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Americans are rethinking where they want to live

economist.com

221–230 of 645 posts

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#221

If people on HN really want the urban life style to make any sense in America they need to start tackling the mental health / homeless problem. They talk about "the environment" but no one wants to talk about how my wife has to dodge human feces getting on and off public transportation. "It's just part of living in a vibrant city".... Give me a break.

[deleted]

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#222

Visit Texas or Florida first. I've lived in Texas and visited Florida many times. I've also visited San Jose. TX and FL are hell compared to CA. I don't care for CA either, but that's because of cultural (coastal) differences. The NorthEast is heaven on Earth.

As a recent transplant from SF Bay to Greater Boston... I'm inclined to agree. It's actually cheaper in my neighborhood than it was in East Oakland, and I can walk to almost anything I care about, incl. work, friends, pub, gym, grocery. Massive quality-of-life upgrade, assuming you're OK with freezing temps in the winter, and humidity and bugs in the summer.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've paid quite a bit in taxes over the years, should I not be allowed to extract value from them when I'm no longer earning enough to cover my basic expenses (especially expenses like health care???)

The point of a social safety net is catch people falling through the cracks that are unable to support themselves. Using social safety programs when you are able bodied leaves less for those that are unable to do so

And in America we are all one unexpected medical expense away from bankruptcy. I'm not going to toil my life away doing things I hate just because America's safety net has been defunded by a bunch of people who view gainful employment no matter how unnecessary the job is as the only way to get to Heaven.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe maybe not. A lot depends on what happens next. The assumption here is that people are moving out of urban areas and then not commuting back in. If that really is the case, unlike in the commuting form of suburbanization, then service businesses will follow those people, if they are allowed to. This would be a great outcome, but it depends on a lot of assumptions.

> If that really is the case, unlike in the commuting form of suburbanization, then service businesses will follow those people, if they are allowed to. That would require these areas to be zoned for mixed business/residential, which very few suburbs are.

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Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#225
post #77

I live just west of Minneapolis with my wife in a house that's been in my family for generations. I don't want to leave but the continuous stream of car jackings, home invasions, petty theft and seemingly random acts of violence have me rethinking this. Calls to defund the police sound pretty tone deaf when your elderly neighbor is assaulted in their own home and robbed.

Oversimplified, inflammatory statements like "defund the police" and "ACAB" gain a lot more traction composted to more measured statements like, "We believe in maintaining a secure society for everyone and not just certain preferred communities, which isn't possible with the current policing and social care system. We need massive, decisive, and prompt reform that doesn't involve funneling more and more of the city budget directly to the police dept, and if we can't have that then we'd rather re-start from the ground up and police ourselves than sit by while the situation worsens."

Doesn't have the same ring, you know?

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#226
post #32

This article and similar ones have been written at least a 1000 times for the last decade with a clear political tinge. The poster child is always around how people want to move to Florida and Texas. But somehow it forgets to include Washington and Seattle which has probably seen the biggest tech migration and grown into the second biggest tech hub in the country, far greater than Austin or Miami (hyped up constantly…

It looks like FL and TX each had ~130k net migrants per the last reported data. [1] Washington had ~40k in the same year. There's a reason journalists talk more about migration to FL/TX, and it's because there are way more people moving there.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#227

If people on HN really want the urban life style to make any sense in America they need to start tackling the mental health / homeless problem. They talk about "the environment" but no one wants to talk about how my wife has to dodge human feces getting on and off public transportation. "It's just part of living in a vibrant city".... Give me a break.

It's part of living in a broken city.

Your city (and country) does not need to have a massive homeless problem. This is something the city and state government can fix. Housing, mental health support, drug treatment support and better community policing are all possible, and proven to work.

How to get the city and state (and national) governments to fix this problem is another issue.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason (besides inertia) that we can't have both. This is how thriving smaller downtowns are, single family homes within walking distance to amenities. It's just that all those areas get really expensive because there are so few of them. But there don't have to be so few places like that.

It is common in Europe for small towns and villages to be quite walkable, have a large relative percentage multi-family housing, and have a decent train or bus connection to a regional hub. Of course, they have the advantage of being around longer than the automobile has existed. The problem in the US is mostly cultural. Most rural/semi-rural/exurban people think nothing of an hour driving each way. So why would they…

It's cultural but also institutional. Governments think nothing of blowing tens of millions of dollars on highway construction and do not typically think about or care to invest in alternatives.

Beyond a certain point (which was a long time ago) we're just building roads and highways to create artificial growth.

It blows my mind how people don't realize the cultural piece either. They travel, "omg it's so walkable here! this is awesome! wow that cafe is so cute. Of course i buy bread from the local shop." then come back and it's like their experiences were completely wiped clean from their memory: "wait what do you mean not drive a car a quarter mile down the road to sit in the Zaxby's line?".

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#229

If people on HN really want the urban life style to make any sense in America they need to start tackling the mental health / homeless problem. They talk about "the environment" but no one wants to talk about how my wife has to dodge human feces getting on and off public transportation. "It's just part of living in a vibrant city".... Give me a break.

[deleted]

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#230
post #108
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many like you are buying up lake-front properties in rural places. I recommend it, playing farmer-cowboy-houseboateer in Kentucky/Tennessee is a magnitude cheaper than out west, even if you fail, you are out less money than simply living elsewhere.

Just learn the accent before you move there, and don't tell your neighbors where you're from.

Also don't vote for the policies which made you pick up your bags and leave the place you came from or your new place of residence will eventually start to look like the one you left.
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