Americans are rethinking where they want to live • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#281

Post by twblalock » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

teawrecks wrote: post #225

donatj wrote: 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 b…

Those oversimplified phrases gain traction by provoking an emotional response, but that cuts both ways.

"Defund the police" was very easy to interpret as "abolish the police." It was a gift to the other side of the argument, and to that side's candidates in the 2020 election. Overall it looks like it backfired as a slogan politically, and no major police departments have actually been reformed.

If all your slogan achieves is making your own side feel better, while it alienates moderates and gives easy talking points to your opponents, it's a bad slogan and you shouldn't be proud of it.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#282

Post by bovermyer » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

robertakarobin wrote: post #265

bovermyer wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: we live in Edina, a nicer suburb just south of Minneapolis proper. No real crime except for a single hit-and-run by an out-of-towner in the last two years. Walking distance to two grocery stores, several restaurants, and two malls. Affordable utilities and rent.

Hi, neighbor!

Hi! Fancy meeting another Edina person here, haha.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#283

Post by jacobolus » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #262

arrosenberg wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wildly varies by suburb. The one I grew up in had few-to-no kids on the block, and even if there had been, there were only a couple of small, underwhelming parks within walking/biking distance. Comparing notes with other people, this seems like the more common experience of the suburbs. The disdain (at least for me) comes when you do the math and realized how absurdly subsidized the suburban lifestyle is.

Who is doing the subsidizing? You hear about cities annexing suburbs to access the tax base. If suburbs were a drain, wouldn't they be doing whatever the opposite of annexing is?

A few of the wealthiest suburbs in the country are enclaves of people who rely economically on the city but don’t want their property taxes to pay for poor people’s amenities and services, so carve out a separate municipality. Cities want to re-absorb these, because the current setup is grossly unfair.

This is not representative of suburbs in general. Many suburbs, especially older ones whose infrastructure construction (but not maintenance) was heavily state-subsidized, are struggling and financially unsustainable, leaving their (less wealthy) residents in deep trouble in the long term.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#284

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

hagbard_c wrote: post #230

ethbr0 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Maybe people didn't leave because of the policies, but because of their position relative to them. I mean, people who aren't legacy homeowners and find California too expensive but otherwise like it might well prefer to become a homeowner and then have the place they are in become like California.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#285

Post by greedo » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #211

novok wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You put in stores that sell things that the big boxes wont sell. Such as specialized restaurants, vacuum repair shops and so on. You can also put smaller versions of 'big boxes' or other chains in these downtowns, such as chipolte, walgreens, trader joes, "city" target, etc. Downtowns can also have rather large things like movie theaters themselves.

Most consumer vacuum cleaners aren't really repairable any more. They're used for a few years until one of the plastic parts breaks, then discarded and replaced. Even if parts are available the repair service labor is too expensive.

As usual, it depends. As more people buy upscale gear (Miele or Oreck come to mind), they last much longer and are designed with servicing in mind. And the local vacuum shop services almost every vacuum around. Most vacuums are easy to fix assuming the motor isn't shot. It's replacing a frayed power cord, or a belt/beater.

It's kind of similar to how good shoes can be resoled.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#286

Post by treis » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #228

opportune wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 he…

Because cafes and bread from bakeries are (relative) luxuries. Even if it's just $1 more a coffee/loaf that adds up to significant money over a year. That's the thing that I think people miss. Scale makes things cheaper and to have scale at retail you need to pull customers from a large area.

You could do the same in a dense area but then you run into housing cost/size problems. I don't see how you get the typical 4/3 suburban house and a low cost of living without driving.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#287

Post by dionidium » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #75

goostavos wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. Walkability is the main thing that keeps me in the city. A very large part of me wants to go back to the suburbs, rent a house, have a yard, garage -- space in general. However, every time I actually visit someone in the suburbs, the long drive there, watching things get more and more spread apart until it's just strip malls, grocery stores, and subdivisions, really saps the excitement out of having more space fo…

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.

My wife and I currently live in Providence, RI (by way of NYC). We highly value walkability, but feel like we've aged out of tolerating some other big-city "annoyances." When Americans think of "suburbs" they think of culs-de-sac and arterials, but it doesn't have to be that way. New England is dotted with "small towns" that are basically just suburbs of Providence and/or Boston that are laid out on a grid -- with a main street, walkable amenities, and access to commuter rail. In St. Louis, where I'm from, there are half-a-dozen inner ring suburbs that meet this description (minus the commuter rail), so I assume it's the same in most cities.

There's a kind of exurban suburb that was built in the 1990s that has an outsized influence on our conception of suburban living. But there are lots of older "suburbs" that are actually quite pleasant.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#288

Post by jedberg » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #121

And part of it is what public schools are doing to our kids. My 6 year old is required to sit outdoors to eat her lunch in 40ish degree (F) weather, and is not allowed to socialized. My 5 year old has to wear a mask 7 hours a day against an illness that doesn't kill kids. I'm at my wit's end with these school administrators. Hoping to be in Wyoming in 6 months' time.

Your child doesn't wear a mask to protect your child, they wear a mask to protect others. While they may not feel very strong effects from the virus, they can pass it on to other who will.

FWIW our district is considering removing the mask mandate at school as soon as we reach 80% vax rate among the students, so hopefully your nightmare of making your child wear a piece of cloth will end soon.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#289

Post by rowanajmarshall » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #248

larrymyers wrote: post #10

My family and I decided to stay on the north side of Chicago, a very high cost of living location, despite no longer needing to head downtown every day for work. Why not move outside of Chicago where our cost living would be substantially lower? * We wanted to keep our kids in the same school, which is walking distance. * We like being walking distance to the grocery store, doctor's offices, etc. * Our kids can walk…

What would you think of a combination of high density and large green space? Lay out a city like a fractal with the interior being dense, but you're always close to woodlands, open fields (farms?), or parks. I know zoning boards are incapable of maintaining such a structure without constantly making exceptions for developers, but what would you think of such an arrangement?

That's not far from London, a pretty dense city as they go, but also one that just about, technically speaking, counts as a forest thanks to the number of trees [1]. I live in one of the densest boroughs of London, on a main road, and I've got ample access to parks and green space.

[1] https://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/did-you-know-tha...

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#290

Post by AlbertCory » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

The Economist used to be somewhat boring, but at least it had honest reporting about parts of the world you don't read much about. Good for you, in other words.

In the new world of the web, they seem to be trying too hard to amplify conventional opinions. Chasing clicks, in other words. Long after a trend has started up and enough people have heard of it (moving out of expensive areas, in this case), they jump on it.