31 ms·
Find a new city
- alaskamiller 10y agoEverywhere is just a buncha kids trying to make it, until they do, then others want in, so they get there, copy everything, until they crowd others out, repeat the process. Find a new game server.
- SandersAK 10y agoMany 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 support for creative things in NY. Like all cities that grow, gentrification happens. But if you think the LES or east village was cheap in the 80s it's because you were white and middle class. When this author speaks he's talking to white middle class liberal arts types (like me!) and bemoaning the fact that getting direct access to world class culture isn't "cheap anymore" when the reality is if you want that in NY now you move to crown heights. And there will be some myopic look back in 25 years saying the same shit about that place too. Ask Patti Smith what happened to the Puerto Ricans who lived there before her. Was it too cheap for them?
- brandur 10y ago> Many New York artists talk about NYC as if it was cheap but it is simply not true. Can you clarify your position? My reading is that the article was making the point that rent is significantly more expensive in NY today than it was in the 60s and early 70s when people like Patti Smith were there. As far as I can tell, this is objectively true. Here's a chart of of the last 100 years of rental/purchase prices in NY [1]. Admittedly one that does adjust for inflation would be better, but it pretty clearly demonstrates that the mid-70s to 2000s showed a massive leap in NY's unaffordability. [1] http://ny.curbed.com/2015/6/2/9954250/tracking-new-york-rents-and-asking-prices-over-a-century http://ny.curbed.com/2015/6/2/9954250/tracking-new-york-rent...
- cocktailpeanuts 10y agoThe post is very misleading because it's not about absolute cost of living, you should also suggest data for other towns where an artist could have lived, for example some small town in Ohio. If Patti Smith lived somewhere in Colorado mountains to do her thing, she probably wouldn't be where she is today. Artists require audience, and cities like New York have them, ready to spend money. That's why people moved to New York, and "created their scene". They would have never been able to "create their own scene" in a farm town with population of 300. That said, it makes more sense nowadays since we now have Internet. I think you can just live wherever is the cheapest and work on your art (could be an actual piece of art or even a business) since we have the Internet. But it's wrong to say the artists "created their scene" in New York. New York was the only place they could have "created their scene" back then.
- brandur 10y agoIt's a fair point that the only way for these artists to have become successful in a significant way at the time was to move to a town like New York that can supply the necessary patronage, but I'm not sure that I'd characterize the post as "very misleading". Even with the city's money, the artists still did have to do the legwork to create a scene that was worthy of investment. Rich people aren't gullible saps who will be parted from their fortune at the first opportunity. An artist also shouldn't have to be as wildly successful as Patti Smith to be considered a success. Other cities of high culture like Berlin have also fostered incredible art scenes over the last few decades, and without the overflowing capital of NY. Few of those artists made it big, but many did achieve comfortable lifestyles of more modest means, and I think we could say that they "created their scene". Relevant quote from the article: > The idea is that you live somewhere cheap, keep your overhead low, make whatever work you want to make, create your own scene. Nobody gets super-rich or super-famous, but dammit, they get to live their lives their own way, unbeholden to anybody.
- cocktailpeanuts 10y agoYou know,, Berlin is the capital city of Germany, so your Berlin example exactly supports my point. People who are motivated to succeed naturally flock to a city with access to the largest audience, as long as they can afford it, since that raises your chance of success. I was just pointing out this Patti Smith person is completely mistaken about what made herself successful, she thinks it's all her doing but she's forgetting she was at the right place at the right time (and of course with the right content she provided). My whole argument is if you compare larger cities with any other smaller towns, everything is easier (only drawback is money), and that's why people naturally flock to larger cities. My argument has nothing to do with whether legwork is necessary or not, it's just about how people can only create "scenes" where it makes sense. It's delusional to think that they could have created it anywhere else.
