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

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

#261

Post by shostack »

muninn_ wrote: post #176
shostack wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd tweak your statement to be "Those of the middle class who were not lucky enough to have purchased an affordable home yet." There are many who lucked out on timing and now have a nice house at a more previously affordable price. As usual, it is the younger generation that gets left holding the bag.

You can buy affordable houses right now. I have one here where I live. There are plenty on the market.

Unfortunately for many, the risk of slow job markets where homes are affordable pushes many away from where they are and towards the cities with more opportunity (and higher prices as a result).

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

#262

Post by mildbow »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74
schoolsman wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are affordable parts of Long Island and Connecticut with great public public schools less than an hour from Manhattan by train. Nonsense. I'm a New Yorker. You literally CAN'T get to DOWNTOWN Manhattan from any part of Connecticut in under an hour. The first metro-north stop in CT (Greenwich, which, BTW, is NOT affordable to live near) is over 40 minutes from Grand Central at the best of times. And then you h…

> You literally CAN'T get to DOWNTOWN Manhattan from any part of Connecticut in under an hour I live in Midtown. This time of year, I can't get downtown in less than an hour :). It's reasonable for a productive person to demand any two of: space, a great location and disposable income. My household of two chooses to enjoy our neck of Manhattan. We make do with like 400 square feet. If we had kids we would need to liv…

Trying not to be uncharitable here, but, if you live in Midtown, then why are you making assertions about Connecticut?

Apparently you know your comment wasn't too truthful which is why you backed off with "I live in Midtown [..even so..] I can't get downtown in less than an hour". So, what exactly was the point of your comment?

Also note: household of 2 is not a household when talking about middle-class income. Why? Well, household of 2 adults is basically the best case scenario financially (both have jobs without additional dependents).

As a anecdote/data point: even making >300+k with both parents working still is a drag in NYC when you have 2 kids, regardless of what BS you hear online.

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

#263

Post by seanp2k2 »

criddell wrote: post #250
1024core wrote: post #151

I live in SF, and am flabbergasted at the number of 1- or 2- floor single-family homes. A city the size of SF (46 sq mi) and population (850K+ and growing) simply can't afford so many SFHs. I was in Barcelona recently (yay NIPS!) and Barcelona is smaller than SF (36 sq mi) and has nearly twice the population! Everywhere you see are 6-floor buildings, with the bottom reserved for shops and people living above them. It…

I have too many hobbies that take space to live in a place like Barcelona. Where do people work on their hobby car or motorcycle? Where do you do woodworking? Where do you keep your boat or paddle board? Do they have gardens? What about an outdoor kitchen for grilling and smoking? Do their kids have bicycles and scooters and skateboards and baseball gear?

Join a club for the sports stuff. There's a few nice sailing clubs in the Bay Area where they keep the boats and the gear there (some have lockers). There are motorcycle garages and storage units for race vehicles, parks, vacation homes, and get-togethers with opportunities to cook outside. Skateboards fit in closets. For wood/metalworking, there's stuff like TechShop.

It's not practical to live in a city and have a pole barn with a station for each different hobby, but you can still do a lot and make it work. Sometimes it ends up being pretty expensive, e.g. Keeping an extra car in the city could be ~$300/mo in the case of SF, but car storage around say Laguna Seca can be quite a bit cheaper.

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

#264

Post by JumpCrisscross »

closeparen wrote: post #255
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manhattan contained 854,000 housing units in 2014 [1] and 1.6 million residents between 2010 [2] and 2013 [3]. The average Manhattan unit has 1.2 to 1.3 bedrooms [4]. (For Core Manhattan, that average falls to 1.0 to 1.2.) So 1 to 1.1 million bedrooms. If you mandated one bedroom per person you'd have to expel 31 to 38% of the population or increase the number of bedrooms by 45 to 60%. Manhattan's 33.6 square miles […

43% of the New York metro area is married, presumably many more are cohabiting. So, if we relax that constraint to "don't have to share a bedroom except with a romantic partner" then we are potentially already there. Of course, the proportion of married couples could be much lower in Manhattan, and it's not necessarily the same 43%, but you get the idea. More to the point I'm very interested what tradeoffs you think…

> if we relax that constraint to "don't have to share a bedroom except with a romantic partner" then we are potentially already there

50% of the Manhattan population lives alone, the same as the fraction that has never married [1]. So yes, what you outlined is approximately what's going on. (Just 12% of New Yorkers in rent-regulated apartments had more than 1 person per room; 4.4% more than 1.5 [2].)

The status quo isn't crowded per se. It's just crowded relative to suburbia. The point of my illustration was that small tweaks to density, e.g. one instead of one and a half bedrooms per person, quickly spiral at the scales and within the constraints of a city.

[1] http://nypost.com/2010/01/05/all-the-single-people-in-manhat...

