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Find a new city

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Re: Find a new city

#141

Post by justinlardinois »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #16
SandersAK wrote: post #3

Many New York artists talk about NYC as if it was cheap but it is simply not true. There is no other place in the US that concentrates so many different types of people. Patti Smith, David Byrne etc all benefitted from there being billionaires, millionaires, celebrities, thespians, high profile doctors, lawyers, and more than a century of civic dedication to arts and culture. There is a shared communal love and suppo…

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…

> "Studio" means "one room (usually very small) apartment" in U.S. rental listings, not something cool like 'giant warehouse an artist can make into an art studio', heh.)

As an American it never quite occurred to me how bullshit of a term "studio" is. It's more like "the minuscule size of this apartment makes it more appropriate for an art studio than an actual dwelling."

Re: Find a new city

#142

Post by whybroke »

kilroy123 wrote: post #127
whybroke wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, as soon as an area demonstrates it is becoming a significant hacker/maker region, speculation drives housing process through the roof killing the trend before it seriously takes off. For example Portland OR. If there is ever going to be another profuondly innovative tech center (ala early SV) we have to solve the way housing prices work first.

But to be fair, Portland _is_ trying. Every hole in the ground, is a mid-level apartment building going up. Yeah it's changing rapidly here and prices have risen. Still, you have to give the city some props for trying very hard to deal with it. Unlike San Fransisco that doesn't drastically try to increase inventory.

It is also an interesting test case for the hypothesis that merely increasing inventory, however enormously, will fix the problem.

Re: Find a new city

#143

Post by untilHellbanned »

nostromo wrote: post #60
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…

Have you actually spent time in Raleigh or Atlanta? The idea that trans people are getting murdered in the street is just not correct. I'm gay and I've spent a lot of fun nights in Boise, Idaho because a gay friend of mine lives there with her wife. We always have a blast. She has a great career in Boise and I don't think she's experienced more homophobia there than when she lived in New York City. (I know she had at…

I agree. I lived in Cambridge, MA for 12 years. Now I live in St. Louis, Mo. It's better here in many ways. Most people I encountered in the east coast have no understanding of how it can be not bad in a place like St. Louis, let alone better by measures they care about.

Re: Find a new city

#144

Post by bufordsharkley »

refurb wrote: post #131
forgotuser wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Community Land Trusts are a great example of the sort of thing people should be looking into as an alternative to the current model. Don't see people talking about them much. The basic idea is that a nonprofit purchases the land in a community and holds it in perpetuity. It rents the land long-term to residents (and for the most part, they're required to be residents), instead of selling it. It's still possib…

How does that control the cost of housing? I'm assuming that one would go to a land trust, sign a contract to rent a lot for $X/month for 99 years (or something similar). Then you would build a house, probably get a construction mortgage to afford it. Then your monthly payments would be mortgage + $X. Area becomes wildly attractive and people move in. Suddenly people are offering mortgage * 200% for your house, knowi…

Based upon the details of this diagram from Wikipedia[0], it appears that there are restrictions on resale. The CLT sets maximum prices for resale (I'd like to know how), allowing some profit.

In some ways, this appears to be analogous to rent control, except each apartment is replaced by a home.

I see some similar issues, though-- if a CLT becomes extremely attractive, I wouldn't suspect it wouldn't necessarily respond to signals that more housing stock is needed. You could get to the point that there's a scarcity of affordable housing, much as you see with rent control today.

Am I missing something in this analysis?

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Communit...

Re: Find a new city

#145

Post by rayiner »

mbillie1 wrote: post #50
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 conservat…

That's interesting. I'm a brown upper middle class male and i've never felt uncomfortable anywhere in the country. That includes rural parts of Illinois, Georgia, and Virginia. Americans are really warm and welcoming if you approach them on their own terms.

Re: Find a new city

#146

Post by nextos »

ido wrote: post #106
nextos wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't agree more. But it's hard. I feel Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of cheap real estate and talent pool. I find it hard to find places with a lot of talent but undervalued real estate these days. Maybe all low hanging fruit is gone. In Europe, London, Oxbridge, Stockholm are somewhat similar. Insane prices. Berlin and to a certain extent Copenhagen are cheaper. Some smaller locations like C…

Copenhagen? I don't know how much real estate costs there but I doubt it's cheap. Last time I visited it was as expensive as Zurich (I.e. Double German prices). Better examples might be Leipzig and Prague.