- jrochkind1 10y agoI think you make a good point that 'cheap' is very relative to your means and access, and the LES may not have been cheap for _everyone_ even in the 80s. Definitely important to remember. But I'm inclined to believe Smith that it was cheap for her and people like her in a way present-day NYC isn't, for similar people today. I guess we could try to look up rent statistics over time etc. > if you want that in NY now you move to crown heights. Pretty sure Crown Heights ain't affordable anymore either. (idle googling suggests median Crown Heights studio apartment price today is $2000. Yeah. "Studio" means "one room (usually very small) apartment" in U.S. rental listings, not something cool like 'giant warehouse an artist can make into an art studio', heh.) Maybe somewhere I haven't heard of (cause I don't live in NYC) in Queens or the Bronx? I don't know if you'd have the same access to culture and money living in some far-off non-subway-served part of the Bronx though. I think Manhattan in the 80s really was kind of unusual in being cheap _and_ still a place with lots of money floating around and cultural institutions. This is unusual. It was sort of a mid-point on the re-organization of American urban geography, with NYC being a special case as usual as the biggest city in the U.S.
- dionidium 10y ago>idle googling suggests median Crown Heights studio apartment price today is $2000. It's not quite that bad. Here are some actual listings for one-bedrooms in Crown Heights that rent between $1500-1700: https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17067721.-1-bedroom-1-bathroom-apartment-at-240-schenectady-avenue-new-york-ny-11213 https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17067721.-1-bedroom-1-bat... https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17206256.-1-bedroom-1-bathroom-apartment-at-49-herkimer-st-new-york-ny-11216 https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17206256.-1-bedroom-1-bat... https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17246561.-1-bedroom-1-bathroom-apartment-at-256-hancock-st-new-york-ny-11216 https://www.padmapper.com/listings/17246561.-1-bedroom-1-bat... But everything is relative. Those apartments would rent for around $700-800 in my city.
- anamoulous 10y agoI don't think it's worth splitting hairs on Crown Heights real estate prices being exorbitant. They are. I moved here two years ago right when the 2nd wave of gentrifiers flooded the area. It's stark. You might be able to get a 1500-1700 if you _compete_ for one because landlords are beginning to mobilize crappy housing stock (like these apartments).
- anamoulous 10y ago> now you move to crown heights No you certainly don't. Crown Heights is expensive... very very expensive. You move to Canarsie. That's the insanity that is NYC now.
- HeyLaughingBoy 10y agoyou want that in NY now you move to crown heights. And there will be some myopic look back in 25 years saying the same shit about that place too I smiled when I read this because I remember having a gay co-worker describing his neighborhood as "I live in controversy-ridden Crown Heights" about 27 years ago. Holy crap, I'm old!
- eugenekolo2 10y agoNYC 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.
- SandersAK 10y agoI 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.
- cylinder 10y agoNYC since its founding has been a commercial trading center, not a creative arts hub. I don't understand where the idea that it's a place to be creative came from. There is nothing about NYC that makes me creative (in the producing sense, not consuming) because the city is so exhausting to live in, and so cramped and noisy, that I have no energy to think freely and creatively. In fact the boredom, space and ease of the suburbs leads me to more creativity.
- wrsh07 10y agoI definitely understand the need for a progressive city -- I grew up in the midwest in a place that was decidedly not. But Paul Graham gave a talk about how Pittsburgh could be the next startup city [1]. And price factors in for both artists and entrepreneurs. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html http://www.paulgraham.com/pgh.html
- st3v3r 10y agoIf that's true, then why isn't PG holding Y Combinators in those other cities? I mean, he's the one running it; he should (relatively) easily be able to set one up wherever he wants.
- api 10y agoThere are many, many relatively progressive places that are less expensive than SF. Pittsburgh is one. Smaller college towns are others. There are lots. The real monopoly SF has is its investor ecosystem. There's talent everywhere. I wonder if equity/SAFE crowdfunding (e.g. WeFunder) will help geographically decentralize tech?
