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Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

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Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#81

Post by selimthegrim »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #29
cylinder wrote: post #27

My general view after travelling to Denver is that one of America's biggest issues is underpopulation. There is so much land in these areas and actually lots of infrastructure relative to population. It all stood out to me how white these areas remain. I saw a handful of non whites and no Asians the entire time. Shocking how the whitest areas are the most anti immigrant. What are they so angry about?! Bringing in mig…

Denver is 30% Latino, 11% Black, 5% Asian. Not sure how you only saw a handful of non-whites.

He didn’t go to Aurora.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#82

Post by davewritescode »

twblalock wrote: post #36
mysterypie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You won't be compensated at the same rates that you would be in California, but the cost of living would make up for it. No, it generally doesn't. It depends on the specific numbers of course (how much of a salary cut, how much cheaper is the housing costs), but a lot of people make that blanket statement because of a mathematical fallacy: The fallacy is if I make half as much, but my expenses are half as much, the…

Plus, cost of living doesn't account for everything. Most consumer products, e.g. cars, computers, shoes, and clothing, cost about the same everywhere. Living in San Francisco with a higher salary and paying a high rent, your spending on such products will be a smaller percentage of your income than if you lived somewhere with cheaper housing and made less money.

With more and more students coming out of college with debt, your student loans account for a much smaller percentage of income in a city like SF than in Boise

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#83

Post by lotharbot »

Judgmentality wrote: post #75
lotharbot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

software engineer salary somewhere else is usually more like 20-25% less rather than 50% less -- someone making 140k in SF might make 110k-120k in places like Boise or Denver. They'll pay 5k less in taxes (both due to lower total income and lower state tax rates). So saving 18k in housing costs puts them at least in a comparable disposable-income range. For people in lower-paying careers, the lower housing costs else…

> someone making 140k in SF might make 110k-120k in places like Boise or Denver As someone who moved from Pittsburgh to San Francisco and had my compensation quadruple, I call bullshit.

As someone who was looking at the data on glassdoor while writing my comment, and who has dealt with offers from recruiters, and who has an extensive network of friends who are open about their earnings, I call bullshit on your calling of bullshit.

There are certainly outliers. There are certainly people with excellent skills who are being underutilized, and who will get paid a lot more if they find the exact right fit. Just a wild guess, but you didn't go from 35k in Pittsburgh to 140k in SF, you went from a lot more than that in Pittsburgh to a lot more than that in SF. If you're up in the 200k+ range in software in SF, you'd probably earn a lot less going anywhere except maybe NY or Boston. But if you're in the "average software engineer salary" range in SF, the falloff going to a mid-sized city is not nearly as steep.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#84

Post by baron816 »

The sad thing is that trying to increase density in places like SV isn’t just about taming housing inflation, denser places are also better places to live. I think there are lot of people out there who would like living in a place like Brooklyn Heights, where you have 3-5 story row houses (small enough for a single family) that are connected together along a tree lined block, with shops, restaurants, and bars within walking distance. Governments won’t even allow you to build a neighborhood like that anymore.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#85

Post by connorl33t »

jarsin wrote: post #45
StudentStuff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What companies are there, and with what kind of pay range/job roles?

Micron - One of the worst places you could ever work. The amount of people coming out of there with PTSD was very high when I was in boise. Clearwater - Old and boring T-Sheets - sold to behemoth that will mess it all up Blackbox VR - some guy who got lucky with a body building forum blowing money Kount - ya scammy payment processing for the win HP - reorg and layoffs never ending. Tons of pretentious digital marketi…

Why the sentiment? I'm having issues thinking of a company in SV (or anywhere else) that can't be degraded down like that :)

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#86

Post by ryanworl »

aclimatt wrote: post #32

Not the crux of the article, but: > This doesn't mean that they, or the even higher-cost, more congested coastal metros, will adopt Manhattan or Tokyo-style density and transit patterns. Instead, Austin and San Antonio might be the new Houston and Dallas. My goodness, can we /please/ stop this false dichotomy that a city either has to be a Tokyo megalopolis or a suburban sprawlfest? I don't think any reasonable perso…

People who are worried about turning San Francisco into Manhattan also don't know what Manhattan is even like! The Upper West & Upper East Side as well as Harlem do not look anything like e.g. the Financial District. Even within Manhattan there is a huge variety of building heights.

I used to live in Yorkville in a six story building in an area filled with other six story (and smaller) buildings. We had a nice park with a public pool, multiple schools with kids running around in the afternoons, and some people even owned cars. It was an actual community, not some caricature of what people think living in Manhattan is like.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#87

Post by neom »

aclimatt wrote: post #32

Not the crux of the article, but: > This doesn't mean that they, or the even higher-cost, more congested coastal metros, will adopt Manhattan or Tokyo-style density and transit patterns. Instead, Austin and San Antonio might be the new Houston and Dallas. My goodness, can we /please/ stop this false dichotomy that a city either has to be a Tokyo megalopolis or a suburban sprawlfest? I don't think any reasonable perso…

It sounds like you would benefit greatly from reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs - it provides a solid foundation for understanding urban economics.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#88

Post by throwawayjava »

CydeWeys wrote: post #70
StudentStuff wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? A plumber or electrician can earn more than that even in rural areas, I wouldn't consider $60k to be upper middle class.

Huh? Why do you define upper middle class so as to exclude the trades? Trades are frequently lucrative enough to place tradespeople in the income percentile required to reach upper middle class, especially if you own your own business, as many tradespeople do.

Most class definitions are classist.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#89

Post by closeparen »

aclimatt wrote: post #32

Not the crux of the article, but: > This doesn't mean that they, or the even higher-cost, more congested coastal metros, will adopt Manhattan or Tokyo-style density and transit patterns. Instead, Austin and San Antonio might be the new Houston and Dallas. My goodness, can we /please/ stop this false dichotomy that a city either has to be a Tokyo megalopolis or a suburban sprawlfest? I don't think any reasonable perso…

Is Manhattan considered a mistake? I ask because, despite being one of the most desirable residences and tourist destinations in the world, everyone is deathly allergic to even the slightest hint that someone might want to replicate it elsewhere. Am I missing an unspoken “never again” moment? Is everyone who travels to New York doing it to revel in their hatred of the place?

There’s not nearly enough Manhattan to meet the demand to live in such a place, and I fail to see why we shouldn’t make more of it. San Francisco’s economic power and landlocked geometry seem ideal for doing so.

Re: Why Invest in Cities? There's Always Another Boise

#90

Post by pm90 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #31

I wonder if this trend will result in further stratification of American society. I mean, we've always had enclaves where rich people lived and poorer people lived, but they generally used to be at least nearby each other in large metros. Now, though, this city stratification feels like a multi-layer sieve. E.g. San Francisco is still a super-desirable city to live, if you can afford it, so the people who can't get p…

Its already happened to a certain extent. Most expensive American cities have some core industry: Sf = tech, NYC = finance, LA = movies, Chicago = commodities. This clustering of talent attracts even more talent, keeping the city’s economic engine humming along. Since the housing stock and transportation takes longer to evolve, the big cities see higher and higher rents.

Usually economic downturns stabilize things a little bit. But we’re now in the midst of the longest economic expansion ever seen in the history of the US.

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