[2] https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/hpd/downloads/pdf/2014-HVS-initi... Table 19

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

#265

Post by seanp2k2 »

ohwello wrote: post #173
cies wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why can't SF be more like BCN? 1. Earthquakes. 2. City planning policies over the years (or lack thereof).

We know how to safe six-story buildings in SF are a solved prblem, and developers have no problem following building codes when zoning allows them to build 6 stories.

The problem is that most of the inhabitable stuff in SF is being rented out at >$2500 per studio in those old Victorian homes, and it's not exactly easy to just evict everyone for a few years to build higher density housing. A lot of stuff is also under rent control, and since no new buildings are under RC (and all the new construction I've seen is explicitly luxury), tearing old things down to build means tearing down "affordable" (relatively) housing to build luxury junk.

It'd sure be nice to be able to clear a few blocks at a time and start over with fresh buildings, but it's more a matter of changing wheels on a bus while it's full of people driving down the street.

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

#266

Post by throwit542 »

smileysteve wrote: post #254
schoolsman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there are tons of available houses in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx that are plenty affordable. The other day I saw a house for sale in a decent part of Queens for $240k - definitely affordable for middle class. Do you have kids? Because this glib reaction signals that you don't, or you'd be aware that the areas you are touting as affordable have terrible public schools. That's why they're relatively cheap. T…

> terrible public schools Sooner or later, society will have to realize that white/middle class flight is a direct cause of terrible public schools; and that by reversing the trend these schools will become less terrible.

White/middle class kids aren't magic pixie dust that you can just sprinkle on schools to make them better.

https://spottedtoad.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/middle-class-ki...

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

#268

Post by mhneu »

graeme wrote: post #168
1024core wrote: post #151

I live in SF, and am flabbergasted at the number of 1- or 2- floor single-family homes. A city the size of SF (46 sq mi) and population (850K+ and growing) simply can't afford so many SFHs. I was in Barcelona recently (yay NIPS!) and Barcelona is smaller than SF (36 sq mi) and has nearly twice the population! Everywhere you see are 6-floor buildings, with the bottom reserved for shops and people living above them. It…

Oddly enough, SF is among the best cities in America for density. I wish more of America were like Barcelona, including SF. Regulations tend to prohibit dense walkable construction though. I don't mean NIMBY protests per se. Existing city regulations tend to require more parking spaces and setbacks than old cities provided. Not to mention prohibitions on having shops and housing in the same zones that most modern cit…

Ugh. Zoning rules on minimum setback are so frustrating. Setback beyond a wide sidewalk just decreases density for no greater societal benefit.

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

#269

Post by seanp2k2 »

yardie wrote: post #185
schoolsman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there are tons of available houses in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx that are plenty affordable. The other day I saw a house for sale in a decent part of Queens for $240k - definitely affordable for middle class. Do you have kids? Because this glib reaction signals that you don't, or you'd be aware that the areas you are touting as affordable have terrible public schools. That's why they're relatively cheap. T…

I think I know this area you are talking of. And if there is a house there for 240k then it is definitely not a decent neighborhood. There are areas of Queens which are very industrial and you can get a house for cheap, next to a superfund site.

If we bring manufacturing back to America, we can build more factories by cities and create more superfund sites, which will employ even MORE people (assuming the EPA isn't dissolved) AND create more affordable housing!

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

#270

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mildbow wrote: post #262
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You literally CAN'T get to DOWNTOWN Manhattan from any part of Connecticut in under an hour I live in Midtown. This time of year, I can't get downtown in less than an hour :). It's reasonable for a productive person to demand any two of: space, a great location and disposable income. My household of two chooses to enjoy our neck of Manhattan. We make do with like 400 square feet. If we had kids we would need to liv…

Trying not to be uncharitable here, but, if you live in Midtown, then why are you making assertions about Connecticut? Apparently you know your comment wasn't too truthful which is why you backed off with "I live in Midtown [..even so..] I can't get downtown in less than an hour". So, what exactly was the point of your comment? Also note: household of 2 is not a household when talking about middle-class income. Why?…

> if you live in Midtown, then why are you making assertions about Connecticut?

I've lived in Stamford. I would not want to live there again. Between ample space, proximity and disposable cash, I chose the latter two. If I wanted more space, Connecticut offers a fair deal for saving money or being close to the train station.

> you know your comment wasn't too truthful

Not sure why you went straight for the deep end. It's the holidays. I'm budgeting 45 minutes to the Upper West Side. The smiley implied facetiousness.

It's 50 minutes from Grand Central to Stamford [1]. That's comparable to the average American's 25-minute commute [2]. My core and recurring point is simply that cities are defined by density. If you want lots of space, you're fighting the current.

[1] http://as0.mta.info/mnr/schedules/sched_form.cfm

[2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/05/america...

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