As I read all the comments on this page, I notice a recurring theme. All the problems pointed out and all the complaints are all symptoms of over population. Simply put, we have too many people and not enough viable places for them to live.
Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
421–430 of 592 posts
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wh…
You and I share some similar observations but come away with very different interpretations.
"The educated people are there because they want to be" the parents, sure, but their children are there because the parents chose for them.
"1. [children from big cities] haven't lived much. They haven't done many things." Are you seriously suggesting that there are more things to do in Boise than Manhattan?
"2. They don't seem very happy." That certainly described everyone I knew who wasn't a cultist in Salt Lake City.
In my experience, the ones who want to leave are the smart kids who find their surroundings culturally stifling and intellectually decrepit.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 a…
> 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 Not meaning to pick on you, but this is almost exactly the rhetoric that got California into the situation it is in now. * Taxes going up due to newcomers -> cap…
Why not base the the revenue on income taxes instead - charge the people making money instead of forcing people out of their home through taxes?
The main issues (in my opinion) with housing in the parts of CA that are always mentioned is just population density and desired living conditions. I don't see what the right fix is for that. If we're basically taking the policy that we'll raise taxes to make people want to live elsewhere, then why not take the policy to restrict the offices that draw them there in the first place? Spreading it out instead of concentrating it would provide relief.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no such thing as "locals getting screwed" in this scenario. We live in a free country, where people sometimes choose to move. In fact, when the demand for housing in an area goes up, often locals profit handsomely. Unfortunately, "I was here first" sounds a lot like "fuck you, I got mine". And it's not gonna fly.
Listen, nearly everyone largely agrees that wealth inequality at the current US level is bad. Wealthy people moving to low-cost areas (and thus raising cost of living) accelerates inequality for a few reasons. 1) Unlike you scenario, many working-class people in places like Sedona can only afford to rent their homes (25% of total, give or take in Sedona). These people incur huge monetary costs in being forced to move…
I’m pretty sure there is economic research showing that movement actually decreases inequality.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last year I moved from a top 3 city to a small mountain town in Colorado. In my experience, your hostility is extremely common in small towns that have big seasonal influxes. I continue to be amazed by the overt disdain long-time locals have for second home owners and relatively newer full-time residents. The one constant is: "Everything was great until shortly after I relocated here and you people moved in." A week…
> I continue to be amazed by the overt disdain long-time locals have for second home owners Housing can not be both affordable and a good investment. Given second homes are an investment, by definition having one means you're helping make homes unaffordable.
A second home isn't necessarily an investment, especially if it's a vacation home. It can be just a place you go on vacation.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#426Earlier 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…
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
Most people who are trying to live somewhere don't want their house price exploding, because then they get forced out by rising taxes and insurance.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, it's not just the monopoly money that changes things but also long term changes in economics. I'm old enough that I remember my home town (which has been inundated by California retirees) as having 100% family-owned grocery stores, drug/general/hardware stores, distributorships, all of which started shifting heavily to chain and corporate dominance by sometime in the late 1970's. Since the modern concept…
> towns of that type had to be mostly independent in terms of income for money inflow....small factories, mining, farming and ranching, etc. > I'd say that this movement of people who can afford it just another side effect of something bigger. It sort of sounds like you answer your own question (/hypothesis): consolidation of industry. Which also seems to be a pretty big driver in wealth inequality. I've no idea what…
It was definitely more hypothesis than question.
There's always the chance that the past is viewed with the optimism of youth of course. There's certainly a difference in social glue in a world where everyone is either self-employed or has a single layer of management above them. Plus, truly local companies are better local citizens (sports teams sponsors, money for charities, build decent and long-lasting buildings).
Dunno what the answer is besides accumulate a financial warchest, live where you like, watch the battle at a distance.
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#428As 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…
> As much as I'd love to work for a FAANG, retire early, and buy a large house in an idyllic mountain town, I'd hate for that same town to loose its historical roots and what makes it that special idyllic mountain town in the first place. It's already arguably happened; fruit orchards and irrigation turns were big part of the milieu in Orem/Provo a few decades back, and they're all but absent now, and in general the…
It's bad for people to live in skyscrapers in the city, its bad for people to live in suburbs, where is it OK for people to live?
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
The purpose of increased prices is to incentivize more supply to come into the market. If prices do not rise with demand (and static supply), then you’re left with a market where certain buyers are lucky (or connected) and some don’t get anything.
ERCOT's dismal failure the past several months has once again shown the fallacy of this thinking. Raising prices to infinity cannot induce supply of a good or service for which there is simply no capacity to provision. Nor does discrimination by price for life's essentials result in fair or equitable distribution when there is a tremendous inequality in purchasing power among the population, much if that itself the r…
“fallacy”? Or just an edge case? Are you really claiming that increased electricity prices wouldn’t increase supply of electricity in the long-run?
Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming
#430Earlier 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…
I think the sentiment is clear. Their question was what would those people holding this sentiment suggest be done? That outsiders go back to where they came from? That because someone makes money they are obligated to stay in a high cost of living area?
I don’t know; there may be the case that it’s not the most ethical choice to move to an area where they are improving their personal QoL while contributing to the lowering QoL of the current residents. I think the ideal solution would be to attack those root problems until that moral dilemma subsides somewhat. What I don’t think is probably the best choice is to blindly do what’s best for oneself while being oblivious to the systemic effects. I imagine there is a reasonable middle, like moving but consciously deciding to only support local businesses rather than buying from the cheaper MegaCorp, supporting policies like high density housing that may not be in your personal best interest, or dedicating a portion of your relatively high income to causes that specifically lessen those systemic effects.
Edit: as an example, I used to live in an area that was relatively poor by US standards. There was a large cohort of retirees who would move in because if the pleasant weather, low cost of living etc. Rather than mingle with the locals, they tended to create little walled enclaves. Additionally, they gradually took over the local government (in part, because the full time political positions were unpaid, meaning only those retired or wealthy enough to not work could afford to fill them). This created an environment where business investment was often stifled because the retirees didn’t want to lose the feel of their retirement settlement by allowing more homes to be built or certain businesses to open. It was difficult to raise any taxes related to investing in schools or infrastructure because retirees tend to be more price sensitive in those areas, particularly if they don’t have children or grandchildren who will benefit. Ultimately, this made it harder for locals to find work (outside of service jobs) or to keep younger locals from fleeing for better prospects. To many locals, it was viewed as almost a hostile takeover of their town by outsiders with money. It tended to exacerbate rather than alleviate those class divisions alluded to in my original comment.