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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

#551

Post by gregors »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #331
Jerrrry wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nashville and Knoxville have tripled in operational and pragmatic density in the last 5 years. Having drove to Knoxville last week, the stroads have too many cars.

Only having been to Knoxville on purpose twice, it definitely felt way too busy for how small it was. I-40 was stopped basically on a random friday at noon. Same happens in Nashville, but Nashville is sooooo much bigger, it is expected.

Basically anyone and everyone in the North from Ohio to New York who is driving to Florida is going to pass through that that section of interstate. The I640 bypass doesn't really help - it merges back into mainline city traffic before were most people locally are traveling. Poorly executed. The Great Smoky Mountains are nearby and is the most visited national park adding to it all.

That being said, check out Market Square for a bite to eat or KnoxDevs for a pretty cool dev community.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#552

Post by selectodude »

mbesto wrote: post #125
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…

No offense, but presumably your parents did the same thing when they had you for similar reasons. This is simply what happens when you have kids. However, there are separate but related trends which the articles points out: - The south's quality of living has drastically increased over the last 20~30 years - People aren't seeing state localized benefits from high state taxes (IMHO Illinois might the worst tax:benefit…

>People aren't seeing state localized benefits from high state taxes

I always think this, and then I leave Illinois and immediately notice that the infrastructure in neighboring states (Indiana and Missouri, namely) is abhorrent. I think it's just all relative.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#553

Post by Schweigi »

nonameiguess wrote: post #366
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…

Not a California thing. I live in Dallas and am all for coming to Texas, but don't expect miracles. There are homeless people everywhere, vacant buildings, my catalytic converter has been sawed off twice, trash all over the place, major road out of my neighborhood has had a pothole big enough to knock a wheel off for 8 months and the city has done nothing about it. These are just city problems. On the other hand, my…

Dallas has definitely worse roads than the Bay Area. There are some roads with crazy amount of pot holes.

In think crime and homeless depends a lot on the area in Dallas. A lot of new apartments and townhomes are in “transitional” neighborhoods.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#555

Post by telotortium »

sagarm wrote: post #513
jedberg wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dense living inherently requires less infrastructure and less transportation Not really. Firstly, it costs a lot more per square foot to build a high rise than a single family home. Secondly, it costs a lot more to maintain it (elevators need constant maintenance, you can't just run to Home Depot to get replacement drain parts, etc.). And the infrastructure costs more to maintain -- running power to a high rise req…

Roads alone cost $2-3M/mile and last 30 years. Amortized, that's on the order of $100k/yr/mile. In a city, that would be $100k / 10 city blocks, probably 100 parcels with 100-1000 low-to-mid rise housing units. In a rural area it might be just 10 housing units, at the cost of $10k/yr/parcel. And productivity in rural areas is 2-3x lower, so it's even higher as a percentage of per-capita GDP. Add on top of that electr…

> Roads alone cost $2-3M/mile and last 30 years. Amortized, that's on the order of $100k/yr/mile.

Do you have a cite for that? I believe that figure for new roads, but you generally don't have to rebuild the entire road, including roadbed, after 30 years, just repave, which is a lot cheaper.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#556

Post by felixfbecker »

treis wrote: post #286
ericmay wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cultural but also institutional. Governments think nothing of blowing tens of millions of dollars on highway construction and do not typically think about or care to invest in alternatives. Beyond a certain point (which was a long time ago) we're just building roads and highways to create artificial growth. It blows my mind how people don't realize the cultural piece either. They travel, "omg it's so walkable he…

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. You could do the same in a dense area but then you run into housing cost/size problems. I don't see how you get the typical 4/…

Bread from a bakery is a luxury? In Germany there is a bakery on every corner and a large, fresh loaf of bread costs under 1€!

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#557

Post by BrandonM »

sagarm wrote: post #513
jedberg wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dense living inherently requires less infrastructure and less transportation Not really. Firstly, it costs a lot more per square foot to build a high rise than a single family home. Secondly, it costs a lot more to maintain it (elevators need constant maintenance, you can't just run to Home Depot to get replacement drain parts, etc.). And the infrastructure costs more to maintain -- running power to a high rise req…

Roads alone cost $2-3M/mile and last 30 years. Amortized, that's on the order of $100k/yr/mile. In a city, that would be $100k / 10 city blocks, probably 100 parcels with 100-1000 low-to-mid rise housing units. In a rural area it might be just 10 housing units, at the cost of $10k/yr/parcel. And productivity in rural areas is 2-3x lower, so it's even higher as a percentage of per-capita GDP. Add on top of that electr…

And urban Americans only survive due to crops produced in rural areas.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#558

Post by telotortium »

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.

Okay, then, don't move to the rural areas. As a child of Republicans and a recent visitor to Nashville suburbs, where my parents have moved, I assure you that no one in the bedroom suburbs of major southern cities cares about someone with "dark skin" (they don't hate black people either, but I'm guessing she's South Asian, or you would have said black).

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#559

Post by nopenopenopeno »

long_time_gone wrote: post #158
unexpected wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you automatically assume that kids are miserable in the suburbs? My kids rather like running around in our backyard, use our pool everyday in the summer, and having tons of friends on the block. At the same time, I can't imagine that they would enjoy living in 2 bedroom apartment, having no yard to play in, etc. This disdain for suburbs is quite tacky and out of touch. It's okay to think differently. I'm glad…

==This disdain for suburbs is quite tacky and out of touch.== It's also out of touch to assume every family in "the city" lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with no yard. Lots of families in my city (Chicago) live in 3 story walk-ups, duplex-downs or even single family homes which all have yards. Perhaps we could all be a little more open-minded about how other people live.

A 3 story walk up is going to be a 2 br apartment in most cases, and may have a shared outdoor space but it’ll cost as much as a large house in the suburbs with a big garage and 2 big lawns.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#560

Post by k8sToGo »

nouveaux wrote: post #425
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…

> I’m paying a lot of money to live here, but for what? The weather. The high cost of living in the bay area and California is largely about the weather. People come to California for the dream and stay for the sun.

Actually I found the constant sunny days quite boring after a while.
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