Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Americans are rethinking where they want to live

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 645 posts

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#541

Post by Consultant32452 »

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…

I live in the burbs. Here's my metrics relative to yours

* Kid's school is technically walking distance, bike ride more reasonably

* Walking distance from grocery store, doctor's office, dentist

* Kid can walk to friends' house

* Can ride my bike to a conservation area with camping

* Lakes are all around, but not really fair since I live in FL

* Multiple outdoor parks within walking/biking distance

* Neighborhood/community swimming pool

* Walking distance to gym

* Extremely low crime rate

I'm not saying you should move, especially because of the close to family bit. Nor am I suggesting most of suburbia is like where I live. But if you seek out suburban areas that are designed to be in proximity to things, you will find them.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#542

Post by dang »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #533
dang wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I posted several moderation comments in this thread (including https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29547484, which was to the same user you were replying to).

I can tell you for sure that it has nothing to do with which political side anybody is on (Anyone with the stamina and bad judgment it would take to read through enough of my tedious moderation comments should easily be able to satisfy themselves of that.) Actually, I don't even know which political side a lot of users (you, for example) are on—my brain pattern matches for other things after doing this hundreds of thousands of times.

That's beside the point, though. The point is that you broke the site guidelines badly (specifically in the first sentence of your post), and we've already had to warn you about this. Users, including you, need to follow the site guidelines regardless of how badly any other user is behaving. Pointing the finger at someone else isn't a good move, and there's a deep reason why: it always feels like the other person started it and did worse. Since everyone always feels that way, everyone always feels justified in whatever they do. That's no basis for conduct; it leads straight to a downward spiral. We're trying to avoid that. Therefore we have a set of principles that everyone needs to follow.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#543

Post by colinmhayes »

oh_sigh wrote: post #392
teawrecks wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How exactly is a community going to police itself? Look at the marches(if you can, they're rarely shown on any kind of media) every time a 5 year old is murdered from a stray drive by shooting bullet in chicago...thousands of people in the community come out against it, and...nothing happens.

As a Chicagoan I can assure you, the police aren't doing anything about it either. Everyone realizing that the police are stealing money from us is a large reason why defund the police is so popular. Lived here my entire life, met plenty of cops, have never found a single one to be pleasant let alone effective. Everyone you meet here has similar stories.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#544

Post by seanmcdirmid »

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.

They aren’t all really that expensive, near Seattle consider Aberdeen or similar small old mill towns that have reasonable small urban areas next to housing. Farther away, Walla Walla or even Spokane. But the areas are economically depressed, the schools aren’t very good, they are unlikely to become WFH tech centers.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#546

Post by seanmcdirmid »

novok wrote: post #192
lotsofpulp wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I live in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle and we just lost our vacuum cleaner repair shop next to our city target. It didn’t exactly go out of business, but had to move far away north on the highway where rent is cheaper and they have easier access to more customers.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#547

Post by selimthegrim »

ozzythecat wrote: post #480
superfamicom wrote: post #459

I have a home in Nashville, Tennessee but chose to move to Seattle, Washington for work (software engineering), but stay here for the access to everyday life improvements- restaurant variety, activities, etc. Nashville has grown a lot, but you are still car dependent and the Conservative values run deep there, though those folks are being displaced as the housing market continues to boom which makes them more hostile…

Huh, interesting. I’m visiting Nashville from Seattle. There’s definitely not as much Asian/Fusion food or Indian food in Nashville, but overall there are tons more restaurants - just not Pho or chicken tikka masala everywhere. I’ve spent some time in Nashville and visited Brentwood, Franklin, Nolensville, and further east towards Murfreesboro and Smyrna. In a week, I felt like there’s a restaurant metric you’d measu…

Maneet Chauhan has a well known restaurant there, and there are some South Indian places south of the city too

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#548

Post by agensaequivocum »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #157
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.

> that doesn't kill kids While the numbers are low, it is not 0. This is, sadly, categorically untrue.

All of aspects of life has risk. Saying that covid is dangerous to children is pure fear mongering. Compared to basically everything else, virtually no children have died.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#549

Post by madaxe_again »

lbriner wrote: post #36
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…

> 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…

I couldn’t live in a small village - I’ve tried it, I found it suffocating, the gossip mill, the forced friendships with people who you otherwise wouldn’t associate with, the never ending charity drives and village hall events that make you want to crawl under a rock. (Young Farmer’s Association Charity Raffle! Over 55’s only!)

I now live a long way from anyone, in a cabin deep in the forest, about 10km from the nearest village over inhospitable terrain, 2km from the nearest trackway along windy and wild paths I cut along the side of a sheer valley. We don’t get visitors, apart from those that we invite.

It wasn’t the lack of activity that I found troubling - rather, the village people, filling their days with forced smiles and petty vendettas. Every time I sat down it felt like someone would knock on the door and ask me to sign their petition.

Here, it’s just me, my wife, and the wildlife.

The pace here is frantic, as surviving and thriving off-grid is a lot of work. I smile and nod at the villagers when I drive by on the weekly provisioning run, and that’s enough for me.

I think a city almost has more in common with being alone than it does with a small settlement - in a city, the crowds allow anonymity and this creates a virtual space for the individual. In the boonies, there is actual space for the individual. In a village, all is cloying, suffocating togetherness. Great if you like that kind of thing, but it really wasn’t for me.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#550

Post by rayiner »

opportune wrote: post #148
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.

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…

The problem isn’t cultural, it’s governmental. It costs america so much more to build and maintain transit that it’s not a very attractive alternative to cars. My state just spent $6 billion on a 16 mile light rail line through the suburbs that’s not even grade separated: https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2021/02/26/purpl....

The DC metro, which I used to ride, is extremely well funded. It’s actually regressed since it was built in the late 1970s, with the automated train control (which used to provide a smooth ride) having to be shut down due to poor maintenance. Headways are now 33% longer than they were a decade ago. (Well even longer now due to covid related collapse.) Trip times are slower—everything takes 10-20% more time than advertised.

Or look at Biden’s build back better plan. Amtrak would get $30 billion and build nothing: https://www.slowboring.com/p/amtrak-should-bring-in-foreign-...

> Because as Henry Grabar points out, while $30 billion should be a game-changing investment in the Northeast Corridor, the actual plan from Amtrak is to spend about $30 billion on one tunnel under the Hudson River.

Americans are not as dumb as Europeans think. If we could build light rail for $30 million/mile like Germany, instead of $350 million per mile, that stupid 16 mile light rail could be a 160 mile network all around the Maryland suburbs. That would be a totally different value proposition. The high costs mean that

Post reply on HN