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

#271

Post by forrestthewoods » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:17 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #243

forrestthewoods wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the city needs to do is literally nothing. Just stand back and stay out of the way. Sadly this is one of the hardest things for a bureaucracy to do.

Because schooling and public transit and such will just happen automagically?

Public transportation is a 20th century solution. If cities do nothing autonomous vehicles will revolutionize transportation wants within 20 years. Which is as fast or faster than major public transportation projects would take.

Additional housing will result in a larger tax base which will automatically cover additional schooling needs.

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

#272

Post by mildbow » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:18 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #270

mildbow wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

tbh, I went for the "deep end" because your formula that one needs to "choose 2" as a fact of life is weird to me.

Your point of "choose 2" isn't anything more than a compromise you've made. That is, not something that is "correct" but a compromise you've settled on. I'm happy for you to settle on that as a baseline for your life, but it irks me to hear you spout it as a "truth".

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

#273

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:33 PM UTC

mildbow wrote: post #272

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

tbh, I went for the "deep end" because your formula that one needs to "choose 2" as a fact of life is weird to me. Your point of "choose 2" isn't anything more than a compromise you've made. That is, not something that is "correct" but a compromise you've settled on. I'm happy for you to settle on that as a baseline for your life, but it irks me to hear you spout it as a "truth".

> your formula...as a fact of life is weird to me

Cities are defined by density. What makes them valuable is density. Density is people per unit of space. You can do some things going vertically, but there are costs and limits associated with that, both practical and political.

Lots of people in high density means low average space per person. If you want more space it will be expensive and eat into your cash. If you want to keep that cash, you don't have options in a high-density city.

Yes, you can have all three with lots of cash. But you can't have a city with most having lots of space, because that means they live in low density and are no longer in a city.

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

#274

Post by Clubber » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:45 PM UTC

uiri wrote: post #201

Clubber wrote: post #5

Strange, I'm middle class and I live in a city. There are other cities than NYC, SF, LA and Boston.

It all depends on what exactly you mean by the word "city". A lot of the US population is in rural areas or small towns. Their idea of a city is definitely going to be very different from the idea of someone who grew up in NYC, Chicago or San Francisco. Even within those metropolitan areas, ideas may differ between those from the suburbs and those from the city proper. Personally, I think that a metro/subway system i…

Narrowing the definition of "cities" certainly helps the title be closer to accurate.

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

#275

Post by tptacek » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:46 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #251

colordrops wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in L.A. and as far as I'm concerned, yes they (we) are being priced out. You can live an hour away from your job or in a dangerous neighborhood, but that doesn't really mean the city is affordable.

Won't those "dangerous" neighborhoods likely gentrify as priced out middle class people move to them?

... that's definitely what happens in Chicago...

What's Bayview like in San Francisco these days?

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

#276

Post by vanderreeah » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:49 PM UTC

vectorjohn wrote: post #159

paulddraper wrote: post #85

Huge cities...good riddance. I live nearish to Salt Lake City (whose metro pop. is less than a quarter of Boston's), have tons of software job opportunities, have a 17-20 min commute, and bought a 2k sqft house on 0.19 acres for less than 200k. Big cities are crowded. They have their advantages, but even if they weren't overpriced, I'd probably still prefer my elbow room.

Well good for you, but you don't speak for everyone.

Isn't that implicit in every comment in an online forum?

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

#277

Post by creepydata » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:49 PM UTC

schoolsman wrote: post #25

cddotdotslash wrote: post #17

This article fails to mention that the middle class can't afford to live in the "nicest parts" of cities, but many cities have other areas as well. Take NYC for example. Sure, if you want to live in the Chelsea or West Village neighborhoods in Manhattan, it's going to cost you. 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…

> 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 went to terrible public schools in a very poor neighborhood yet I came out just fine. I really think people put much too much emphasis on "good schools" as if they are magic, I think home environment matters much much more.

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

#278

Post by msabalau » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:52 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #183

unclebucknasty wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The one and only fix is more houses Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The heart of the problem in many parts of the country is that we fund our schools with property taxes. Hence, a cycle of better schools and increased demand in concentrated areas, which causes the supply-demand imbalance and price increases. Compounding this is the fact that people in such areas actively block "higher density" housing, which n…

I'm not sure I understand your comment. Public schools in dense cities tend to be almost universally bad--in spite of often being funded at significantly higher per-student levels than even relatively tony suburbs that have high-performing schools. If you look at Massachusetts public high schools for example, the one public high school in Cambridge (where housing has gotten very expensive) has some of the highest per…

Unlike the suburbs you valorize, Cambridge hasn't shut out the poor, makes large investments in public housing. 45% of Cambridge students take free or subsided lunches. What the MCAS results actually show is when we take kids of out wealth segregated neighborhood elementary and middle schools, and put them into a single, unified high school, test score rise dramatically.

If Concord schools had to take any number of first generation impoverished immigrants with poor English language skills, their test scores would implode. That doesn't happen, because working class immigrants don't buy the $800K homes in Concord.

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

#279

Post by forrestthewoods » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:57 PM UTC

mtbcoder wrote: post #244

forrestthewoods wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco is not nearly dense enough. It can support a lot more housing. Easily. It's just NIMBYs and cronies in the way. Despite having significant growth opportunity San Fran is already twice as dense as Seattle. Therefore Seattle has room for explosive housing growth. It would need more changes than just housing of course. But that's to be expected and totally doable. Cities are huge economic multipliers. We d…

More desirable areas means more areas for developers to build housing. Cities cannot do more with a citizenry that is unable to keep the local economy and government institutions afloat. These cities are in a horrendous feedback loop that is seeing their economies and tax bases decimated. It all begins and ends with income inequality.

> that is seeing their economies and tax bases decimated

Wat? That is literally the opposite of reality.

The problem is cities are TOO POPULAR. Cities so successful that only the rich can afford to live in them! Increased property values, more property tax revenue, higher resident earnings and spendings. Cities aren't being decimated. Cities are so economically successful that poor people are being forced out so more rich people can move in!

The article, titled "The Middle Class Can't Afford to Live in Cities Anymore" is about people earning $50,000 to $125,000 who can't afford housing in cities. It's not about rural or rust belt communities with no jobs. Housing is plenty cheap in those areas. They just lack the jobs to go with it. A very real but very different problem.

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

#280

Post by nommm-nommm » Sun, Jan 01, 2017, 12:06 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33

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 There are affordable parts of Long Island and Connecticut with great public public schools less than an hour from Manhattan by train. We've grown accustomed to overporting our post-war suburban archetype of what a "middle class" family "deserves," i.e. lots of bedrooms, garages and lawn space, while diminishing previously (and still!) common practices like having roommates when young, not ow…

What are the affordable parts of Long Island or Connecticut that are affordable and close to Manhattan? The parts of Connecticut that are suburbs close to NYC are known for being where the rich people live. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Coast_(Connecticut)