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This article crystalizes a point that was vague in my mind: "megacities have a problem making it affordable to raise large or even medium-size families. How man

This article crystalizes a point that was vague in my mind: "megacities have a problem making it affordable to raise large or even medium-size families. How many of us could live in San Francisco, London or New York City and bring up three children in a decent neighborhood with good schools? Only the already well-to-do can manage such a feat.". As a mid-30s person with a new baby, I don't see how the numbers work for new entrants to the housing market - unless you were a gambler. Your gamble would be that (a) you don't ever take a hit on your income, and (b) property prices continue to rise. We've been unable to take that gamble .. and homes have increase 40% in the blink of an eye. In Canada, we have a lot of family in the GTA. We're basically priced out of areas as far away as Mississauga and Milton (Milton went up 20% since Nov 2016). An option we are considering is to move to BC and just rent for a few years in Vancouver. At least we get a better city out of it. For any Canucks, are there any other decent places with tech jobs, and somewhat affordable housing?

Arizhel 10y ago
>How many of us could live in San Francisco, London or New York City and bring up three children in a decent neighborhood with good schools? The simple solution is to not have any children. Leave that to extremely rich people and very poor people. Society obviously does not support child-rearing, given the cost of housing and the lack of support from employers, so why fight it?
- jamiek88 10y ago
  That is a logical but dystopian conclusion to make. It disturbs me deeply and I wonder why. Maybe it was your matter of fact, emotionless delivery of it that caught my attention. I can't really dispute what you have said other than it is not an inevitability. Societies can choose to change this, Sweden being a current example, Finland too. But people need to organise and want it enough, maybe they don't. Time will tell.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    >It disturbs me deeply and I wonder why. I'm very glad about this; it means I must have gotten something right. :-) >I can't really dispute what you have said other than it is not an inevitability. Societies can choose to change this, Exactly, but that's the problem: societies can choose to change this, but will they? As a pessimist, I say no, other than a few very small countries like those you cite (and even there those are just attempts at change so far; the birthrates in those nations are extremely low). Humans are remarkably bad at seeing impending large problems and collectively working together to change things to avoid them.
- verulito 10y ago
  We had two children and the cost isn't remotely an issue. However, we're a dual-income dual-engineer family who moved to Austin and bought in 2012. Our house value has doubled in price since we bought it though. It's very possible with perfect decisions, lots of sacrifices, and freakishly good luck.
  - tostitos1979 10y ago
    You are missing the point. The problem is prices have doubled since 2012. People who didn't time it right are hosed. And there was no obvious reason why prices should go up so much so fast.
    - shostack 10y ago
      There actually was/is an obvious. Jobs are bouncing back in several urban markets, and Quantitative Easing has been continually making it cheaper and cheaper to borrow larger amounts of cash. As it becomes cheaper, people borrow more, bid more, and house prices go up. The question is how well they will sustain, and whether a future market shake up (quite possibly Trump-related) would reset things to more sane levels, and for how long.
- amyjess 10y ago
  Or you move out to the suburbs when you have kids. It's not uncommon for young 20-somethings to live in the city and then move out when they start having children. Case in point, my cousin in NYC just had her third kid. She'd been considering moving to the suburbs for a while, because there was barely any room in their tiny apartment in Battery Park City for her, her husband, and the twins. Now that they've got another kid and the twins aren't babies anymore, they've gone from simply considering moving to the suburbs to actively house-hunting (and they're putting such a priority on it that she had her parents go house-hunting for them while she was in labor). I'd be surprised if they were still living in the city by the beginning of the second half of this year. Another example: my parents. Both of them lived in Manhattan when they were in their 20s, and immediately after they got married, they moved to Texas and bought a nice cheap house in a suburb that had just been developed.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    Right, but now you're forced to get a new job in a new place, or at the very least have a very lengthy commute. What's the point of having a family and kids if you're spending 3-4 hours a day just commuting to work? Or worse, having to live in Texas? This of course assumes that there's even jobs for you in TX or other low-cost locations. Basically, if you want to be a decently-paid professional and have a rewarding career, location is going to be very important to you, and you're not going to have time or money for kids. If you really want kids, you should make that your priority, and forget about education and career, and just work on having a stable job in a low-cost place, perhaps working in fast food and trying to work your way into managing a McDonald's where you might be able to get $40k. With kids and working at McD's as a cook in your younger years, you should qualify for tax benefits and probably some social programs like SNAP to help make ends meet.
