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Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

economist.com

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

#71

Post by bushbaba »

refurb wrote: post #21
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…

What is your solution? Have internal passports? Government owned housing? Price controls?

Raise interest rates and kill federal backed mortgages except for low income. Limit fed backed loans to 1 per household.

Tax housing income as normal income. Remove 1031b exchange. Remove depreciation of homes. Tax all housing sale gains.

Housing would then be affordable.

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

#72

Post by ejfkcisodk »

davidw wrote: post #37

> but in doing so they may jeopardise the very things people move there for: space, quality of life and proximity to wilderness This makes me roll me eyes a bit. The Economist is generally pretty YIMBY, but this sounds like the "character of the neighborhood" nonsense I hear from local wealthy people who are doing their damndest to pull up the drawbridge behind them. * There is so much space in the American west. * Q…

I don’t want to ask you to reveal your hometown to a stranger but am curious to learn more, especially after spending a year living in the French alps (Isère). Is there a list of quiet mountain towns in Oregon/CA/etc that would include yours?

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

#73

Post by elefanten »

_2d30 wrote: post #49
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like my entire comment was ignored :). You need more than just density to increase the size of a community. My mom and step dad built a house in Helena, which isn’t that far away. Pretty expensive place to live, infrastructure wasn’t great, housing was expensive (this is back in the 90s). The house turned out to be economically non viable for reasons unrelated to demand.

It's like your comment was completely void of any kind of validity and it was easy to immediately look for evidence to the contrary of one of your major points. I'm sure it would be trivial to counter the point around water. Just consider any of the metropolises in the Middle East. In terms of infrastructure, that can be built as well. See literally any other city larger than Bozeman.

Yes. Trivial.

“ It has been estimated that between 1975 and 2000 a total of more than US$100bn has been invested in water supply and sanitation, and that a further US$130bn will be needed between 2002 and 2022, corresponding to US$6.5 billion per year or more than US$200 per capita and year.[2] This level of investment in water per capita is among the highest in the world, higher than in the US, the UK or Germany, due to the high cost of desalination and the need to transport water over long distances. It corresponds to about 1.5% of GDP.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_...

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

#74

Post by solipsism »

ejfkcisodk wrote: post #72
davidw wrote: post #37

> but in doing so they may jeopardise the very things people move there for: space, quality of life and proximity to wilderness This makes me roll me eyes a bit. The Economist is generally pretty YIMBY, but this sounds like the "character of the neighborhood" nonsense I hear from local wealthy people who are doing their damndest to pull up the drawbridge behind them. * There is so much space in the American west. * Q…

I don’t want to ask you to reveal your hometown to a stranger but am curious to learn more, especially after spending a year living in the French alps (Isère). Is there a list of quiet mountain towns in Oregon/CA/etc that would include yours?

Gonna guess... Bend, OR?

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

#75

Post by solipsism »

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…

The irony is that most educated people living in small towns want to get out

Doesn't seem like you know much about small towns. I grew up in one. The educated people are there because they want to be. That's sort of by definition, and follows from the fact that they're educated -- they have been somewhere else (you don't get "educated" in a small town, not in the way you mean), and they chose to go there.

The ones who want to leave are the uneducated ones, who would love to have an opportunity to get "educated" in that sense.

Your kids all else equal will be outsprinted by kids who live in more competitive cities

Not everyone wants to be part of this rat race you're talking about, nor do they want their children to be. Having ended up at FAANG (despite my small town upbringing), I talk with a lot of young people (interns, new hires) who are products of this rat race. By and large my impression is that:

1. They haven't lived much. They haven't done many things. They've been too busy in their competitive classes in competitive schools trying to get into competitive schools.

2. They don't seem very happy. They tend to be high strung. Nervous seeming. Scared of failure.

that decision will ripple through to future generations, e.g. your grandkids will be less educated.

How would you even know this? How do you know parental education status isn't the real factor?

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

#76

Post by watwut »

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…

> Is this not the dream that is often touted on hacker news? Work at a FAANG and "retire" somewhere more affordable?

Practically, probably not. Few people talk about that, most dont.

Most will move for affordable, but wont necessary like abrupt change from FAANG and big city to small city and not much to do. They will need to adjust to different culture, new hobbies, find new friends, everything.

And that is not even speaking about those whose partners dont want to move, whose partners have jobs, friends and social networks they like/need. And that is not even speaking about the "what with kids does this makes sense to them" topic.

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

#77

Post by austhrow743 »

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…

You know their kids can just move to a big city again right?

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

#78

Post by _delibash_ »

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 comment is indicative that you don't understand how healthy democratic societies should work. What you're describing is a third world paradigm. Where you're "lucky enough" to be born into a "good" family or go to a "good" college or live in a "desirable" neighborhood and on and on and on.

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

#79

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

Are we still ignoring the ecological collapse that is caused by urban sprawl? We *must* increase the density of our cities.

If you believe that the climate crisis is a problem and a big one, then you could be for a rude awakening as most experts now consider the collapse in biodiversity to have far bigger impacts on human lives and living conditions than climate change[0].

The only reason why there are fewer headlines about that on on climate change is that the IPBES was founded decades after the IPCC.

I'm afraid that many will finally take a few steps to reduce their carbon footprint and use this to justify expanding their footprint on ecosystems ("clean" but larger houses, "organic" but wider lawn areas, "clean" but more frequent transportation that break natural habitats, etc).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Assessment_Report_on_Bi...

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

#80

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

01100011 wrote: post #30

I envy the folks who are able to do this. If I had the means, I'd probably have already fled back to the country. I can't help but think that it is unsustainable though. Supporting a large, rural population is less efficient than urbs or even suburbs. Global warming, increasing global competition... I can't help but think the people fleeing the cities will be forced back by incentives and economics in a decade.

I really hope the switch to electric transportation and to biking (whenever/wherever possible) will make big cities better to live. And that remote work in suburbs will incentive communities to re-create many smaller and more human-like down-towns.
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