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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

#381

Post by asimpletune »

CountDrewku wrote: post #330
asimpletune wrote: post #39

I'm also sure a small percentage of people from the USA may even rethink living there.

What are the other options? After seeing how Europe and other western nations have responded to COVID in the last 2 years I'm less likely to consider moving there. It was actually something I'd considered before all of this.

It’s a little hard to go you a specific answer as it’s highly personal but the pandemic is also highly local.

Europe is hard with the pandemic because it’s crowded in the main towns and cities, and a little colder than the USA. In smaller places the virus is much much less severe than you think.

That being said, I think the impact of the virus will diminish with the combination of vaccines as well as the virus continuing to mutate and compete against other variants.

Probably it will eventually become endemic and not so life threatening and reach an equilibrium, but that’s just what I think. It’s probably not great for the virus and it’s babies to kill lots of people and then suffer massive human led reactions like vaccines and quarantine measures. Maybe the cold or flu thousands of years ago were much more deadly.

Anyway, speculation aside, there’s also quality of life to consider. A lot of other places in the world really emphasize this.

The big picture is it’s an amazing world with cool people, and it couldn’t hurt for those of us who are without families and with some savings to explore it.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#382

Post by alistairSH »

coldpie wrote: post #308
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.

Police budgets are at their highest levels in history, and yet crime is up. The correlation just isn't there. Wasting money on police isn't solving this problem, which is why you are seeing the calls to move our funds elsewhere. Also worth noting that MPD engaged in a work stoppage last summer, which may have had an impact on crime. https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/10/20/mpd-cop-says-office...

Nationwide, crime has been on a downward trend for decades. Yes, there are spots where it flares up. And COVID appears to have caused a marked increase in some crimes. But, overall, the US hasn't suddenly degenerated into a state of lawlessness.

https://www.bbc.com/news/57581270

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#383

Post by milkytron »

nradov wrote: post #256
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the "StrongTowns" argument - roughly speaking some local / federal government borrows billions and builds a suburban area, roads, sewers, schools, hospitals. Rich white people move in, taxes are collected etc. The marginal cost of the services is covered, but the bonds that raised the money may or may not be. And 2 years later the sidewalk is cracked, the sewers need replacing, the roads need widening…

StrongTowns isn't entirely wrong, but they exaggerate problems in suburbs to advance a political narrative. In reality large, dense cities are more likely to have problems funding infrastructure maintenance and government services due to persistent corruption, mismanagement, and the pernicious influence of public employee unions. Just look at the ongoing fiscal crisis in Chicago.

> persistent corruption, mismanagement, and the pernicious influence of public employee unions

Is this less likely to happen in smaller towns?

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#384

Post by [deleted] »

unexpected wrote: post #84
jacobolus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suburbs are very unfriendly for the elderly compared to cities. The ideal suburbanite is an upper-middle-class person in their 30s–50s in good health who really likes driving their large car and has hobbies they can do individually from inside their own home (e.g. woodworking, gardening), and doesn’t mind that life is miserable* there for their kids. Everyone else is more or less a second-class citizen. * Edit: subur…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#385

Post by obstacle1 »

eweise wrote: post #294
obstacle1 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids like suburbs just fine before they understand there's a big world out there outside the family unit. Often things fall apart after that phase. > I can't imagine that they would enjoy living in 2 bedroom apartment OK but that's a problem with a limited imagination, not how your kids would actually feel. Do you know that 90% of families in the world live in close quarters, in places like 2 bedroom apartments (or -…

"The negative social and environmental impact of a suburban lifestyle is unsustainable." That's a problem with a limited imagination. Cars are becoming electric. There are things called towns that exist in suburbia and can be reached easily by bike or walking.

> That's a problem with a limited imagination

Only if you examine the problem so superficially you can't think of any other cost of personal vehicles than burning gas.

Cars burning gasoline isn't the only or even the smallest problem with everyone needing to own a car. Think of the supply chain required to produce, deliver, and dispose of personal vehicles for everyone. Think of the civil infrastructure required to enable everyone to have a personal car. Think of the human cost that humans being terrible, irresponsible drivers takes on society. For starters.

> There are things called towns that exist in suburbia and can be reached easily by bike or walking.

There is a thing called weather in much of the US and world that makes this unrealistic. Further it's disingenuous to claim it's feasible to walk to a town to do your groceries from a suburb. You're going to need to walk at least 2-3 miles (best case) to a grocery store and you're not going to be able to carry more than a couple days' worth of stuff, less for a full family.