    - amyjess 10y ago
      I'm typing this from work -- I work at a B2B telecom in an inner-ring suburb of Dallas -- and all I have to do is look around the office and see lots and lots of white-collar professionals who live and work in the suburbs and have spouses and children, including everyone on my team (well, one guy on my team doesn't have kids, but he's married and owns a house in a conservative suburb). I remember when I used to sit next to the sales department, and some of them would talk about their kids all the time. Very few people live in the city, and some people in the more business-y departments have given me some very strange looks when I tell them I live in an inner-ring suburb that's only 15 minutes away; most of them live in distant exurbs and have fairly long commutes. This is what the corporate world is like all across the country. To answer specific points: > Right, but now you're forced to get a new job in a new place, or at the very least have a very lengthy commute. People change jobs all the time, and they typically get raises and promotions out of it Oh, and having a long commute and spending lots of time at work is considered a bonus to many people who have kids. Work is the best way to get a breather from the screaming babies at home. You know the guy who's always super-excited and happy to be in the office at 8:00 Monday morning? He's obviously a father. > Or worse, having to live in Texas? I actually love living in Texas. I've lived here my entire life, and the only reason I'm even considering moving later this year is because of SB6, and even then I'm going out of my way to move to a suburban environment that reminds me of home (I've pretty much decided on Torrance, CA, though Orange County is still a backup). > This of course assumes that there's even jobs for you in TX or other low-cost locations. And it's not like Dallas doesn't have any tech industry. We're even called the Silicon Prairie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Prairie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Prairie Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is the fourth largest metro area in the country, and Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land is the fifth-largest [0]. It's patently absurd to say there are no jobs here. Both metro areas individually (Dallas: 7.1M; Houston: 6.7M) are more populous than San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward (#11) and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (#35) combined (6.6M). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistic...
fluxic 10y ago
Montreal?
gabbo 10y ago
Toronto housing has to come back to reality at some point. Rent and ride it out if you can, consider Montreal if you can find a good job and are OK with French, otherwise if you can stomach being away from home you're much better off financially as a dev in the US.
- mabbo 10y ago
  I'm contemplating just putting my Toronto condo on the market for an outrageous price, like 2-3 times what I paid for it 18 months ago. If anyone accepts that price, it's a sign that something is terribly wrong, and that I need to get the hell out of this city.
Tiktaalik 10y ago
> An option we are considering is to move to BC and just rent for a few years in Vancouver. I'm not really sure how moving to Vancouver helps solve any of your problems. If you're priced out of Milton you're likely priced out of the entire Metro Vancouver area. Is rent in Vancouver that much cheaper than the GTA that you're saving money and it's worth moving? I don't think it is.
- desdiv 10y ago
  You missed this part: >At least we get a better city out of it. With the train of logic going like this: 1. We're priced out of big cities in Canada, so we have to rent 2. If we have to rent, then we are flexible with the location 3. If we are flexible with the location, then might as well move somewhere with nicer weather
ar15saveslives 10y ago
> For any Canucks, are there any other decent places with tech jobs, and somewhat affordable housing? I'm not sure if Ottawa is a "decent place", but Kanata has lots of jobs and affordable housing (in walking distance). Still want to move to the US, though.
_delirium 10y ago
I don't think the U.S. has quite the same problem Canada (or the U.K.) does of people/jobs concentrating in only a handful of mega-expensive cities. It may seem on a forum like this one that "everybody" is moving to NYC or SF, but If you look at the population change statistics from the census, the NYC and SF metro areas are growing relatively slowly. People are mostly moving elsewhere, for a variety of reasons, but cost of living probably being a factor. These are the the 10 fastest-growing large (>1m population) metropolitan areas in the U.S. in the period 2010-2015: 1. Austin, 2. Raleigh, 3. Houston, 4. Orlando, 5. San Antonio, 6. Denver, 7. Dallas, 8. Nashville, 9. Charlotte, 10. Phoenix. Plenty of pretty affordable options in there.

