new grad/bootstrapping entrepreneur scene. We need more housing to come online, and it's being built, just not done yet.

Re: Find a new city

#48

Post by bufordsharkley »

This idea that cities reach a point of maximum growth, become unaffordable, and should be abandoned by potential newcomers: this is currently true, but it's a broken system, and it's time we look at ways we can improve it.

When a city becomes unaffordable, when rents skyrocket-- those expenses are someone else's windfalls. When people expect the value of real estate to rise and rise indefinitely-- those windfalls are someone else's expenses.

I've come to believe that so much of these structural problems are essentially reducible to issues of land-use (property/land taxes), but there is so little focus at present on reforming this.

Re: Find a new city

#49

Post by Apocryphon »

rpazyaquian wrote: post #34

This jumped out at me: > “I’m trans, so I need to live somewhere progressive so I feel safe day-to-day and don’t feel like I’m going to get beat up for using the wrong restroom.” This is a pretty damn good reason to live somewhere like Seattle or Boston, and a pretty damn good reason not to live somewhere like (edit:) North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia. The reality is that many of us are limited by not wanting to…

Detroit is socially conservative?

Re: Find a new city

#50

Post by mbillie1 »

rpazyaquian wrote: post #34

This jumped out at me: > “I’m trans, so I need to live somewhere progressive so I feel safe day-to-day and don’t feel like I’m going to get beat up for using the wrong restroom.” This is a pretty damn good reason to live somewhere like Seattle or Boston, and a pretty damn good reason not to live somewhere like (edit:) North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia. The reality is that many of us are limited by not wanting to…

The people who will inevitably say things like "this is just oversensitivity" or "it's an exaggeration to act like a whole city is outside your comfort zone" are either unbelievably thick-skinned or simply live in a relatively insulated, homogenous environment. I'm a straight white married upper-middle-class man and there are decidedly places I feel very uncomfortable in the country (I am thinking of highly conservative small towns in the mountain west in my particular case, where I stand out visually). You might not visit them very often, but those places are real and the feeling of being an outsider is palpable. I can only imagine how much more influential that feeling would be if I were a minority in any way, not to mention one of the minorities it's still nearly de rigueur to overtly discriminate against.
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