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

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#531

Post by x3iv130f » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 5:16 AM UTC

sershe wrote: post #293

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…

For me, the COVID has really opened my eyes to how little I need walkability. My preferences completely flipped from "I want walkscore 75+ and ideally 90+" to "I want walkscore to be I used to be very pro-transit and walking (didn't even learn to drive till 30), and even as I was not walking as much just before COVID, I reflexively remained so. When most things closed nearby (so we went out less and finally discovere…

Automobile travel is nice in rural areas but it introduces too many problems for cities with any sort of density.

Traffic, noise pollution, air quality, and auto accidents are all things the unfortunate city dweller is forced to live with because cars are given free reign on streets.

Cities need to convert their freeways to toll roads and limit the registration of vehicles to what the infrastructure can actually handle.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#532

Post by kblev » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 5:16 AM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #528

foofoo4u wrote: post #91

I sure am. I live in San Jose (which resides in the Bay Area). Here’s why I am leaving. - $2,700 per month for a 500 sq/ft apartment. - Homeless people everywhere the moment I step foot out of my apartment. - Smells like urine on many sidewalks. - Literally half of the buildings are vacant or abandoned (in downtown). - Human feces on sidewalks and entrance to buildings. - Political and ideological homogeny. Keep your…

Man Jose is an awful choice when it comes to CA/Bay Area options.

What are some better options in CA?

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#533

Post by TechBro8615 » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 5:20 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #470

TechBro8615 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically you’re upset about Florida and Texas for a different set of hysterical political reasons. Personally, I’d find my daily life more affected by feces on the sidewalk than I would the existential dread of sea level rising half a meter in the next hundred years. Frankly if you want to be scared of natural disaster over that time period, it’s probably more dangerous to live on the fault line in San Francisco…

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. That's exactly the opposite of what commenters should be doing here, and we ban accounts that do it repeatedly. We've already had to warn you about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29018199 . If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

That is really stretching it. Why is the OP who started this thread about “feces in the street” (an obvious political dogwhistle) not receiving the same “warning?” Not to mention the comment I replied that who took OP’s bait and turned it further political by countering with two Republican states. If I took this thread “further into flamewar,” then surely the same logic applies to the chain of comments above mine.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#534

Post by yboris » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 5:22 AM UTC

This year I moved from New Jersey to Michigan (since my job is now 100% remote).

Homes in NJ are around $400k. In Michigan I bought a duplex for $160k. I could rent out the other side of the house, but instead we had our friends move in. We are 4 blocks from main street in a tiny town and enjoy the peace and quiet without obscene NJ traffic.

This is an easier decision since I have a life partner and am not trying to meet new people or see new things. It's especially easier since we do not intend to have kids.

I am baffled that some of my friends choose to live in Seattle where, if they buy a house, they would spend most of their working lives paying it off. While they would miss out on some big-city amenities if they moved out, they instead could have the ability to retire a few decades early.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#535

Post by trevyn » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 5:25 AM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #325

trevyn wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easier than you think, the barriers are actually all in your own mind.

Pretty sure they're mostly in the wallet.

Consider that what would be considered a lower standard of living by consensus American standards could be considered a higher standard of living by a different consensus standard.

And that one is able to choose which standards by which one evaluates one’s living.

Humans are very resilient.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#536

Post by kory » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 5:31 AM UTC

beembeem wrote: post #242

ksdale wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a millenial forming a family, it's the former part of your last paragraph that's keeping our family out of the city. We live near Seattle, and we'd much rather be in Seattle, but we can't afford anywhere near the same square footage, owning or renting. We'd absolutely be happy renting in the city if it was remotely affordable.

Yep and zoning is front and center the problem here. There's a reason developers are building skinny, tall units instead of 3 bedroom flats or heck just duplexes/triplexes/quadplexes.

But the parent poster says he wants to live in a single family home.

Zoning in Seattle is not a problem for families. They want single family housing. Demolishing beautiful old pre war neighborhoods for developers isn’t going to entice families away from the nearby suburb with big yards.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#537

Post by dhosek » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 5:38 AM UTC

I used to occasionally daydream about moving someplace rural or semi-rural where land and housing are cheap.

When I got my first vaccine dose, it was difficult to impossible to get an appointment in the Chicago area. I managed to find one in Urbana. I drove down on a Sunday to get my shot. Along the way, I stopped at a McDonald's to use the bathroom. Coming out, I had someone berate me for wearing a mask and declare mask wearing to be selfishness (I would later discover from reading a blog post that he was mirroring language he'd heard on Fox News).

I do not wish to live somewhere that my neighbors would be brainwashed by Fox News and engage in behaviors/have attitudes that would kill me. It may cost more to live in an urban liberal environment, but it's worth every penny.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#538

Post by perl4ever » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 5:39 AM UTC

greedo wrote: post #285

nradov wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had an Oreck years ago, I thought it was a good brand, it looked solid, ads made a big deal of it being lightweight and used by hotels...but it didn't suck.

And I thought that's just the way things are.

But I got a Hoover upright, which was much cheaper, looks cheaper, like a toy, mostly garish purple plastic, and is also much heavier. But it sucks up an order of magnitude more dirt. It's bagless, which some people don't like, but it makes it very visible how much crud it's removing and allows it to be dumped after every use.

So I feel like the Oreck was perhaps a swindle, having the looks and characteristics that older people associate with appliances from long ago, except the actual performance.

And I'm glad I didn't spend a lot on a Dyson just to get a vacuum with no bag.

I've never gone there, but I think there's a storefront near me that says they repair vacuum cleaners. Don't recall what kind.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#539

Post by pengaru » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 5:44 AM UTC

kblev wrote: post #532

pengaru wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man Jose is an awful choice when it comes to CA/Bay Area options.

What are some better options in CA?

Depends what you're looking for, CA is a ginormous state with basically anything you fancy on the menu. Rural, urban, mountainous, coastal, desert, agricultural, it's all over the place.

It should simply be obvious that judging the state from a narrow sampling of life in San Jose is an extreme case of wearing the SV rat-race blinders and utterly failing to take advantage of what the region has to offer.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#540

Post by _v7gu » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 5:45 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #335

ericmay wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I wonder if all those loaves of bread and coffees cost more than tires, having 2 or 3 cars, obesity, and lost productivity f…

> Tear down a house in the suburbs and put in a little market/grocery store and you don't need to drive anywhere you just walk over. Except everyone with a reliable car still drives to the large grocery store and with a wide selection which has lower prices and better selection on basics but makes it up with lower volume, high margin luxuries that the small market c doesn't have floor space for, and the small market,…

There are more than ten supermarkets within ten minutes of my walking distance, from the cheapest option to fanciest. In addition, even the fanciest bakeries sell the standardized type of bread for the standardized price.

So I know this problem is solvable because it is solved in places that are not the US