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

Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 115 posts

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#101

Post by avn2109 »

micro_cam wrote: post #52
vlucas wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the climate is not that great - we have both extremes (really host in the summer, and snow/ice in the winder), and I do really miss the beach - that is the #1 thing I miss about CA. Central Oklahoma is also fairly flat, so if you like mountains in the distance and a little colder climate, Boulder may be more your thing. The key for me is how much impact I can have here. I feel like Boulder already has a lot…

Boise, Bozeman or Missoula are mountain towns with young tech/startup cultures where you can still have a huge impact.

shhhhhhh... you are giving away my secrets.

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#102

Post by vlucas »

davidw wrote: post #95
micro_cam wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boise, Bozeman or Missoula are mountain towns with young tech/startup cultures where you can still have a huge impact.

Yeah, the midwest is a step too far for me. I've got to have some mountains... some... something. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Oklahoma/@35.856529,-97.81... randomly grabbed from outside of Oklahoma City. Looks mind-numbingly boring. Ft Collins in Colorado looks like a calmer, more affordable place than Boulder.

Most of the midwest looks like that - even in Colorado. Here's a streetview I randomly grabbed just outside Ft. Collins: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Fort+Collins,+CO/@40.33618...

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#103

Post by vlucas »

xaa wrote: post #60
vlucas wrote: post #28

This is awesome news for me. I currently live in the Oklahoma City area, and have for the past 11 years after moving here from the Bay Area, and am heavily invested in the local tech community (I founded http://okcjs.com and organize http://thunderplainsconf.com among other things). The tech community here is better than it has EVER been and awesome things are happening here, but of course it's all relative - it's st…

Also a fellow OKCite, and I agree wholeheartedly that it is a great place to live (although Tulsa is better). However, I had no idea there was any kind of developer community here. Any other events going on? Or at least a centralized place to find them?

There is an awesome community here! I am a part of the non-profit Techlahoma Foundation ( http://techlahoma.org/ ), and we support local user groups and community meetings in general in the state. We maintain a list of them here: http://us.techlahoma.org/groups

We also maintain a meeting announcement mailing list for OKC.js (our largest group, 50-60+ people each meeting) here: http://okcjs.com/ (click on "Sign Up!" in the navbar).

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#104

Post by davidw »

vlucas wrote: post #102
davidw wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the midwest is a step too far for me. I've got to have some mountains... some... something. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Oklahoma/@35.856529,-97.81... randomly grabbed from outside of Oklahoma City. Looks mind-numbingly boring. Ft Collins in Colorado looks like a calmer, more affordable place than Boulder.

Most of the midwest looks like that - even in Colorado. Here's a streetview I randomly grabbed just outside Ft. Collins: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Fort+Collins,+CO/@40.33618...

That's more than 70km outside of town, to the east:-) Get closer and you get mountains.

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#105

Post by mrfusion »

micro_cam wrote: post #52
vlucas wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the climate is not that great - we have both extremes (really host in the summer, and snow/ice in the winder), and I do really miss the beach - that is the #1 thing I miss about CA. Central Oklahoma is also fairly flat, so if you like mountains in the distance and a little colder climate, Boulder may be more your thing. The key for me is how much impact I can have here. I feel like Boulder already has a lot…

Boise, Bozeman or Missoula are mountain towns with young tech/startup cultures where you can still have a huge impact.

I just looked them up, the climates look pretty dismal? 9 month winters basically?

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#106

Post by jzimdars »

dubfan wrote: post #80
jzimdars wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is more to it than than just oil. OKC didn't go nuts like much of the country did during the real estate boom and likewise we didn't get our asses handed to us when the market dropped. We saw moderate gains followed by moderate loss. That's a big reason why OKC has maintained one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country throughout this financial crisis. IMO this is a reflection of a culture that's a litt…

> the other guy always lets you go first at a 4-way stop You say this like it's a good thing...

You're right. It's kind of irritating sometimes—there are rules for how this works!

But they do mean well :)

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#107

Post by rybosome »

ams6110 wrote: post #90
rybosome wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The state...hates renewable energy Well that clinches it for me. There are very, very few viewpoints that I dismiss out of hand, but opposition to renewable energy is one of them (maybe the only one). Energy is one of the world's most important resources, and we know that we are using a source which is ultimately finite. Even if oil reserves were to last another 10,000 years (and the vast majority of experts do not…

Opportunity cost. If you expend resources on developing something what are you giving up? This is why renewables are not being developed more than they are. In fact they are probably being developed at an artificially exaggerated rate right now, given incentives such as tax credits.

As oil becomes more scarce, its price will rise sharply. A large increase in the price of oil would have significant negative effects on the global economy. It can be argued that money spent to reduce our dependence on oil is only "giving up" in the same sense that saving money is giving up the ability to spend it. The opportunity cost of not pursuing alternatives is _much_ higher in the long run.

Do you actually believe that alternative energy is not a good investment, or were you attempting to rationalize why one might be opposed?

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#108

Post by sixbit »

masonhensley wrote: post #81
sixbit wrote: post #41

I just did the SF --> DFW move this week. Housing is 10x cheaper so that tipped the pluses ahead of the minuses for me, and it's still a big city so you can find decent things to do outside of work. Have my own b2b company that I'm bootstrapping, so I realized I wasn't tied to SF anymore for any particular reason. Will be interesting to see how the next year goes!

Welcome to DFW!

Thanks!

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#109

Post by kpennell »

genwin wrote: post #64
mrfusion wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the write-up. What's the climate like? Does it feel weird not being able to drive to a beach/ocean easily? How did you decide on OKC? I've always imaged Boulder would be nice if I ever moved inland?

Boulder's not cheap. There I saw an ordinary split-level house for sale at $1.5 million. 10 miles away, closer to Denver, the same house could be $300K.

At least Boulder's rent is about 50% of the bay's

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#110

Post by bkjelden »

perrylaj wrote: post #91
bkjelden wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people really value the variety in weather that the interior of the country provides. I live in the midwest right now, and whenever I contemplate moving to the west coast, one of the things I would dislike the most is giving up having 4 distinct seasons. The first warm days of spring, crisp fall mornings, "its so hot out we have to go swimming at the lake" days in summer, and the first snow of the year - these a…

I love the idea of that, just suppose it didn't feel that way in practice. Tad jealous to be honest!

I think a lot of it depends on what you grew up with. I grew up with 4 seasons and gently rolling hils, others grew up with mountains, and others grew up with the beach and pleasant weather year round.
Post reply on HN