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Find a new city

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Re: Find a new city

#151

Post by sawthat »

This is a good article, in particular the first point that the "super star" cities were affordable places to live from the late 60s through the early 90s if you didn't mind a pretty gritty situation. However, I don't think you can recreate that situation easily in an affordable rust belt city.

The reason those cities were affordable at that time was white flight. The wealthy and middle class white population was moving to the suburbs, causing demand for housing to fall dramatically reducing costs (as well as the tax base, causing decay, increasing white flight). However the businesses that drove those cities did not leave. San Francisco was still a financial hub on the west cost. New York was still the center of finance and business for the entire country. So you had a place were creative people could gather and live affordably as well as an economy that produced enough excess to support the artists and musicians. (a struggling rust belt city doesn't have that many coffee shops and no local money to buy art and pay cover charges and clubs)

I guess what I'm saying is that those times are gone. There are cities where artists artists "are creating their own scene". New Orleans springs to mind, but those cities are getting expensive fast because there just isn't the huge excess of housing there was during white flight.

Re: Find a new city

#152

Post by Erik816 »

vertex-four wrote: post #115
refurb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I've lived where people had different values than me and it just gets exhausting. Really? I thought diversity was a good thing? I know I wouldn't want to live somewhere where everyone thought the same thing I did. Sounds boring.

So here's the thing - diversity of ideas is good, diversity of values is what people struggle with. As long as two people agree on where they're trying to go, they can disagree on the details of how to get there and still be perfectly happy - when either of them gets closer, both do. But, say you're a gun nut and the people surrounding you are decidedly anti-gun-ownership - there's no shared goal, and no obvious reso…

Your example is one of a diversity of ideas. Some people have the idea that guns will keep them safe, others have the idea that guns will just bring on more violence. That is not a difference of values, because you can hold either position while valuing safety.

Re: Find a new city

#153

Post by eugenekolo2 »

SandersAK wrote: post #3

Many New York artists talk about NYC as if it was cheap but it is simply not true. There is no other place in the US that concentrates so many different types of people. Patti Smith, David Byrne etc all benefitted from there being billionaires, millionaires, celebrities, thespians, high profile doctors, lawyers, and more than a century of civic dedication to arts and culture. There is a shared communal love and suppo…

NYC wasn't only poor people (it's a major business metropolis of ~10MM people, not everybody is going to be poor), but it was actually affordable on a small income. In fact, most of the US was the 80s, and 90s. Don't know what you mean by the Puerto Ricans who lived there before her, because they're still there.

You're right that NYC is still somewhat affordable if you look outside of Manhattan, not Crown Heights though, but places like south Brooklyn, and east Queens. The issue is that everybody who's never lived in NYC, or only lived there after getting a college degree only considers NYC to be Manhattan + Williamsburg.

Source: Growing up poor in NYC.

Re: Find a new city

#154

Post by therealdrag0 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #125
abetusk wrote: post #124

For those looking for cheap cities to live, I've found Zillow's data [1] on mortgage price to income ratio data [2] interesting. Some choice datapoints: San Francisco, CA 9.1817795575535 Boston, MA 4.9264239374417 New York, NY 5.5458400782590 Detroit, MI 2.22905530728586 St. Louis, MO 2.4588523706753 I think the national average is around 3.1 and around 3.0 is considered "healthy" (your mortgage costs about 3x your y…

Interesting to see how much Portland spiked in the last decade, from ~3 to >5. I wonder how much of the surrounding area that includes? I've seen housing prices skyrocket in Portland, but much less so in surrounding areas. (They've still increased, but I'd hypothesize that they haven't increased nearly as much as within Portland. I'd love to see separated data to check that hypothesis, though.)

I've seen articles showing Portland and Seattle increasing 10+% per year for the last 4 years. So yeah. Not sure what specifically is going on in portland though. Hear about Seattle tech a lot more.

Re: Find a new city

#155

Post by Bjorkbat »

This really resonates with my choice to live in Albuquerque, NM.

Maybe San Francisco, New York, Austin, etc, are better, but (almost) everything those cities have we have too, just in fewer quantities, or more grounded, or both.

I would argue we have a certain cultural richness not found in cities dominated by exposed brick and a 1920s rough aesthetic complemented by modern accessories.

For starters, the state is home to 20+ separate nations that predate the United States.

Re: Find a new city

#156

Post by tikhonj »

refurb wrote: post #108
initram wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's not only about being safe. I don't have to worry too much about that sort of thing because I blend in most places in my country. But I've lived where people had different values than me and it just gets exhausting. Constantly being bombarded with messages you fundamentally disagree with 24/7. Billboards; local TV; newpapers/web sites; overhearing conversations of the people around you; having odd things s…

But I've lived where people had different values than me and it just gets exhausting. Really? I thought diversity was a good thing? I know I wouldn't want to live somewhere where everyone thought the same thing I did. Sounds boring.

