More urban sprawl and Starbucks for those who lack culture.
Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
241–250 of 592 posts
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, du…
I mean, yeah clearly? Your own source for what is nearly the worst case in the world is ongoing investment of “US$200 per capita and year”. Look at how much the home values have increased! Do you really think that’s not trivially extractable from property taxes?? That’s IF it’s as bad as building megacities in the middle of literal deserts which obviously a place like Bozeman is NOT. You’re throwing your hands up exa…
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Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're seeing negativity because it's getting harder and harder to deny that this "dream" involves the locals getting screwed when tech monopoly money turns their local economy upside down. Sure the guy who had the foresight to start a brewery wins but everyone else loses. You know what the end game of this looks like? It looks like Vail CO, Cape Cod MA, coastal Long Island and CT, the Hamptons, wealthy retirement ar…
> Cape Cod MA I used to vacation there. As one of those clueless people who can't buy marijuana in a legal state, I am equally clueless on the signs of terrible addiction if I drove through Cape Cod, MA today. I'm not sure what makes me more sad -- the existence, or my incapability to notice the existence.
cant upvote this true and tragic comment due to sadness
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same with rural communities here in the Midwest. We would love to have FAANG refugees move here.
YMMV on this one. In my part of the midwest, home and land prices have almost doubled in the last year, and went up about 6x since we built our house (about 8 years ago). Two reasons: (What used to be called) Yuppies moving out here and working remotely to 'get more in touch with nature' (read: start a blog or something about sustainable living that is really only possible if one of you has a 100k+ salary) and invest…
> I'm over the whole thing. In an area where the median family income is around 55k/year, anyone that makes double that as a single individual can live like a king. Consequence: none of us that live here can afford the increase in taxes, home values, or property values anymore.
This is a consequence of growing income/wealth gap, and governments having bet the farm on economic growth that is not materializing (partly assuming growth in population which is no longer there). Government has to keep devaluing dollar to keep making debt payments, and this devaluation exacerbated the income/wealth gap. The only winning move is to be pulling in more money and plowing it back into asset inflation.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#245I recently returned from a mid-sized town in the Mountain West, and I can confirm that the headline is true.
It's a particular kind of boom. A lot of out-of-state money and migrants have poured in to buy houses in places with fewer COVID restrictions and lower prices.
That is fundamentally changing the character and politics of those cities.
People are buying houses after nothing more than a Zoom tour. The car dealerships have run out of four-wheel drives (even though the winter was dry). Traffic is up.
A couple of those states have turned more blue, and a couple have turned more red. It might all be a symptom of the Big Sort.
Construction materials have increased in price by several times, and building improbably continues, especially in places like Bozeman (mentioned in the piece).
In some Mountain states, a lot of people never took masks seriously. You could say that people are moving down the COVID policy gradient.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#246As someone who lived in a small city in the American Mountain West, the boom does have consequences. Sleepy farming towns are becoming endless suburbia, hiking up prices as developers spill over from the Lehi 'Silicon Slopes' area. Midway, for instance, a town on the Wasatch back situated in a location that feels similar to Switzerland, has gone from about 150 diaries to 2, as expanding housing developments buy out t…
My family's farms were replaced by starter castles. I sort of understand the economic and social forces. It still makes me incredibly sad. (I can't even drive past my family's former lands.) Sprawl is evil. Big Ag is evil.
More recently, some local farmers worked with local government and businesses to figure how to conserve farm land. New laws and capital. Pairing immigrant farmers with land. (Here's the first hit from a quick search, not authorative, just to get the gist. https://crosscut.com/focus/2020/02/how-immigrant-farmer-kent...)
These efforts to conserve -- farms, wet lands, open spaces -- make me so proud.
At the same time, I'm pro development. Done smart. Such a huge opportunity.
I'm completely on board with Matt Yglessia's One Billion Americans (1B4USA) thesis. For so many reasons. Mostly as a way to reinvest and revitalize the entirety of our country. Back to Main Street. Back to family farms. Back to localized economies.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bubble is back. Look at the housing market and the valuations of do-nothing bullshit companies. People don't learn.
In my experience everyone knows it is all a bubble. Nobody knows what to do about it, though. So they just continue living.