- brooklyndude 10y agoPittsburgh has been hip for a wild. It's pretty cool for sure. Reality is it's hard to top Bushwick, Brooklyn, it's pretty far out, but the people in 'Pitt, give it a run for it's money.
- brandur 10y agoI really enjoyed this article. I think that if there's one thing that's going to gut the creativity and character of our cities it's going to be hugely increasing rents and housing prices that we're seeing in almost all major urban centers. > Young folks: Forget New York City. Forget San Francisco. Forget Austin, Texas. Stay out of debt, live somewhere cheap, make something happen > This is pretty much what I was trying to say a few days ago, when I posted a series of Tweets that I thought were fairly uncontroversial, not to mention unoriginal: A little off topic, but it's sort of a sign of the state of Twitter today that an unoffensive, positive, and fairly thoughtful tweet like this one is enough to set off the Twitter hate machine (I think that's what he's implying happened here). Many users seem to be put in a concerted effort to read other people's comments as uncharitably as they possibly can.
- Semiapies 10y agoWell, in the first place, contrast the staccato proclamation of the tweet with the article leading up to that tweet. Twitter is a terrible way to try to communicate anything that needs explanation. In the second place, Austin and especially SF do have locals with well-known and even organized hostility towards newcomers.
- mathattack 10y agoThere's a difference between attracting artists, and attracting engineers. Both thrive in communities surrounded by like minded people. The difference is entry level artists can't live in high priced cities, so they must find new habitats. Otherwise art goes back to a hobby for the idle rich. Engineers can get by (if not save a ton) on entry level jobs in places like Silicon Valley or SF. It just takes a willingness to have roommates. I left Manhattan because you had to be in a hedge fund to have a good life. For all the talk of Silicon Valley being expensive, you don't need to add private school costs to a $6K rent.
- wwwdonohue 10y agoI left Manhattan because you had to be in a hedge fund to have a good life. For all the talk of Silicon Valley being expensive, you don't need to add private school costs to a $6K rent. Manhattan vs. Silicon Valley isn't exactly a fair comparison.
- mathattack 10y agoMy point is that engineers aren't priced out of Silicon Valley like artists are of New York City.
- startupdiscuss 10y agoThis view ignores the benefits of the large cities. The rents are high for a reason. You want to go there. And not just for the cultural opportunities. Most people want good jobs. You can't have everyone starting startups, or working remotely. To put it another way, almost everything important and interesting you do will require other people.
- davidw 10y ago> Most people want good jobs. He specifically mentions that in the article: > I realize now when I said “young folks” I meant young artists and poets and other creative people who were like me about ten years ago: poor, or not wealthy, trying to figure out where to live, and wanting to do something weird and interesting that doesn’t necessarily fit into a traditional model. Not: get a job at a tech company, get big art world gallery shows, etc.
- RussianCow 10y ago> You can't have everyone starting startups, or working remotely. Not everyone, but let's face it, a HUGE number of existing in-office jobs could be fairly easily made remote, which would cut down on the appeal of large cities. I think if even 10% of all currently in-office jobs became remote, you would see a significant movement away from the big cities.
- rpazyaquian 10y agoDefinitively this. Most in-office jobs involve using a computer a lot for data crunching or whatever, or it requires a lot of meetings that you can have just as well over Skype or Google Hangouts. Even meeting with clients can be done remotely, and there are technical solutions for transferring and handing off documentation and the like. The only things that absolutely require on-site are things that deal explicitly with the site itself: construction, custodial services and maintenance, hosting parties 'n shit, whatever. The average 9-to-5 pencil pusher job, on the other hand, has no reason not to be remote. I firmly believe that the modern concept of the "office" will change drastically enough in the coming years that an office will no longer be a physical place, but a state of being - "in the office" now becomes "in job/work mode". We as employees just need to push for this change, now that commutes are getting dumber and dumber. In places like Boston, anyway.
