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Mapping the U.S. By Property Value Instead of Land Area

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Re: Mapping the U.S. By Property Value Instead of Land Area

#31
post #8

Isn't this just the same as population density? I think there's an XKCD about this ... https://xkcd.com/1138/

Roughly that's all it's showing. I'd be far more interested in the cartogram of land value/population. I suspect it would do much more to show some of the oddities that I'm sure exist. (i.e. Park City where a lot of people have really expensive vacation homes for skiing and don't live there.)

I wonder if it should be normalized by population or population density. I think population density would show the most interesting market divergences.

Re: Mapping the U.S. By Property Value Instead of Land Area

#33

> "The stubborn unwillingness of incumbent homeowners in highly productive places—namely San Francisco and New York City, which are barely visible on the land-area map, but dominate the housing value map—is a huge drain on the nation’s economy." Are they trying to say that if people didn't have to spend as much on housing then there would be greater GDP?

No, it's saying that concentration of wealth geographically is harmful to economic development. The reality is though, that distributed wealth grows much more slowly.

That's not even close to what it's saying. It's saying people in places like SF don't want others coming in/and or want to maximize their home value, so they stop new housing being built, which keeps supply of housing down and thus less people can live in areas where there are lots of work opportunities.

Re: Mapping the U.S. By Property Value Instead of Land Area

#34
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be pedantic, but I think your example is a little off the mark. Red hair isn't evenly distributed amongst all human populations. [1] A heatmap of population that would leave out most of China and India isn't quite a heatmap of population. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair

Ok, talking US maps. Not many per-person maps that would work worldwide. What do you suggest for an example?

Human height

Re: Mapping the U.S. By Property Value Instead of Land Area

#35
post #4

> The demand to live in these places is soaring, but the desire among incumbents to accommodate newcomers is low Sums up why we ended up in Bend, Oregon rather than Boulder, Colorado. In the latter, there is a small but significant group of people whose idea is that the area needs fewer jobs, not smarter housing. Edit: http://journal.dedasys.com/2015/06/18/boulder-colorado-vs-be... - more about our choice, for the cu…

How are you liking Bend? I remember reading some of your comments on HN a few years ago since we were living in Portland. In Seattle now and own a place, but are thinking someday we might sell it and move to Bend. We've always found central Oregon uniquely beautiful. My friend just bought a place in Boulder, and I visited and enjoyed hanging out there. Things did seem a bit more expensive.

Up: Bend is a rad place. The lazy river / float scene is really fun. There are approx. 26 breweries, great food, and a really active community. On a typical weekend everyone is out and about which makes it easier to meet folks and get integrated into the community.

Down: Bend was not built for the massive influx of people that the city has seen in recent years. The transportation group is trying to work through it but they will need to be very creative as there is a nice distance gap between East Bend and West Bend.

There are also lots of traffic circles that are single lane that seem to slow down traffic (good and bad) but they run right up against homes and businesses so there are not many options for expansion.

If you own in Seattle now is a great time to sell. We moved a year ago (enjoyed Seattle and its quirks/beer/outdoors) to a more Bend-like community and run our business from here. The transition was worth its weight in gold and we don't look back one bit.

+1000000 would do again

Re: Mapping the U.S. By Property Value Instead of Land Area

#37
post #8

Isn't this just the same as population density? I think there's an XKCD about this ... https://xkcd.com/1138/

One of the references http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/04/daily-c... has both. There are some differences.

Re: Mapping the U.S. By Property Value Instead of Land Area

#38
post #18
post #13

i kind of understand why people here frequently against high-density - the way it is done in US ends up with pretty unlivable space of towering boxes surrounded by concrete and asphalt (which is just obvious result of profit maximization while obeying height limits, etc.. While i think having a 200 stories tower surrounded by a park would be better than a bunch of 20-30 stories mid-towers sticking out of concrete/asp…

I feel that sound is a big part of it too. European buildings tend to be a titch bit better about this, but American ones are downright terrible. I'd love to live in a apartment building for a long time, but the sound is what gets me. I can't play my sound as loud as I want, I can't stand other people ignoring that the walls are paper thin, I hear every toilet flush and chopping of carrots in the building. If you can…

That doesn't have to be the case... I live in a large apartment building on a high floor, and I rarely hear my neighbors. Good walls and smart design go a long way. Granted, this is a fairly new building that is a bit expensive, but my point is that noise problems in high rise buildings aren't inherent to all large buildings.

Re: Mapping the U.S. By Property Value Instead of Land Area

#39
post #4

> The demand to live in these places is soaring, but the desire among incumbents to accommodate newcomers is low Sums up why we ended up in Bend, Oregon rather than Boulder, Colorado. In the latter, there is a small but significant group of people whose idea is that the area needs fewer jobs, not smarter housing. Edit: http://journal.dedasys.com/2015/06/18/boulder-colorado-vs-be... - more about our choice, for the cu…

As a lifetime Oregonian, I enjoy Bend and get out there a couple times a year. My family even considered moving there a few years ago in search of a place with more sun. But in deciding between Boulder and Bend, we ended up choosing Boulder, well actually Broomfield, but Boulder was the draw, because as you found Boulder housing prices were too high.

Which leads me to the question, did you consider living outside of Boulder to still get most of the things on your checklist, but not face the high housing prices or difficult political climate?

The problem with Bend, as we came to decide, was there is no "outside of Bend", it's an island with not much of any other place to go for jobs, housing, diversity. Add in the fact that the jobs that are there don't support the house prices. With Boulder, you can always fall back to Denver or one of the many suburbs if your independent business or remote job falls through.

We ultimately moved back to the Portland area for other reasons, but would still choose Boulder/Denver over Bend if we had to do it again.

Re: Mapping the U.S. By Property Value Instead of Land Area

#40
post #4

> The demand to live in these places is soaring, but the desire among incumbents to accommodate newcomers is low Sums up why we ended up in Bend, Oregon rather than Boulder, Colorado. In the latter, there is a small but significant group of people whose idea is that the area needs fewer jobs, not smarter housing. Edit: http://journal.dedasys.com/2015/06/18/boulder-colorado-vs-be... - more about our choice, for the cu…

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