Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 592 posts

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#61

Post by [deleted] »

_2d30 wrote: post #8
iJohnDoe wrote: post #4

Great, you can work from. So you take your California money to middle of nowhere and buy a home for cheap. Renovate it and now it’s awesome. However, that local, who isn’t making California money, that is working a local job and making local money and is hoping to move up in housing for their family is priced out because housing pricing has doubled or even tripled. People that wanted to retire to rural or remote area…

> However, that local, who isn’t making California money, that is working a local job and making local money and is hoping to move up in housing for their family is priced out because housing pricing has doubled or even tripled. Wouldn't be remotely a problem if they just built housing to meet the demand. Go take a look at property values in Bozeman and then look at the empty land all around it. There's plenty of roo…

[deleted]

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#63

Post by gkop »

diamondhandle wrote: post #22
iJohnDoe wrote: post #4

Great, you can work from. So you take your California money to middle of nowhere and buy a home for cheap. Renovate it and now it’s awesome. However, that local, who isn’t making California money, that is working a local job and making local money and is hoping to move up in housing for their family is priced out because housing pricing has doubled or even tripled. People that wanted to retire to rural or remote area…

America isn’t even 250 years old. That’s, what, five generations? Do remember that most American “settlement” of these areas was specifically designed to drive out the real locals, whose basic planning took on a seven-generation timescale. With a lot of problems of this nature, especially social issues, the key is to “zoom out” to get a clearer, more sane picture of what’s going on. Humans were made to migrate, and t…

A generation is "generally considered to be about 20–30 years"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#64

Post by pyinstallwoes »

nyokodo wrote: post #59
pyinstallwoes wrote: post #51

I actually really want to move to a mountain area that is secluded and has nature with snow. The problem is, it's very hard to figure out where to go when all you've lived is in a city or one state. I've researched a lot of properties on zillow but I have no idea how to investigate the proper area. Maybe someone can give me a tip. I like snow, and I like people, I just want enough space to experiment with my own land…

> I just want enough space to experiment with my own land and not have to deal with neighbors or HOA crap. What kinds of experiments? Depending on that answer you may want to investigate States, Counties, and Cities by their regulatory regimes vis a vis what you want to do. Make a short list of likely places and go visit them. Get a feel for these places. Does the altitude suit you? Humidity or lack thereof cause you…

Those are amazing questions to consider. Thank you!

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#65

Post by PostThisTooFast »

tylerjl wrote: post #57

For those outside of these bubbles, it’s almost unbelievable how much the housing market has completely exploded the last two years. My family is squarely in this situation - bought our home a few years ago in an extremely fast - growing area, and watched prices climb to levels that we didn’t believe at first. Imagine purchasing a home in 2019 for $500k and selling it today for $1.2M. That’s the reality in some of th…

The bubble is back. Look at the housing market and the valuations of do-nothing bullshit companies.

People don't learn.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#66

Post by renewiltord »

iJohnDoe wrote: post #4

Great, you can work from. So you take your California money to middle of nowhere and buy a home for cheap. Renovate it and now it’s awesome. However, that local, who isn’t making California money, that is working a local job and making local money and is hoping to move up in housing for their family is priced out because housing pricing has doubled or even tripled. People that wanted to retire to rural or remote area…

It's always some rich fellow from these towns or some crunchy dude from the coastal towns who has this opinion.

Dude, there are a plethora of non-descript towns in America. My friend got married in one. They don't have cell reception. They talk on walkie talkies.

If you take the California money for your house, you can just retire there by buying and building enough homes for you and your friends.

This is always some imaginary pipe dream from the coastal elites. Life in the middle isn't idyllic. You guys always put up some imaginary plinth and then build this massive statue representing The Country Life So Beautiful and put a plaque on it and worship it like it was handed down by Moses.

But seriously. Life suuuuuucks there. These people will make it better.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#67

Post by sneak »

nelsonmandela wrote: post #40

Is that house in the first image made of plywood?

Yes. That's called sheeting, and it's a type of thin plywood that's used over the (solid wood) framing of the house to support the housewrap (which functions as a vapor barrier) and whatever type of exterior siding goes on it.

Between the framing studs would be insulation, and on the inside of that goes drywall.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#68

Post by DogOnTheWeb »

hoka-one-one wrote: post #42
eysquared wrote: post #24

There seems to be a lot of negativity in the comments so far. Is this not the dream that is often touted on hacker news? Work at a FAANG and "retire" somewhere more affordable? I'm personally doing just this. I was lucky enough to land a good job out of college, buy a house in a desired area, and see it appreciate in the last 10 years. This increase plus the birth of my kids left me wondering if there wasn't a better…

Your kids all else equal will be outsprinted by kids who live in more competitive cities. You can decide you don't care about any of that, but understand that type of that decision will ripple through to future generations, e.g. your grandkids will be less educated. The irony is that most educated people living in small towns want to get out, and a generation or two after they do they want to go back. Will the cycle…

There are pros and cons to growing up in a smaller metro. While having access to top tier culture and internships are great, there’s also a grueling competition to stand out.

In SV, the pressure on kids and parents seems extreme even at the median. While there are less opportunities and resources overall in a small metro, it’s all available to an ambitious child.

In the end, at least some small town kids are out-sprinting the “competitive city” kids and taking their loot back home. Otherwise we wouldn’t have all these articles about it.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#69

Post by arminiusreturns »

pyinstallwoes wrote: post #51

I actually really want to move to a mountain area that is secluded and has nature with snow. The problem is, it's very hard to figure out where to go when all you've lived is in a city or one state. I've researched a lot of properties on zillow but I have no idea how to investigate the proper area. Maybe someone can give me a tip. I like snow, and I like people, I just want enough space to experiment with my own land…

The HOA part really is the hard part, and even beyond that, the local zoning regulations can be arbitrarily infuriating, especially in certain states, and the ones with larger swaths without HOA and crazy regs have many negatives making it very hard to find what you speak of. I've been looking for years.

I think a good bet is to find an heirloom house and property and bid on it.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#70

Post by bobthepanda »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #25
koboll wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2. This is how gentrification works. Many of these folks are coming because they’ve been priced out of wherever they’re coming from. Yep. If you want to blame someone, blame local governments in California and their chronic refusal to build adequate housing, citing dubious progressive buzzwords to push policies whose outcomes always curiously seem to further enrich property owners and screw over everyone else.

This isn’t really the root of the problem through. The government can’t get more housing through because the voters don’t want it, the voters don’t want it because the traffic is already bad enough and there is nowhere to build more roads, and they don’t consider taking the bus or funding more public transit. And even if you climb that hump you become New York City or Shanghai, both of which are plenty dense with pub…

Californians did themselves no favors by shooting themselves in the foot with Prop 13. Normally localities would fund more services for growing populations by reaping the benefits of higher assessments.
Post reply on HN