- mkolodny 10y agoI love the sentiment. Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of people hacking on things in garages / shitty apartments. Now those shitty apartments cost $2,000/month. The equivalent of those places, where things like Apple started, isn't Silicon Valley and NYC. It's places like Detroit. Or wherever people doing cool things decide to move and congregate. Then again, it is still possible to live cheaply in NYC. My friend lives in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn for $450/month. And there's value in living in or near where the community is already strong. You just have to move out a bit further and live a bit grungier.
- nextos 10y agoI can't agree more. But it's hard. I feel Silicon Valley and NYC became what they are because of cheap real estate and talent pool. I find it hard to find places with a lot of talent but undervalued real estate these days. Maybe all low hanging fruit is gone. In Europe, London, Oxbridge, Stockholm are somewhat similar. Insane prices. Berlin and to a certain extent Copenhagen are cheaper. Some smaller locations like Cluj are quite cheap, but maybe a bit outside common tech circles.
- bsparker 10y agoCleveland is a great city
- wdmeldon 10y agoI'm sad this is all the way at the bottom, but I can't say I'm surprised.
- SegFaultx64 10y agoCleveland is fine if you are reasonably well off. Like many run down urban areas it is currently going through a substantial revival (driven mostly by "hipsters" opening vegan restraunts and the like.) I can only imagine it would be miserable to be truly poor in Cleveland, especially as it continues to gentrify.
- drops 10y agoDepends on the field and type of work. If you work from home then sure, the location doesn't matter much. But for more traditional occupations (pretty much anything other than creative work or location-independent business), big cities are better because they offer more opportunities and often higher paying jobs.
- ryandrake 10y agoI used to live in Nowhere, Florida, and would move back in a heartbeat, but from an employment standpoint it became too risky. Most places outside of The Usual Tech Hubs are one-horse towns when it comes to tech employment, major opportunity risk. If you're a software engineer and live in the Bay Area and suddenly lose your job, depending on the economy you're probably in for a 1-6 month job search at local companies where you can show up for an interview at any moment's notice. If you're a software engineer and live in flyover country and suddenly lose your job, you better plan on moving somewhere else. Interviewing involves 2-5 hour plane trips all over the country, and then when you finally find something, you need to negotiate relocation costs or fork over $5-10K to move. The prospect of repeating that cycle is pretty unpleasant. So we put up with 2 hour commutes, tiny homes, and sky-high cost of living, because that's where the companies are.
- rpazyaquian 10y agoExactly. I came to live in Boston because there is shit-all for tech companies in Jacksonville, FL. I wasn't about to start one for myself, and I wanted to both make a good salary and get lots of experience. If you want to work a job, you go where the jobs are - and those are in places like the Bay area. Of course, none of this would be an issue if we would all just work remotely, but that's not going to happen for a while.
- wwwdonohue 10y agoIf you're a software engineer and live in the Bay Area and suddenly lose your job, depending on the economy you're probably in for a 1-6 month job search at local companies That long? Funny that we're always hearing about how difficult it is for tech companies to find software engineers. In any case, OP is expressly not talking about getting a job at a tech company -- he's talking about doing something interesting with your life. I presume this means getting a 9-5 at a laundromat in Ohio and working on open source projects in your spare time.
- rpazyaquian 10y ago>I presume this means getting a 9-5 at a laundromat in Ohio and working on open source projects in your spare time. This doesn't sound like it'd be any more conducive to productivity on side-projects than a 9-5 at a tech job. Consuming 8 hours of the work day is bad for productivity no matter what. Also, nthing the sentiment that tech hiring is screwed up. I highly doubt that companies are having a hard time finding engineers at all.
- arbuge 10y agoI agree with the sentiment of that tweet mentioned in the article, except that Austin isn't really comparable to NYC or SF in terms of living expenses. Perhaps more expensive than the average American city these days, but definitely not in the stratosphere like those other two.
