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Americans are rethinking where they want to live

economist.com

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Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#311

Post by more_corn »

politelemon wrote: post #85
lbriner wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> isn't just people optimizing for the size of a house and low cost of living An important point! I moved recently to a small village from a large town in the UK mainly so that I could afford a good size of house compared to what I could afford in the town. Despite never considering my self a "city boy", I have found the move very challenging. I initially thought it was isolating because of lockdown but then realised…

The driving aspect is the main thing that kills any daydreaming I do about moving to the Scottish Highlands. It doesn't stop the daydreaming, however.

My friend moved to a little village in Scotland. Super cute, walkable, near the Spey, easy drive to a city or two for a flight back to civilization. Great schools, no healthcare costs. The equity he cashed out from selling his place in California bought the nicest place in town for cash. He’s really liking it. I’ve gone to visit a few times. Makes me reconsider spending so much for my shoebox house in SF.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#312

Post by carom »

gnicholas wrote: post #190

For me, schools are a huge part of this. Zoom schooling has demonstrated how little learning actually happens during a day. Simultaneously, online alternatives have popped up/become popularized, and people are realizing how much more a student can learn through good/personalized remote learning. Parents who pay tens of thousands of dollars in property tax — largely for access to 'great schools' — are now able to move…

What are some of the online alternatives?

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#313

Post by jermaustin1 »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #296
jermaustin1 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>And in America we are all one unexpected medical expense away from bankruptcy. How do subsidies help then? And people like you are a fantastic political talking point for why the social safety net routinely gets defunded.

That is untrue... I will be continuing to work for myself and hopefully increase my income, but the safety net is there if I don't quite hit my mark. This is the same with anyone. Trust me: I WANT money. I LIKE money. But if I cannot earn enough, I'm more than happy to take from the benefits I have spent a lot of money to fund. I also vote regularly to increase taxes and to expand funding for the social safety net, so that it is available anytime ANYONE has to pull from it.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#314

Post by lotsofpulp »

Jensson wrote: post #307
lotsofpulp wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lidl and Aldi are also doing very well in the US, and putting pressure on big grocery stores. But these are still too big to be downtown stores, and the merchandise is usually sold in quantities that make sense for a car. They very well might work in a downtown, but I have yet to see it in the US.

> They very well might work in a downtown, but I have yet to see it in the US. But you see it in Europe. I walk to lidl and buy my groceries, basically every person I know walk to get groceries. Some do big weekend shopping trips now and then to bigger stores, but that isn't the norm.

Presumably, this is in an area where you have a big population without cars.

In the US, these are few and far between. And Aldi/Lidl are going to optimize for their costs, which means not paying rent in a downtown if they have the option to build on cheaper land 5 minutes away from downtown. Which makes no difference to them, because 99% of their customers have a car.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#315

Post by nobodyandproud »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #28

I've heard this brought up as a kind of second round of white flight. The middle- and upper-class (primarily) white population is once again moving out of urban centers because telecommuting is something that these high-salary jobs afford them. I think it will rebound a bit (but not much), as moving from urban to suburban is a very difficult transition, but its even harder going the other way once you've adjusted. I…

How do you manage medical care?

Of all the things I have planned, this is the only variable I don’t have an answer for because Medicare kicks in at 65.

The market-based plans are either useless (few hundred dollars a month); or expensive (a couple of thousand per month).

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#316

Post by ryandrake »

alistairSH wrote: post #254
unexpected wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you automatically assume that kids are miserable in the suburbs? My kids rather like running around in our backyard, use our pool everyday in the summer, and having tons of friends on the block. At the same time, I can't imagine that they would enjoy living in 2 bedroom apartment, having no yard to play in, etc. This disdain for suburbs is quite tacky and out of touch. It's okay to think differently. I'm glad…

I grew up in the DC suburbs. The closest pool was a few miles away, so required a car. The schools were all miles away, so required car/bus. By the time I got to high school, most of my friends lived miles away, so for a few years, seeing them required transportation. Grocery store required a car. Heck, even the closest corner store required a car. Fortunately, my mom was able to stay home for many years, and when sh…

When I was a kid in a suburban/rural area I used a bicycle to solve all those problems, besides groceries, which my parents took care of.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

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Post by more_corn »

ohples wrote: post #20
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…

Its too bad we can't build new places like this, and make this a more affordable option for people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0

It’s funny. Every human could tell you the things that make a place pleasant. (Walkability, cute shops and cafes, green space) And yet we have people who’s whole job is “planning” and we get spaces that are aggressively unpleasant. No sidewalks let alone dedicated waking paths. Strip malls everywhere. It baffles me.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

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Post by kerbs »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #93
sanderjd wrote: post #75

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.

How do those smaller downtowns thrive? The few I know usually have rich populations that do not mind spending more than what Costco/Target/Walmart/big grocery stores sell at. All it takes is the big box stores to setup camp 10 minutes outside of town and almost everyone with a car will opt to save money and shop there.

In my very anecdotal observation – these small downtown areas don't rely on retail as much as food and entertainment. It's where the best restaurants, brewpubs, and general hangouts are.

If there is retail, it's _highly_ differentiated from Big Box.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#319

Post by gamblor956 »

nradov wrote: post #187
onychomys wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company has gone to work-from-anywhere-as-long-as-it's-in-the-USA, there's some sort of complicated tax thing that comes if you live in another country but work in the US, and they don't want to deal with that.

I expect we'll start to see more employees who work in the "USA" for employment tax purposes, but are physically in Thailand or somewhere connected via VPN. Short of a detailed audit it's difficult for authorities to tell where someone is actually living. (I'm not encouraging tax fraud, just stating that this is likely to happen.)

That would be tax fraud in two separate countries, and depending on local laws, a crime in the country the individual is working from.

Connecting through a corporate VPN to the corporate network wouldn't shield your location, and I'm not aware of any company that lets employees connect using their own VPNs? With corporate VPN connections, it's usually pretty easy to trace back to the geographic area of the connecting IP, and IT generally keeps logs of these.

While most companies are cool with short term remote work in other countries (especially for employees who do not work on revenue-generating products or services), undisclosed long term remote work is generally grounds for for-cause termination.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#320

Post by [deleted] »

dmode wrote: 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…

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