The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#101

Post by alistairSH » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 6:36 PM UTC

home_boi wrote: post #63

emcq wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anyone outside of tech or medicine bringing in 200k for the household. It looks like that would put you in the top 5% of income, squarely outside of the norm: http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0912/which-income...

I am assuming he means $100k per person in NYC/SF. That's the entry level salary for even marketing/business workers in many companies.

Neither of those are small or mid-size cities.

Throwing out $200k as a typical middle-class income just demonstrates the bubble the OP lives in. I live in one of the wealthiest counties in the nation (Fairfax) and we don't come anywhere close to a $200k median household income.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#102

Post by drdeadringer » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 6:39 PM UTC

superbaconman wrote: post #59

nocoolnametom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about those who provide social services to city-dwellers? Teachers, firefighters? It can be problematic to have the police tasked with protecting a city they don't even live in. Next time you see an SFPD officer with a free moment ask him/her what they think of the explosive growth in SoMa.

If they can't afford to live where they work maybe they're under payed?

I don't think that's a "maybe".

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#103

Post by alistairSH » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 6:39 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #98

gipp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$200k is the 94th percentile of income.

It's not entirely inconceivable that the middle class is 6% of the population, or less. Perhaps another way of thinking about the situation, is not that the middle class can't afford traditional middle class amenities, but that the proportion of people who can afford those amenities is shrinking.

It's not entirely inconceivable that the middle class is 6% of the population, or less.

That's not how this works. Middle-class, is by definition, somewhere in the middle of the household income range. Exact position is open to debate, but you can't just declare "only the top 6% are middle class!"

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#104

Post by jamespitts » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 6:40 PM UTC

muninn_ wrote: post #81

jamespitts wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a view that will lead to a highly dysfunctional society. First off, you are dismissive of the issue with that bit of exaggeration. It is not as if this group wants all the good things in life that only a tech salary afford. Perhaps a dignified life would be sufficient. You also place NYC, SF, Boston, DC, etc. into a category of city that is naturally not available to the middle class. Is NYC a luxury like a 3…

Is NYC a luxury? Absolutely. The access to institutions, the culture, the people, the shops, the history... all of that is a luxury. That's why people want to live there versus somewhere like Cleveland I guess. Once those cities are unaffordable for the very people you mention, they will just move to more affordable places where they have a better cost of living, and then they will bring ideas, creativity, and resurg…

I do not think that big city life should be a luxury, any more than the internet or computing should be a luxuries.

While it is beneficial to improve districts, the migratory upgrading of urban areas is an economic model that may be problematic for the population. People need to get work done and take care of their families, not constantly deal with a series of dismal choices and life-uprooting changes.

Instead of waiting for price bubbles, wage bubbles, hostile populations causing problems due to inadequate conditions, perhaps cities should work on the infrastructure of growth.

There are many necessary conditions for civilization that governments enforce or produce. I argue that generating NYC conditions for the general population is one of them.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#105

Post by analog31 » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 6:42 PM UTC

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #88

Ericson2314 wrote: post #51

The cities skew Democratic, but I wonder if increasing urban migration will create more Democrats. Then the Democratic Party has more of an incentive to build more nice-city. ...Might have worked 8 years ago.

This is absolutely the case, there are loads of books about the phenomenon. And every mid-sized city has some chamber of commerce that is trying to crack the code on how to be "the next Austin/Portland/whichever-hip-city". Hell, I've got friends in Virginia and Maine who are working on this. They're doing it for fiscal/influential reasons, not political, but yes, this trend would benefit the Democrats, except that yo…

I live in such a city. We are trying to make the city more desirable to economic growth. One factor is that people will tend to locate their businesses where they want to live, so it makes sense to add amenities associated with upper middle class lifestyle, such as good public schools and bike infrastructure.

But there are some things that we don't control. Probably the most important engine of growth in the entire state is located in our city -- the university -- but the city doesn't operate it, and we have no voice in state government thanks to partisan gerrymandering.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#106

Post by alistairSH » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

martingoodson wrote: post #49

ryanSrich wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middle class in a small to mid size city is $200k in annual household income. A family of three should have no problem in 1200sqft. Two kids is excessive, but if you do have two kids you'd be fine in 1500sqft.

For someone living in the UK that sounds like a far off utopia. Government recommendations are about 1000sqft for a family of five . https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing...

We have a lot more space in the US. A typical 4-bedroom suburban home is somewhere around 1800sq/ft and, anecdotally, that number has been creeping up.

Of course, all the space also has massive drawbacks... car-centric culture, sprawl, long commutes, harder to implement public transit, etc.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#107

Post by Gargoyle » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #99

mixmastamyk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our rent went up 7% this year in LA, but our income didn't. The writing is on the wall I think.

In what part of LA? What part of LA would you move to if your rent/income became untenable?

Much of the city of Los Angeles is rent-stabilized, meaning rent can only increase up to 3.5% a year as long as the tenant stays there. But when the move out, the rent can reset to market rates.

I just moved out of a place in Studio City, paying $1200 for a small one-bedroom apartment. It's listed now for $1600, and I'd bet on it filling within 10 days.

So that's a 1/3 increase in rent I was able to avoid by staying in one place for a long while, but if I'd been moving around it would have cost much more over the years.

In the far (semi-rural) reaches of Sacramento now, and happier for it!

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#108

Post by rayiner » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

mac01021 wrote: post #62

pradn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two kids is excessive? By what measure? Human populations need a birth rate of 2.1 to even stay at the same level.

At the moment, though, we are probably better off shrinking our numbers.

Not in the US. We're facing a huge impending labor shortage. (And immigration just externalizes the problem of accommodating raising children from US policy to India or China policy.)

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#109

Post by ryanSrich » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #98

gipp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$200k is the 94th percentile of income.

It's not entirely inconceivable that the middle class is 6% of the population, or less. Perhaps another way of thinking about the situation, is not that the middle class can't afford traditional middle class amenities, but that the proportion of people who can afford those amenities is shrinking.

This is entirely my point and it seems I've done a bad job at explaining it. If a house, car, kids, etc is middle class then you need the salary to match it. What people are calling a middle class lifestyle doesn't match up with their definition of middle class income.

Re: The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore

#110

Post by alistairSH » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 6:47 PM UTC

saryant wrote: post #83

wavefunction wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems very strange to compare gross income to housing costs and deem a situation 'affordable'. When FICA and Federal income tax is subtracted from that $51k ($9,800)[0], we're left with $41,000 of net income. I pay around $1600 monthly for a $227,000 house in Austin, so the housing cost would be $19,200 / $41,000 or _46%_ which is absolutely not 'affordable.' [0] https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#1DOWfkzhx…

A rule of thumb (admittedly arbitrary) for housing is to keep costs below 30% of gross income. That is why I compared median housing prices against median gross income. If someone making the median income in a city can afford a median house with 21% of their gross income, yes, I deem that "affordable." To go back to my example, the family making $41k net annually is paying $10,800 (ish) annually in mortgage costs. Th…

Honest question... where does the 30% income/housing ratio come from? I always assumed it was pushed by the housing industry to "con" us into more housing than we need.