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Americans are rethinking where they want to live

economist.com

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Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#521

Post by brewdad »

refurb wrote: post #497
SavantIdiot wrote: post #51

I'd go South if the politics start to blue-up. I figure if this trend holds as the article says, by the time I'm ready to retire there will have been two censuses. I care about social justice, local produce, and warm weather. The south has 2 out of 3.

I find it ironic that where you want to go needs to be "more blue" because where you're currently living isn't that great (but is blue).

In my case, I am white but my wife is foreign born naturalized citizen with brown skin. There is no way I am going to ask her to move some place where she has to constantly be looking over her shoulder because the locals can't handle the fact that she looks different. Sure TN is cheap but not at the cost of our mental health.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#522

Post by hondo77 »

hardtke wrote: post #92
dmode wrote: post #32

This article and similar ones have been written at least a 1000 times for the last decade with a clear political tinge. The poster child is always around how people want to move to Florida and Texas. But somehow it forgets to include Washington and Seattle which has probably seen the biggest tech migration and grown into the second biggest tech hub in the country, far greater than Austin or Miami (hyped up constantly…

The San Francisco Chronicle has done some analyses of the Bay Area exodus, and the majority are not moving to Texas but instead to places like San Joaquin and Madera county (counties that border the Bay Area). People want the bigger house, but they also want to be able to visit their friends and family.

I'm typing this from Madera County. People are fleeing the Bay Area to move to the worst air quality in the country? My wife and I are figuring out how to move away (again) because the smog is really messing with her health. The air is so much worse here than when we were growing up. Heck, she wants to move to the cleaner air of Santa Clarita (north of L.A.--where we used to live).

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#523

Post by bittercynic »

88913527 wrote: post #360
foofoo4u wrote: post #91

I sure am. I live in San Jose (which resides in the Bay Area). Here’s why I am leaving. - $2,700 per month for a 500 sq/ft apartment. - Homeless people everywhere the moment I step foot out of my apartment. - Smells like urine on many sidewalks. - Literally half of the buildings are vacant or abandoned (in downtown). - Human feces on sidewalks and entrance to buildings. - Political and ideological homogeny. Keep your…

What areas don't have political and ideology homogeny anymore? There are two Americas. I would enjoy an area with better tolerance to the other side's ideals, but it seems that's in short supply everywhere. There's a real viciousness for the other side at the national level, but I can't understand it at the individual human being level or the community level. Your neighbor may not share your politics, but it also doe…

I think the divide looks more bridgeable on a personal level - on a recent trip to a rural area of Oregon I got to speak with an anti-vax, huge pickup driving, hunting, Christian man. He seemed like a genuine, kind, thoughtful person, and I sincerely enjoyed talking with him. He acted respectful towards my pro-vax, Prius-driving, suburb-dwelling attitudes. Seemed like there was mutual respect there, and I don't think it's too unusual for people to appreciate learning about each other and to respect differences.

Guess I'm just hoping that controversy appears bigger than it is, and most people still do know how to get along and respect each other.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#524

Post by gaoshan »

gnicholas wrote: post #226
dmode wrote: post #32

This article and similar ones have been written at least a 1000 times for the last decade with a clear political tinge. The poster child is always around how people want to move to Florida and Texas. But somehow it forgets to include Washington and Seattle which has probably seen the biggest tech migration and grown into the second biggest tech hub in the country, far greater than Austin or Miami (hyped up constantly…

It looks like FL and TX each had ~130k net migrants per the last reported data. [1] Washington had ~40k in the same year. There's a reason journalists talk more about migration to FL/TX, and it's because there are way more people moving there. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

I used to live in Florida and you couldn't pay me to move back. The weather is hot, sticky and humid, the politics are right wing, the religion is old timey and in your face and the (mostly) latent racism is unpleasant when you encounter it.

I moved to a larger city in the midwest and it's great. Yes, winter is a drag but that's about the only negative that bothers me. Tech salaries go a long way, public schools are high quality and plentiful, politics are generally more balanced (than Florida or Texas), religion isn't a constant presence, crime is low and people are mostly friendly.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#525

Post by refurb »

brewdad wrote: post #521
refurb wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it ironic that where you want to go needs to be "more blue" because where you're currently living isn't that great (but is blue).