- st3v3r 10y agoWhile cost of rent is lower in nowheresville, the network effects are much, much lower too. There is definitely a benefit to living somewhere that has a thriving community around whatever it is you're doing (software, tech, art, etc). Having only a small community runs the risk of stagnation.
- rpazyaquian 10y agoThis 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 live in a city or state that basically wants us dead. The fact that tech companies tend to be clustered around progressive, blue areas is a major advantage. It's easy to say "just move to the middle of nowhere!" if you're privileged enough to not worry about these things. But some of us kind of want to keep our asses safe and, honestly, alive.
- initram 10y agoFor 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 said to you; day in and day out. I don't mind that other people have different values than me. But I do mind having to be constantly surrounded by it and having nowhere to go to get away from it. I can't imagine what it's like to have that issue and also fear for your safety on a daily basis. That sucks and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
- rpazyaquian 10y agoIt does suck. That's a big reason why we can't just concentrate progressivism in pinpoint areas like New England or Washington State. We need sweeping, national change in order for things to really get better.
- api 10y agoThe urban/rural liberal/conservative cosmopolitan/tribal divide goes back to Roman times at least.
- anateus 10y agoTech is here because the money for tech is here. It started with the US Gov't putting money into military bases and later Lockheed and other mil contractors. During and after WWII tax regulations changed in such a way that VC become more and more profitable, and the industry grew alongside the talent pool that was being drawn in. This created a feedback loop of talent and money. But the money is the primary driver here. It's why if you're an entertainer you go to LA (often after NYC), or go to NYC for finance. Going somewhere cheap and being in a garage in a vacuum does nothing for you if the climate that allows something like the Homebrew Computer Club (or an underground music club, etc.) to exist isn't there in place already. As much as it has done, the internet hasn't wholly replaced that aspect of things yet.
- uola 10y agoI think you're kind of right, but I feel the comparison with LA/NYC is slightly weird. SV is the leader in the consumer web space (and some other areas). If you're into hardware, games or electronic music the choice of SV is far less obvious. It could/would make sense to go to China, Germany or Sweden instead. One problem is that everyone is so busy to copy SV that they fail to invent their own scene. Probably a result of having to justify yourself to investors. But it really seem like the window in which subcultures can flourish has become much smaller.
- fowkswe 10y agoFor people looking for that 70s NYC like experience, with proximity to NYC, I HIGHLY suggest checking out the Albany / Troy area. Both are gritty little cities with a bunch of interesting people living there doing interesting shit, all for next to nothing. You can rent a townhouse for under a thousand / month. Shit, you can BUY a gorgeous 19th century townhouse for under a 100k - the same thing that would be 3 million in the Brooklyn where Patti Smith and Robert Maplethorpe lived. I'm not going to go on about how much there is to offer there, because I could do that for paragraphs. You should just go check it out for yourself.
- beamatronic 10y agoIsn't Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute around there?
- fowkswe 10y agoYes, RPI is in Troy. It would be one of the points on my list of assets. They have this amazing music venue called EMPAC...
- SegFaultx64 10y agoYep, there is also a pretty decent tech scene driven by a couple of local successes (mostly RPI affiliated): Apprenda Commerce Hub Vicarious Visions etc...
- SegFaultx64 10y agoI second Troy (I hate Albany but that is personal preference). They are also reasonably safe considering how improvised they have been in recent times. Prices in Troy are already starting to climb, so get while the getting is good. One thing I will say is that both are very small compared to a NYC feel, and public transit is awful.
- fowkswe 10y agoFor sure, they are very small places. But they are old, dense cities and are very walkable / bikeable. You can even ride between the 2 on a nice path that runs next to the Hudson (they are about 6 miles apart).