Arizhel 10y ago

>How many of us could live in San Francisco, London or New York City and bring up three children in a decent neighborhood with good schools? The simple solution is to not have any children. Leave that to extremely rich people and very poor people. Society obviously does not support child-rearing, given the cost of housing and the lack of support from employers, so why fight it?

jamiek88 10y ago
That is a logical but dystopian conclusion to make. It disturbs me deeply and I wonder why. Maybe it was your matter of fact, emotionless delivery of it that caught my attention. I can't really dispute what you have said other than it is not an inevitability. Societies can choose to change this, Sweden being a current example, Finland too. But people need to organise and want it enough, maybe they don't. Time will tell.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  >It disturbs me deeply and I wonder why. I'm very glad about this; it means I must have gotten something right. :-) >I can't really dispute what you have said other than it is not an inevitability. Societies can choose to change this, Exactly, but that's the problem: societies can choose to change this, but will they? As a pessimist, I say no, other than a few very small countries like those you cite (and even there those are just attempts at change so far; the birthrates in those nations are extremely low). Humans are remarkably bad at seeing impending large problems and collectively working together to change things to avoid them.
verulito 10y ago
We had two children and the cost isn't remotely an issue. However, we're a dual-income dual-engineer family who moved to Austin and bought in 2012. Our house value has doubled in price since we bought it though. It's very possible with perfect decisions, lots of sacrifices, and freakishly good luck.
- tostitos1979 10y ago
  You are missing the point. The problem is prices have doubled since 2012. People who didn't time it right are hosed. And there was no obvious reason why prices should go up so much so fast.
  - shostack 10y ago
    There actually was/is an obvious. Jobs are bouncing back in several urban markets, and Quantitative Easing has been continually making it cheaper and cheaper to borrow larger amounts of cash. As it becomes cheaper, people borrow more, bid more, and house prices go up. The question is how well they will sustain, and whether a future market shake up (quite possibly Trump-related) would reset things to more sane levels, and for how long.
amyjess 10y ago
Or you move out to the suburbs when you have kids. It's not uncommon for young 20-somethings to live in the city and then move out when they start having children. Case in point, my cousin in NYC just had her third kid. She'd been considering moving to the suburbs for a while, because there was barely any room in their tiny apartment in Battery Park City for her, her husband, and the twins. Now that they've got another kid and the twins aren't babies anymore, they've gone from simply considering moving to the suburbs to actively house-hunting (and they're putting such a priority on it that she had her parents go house-hunting for them while she was in labor). I'd be surprised if they were still living in the city by the beginning of the second half of this year. Another example: my parents. Both of them lived in Manhattan when they were in their 20s, and immediately after they got married, they moved to Texas and bought a nice cheap house in a suburb that had just been developed.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Right, but now you're forced to get a new job in a new place, or at the very least have a very lengthy commute. What's the point of having a family and kids if you're spending 3-4 hours a day just commuting to work? Or worse, having to live in Texas? This of course assumes that there's even jobs for you in TX or other low-cost locations. Basically, if you want to be a decently-paid professional and have a rewarding career, location is going to be very important to you, and you're not going to have time or money for kids. If you really want kids, you should make that your priority, and forget about education and career, and just work on having a stable job in a low-cost place, perhaps working in fast food and trying to work your way into managing a McDonald's where you might be able to get $40k. With kids and working at McD's as a cook in your younger years, you should qualify for tax benefits and probably some social programs like SNAP to help make ends meet.
  - amyjess 10y ago
    I'm typing this from work -- I work at a B2B telecom in an inner-ring suburb of Dallas -- and all I have to do is look around the office and see lots and lots of white-collar professionals who live and work in the suburbs and have spouses and children, including everyone on my team (well, one guy on my team doesn't have kids, but he's married and owns a house in a conservative suburb). I remember when I used to sit next to the sales department, and some of them would talk about their kids all the time. Very few people live in the city, and some people in the more business-y departments have given me some very strange looks when I tell them I live in an inner-ring suburb that's only 15 minutes away; most of them live in distant exurbs and have fairly long commutes. This is what the corporate world is like all across the country. To answer specific points: > Right, but now you're forced to get a new job in a new place, or at the very least have a very lengthy commute. People change jobs all the time, and they typically get raises and promotions out of it Oh, and having a long commute and spending lots of time at work is considered a bonus to many people who have kids. Work is the best way to get a breather from the screaming babies at home. You know the guy who's always super-excited and happy to be in the office at 8:00 Monday morning? He's obviously a father. > Or worse, having to live in Texas? I actually love living in Texas. I've lived here my entire life, and the only reason I'm even considering moving later this year is because of SB6, and even then I'm going out of my way to move to a suburban environment that reminds me of home (I've pretty much decided on Torrance, CA, though Orange County is still a backup). > This of course assumes that there's even jobs for you in TX or other low-cost locations. And it's not like Dallas doesn't have any tech industry. We're even called the Silicon Prairie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Prairie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Prairie Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is the fourth largest metro area in the country, and Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land is the fifth-largest [0]. It's patently absurd to say there are no jobs here. Both metro areas individually (Dallas: 7.1M; Houston: 6.7M) are more populous than San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward (#11) and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (#35) combined (6.6M). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistic...

