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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

#91

Post by MomoXenosaga »

codingdave wrote: post #84
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.

> Supporting a large, rural population is less efficient than urbs or even suburbs. Whenever I see statement like this, it makes me wonder if you know where your food comes from. Because for the most part, the rural populations are supporting the cities. If the supply chains in this country were to fail, it is not the rural communities who would be scrounging for food and water. We'd be just fine.

Farmland owned by city banks. Can we just stop with this BS? Human civilization is the tale of cities- has been for 5000 years.

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

#92

Post by ralfd »

stouset wrote: post #29
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…

I used to believe this “wealthy Californians fleeing” narrative and… I’m just not sure I buy it any more. 135,000 more people left California than moved in last year. Even if they overwhelmingly moved to only ten other states, that’s just 13,500 extra ex-Californians in each one of those unlucky states. And not all of them are going to be wealthy, surely some non-negligible portion will be less well off. Maybe they’l…

> 135,000 more people left California than moved in last year.

If two rich Californians move out of the state and one poor starry-eyed college graduate moves in, the view that only one net-person moved out is too simplified.

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

#93

Post by extraAccount »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #89
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…

Grew up in a village. It's nice if you are a 10 year old boy. When you're a grown man you want to be surrounded by degenerates and atheists.

A lot of people grow up in an Urban environment, I don't really see any disadvantage to it. We get to meet a lot of people and there is always stuff to do. During COVID I am seeing a lot of talk about moving into the countryside with their children, as if their children are sheep which need a lot of open spaces in which to graze. But the will probably get bored and miss their friends, and probably force them to pack up and move back.

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

#94

Post by dnndev »

With and without kids makes a huge difference. Without kids and if your an introvert- it’s a no brained. Buy you that 15 acre ranch (just for looks, we know your a programmer)

If you have kids stay close to a larger city. Your kids will have more opportunity.

For anyone else looking. We took a two month road trip during the worst time of year (climate wise) and took a road trip to see where liked it best. We chose North Carolina and love it.

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

#95

Post by arethuza »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #89
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…

Grew up in a village. It's nice if you are a 10 year old boy. When you're a grown man you want to be surrounded by degenerates and atheists.

I grew up in a very pretty village in Scotland - from 0 to 11 or so it was awesome, from 12 to 14 it was mind numbingly awful, from 15 or so I could travel to the nearest town more easily and meet up with friends there and it went back to being awesome.

[Edit: Having parented teenagers I suspect the awfulness of the 12 to 14 age was probably more about me than anything else!]

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

#96

Post by vkou »

codingdave wrote: post #84
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.

> Supporting a large, rural population is less efficient than urbs or even suburbs. Whenever I see statement like this, it makes me wonder if you know where your food comes from. Because for the most part, the rural populations are supporting the cities. If the supply chains in this country were to fail, it is not the rural communities who would be scrounging for food and water. We'd be just fine.

> Whenever I see statement like this, it makes me wonder if you know where your food comes from.

Mostly from machines and chemical inputs made by people who live in cities, used by people who can barely make ends meet in rural areas.

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

#97

Post by dnndev »

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…

Only way to find out is take a road trip and stay in each place for a week or so. We did this years ago and you know when you found the right place. Of course do your research first and visit the top 5 locations.

What most find is ideally and if you can afford it is two homes. A secluded home and a city home (or beach, etc... whatever you like)

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

#98

Post by ramraj07 »

xenocratus wrote: post #90
codingdave wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Supporting a large, rural population is less efficient than urbs or even suburbs. Whenever I see statement like this, it makes me wonder if you know where your food comes from. Because for the most part, the rural populations are supporting the cities. If the supply chains in this country were to fail, it is not the rural communities who would be scrounging for food and water. We'd be just fine.

But... the comment isn't about where the food comes from or who would suffer from a supply chain collapse, it's about efficiency. I think the point was that cities are efficient because gestures vaguely towards economies of scale . It's easier to distribute goods (or services) to a highly-concentrated mass of people than to multiple disjoint locations.

I’m very confident I had a significantly smaller carbon footprint when I was in New York than compared to my time in Dallas. Even though I lived a much more vibrant life.

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

#100

Post by mcny »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #91
codingdave wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Supporting a large, rural population is less efficient than urbs or even suburbs. Whenever I see statement like this, it makes me wonder if you know where your food comes from. Because for the most part, the rural populations are supporting the cities. If the supply chains in this country were to fail, it is not the rural communities who would be scrounging for food and water. We'd be just fine.

Farmland owned by city banks. Can we just stop with this BS? Human civilization is the tale of cities- has been for 5000 years.

The tragedy of New York, in my opinion. Upstate has such an outsize political influence compared to New York and surrounding areas. It makes no sense. What's sad is we have bought into the romanticism of the rural. We don't even challenge our lack of political power.

Upstate exists because New York exists. New York doesn't need the people upstate to survive. "Oh yeah but upstate is the source of drinking water for New York," someone told me proudly. As if the humans upstate had any contribution to the water cycle. If anything, the people upstate are polluting New York's water supply.

To add insult to injury, all these upstate politicians get to decide how much of the taxes collected in New York and surrounding areas are spent in New York and surrounding areas. Everything from CUNY to the MTA.

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