- bufordsharkley 10y agoThis idea that cities reach a point of maximum growth, become unaffordable, and should be abandoned by potential newcomers: this is currently true, but it's a broken system, and it's time we look at ways we can improve it. When a city becomes unaffordable, when rents skyrocket-- those expenses are someone else's windfalls. When people expect the value of real estate to rise and rise indefinitely-- those windfalls are someone else's expenses. I've come to believe that so much of these structural problems are essentially reducible to issues of land-use (property/land taxes), but there is so little focus at present on reforming this.
- forgotuser 10y agoI think Community Land Trusts are a great example of the sort of thing people should be looking into as an alternative to the current model. Don't see people talking about them much. The basic idea is that a nonprofit purchases the land in a community and holds it in perpetuity. It rents the land long-term to residents (and for the most part, they're required to be residents), instead of selling it. It's still possible for residents to purchase homes- they just won't own the land they're sitting on top of. That way, you avoid speculation and skyrocketing land prices. Many CLTs also designate some proportion of the land as "low-income", and set accordingly lower rents for those residents.
- bufordsharkley 10y agoI've wanted to look more into CLTs, but haven't yet-- What's stopping CLTs from existing today? Is it merely the novelty and relative complication of the CLT? Or is there policy that makes them impractical?
- thescriptkiddie 10y agoThey do exist. What's stopping them from being more prevalent? Probably the lingering effects of McCarthyism.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
- Mz 10y agoHe has a decent point. He is, perhaps, not saying it very well. It generally doesn't work to use imperatives, like "Find a new city." His point might go over better if it were framed more like 'Artistic youth need a new option." I totally get where he is coming from when he says you just need to move to someplace cheap. I am a big fan of doing what is within my means, regardless of whatever is going on in the world. But you have to be careful with how you frame such thoughts. Framing in a way that can be read as "It is your fault your life sucks" instead of "It sucks that places like New York and San Francisco aren't what they were a few decades ago. But maybe the piece within your hands is picking a new place to live that meets your needs better."
- abetusk 10y agoFor 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 yearly income). [1] http://www.zillow.com/research/data/ http://www.zillow.com/research/data/ [2] http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/Affordability_Wide_2016Q1_Public.csv http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/Affordability_...
- JoshTriplett 10y agoInteresting 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.)
- abetusk 10y agoIt looks like they're using a metro region. If you take a look at their "county crosswalk" [1] data that might give more information about it. For example NYC is "MetroRegionID_Zillow" 394913 that has a corresponding "RegionID" in the price to income dataset. [1] http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/CountyCrossWalk_Zillow.csv http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/CountyCrossWal...
- therealdrag0 10y agoI'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.
- examancer 10y agoCome to Omaha! Lots of talk about how you can't find jobs or culture in small places, and talk of how the big cities are expensive for a reason. That may be true if you're trying to be an actor, but Omaha has a thriving tech scene, extremely low unemployment, and one of the lowest costs of living of any major metro area. It's safe, LGBT friendly, family friendly, great schools, and the people are nice and laid back. There is a sweet spot between too big and expensive and too small and isolated. I have lived in NYC and there is nothing I'm missing in Omaha. Although the scale is obviously much different everything I want is within reach, and usually takes a lot less time to get to. Public transportation sucks, but it really is a great city otherwise and has some things NYC doesn't (better beers, and steaks that are better and actually affordable). There are others within this sweet spot. Minneapolis, the less expensive bits of Denver, Kansas City, and others I am less familiar with. Omaha is pretty much the cheapest of the cities I consider acceptable, but I encourage all of you to find your sweet spot city if you want to live well or cheap.
- sawthat 10y agoThis 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.
- Bjorkbat 10y agoThis 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.
- petropolisful 10y agoI've been considering a move from PDX to ABQ this year, for reasons of geography and social culture; however the job market here has completely spoiled me and I haven't followed up on many job leads over there. It does not seem to be exactly what one could remotely consider a tech hub, which is actually part of the draw for me, honestly.
- orasis 10y agoI used to live in Fargo, North Dakota, and might suggest that as an affordable town that embraces weirdos.