The way I read the original comment was that almost everyone held different values. That says nothing about diversity—those different values might be (reading between the lines, are) all more or less the same.

Put another way: it's not a matter of living where "everyone agrees with you" but where "not everyone disagrees with you". Those aren't the same!

Diversity of ideas is definitely a good thing, and, unless you hold fringe views, it means a fair number of people do agree with you. If everyone disagrees with you either you're a real outlier or, more likely, there is less diversity of views on that particular axis.

Re: Find a new city

#157

Post by SandersAK »

eugenekolo2 wrote: post #153
SandersAK wrote: post #3

Many New York artists talk about NYC as if it was cheap but it is simply not true. There is no other place in the US that concentrates so many different types of people. Patti Smith, David Byrne etc all benefitted from there being billionaires, millionaires, celebrities, thespians, high profile doctors, lawyers, and more than a century of civic dedication to arts and culture. There is a shared communal love and suppo…

NYC wasn't only poor people (it's a major business metropolis of ~10MM people, not everybody is going to be poor), but it was actually affordable on a small income. In fact, most of the US was the 80s, and 90s. Don't know what you mean by the Puerto Ricans who lived there before her, because they're still there. You're right that NYC is still somewhat affordable if you look outside of Manhattan, not Crown Heights tho…

I get that parts of NYC have been affordable at different times, but there are parts that get gentrified and taken advantage of by a very specific class of people (primarily white middle class) who use the depressed value of the area to have more space and time to do arts and culture stuff.

I lived in Sunset Park for many many years and saw artists moving into the studios down by the docks. They came from SOHO, DUMBO, and Williamsburg. In 25 years, they will move somewhere else.

Re: Find a new city

#158

Post by mklim »

Apocryphon wrote: post #49
rpazyaquian wrote: post #34

This jumped out at me: > “I’m trans, so I need to live somewhere progressive so I feel safe day-to-day and don’t feel like I’m going to get beat up for using the wrong restroom.” This is a pretty damn good reason to live somewhere like Seattle or Boston, and a pretty damn good reason not to live somewhere like (edit:) North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia. The reality is that many of us are limited by not wanting to…

Detroit is socially conservative?

In my experience, yes. One of the biggest boons about moving from Metro Detroit to the Bay Area is that I don't get harassed in the street for being visibly gender non-conforming anymore. Detroit consistently votes Democrat but that's more to do with the unions than the social values.

Re: Find a new city

#159

Post by mklim »

nostromo wrote: post #60
rpazyaquian wrote: post #34

This jumped out at me: > “I’m trans, so I need to live somewhere progressive so I feel safe day-to-day and don’t feel like I’m going to get beat up for using the wrong restroom.” This is a pretty damn good reason to live somewhere like Seattle or Boston, and a pretty damn good reason not to live somewhere like (edit:) North Carolina or Tennessee or Georgia. The reality is that many of us are limited by not wanting to…

Have you actually spent time in Raleigh or Atlanta? The idea that trans people are getting murdered in the street is just not correct. I'm gay and I've spent a lot of fun nights in Boise, Idaho because a gay friend of mine lives there with her wife. We always have a blast. She has a great career in Boise and I don't think she's experienced more homophobia there than when she lived in New York City. (I know she had at…

As a counter anecdote, I'm from the Midwest and one of the biggest boons about moving from Metro Detroit to the Bay Area is that I don't get harassed in the street for being visibly gender non-conforming anymore. I very much agree with GP, being able to live in a liberal city is one of the biggest bonuses of tech being huge in the Bay Area.

There's socially liberal islands in my home state, like Ann Arbor, Ferndale, and to a lesser extent Grand Rapids, but get too far outside of those towns and you'll have people asking you to leave their store because you're holding hands with your same-sex significant other, yelling slurs at you out of their car windows, telling you unprompted that they're going to pray for your soul, etc. I have a friend that was exorcised and then disowned when he came out, my high school principle gave me a talk about how me being out was reflecting negatively on the school and I needed to change my wicked ways, etc. It's a huge load off my mind to be somewhere where it's a non-issue.

Re: Find a new city

#160

Post by uola »

nextos wrote: post #146
ido wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copenhagen? I don't know how much real estate costs there but I doubt it's cheap. Last time I visited it was as expensive as Zurich (I.e. Double German prices). Better examples might be Leipzig and Prague.

IMHO suburbs in Copenhagen are pretty affordable wrt salaries.

Malmö is probably a better deal in that case.
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