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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

#261

Post by dcolkitt »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #205
dcolkitt wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shared family environment (which by definition includes where your parents choose to live) has near zero impact on long term adult outcomes. This has been confirmed again and again by countless twin studies.

And yet, we know anecdotally that certain places produce far more than their share of "talented" people, so I don't think those twin studies are complete or conclusive.

That's just the genetic heritability of intelligence and other personality factors. High IQ, high achieving people are disproportionately attracted to certain job markets. Those people tend to have high IQ kids. Those high IQ kids tend to grow up and become high achieving adults. The outcomes would largely be the same whether those same kids grew up in Palo Alto or Peoria. Don't confuse correlation for causation.

Similarly, I'd be virtually certain that children who grew up with a Tesla as their family car are much more likely to attend elite universities. That doesn't mean that Elon Musk has solved the problem of getting your kids into Harvard. It's just that Teslas are expensive, and therefore rich, high-achieving families are more likely to own them.

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

#262

Post by anthomtb »

airhead969 wrote: post #179

I went through many of them moving from Chico CA area in a grand US west/southwest roadtrip moving to Austin TX to escape climate change fires/power outages (ironically), increasing taxes and housing prices, and a decline in general happiness. I didn't see any obvious signs of this. I can recommend not moving anywhere near Greely CO where cattle are slaughtered by the thousands. It smells very bad. Also, driving in W…

If you live in Boulder or the Northern suburbs of Denver you will STILL get the smell of Greeley on days when the wind blows strongly out of the North. It’s a harbinger of snow.

Doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone from moving here though.

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

#263

Post by Loughla »

giantg2 wrote: post #239
Loughla wrote: post #206

Earlier 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…

It sounds like your area had a major influx. I think it's partially a group-think issue. Once you get a few bloggers/influencers in your area, then it seems more follow because your area is now "on the map". Yet, they could spread out and choose to move to other areas, but I think al ot of it is just that they don't know of, or as much about, those other places. I know of places where houses sit empty or are even dem…

But that's the thing. The individual property gets fixed. New houses get built. But the community doesn't benefit. The 'new' folks do not integrate into the area. They don't shop local. They don't send their kids to the local schools (and in many cases use their money to legally fight with the district about funding because their kids go to private school). They don't really 'live' out here. They just happen to stay here.

>It sounds like your area had a major influx.

And that was my point - the OP I was responding to said that s/he would welcome tech refugees. I was trying to point out that it's genuinely not all roses and gold. There are specific problems with that influx of people and money.

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

#264

Post by giantg2 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #244
Loughla wrote: post #206

Earlier 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…

> 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…

Some of it is also local costs of living and remote work. Look at the recurring talk of SV salaries vs the rest of the country and how companies should value their remote workers. I've seen people on here claim that $200k-250k isn't enough to raise a family on, yet it's multiples of my salary. People come to expect that high salary even when they move to lower cost areas for remote work. Even if they take a 50% pay cut (almost unheard of) they are still in the top 10% of earners in many rural places. Just. a couple people like that won't move the dial much. But if you have an influx of people to a specific area, then I can certainly see that driving up the cost of living in that area regardless of the typical monetary or fiscal policies of the government.

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

#265

Post by [deleted] »

calvano915 wrote: post #199
bumby wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sentiment is about how it can create perverse incentives that may be good for a small subset but bad for the population in the aggregate. I think it’s about a host of different systemic issues beyond just where one person decides to live. I.e., income inequality, housing policy, class disparities etc. It just manifests itself in the problems raised in the article. Edit: The Indicator recently had an inter…

And destroys many aspects that made moving appealing in the first place.

[deleted]

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

#266

Post by davidw »

vailprogrammer wrote: post #172
throwaway6734 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locals wouldn't get screwed if they advocated for better zoning policy and allowed more housing to be built. This doesn't happen because those same locals that are homeowners love the value of their house exploding upwards

I agree with this sentiment in cities, however, I believe that this approach in the mountains would result in skyscrapers being built in areas of natural beauty, and be harmful to all of the wildlife that live there. The Eagle (Vail) Valley is relatively small to begin with.

No, it might look something like Innsbruck, Austria, which is a beautiful city.

It may come as a shock to Americans raised in suburbia, but there are housing types between single family units and skyscrapers that are very human-scale and attractive. Look at pretty much any mountain town in Europe.

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

#267

Post by whalesalad »

calvano915 wrote: post #222
whalesalad wrote: post #99

Some of those states are on a crusade to ensure cannabis and other drugs are never legalized. That’s gonna be a no from me dog. Colorado being the exception of course, but Idaho and Wyoming come to mind.

The Treasure Valley is awful close to OR which has plentiful options. WY proximity to CO mostly the same. Most probably are not swayed either way on this issue when moving to these states but when all the neighbors are offering options and are disadvantageous to live in, people will make ID or WY work to get the best of both. See living/working in WA and shopping in OR for tax advantages as a similar analogy.

I am thinking from the cultivation aspect. I love that here in Michigan I can grow my own cannabis 100% legally. I also love that we are starting to decriminalize active/psych mushrooms (Ann Arbor so far) for the same reason (home cultivation).

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

#268

Post by davidw »

Spooky23 wrote: post #149
throwaway6734 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locals wouldn't get screwed if they advocated for better zoning policy and allowed more housing to be built. This doesn't happen because those same locals that are homeowners love the value of their house exploding upwards

Honestly, no. Just because you have a hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail. Complete zoning and policy failure is a uniquely California problem. Nobody has a structural, and likely unconstitutional inequity in taxation that California does. Some rando Bay Area suburb being more expensive than Manhattan is not the same problem.

Zoning in most of the US is pretty much the same. California just got bad before other places did.

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

#269

Post by anthomtb »

vailprogrammer wrote: post #172
throwaway6734 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locals wouldn't get screwed if they advocated for better zoning policy and allowed more housing to be built. This doesn't happen because those same locals that are homeowners love the value of their house exploding upwards

I agree with this sentiment in cities, however, I believe that this approach in the mountains would result in skyscrapers being built in areas of natural beauty, and be harmful to all of the wildlife that live there. The Eagle (Vail) Valley is relatively small to begin with.

Vail, and most Colorado ski resorts, are already full of 10+ story hotels. I’m not sure how building a residential or office tower would be any more impactful.

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

#270

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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