The suburban way of life is going to crash and burn, spectacularly. It is running on credit it can never pay back. At least 2 generations have covered their eyes and ears and yelled "naaa naaa we don't believe it". It's time to acknowledge that we can't carry on that "tradition'. Either we voluntarily adapt, or our surroundings will force the change.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#386

Post by alistairSH »

liveoneggs wrote: post #140
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.

Pay them more to keep failing to provide protection? The cops extort you (the tax payer) by playing with your safety for the sake of inflating the budget.

Police in the US are under no obligation to protect the citizenry. SCOTUS has reaffirmed that over and over again.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#387

Post by lotsofpulp »

cheese_van wrote: post #291
jermaustin1 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in rural America you definitely give up access to top-notch medical care, but I'm relatively healthy currently, and if we drop our household income, we start to qualify for subsidies. My wife only just started her career, 17 years into our relationship, so she's going to start ramping up income over the next few years, and that will hopefully cover any unforeseen issues. I actually tried retiring this year. I paid…

It is not necessarily the case that one gives up good med care in rural America. I live in a suburb of an 8000 person city (town?) and med care is top notch. I do believe that anywhere one chooses to live there are compromises. Those compromises, if you do your homework, are up to you. We have zero violent crime, and no fear of our neighbors. However, there are raccoons. Restaurants exist, but they are exceptionally…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_center

Being near a level 1 trauma center can make a big difference in extreme circumstances.

Not that it is objectively worth giving up whatever benefits not being near a level 1 trauma center bring, but it does provide a material difference in the level of healthcare and hence probability of outcomes you can expect.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#388

Post by milkytron »

jedberg wrote: post #263
ben-schaaf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always crazy to hear that suburbs are cheaper. Dense living inherently requires less infrastructure and less transportation, so it should be considerably cheaper. It's only through the subsidisation of suburbia and the low supply/high demand of high density urban areas that this is the case. Car centric suburbs aren't just terrible for the environment, terrible for safety and terrible for transportation; they're…

> Dense living inherently requires less infrastructure and less transportation Not really. Firstly, it costs a lot more per square foot to build a high rise than a single family home. Secondly, it costs a lot more to maintain it (elevators need constant maintenance, you can't just run to Home Depot to get replacement drain parts, etc.). And the infrastructure costs more to maintain -- running power to a high rise req…

> And the infrastructure costs more to maintain

Wouldn't this be addressed by economies of scale? If you have 400 people living in a building, even if the complexity of the infrastructure is greater, isn't it more efficient than having 400 single family homes? Not that one can directly replace another, but I'm talking about the number of people being the constant.

> The main impact comes from needing less transport of goods and people, which is an environmental plus, but not something priced into the cost of living.

Transportation I think is especially huge, but I imagine there are other efficiencies of living in a dense urban area. And I think that regardless of whether or not external costs are priced in, they should be counted towards efficiency of infrastructure.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#389

Post by milkytron »

tornato7 wrote: post #201
ben-schaaf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always crazy to hear that suburbs are cheaper. Dense living inherently requires less infrastructure and less transportation, so it should be considerably cheaper. It's only through the subsidisation of suburbia and the low supply/high demand of high density urban areas that this is the case. Car centric suburbs aren't just terrible for the environment, terrible for safety and terrible for transportation; they're…

Building a high-rise condominium downtown will always be more costly and expensive than a plot of single-family homes in the 'burbs. Car travel is only getting cheaper in the suburbs with solar and EVs, while subways and trolleys are getting more and more expensive to build in big cities.

> Car travel is only getting cheaper in the suburbs with solar and EVs, while subways and trolleys are getting more and more expensive to build in big cities.

Man I really hope EVs keep dropping in price because they still seem like a virtue signal for the wealthy at their current prices.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#390

Post by eweise »

jacobolus wrote: post #372
dragonwriter wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> individual suburbanites have a much larger resource footprint. Suburbs have higher median personal income than urban cores; so that individual suburbanites consume more resources isn't surprising. These people would also consume more resources if they lived in urban cores.

The same people would consume dramatically fewer resources (each, individually) and cause dramatically less environmental destruction if they lived in a smaller personal space with far less bulky/expensive per-person infrastructure and used shared rather than individual services (e.g. transportation).

The problem is solved in my suburbia since the county has resisted any sort of building for the past 50 years. Also, the new suburbia housing I see being built, is much more concentrated. Seems people like houses but don't care as much about big yards.
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