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Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

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Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100x is shocking, so I explored a bit. Over 2010-2020 Amherst PD reported ~5 violent crimes per year[1], in a town of ~10000, or about 50 per 100000. NYPD reported ~49k per year over the same period[ibid], on about 8.3m residents, or about about 590 per 100000. So about 11x difference in per-capita reported-to-local-PD crime. I'll admit I'm surprised it's still an order of magnitude, I share GP's sensibility that the…

"Violent crime" is not a consistently defined or tracked category across cities, so it isn't comparable. The NYPD has a notoriously... loose definition of "violent crime", to the point where it counts things that no reasonable person would be thinking of when they hear that term. For this reason, researchers typically use homocides to make comparisons, because that's consistently defined and tracked across jurisdicti…

Very fair point, my comment should be read as a worst-case estimate of the comparison. In homicide terms, GP's town averages ~2 per 100k (although they haven't had one for the last few years) while NYC averages ~4 per 100k.

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#623
post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That vibe definitely exist, in Cambridge and Somerville, and maybe the Seaport, where the tech folks love to live. Everyone in Camberville seems to be in tech or tech adjacent.

In my neighborhood the branded swag has shifted from mostly tech to mostly biotech over the last several years.

A lot of computer-related tech (and defense sector) in the Boston area has historically been out in the suburbs, e.g. the "Route 128" companies. After Teradyne moved out, there was very little tech presence left in the actual city. That shifted with biotech/pharma and, more recently, with companies in the Seaport and Cambridge and the outposts of the big West Coast-HQd companies. But a lot of the tech industry is still well to the West and North of the city.

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#626
post #390

The problem for me, as a long time NYC resident, is that there's no other place in America I want to live even with work from home as a possibility. I like mass transit. I like not owning a car. I like that the city is generally safer than the rest of America. I like that it's the center for tech on the east coast, the arts for the entire country, and finance for most of the world. I like that we generally get along…

I see Boston as the tech hub of the East more than NYC. New York obviously has a large number of tech jobs, but Boston and DC both have a higher concentration of tech; in NYC the big fish is obviously finance. I discount DC a little because a lot of that is government and defense related (not a bad thing, just not my cup of tea). Boston has a lot of diversity in tech, lots of health/pharma like Moderna, web companies…

Indeed, the amount of VC dollars invested in Boston companies per years is 3x the per capita of New York's. So while NY may have slightly more total dollars invested, a much higher percentage of Boston metro area workers (something like 30%) work in tech. New York will never really be a tech hub in the same way as SF or Boston because tech plays second fiddle to other industries.

Still true today: http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find similar numbers to yours for any definition of 'violent crime' I found numbers for, but assuming they're true, it's still missing the point. Amherst is a wealthy community in a wealthy, low crime state. It'd be like pointing to a border town to make the opposite argument.

As I mentioned down-thread, NYC has 45% more violent crime than the national median. It's simply not a "low crime" place, despite the PR.

And as has been explained to you multiple times, you're using inconsistently defined and reported data across jurisdictions with different practices.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned down-thread, NYC has 45% more violent crime than the national median. It's simply not a "low crime" place, despite the PR.

NYC has a lower homicide rate than America, and that is the only category of crime that is mostly consistently reported across jurisdictions. Every other category of crime basically varies by an order of magnitude from place to place depending on accuracy of reporting.

This is important point. Apples and oranges.

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see Boston as the tech hub of the East more than NYC. New York obviously has a large number of tech jobs, but Boston and DC both have a higher concentration of tech; in NYC the big fish is obviously finance. I discount DC a little because a lot of that is government and defense related (not a bad thing, just not my cup of tea). Boston has a lot of diversity in tech, lots of health/pharma like Moderna, web companies…

As somebody with no dog in this fight (I live in the south east), I'd tend to agree with the Boston take. Simply being in the orbit of MIT can have that effect, along with everything else you listed. The issue with NYC from a perception as a hub of any one thing is that it's just so big with so many different things going on that tech just seems like one of many things going on there simply because of all the people.

MIT is part of it but Massachusetts is also home to a large number of other research universities including BU, Northeastern, Harvard, the UMass system, etc.

As you say, NYC (like Silicon Valley) has always been more concentrated in terms of technology focus.

Re: Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time

#630
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) there should be heavy state intervention (...) This has been tried so many times throughout different cultures and time periods, and by different means. It will not benefit whoever is actually living on the properties, but will detract from their situation. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt has several concrete examples of attempted interventions, and is written to give a basic intuition on why this ha…

but what if they just build more 1000ft tall buildings with only 40 uber-luxury units? how does that help?

It sounds like incentives in Manhattan are stacked in a way that 1000ft tall buildings with only 40 uber-luxury units are the only kind of buildings that can be profitably built.
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