IMHO suburbs in Copenhagen are pretty affordable wrt salaries.

Re: Find a new city

#147

Post by groby_b »

bradleyjg wrote: post #62
ryandrake wrote: post #26

I used to live in Nowhere, Florida, and would move back in a heartbeat, but from an employment standpoint it became too risky. Most places outside of The Usual Tech Hubs are one-horse towns when it comes to tech employment, major opportunity risk. If you're a software engineer and live in the Bay Area and suddenly lose your job, depending on the economy you're probably in for a 1-6 month job search at local companies…

> If you're a software engineer I don't think the article is aimed at you or me. It's aimed at young people that want to be artists, musicians, writers, and so on. They don't need to be near tech hubs. He argues it is better for them to create their own new bohemian art communities than fight the high cost of living in NYC and SF. That said, I think there's a case to be made for e.g. the Bronx that he ignores in favo…

The "bohemian art communities" always rely on some sort of cash influx, or they collapse relatively quickly. The trick is to be near the money source, not in it.

NYC in the sixties had old money. Big Sur in the sixties had Hollywood. Seattle in the 90s had MS money (in Redmond).

You also can't move to the middle of nowhere, because art requires a community - both of collaborators, and of spectators. And it doesn't hurt if there's an existing art scene.

And you do want to be in a place that's at least somewhat liberal. Art usually pushes the boundaries of what society considers acceptable, and a liberal place allows you to push just a bit further.

And so, you can't just "create" a place. There are a lot of preconditions. (Compare to the many cities that want to "create" a second Silicon Valley)

If I should venture a bet, Detroit might work - although there are too many real estate speculators getting into the game. Possibly Grand Rapids. And their ArtPrize thing indicates they might be encouraging that.

Re: Find a new city

#148

Post by walrus01 »

nostromo wrote: post #60
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…

Have you actually spent time in Raleigh or Atlanta? The idea that trans people are getting murdered in the street is just not correct. I'm gay and I've spent a lot of fun nights in Boise, Idaho because a gay friend of mine lives there with her wife. We always have a blast. She has a great career in Boise and I don't think she's experienced more homophobia there than when she lived in New York City. (I know she had at…

I'm a white person from the pacific northwest, and Charleston SC is just ridiculous. It's extremely racist (you would not believe the things that the local white population say when there's no minorities around), xenophobic and reliably voted for Strom Thurmond and Lindsey Graham, two of the most race-baiting bible-thumping red state panderers on earth.

If you're going to move to a "tier 2" / "tier 3" size city, stay out of the bible belt. Unless you're into that sort of thing.

Re: Find a new city

#149

Post by brooklyndude »

wrsh07 wrote: post #4

I definitely understand the need for a progressive city -- I grew up in the midwest in a place that was decidedly not. But Paul Graham gave a talk about how Pittsburgh could be the next startup city [1]. And price factors in for both artists and entrepreneurs. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html

Pittsburgh has been hip for a wild. It's pretty cool for sure. Reality is it's hard to top Bushwick, Brooklyn, it's pretty far out, but the people in 'Pitt, give it a run for it's money.

Re: Find a new city

#150

Post by examancer »

Come to Omaha! Lots of talk about how you can't find jobs or culture in small places, and talk of how the big cities are expensive for a reason. That may be true if you're trying to be an actor, but Omaha has a thriving tech scene, extremely low unemployment, and one of the lowest costs of living of any major metro area. It's safe, LGBT friendly, family friendly, great schools, and the people are nice and laid back.

There is a sweet spot between too big and expensive and too small and isolated. I have lived in NYC and there is nothing I'm missing in Omaha. Although the scale is obviously much different everything I want is within reach, and usually takes a lot less time to get to. Public transportation sucks, but it really is a great city otherwise and has some things NYC doesn't (better beers, and steaks that are better and actually affordable).

There are others within this sweet spot. Minneapolis, the less expensive bits of Denver, Kansas City, and others I am less familiar with. Omaha is pretty much the cheapest of the cities I consider acceptable, but I encourage all of you to find your sweet spot city if you want to live well or cheap.

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