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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

#401

Post by lotsofpulp »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #170
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…

> and live off a VERY modest retirement (WELL under a million saved/invested) for the next 40 years Do you mind sharing how much? I'm curious why most people seem to think $1M is somehow not enough money to retire modestly on. If previous trends continue, you could easily live on >$4K after taxes per month indefinitely. That's almost 50% higher than median wage (after taxes). Median wage = ~$41,000. Even with $0 stat…

>I'm curious why most people seem to think $1M is somehow not enough money to retire modestly on

>It's just obvious that you CAN live on 50% more than median wage. Yet at the same time, so many people seem to think this is some absurd proposition.

It is because they have a different definition of modest than you. I know I can live on even less than median wage. I grew up with far less. But my family did not have access to healthcare and good schools or being able to help out family members if they needed support. We were always 1 legal or health problem away from being ruined.

Is living 1 legal or health problem away from being ruined modest? That is a personal opinion. I aim to cover the legal and health risks for me and my family members, so $1M is nothing where I live. I also predict that I need quite a big buffer the way the population pyramid is shaping up, because labor is going to get more and more expensive, along with devaluation of the dollar.

I also think either me or at least my kids (years 2050 to 2100) is going to have to contend with problems due to climate change and access to clean water and air that have yet to materialize, so need buffer for that too.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#402

Post by 0x0nyandesu »

nostromo wrote: post #398
0x0nyandesu wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes blame the "city" and not the various municipalities sending their homeless to said city. Most of the homeless are not from the cities they are in. They just end up there and then the city has to pay for it for some reason.

We’ve created the lawless environment that attracted them to our cities. They weren’t coerced to come here, we enticed them to come here.

I've lived in a major us east coast city up until the pandemic. My tax dollars kept going down the drain dealing with homeless who by in large were not originally city residents. Your opinion that these people were enticed to the city is wholly unfounded and totally made up. Just another reason I've mentally checked out of the debate. Y'all have fun with that. I'll live in the burbs.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#403

Post by willis936 »

vel0city wrote: post #395
willis936 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think human feces in public is a problem worth leaving for then try living in a place where you don't know if the water is poisoned, if the power will stay on, or the ground will literally crumble under your home. The local governments are neither equipped nor interested in making those places habitable. It's getting worse and will continue to. Hurricanes and rising sea levels will bankrupt TX and FL each in t…

> you don't know if the water is poisoned I can't speak for all of Texas, but my water district has high quality water standards. I look at the reports published from time to time, they're well below EPA and TCEQ limits for contaminates. Perfectly clean water here. Sure, there's areas of pollution in the state but there's pollution that happens in the Northeast as well. > if the power will stay on I forgot the fact p…

Refusing to acknowledge the ERCOT problem doesn't mean it isn't there, it just means you're content to let it persist. It's not new. This has been happening since long before I was born.

On water: living in a place where it is on-brand to not investigate public health disasters is not great. You've heard of Flint, but not Piney Point.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#404

Post by clhodapp »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #22

> First, people have been leaving large, dense, expensive urban cores for smaller, less-dense cities and suburbs. Second, people and companies have been moving to warm, low-tax states in the South and Southwest. Seems like there could be a convergence of the demographic trend of millennial family formation with pandemic related increase in people's perception of the value of square footage that is pushing people towa…

If the demand for large townhouses is naturally lower than detached homes and you can fit more of them in a given unit area then maybe just maybe they actually have some hope of addressing the housing shortage in expensive metros.

So far, though, evidence is that people will still pay a pretty high price to live in denser housing in SF, Seattle, etc.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#405

Post by mindfulmore »

vel0city wrote: post #395
willis936 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think human feces in public is a problem worth leaving for then try living in a place where you don't know if the water is poisoned, if the power will stay on, or the ground will literally crumble under your home. The local governments are neither equipped nor interested in making those places habitable. It's getting worse and will continue to. Hurricanes and rising sea levels will bankrupt TX and FL each in t…

> you don't know if the water is poisoned I can't speak for all of Texas, but my water district has high quality water standards. I look at the reports published from time to time, they're well below EPA and TCEQ limits for contaminates. Perfectly clean water here. Sure, there's areas of pollution in the state but there's pollution that happens in the Northeast as well. > if the power will stay on I forgot the fact p…

> I forgot the fact power failures only happen in Texas

No, but only Texas repeatedly ignored federal advice to fix their power grid which directly resulted in children literally freezing to death.

Texas's state government is too focused on insane abortion laws and locking down a ruling white minority class through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and empowering election officials to throw out election results.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#406

Post by pessimizer »

pessimizer wrote: post #400

There's a bit of racial cheating going on here by assuming the reasons that black/hispanic people are leaving cities are identical to the reasons wealthy whites are leaving cities, and that the trend started at the same time, follows the same lines, or ends up in the same suburbs. It's all glossed over by calling suburbs diverse by citing demographic percentages of all people who live in any suburb. Black/Hispanic pe…

"Housing costs are one indicator of where people are going. Kalispell, Montana, has seen the largest increase in property values in the country—with the average home up nearly 50% year-over-year. Second is Austin, Texas, followed by Boise, Idaho. Towns that people might never have considered living in full-time have become contenders. Traditional vacation destinations—including Bend, Oregon and California’s Lake Tahoe—have seen a surge of interest."

If you look at the demographics of these cities, it's obvious whose POV is being used to characterize this migration. In the case of Austin, in particular, the story has been about the shrinking of the black population while the city was growing, and the bleaching of neighborhoods that black people have lived in for a couple hundred years.

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/african-americans-are...

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#407

Post by thehappypm »

kritiko wrote: post #359
thehappypm wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 14 minute train is from Route 128 in Westwood, MA to Back Bay, in Boston’s downtown. I give myself ~15 minutes (for traffic buffer) to drive and park, take the 14 minute train, then it’s a 5 minute walk to work. I’ve done it in 30 minutes seat to seat.

Oh, that makes sense. I grew up around there, and I do think Boston is the best place in the Northeast megalopolis for access to nature stuff and relatively easy to get around... 128's kind of funny, though. Unless you live in one of a handful of nearby streets, you need a car to get there. And you're at the Boston line (the suburban, single family and industrial park part of Boston, but still.)

It’s why I love New England, so many great places within a couple hours drive (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Berkshires, Cape, Newport, Islands…) but also reasonable commutes to good jobs

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#408

Post by treis »

opportune wrote: post #356
treis wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in Europe mostly choose the suburbs too. As for the rest of it, I'm not arguing that the suburbs is a good choice. It's just the one people do choose and they choose it because of space and cost of living.

Do they choose suburbs because it’s preferred or because it’s cheaper? If the urban areas have more expensive housing for a given unit size, that would imply it is actually preferred. It’s like saying nobody drives because there is too much traffic. Or sporting events always sell out so nobody goes.

You can't separate preference from cost. Or, in other words, they prefer it because it's cheaper.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#409

Post by TurkishPoptart »

jedberg wrote: post #288
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.

Your district is going to remove the mandates when pigs fly, I'm sorry to say. The "nightmare" is really about continually-shifting goalposts and the false promises of administrators. The funny thing is that those figures won't be reached, thanks to parents with enough common sense not to inoculate their kids with something they don't need. If the parents are vaccinated, let the kids alone. If the parents aren't vaccinated, well, that's their choice - so let the kids alone.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#410

Post by TurkishPoptart »

diveanon wrote: post #235
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 germ factory kids can still spread it. How are we still having this conversation 2 years in?

How are we still pretending that people who've received the vaccine (which should really be labeled a prophylactic) can't spread or contract the virus?
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