fluxic 10y ago

Montreal?

gabbo 10y ago

Toronto housing has to come back to reality at some point. Rent and ride it out if you can, consider Montreal if you can find a good job and are OK with French, otherwise if you can stomach being away from home you're much better off financially as a dev in the US.

mabbo 10y ago
I'm contemplating just putting my Toronto condo on the market for an outrageous price, like 2-3 times what I paid for it 18 months ago. If anyone accepts that price, it's a sign that something is terribly wrong, and that I need to get the hell out of this city.

Tiktaalik 10y ago

> An option we are considering is to move to BC and just rent for a few years in Vancouver. I'm not really sure how moving to Vancouver helps solve any of your problems. If you're priced out of Milton you're likely priced out of the entire Metro Vancouver area. Is rent in Vancouver that much cheaper than the GTA that you're saving money and it's worth moving? I don't think it is.

desdiv 10y ago
You missed this part: >At least we get a better city out of it. With the train of logic going like this: 1. We're priced out of big cities in Canada, so we have to rent 2. If we have to rent, then we are flexible with the location 3. If we are flexible with the location, then might as well move somewhere with nicer weather

ar15saveslives 10y ago

> For any Canucks, are there any other decent places with tech jobs, and somewhat affordable housing? I'm not sure if Ottawa is a "decent place", but Kanata has lots of jobs and affordable housing (in walking distance). Still want to move to the US, though.

_delirium 10y ago

I don't think the U.S. has quite the same problem Canada (or the U.K.) does of people/jobs concentrating in only a handful of mega-expensive cities. It may seem on a forum like this one that "everybody" is moving to NYC or SF, but If you look at the population change statistics from the census, the NYC and SF metro areas are growing relatively slowly. People are mostly moving elsewhere, for a variety of reasons, but cost of living probably being a factor. These are the the 10 fastest-growing large (>1m population) metropolitan areas in the U.S. in the period 2010-2015: 1. Austin, 2. Raleigh, 3. Houston, 4. Orlando, 5. San Antonio, 6. Denver, 7. Dallas, 8. Nashville, 9. Charlotte, 10. Phoenix. Plenty of pretty affordable options in there.