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Let People Move to Jobs

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Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#281

Post by growlist »

esotericn wrote: post #153

The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if you are in any way social. I think that a lot of people banging on about remote work just haven't tried it for an extended period. It works for some, and for those - great. To me, it's just another step down the 'technification' of everything in which people don't speak to the people around them (because they've been 'removed' from their live…

> I don't see how that benefits anyone

Putting London money into a poorer economy that really needs it, rather than back into London, which doesn't?

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#282

Post by AmericanChopper »

rightbyte wrote: post #120
AmericanChopper wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason this happens is because of (perhaps misguided) attempts to resist the changes caused by population growth from local voters. If it was up to the market to decide, what would happen if there was a sudden spike in the demand for housing? Developers would build more housing. Prices might move a bit, but you’re not going to be looking at a crisis. However, entrenched homeowners don’t want that, because it…

Isn't that an example of functional local democracy? Why bother make your town a mess in the name of growth. In SF's case the external pressure just was to huge and they should have given up long time ago keeping it a low built city.

Participation and broader engagement in local elections is typically rather low, so when you have platforms that reinforce the communities problems prevailing in local elections, I’d generally consider that to be a failure.

> Why bother make your town a mess in the name of growth.

Local government elections don’t have any influence over population growth. The forces that influence that are beyond the control of local government (and to a lesser extent, beyond the control of government in general). If the local population increases, the only thing local government can control (in relation to housing) is what choice it makes between preserving character or prices. The typical NIMBY response to dealing with population growth is that it should happen elsewhere, because they like where they live, and don’t want it to change.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#284

Post by NotSammyHagar »

esotericn wrote: post #165
gurkendoktor wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if you are in any way social. Unless you grew up in the area from which you work remotely, in which case you can be more social because connecting with old friends and family is much easier than making new friends at 30+. > If I earned a London salary in my hometown I'd be ostracising myself completely from those around me [...] I don't see ho…

Yeah, and all of those guys are skint and you're not. It works to an extent. Perhaps you don't see the problem because you're theorizing about it rather than having lived experience. As I think most people do. Imagine that essentially everyone you meet in your age group is far poorer than you are. Not most people but everyone. You need some sort of 'app' to find people to speak to who are on your level. Your specific…

> all those guys are skint and you aren't

British slang for poor, has no money, I just learned.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#285

Post by topkai22 »

asaph wrote: post #238
topkai22 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has actually managed to work remotely in a small city while employed by a major tech firm at normal pay rates, I can definitely say your scenario does not match my lived experience. 1) unless you move to a very small town, there are still plenty of people in your economic demographic. In the US, roughly 5% of households earn more than $200k. In a town of 70k, you’d expect there to be roughly 27k househ…

> In the US, roughly 5% of households earn more than $200k. In a town of 70k, you’d expect there to be roughly 27k households and therefore 1300 households earning more than $200k. This assumes uniform distribution of household incomes across cities of different sizes, which I suspect is a shaky assumption. More likely, the high earning households are concentrated in a short list of major population centers.

Not as much as you think. I couldn't quickly find the dataset where I looked at this before, but https://statisticalatlas.com/United-States/Household-Income has percentages of population earning more than $200k by state and MSA. The Birmingham Alabama metro area has 4.03% of its households earning more than $200k, and Alabama a whole has 2.92% of household earning more than $200k (the 5th lowest in the Union, btw). That means Alabama outside its biggest, richest city is still 2.5% over $200k. Sure, those are also probably concentrated in the other 2nd cities in the state like Montgomery and Tuscaloosa, but you are getting really far down the list of US Metro areas by population when you get to Tuscaloosa Alabama.

There are well off people throughout the United State, not only in the top 20 metros.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#286

Post by NotSammyHagar »

esotericn wrote: post #241
topkai22 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has actually managed to work remotely in a small city while employed by a major tech firm at normal pay rates, I can definitely say your scenario does not match my lived experience. 1) unless you move to a very small town, there are still plenty of people in your economic demographic. In the US, roughly 5% of households earn more than $200k. In a town of 70k, you’d expect there to be roughly 27k househ…

> not being able to socialize with the middle class sounds bizarre. These are your words, not mine! If you're working remotely as a software developer then you're pretty much middle class by definition.

I think software devs, even remote probably make at least 100k, but I'm just guessing. That's a lot more than median us income of $46k (1) in 2019. Still not that far above dual income families. However they aren't paying as high a wages in rural areas as others pointed out so rural avg probably lower than big city avg.

1. https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/average-income-in...

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#287

Post by NotSammyHagar »

pasabagi wrote: post #277
esotericn wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about some sort of scorecard but the fact that a lot of these low CoL areas have crushing poverty. If you want to be the one-eyed man amongst the blind, go for it, but not everyone wants that. Socioeconomic groupings exist in the metro areas too. Senior management hanging out with the workers is relatively rare. Because it's just a pain in the arse to guard yourself in every conversation and not seem…

I don't get it. I have lots of money. I've never had any feeling I had to 'guard' myself in any conversation with people from literally any social demographic. I mean, unless you're some kind of oddball, all you're using money for is buying nicer food, more space, and more time. So nobody's going to get upset because you're eating loads of avocados, even if it did come up in conversation.

People hating avocado toast eating wealthy millennials is a real thing.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#288

Post by NotSammyHagar »

cheese4242 wrote: post #202
chiph wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All it would take is the teller at the local bank telling her BFF that you're one of the richest people in the county (which she shouldn't, but she did), and suddenly you're being hit up by every hard-luck case for miles around. You'd be their lottery winner next door. edit Not to mention the target of every drug user and petty criminal.

This is a cartoon-like scenario you have cooked up. You really think random people are going to be contacting you for money because of your mid-rate tech salary? Absolutely hilarious.

Perhaps you never lived in a poor southern town, I saw this happen. I supposed it's universal.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#289

Post by iamleppert »

I hate to say it but the reason I’m in SF and not in Ohio is 100% due to the culture. There’s simply more stuff to do here, more creative people and I feel like I fit in better than Ohio (where I’m from).

I’ve had the opportunity to move back but I won’t, not for any amount of money or prospect of owning a big house or early retirement.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#290

Post by systematical »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #146
systematical wrote: post #57

The article mentions DC and I'd just like vent about how miserable a place this is to live in. I see some people spend 10 hours a week and often more just commuting to work. It's overpriced. And when you look at the state of IT in the federal government you realize why this government fails so badly at non-tech things. I'll be running away from the major cities as fast as possible as soon as possible. Yuck. You actua…

> You actually lose money working in DC, the salaries aren't even worth. People around DC have such low salaries that they are among the richest counties in the country... https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/censu...

I didn't say I had a low salary. As a single guy living by himself, my salary is above or near most of the median HOUSEHOLD incomes listed in that article. However, the cost of living here eats it away. Compare a city like Philly to DC for instance. Last I checked, COL is 27% cheaper in Philly and salaries are only 3% below DC.

Which goes back to my original point: "Yuck. You actually lose money working in DC, the salaries aren't even worth."

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