In my case, I am white but my wife is foreign born naturalized citizen with brown skin. There is no way I am going to ask her to move some place where she has to constantly be looking over her shoulder because the locals can't handle the fact that she looks different. Sure TN is cheap but not at the cost of our mental health.

Wasn’t there a string of anti-Asian attacks in the Bay Area? Not sure what you think your avoiding by not going to TN.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#526

Post by agensaequivocum »

dragonwriter wrote: post #284
hagbard_c wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also don't vote for the policies which made you pick up your bags and leave the place you came from or your new place of residence will eventually start to look like the one you left.

> Also don't vote for the policies which made you pick up your bags and leave the place you came from or your new place of residence will eventually start to look like the one you left. Maybe people didn't leave because of the policies, but because of their position relative to them. I mean, people who aren't legacy homeowners and find California too expensive but otherwise like it might well prefer to become a homeo…

No. I left California because of its policies and the last thing I want is for my new state to become anything resembling California.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#527

Post by Talanes »

hunterb123 wrote: post #321
ericmay wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because cafes and bread from bakeries are (relative) luxuries. Even if it's just $1 more a coffee/loaf that adds up to significant money over a year. That's the thing that I think people miss. Scale makes things cheaper and to have scale at retail you need to pull customers from a large area. I wonder if all those loaves of bread and coffees cost more than tires, having 2 or 3 cars, obesity, and lost productivity f…

Small towns in the US already work similarly to European towns, though a bit more straightforward (pun intended). The town itself is pretty self-sufficient, usually has a co-op, general store, single main road going through downtown, sidewalks, etc. Larger cities do have suburbs like you're describing, but generally they do have their own amenities like fast food courts / grocery stores / school systems near the entr…

>but generally they do have their own amenities like fast food courts / grocery stores / school systems

Though some starkly do not. Before the pandemic, a friend was living in a San Diego area suburb apartment building that was located on a strip of land between freeways with the complex and a strip mall.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#528

Post by pengaru »

foofoo4u wrote: post #91

I sure am. I live in San Jose (which resides in the Bay Area). Here’s why I am leaving. - $2,700 per month for a 500 sq/ft apartment. - Homeless people everywhere the moment I step foot out of my apartment. - Smells like urine on many sidewalks. - Literally half of the buildings are vacant or abandoned (in downtown). - Human feces on sidewalks and entrance to buildings. - Political and ideological homogeny. Keep your…

Man Jose is an awful choice when it comes to CA/Bay Area options.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#529

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

dragonwriter wrote: post #335
ericmay wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because cafes and bread from bakeries are (relative) luxuries. Even if it's just $1 more a coffee/loaf that adds up to significant money over a year. That's the thing that I think people miss. Scale makes things cheaper and to have scale at retail you need to pull customers from a large area. I wonder if all those loaves of bread and coffees cost more than tires, having 2 or 3 cars, obesity, and lost productivity f…

> Tear down a house in the suburbs and put in a little market/grocery store and you don't need to drive anywhere you just walk over. Except everyone with a reliable car still drives to the large grocery store and with a wide selection which has lower prices and better selection on basics but makes it up with lower volume, high margin luxuries that the small market c doesn't have floor space for, and the small market,…

Ironically, my two best counter-examples of your claims above are both within 1 mile of each other.

Wiley St. Co-op and Jenifer St. Market are both relatively small grocery stores in the Marquette neighborhood of Madison, WI. The co-op is a bit larger, but less densely stocked and has no alcohol. Jenifer St. is packed to the gills, and sells alcohol. Both are surrounded by primarily single-family homes, with a few apartment buildings within walking distance. Neither are "ethnic" food stores, and neither sell much in the way of junk food, and neither sells tobacco.

I've been visiting them both for about 20 years whenever we visit relatives in Madison. I've always found them both remarkable, even given their placement in probably one of the most suitable locations in the USA for this sort of thing.

Of course, were I to comment on my own comment, I'd probably say "Yep, the exception(s) that prove the rule".

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#530

Post by TheGigaChad »

temp8964 wrote: post #182
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…

> Moving to the suburbs would find us losing much of that freedom that comes with living in a dense neighborhood. This does not make sense. Yes, moving to the suburbs and not using a car would lose much of freedom, but it is not how you live in the suburbs... When you live the suburbs (with a car or multiple cars), you have way more choices to grocery stores, doctor's offices, friends' houses, public parks, lakes, et…

Idiot, get cancer and die screaming out of pain in your suburban shithole.
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