Especially with the fear of inflation, you are 100% correct. I think this bubble has been created by interests being too low for too long. Keeping your money in the bank is barely better than putting it under the matters. So where does it go? Stock market, real estate and crypto. What else could anyone do? It seems like more and more people are becoming angel investors too, but that's not any better and certainly not an option for most people
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#248There 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…
> I understand this is not for everyone and I understand the negative perception of 'outsiders' pushing the price up for locals, but at the end of the day I'm optimizing for my own quality of life. I'm sorry, is that supposed to be an excuse? I mean, on the whole, some displacement of locals isn't that big a tragedy, but "it was good for me, so fuck you" isn't exactly the best moral reasoning I've ever heard.
For decades people from all over the country, many of these small towns moved to places like NY, Chicago, SF etc. and the respective suburbs in search for better jobs, opportunity etc. It didn't seem like it was a big concern then to anyone that the locals in these cities could be negatively affected by higher rents, home prices etc. Why is it different when the reverse happens?
If its ok for a young person to leave their hometown, move to a city and call it home to make a better life without thinking about the locals, then it must be ok for a person with a small family living in a city to move to a smaller town and call it home to make a better life for his/her family.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a lot of people assume you're either 200 miles from the nearest Walmart or you're in downtown Manhattan/a dense close-in suburb. Go 1-2 hours from pretty much every large city and you can be in pretty rural areas--although not necessarily a mountain town of course. I do like going into cities now and then but I really don't need or particularly want one on a day-to-day basis.
> people assume you're either 200 miles from the nearest Walmart or you're in downtown Manhattan/a dense close-in suburb. Go 1-2 hours from pretty much every large city and you can be in pretty rural areas This must be why "ban cars!" is so prominent on HN. Apparently people here have a hard time imagining a location where they can provide quality-of-life improving utility.
Quality of Life is in the eye of the beholder. A fair number of people do prefer cities.
But to my own example. I live an hour drive out from a major city so, in normal times, within fairly easy range of going in for a night of theater or whatever. But between myself and a couple of neighbors where I live, while not really rural, we're on about 100 acres between us.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
YMMV on this one. In my part of the midwest, home and land prices have almost doubled in the last year, and went up about 6x since we built our house (about 8 years ago). Two reasons: (What used to be called) Yuppies moving out here and working remotely to 'get more in touch with nature' (read: start a blog or something about sustainable living that is really only possible if one of you has a 100k+ salary) and invest…
This is the pure definition of NIMBYism. You built a house there eight years ago that has increased 6x in value. Now others are trying to do the same thing and you demonize them for it. You should be complaining about state policy, not the people seeking a better life for themselves.
>You built a house there eight years ago
Sorry, I should've been more clear. I grew up here as well. I've lived here for my entire life (outside of the 6 years I was at college/grad school, and even then I was back to work on the farm on the weekends). It's not NIMBY. I don't care who lives here. That's actually what I like the most about rural living - for the most part if you leave people alone, they'll leave you alone. What I do care about is that the people I grew up with literally cannot afford their taxes anymore. Their kids can't stay here because they can't afford to buy a house. The community is dying.
My point about my home price is that, that increase in value/cost is not realistic. It's neither realistic in actual value or in attainability should I choose to sell it. Very few locals can afford housing around us now, and they're leaving. That's actually led to an increase in young people leaving the area. New young people move in, but for every one of them, it seems like three of us have to move somewhere else!
>You should be complaining about state policy
What possible state policy could there be to help in this situation?
>not the people seeking a better life for themselves.
That's the thing. They're not (I guess by my definition). They're either using the property solely as an investment with zero intent to ever live on/use the land, or as a pad for their homestead/van life/other nature centered blog and influencing scheme. I wouldn't have a problem if these folks tried at all to integrate into the community. But they do not. For the investors - they don't even know what the property is or where it is. They just know they can pay cheap labor to put up extremely tall fences and security systems (for what reason I don't understand). The Yuppies mostly live here Monday through Thursday, to take nice shots of themselves 'working on the farm' and then spend all weekend in the closest urban area. They do not shop in our local shops. They do not work with our local businesses. They're like tourists in their own lives. It's weird to me.