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Cheap water seems to give the idea it will always be cheap & plentiful. And rules preventing market pricing will perpetuate that notion right up until the day y

• niftich 8y ago
  Factors like water supply make me think that the Sunbelt migration, whose targets, especially the southwest, were are among the most water-poor areas, is a trend that won't last beyond another 40 years. As these areas become built out, they will begin to experience factors that make them less appealing: rising property values, rising utility prices, and demographic pressures from natural deaths among the elderly and low incomes among new arrivals. Areas that are unremarkable now because they've gone through a deindustrialization transition (upstate NY, northeast Ohio) will cycle back as sites of opportunity, and non-southern metros that have heretofore been able to maintain a liveable compromise between affordability and demand (represented by Chicago, but also Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis) will face an influx of out-migrants from the declining fortunes of the southwest. Southeast metros that are targets of opportunity now (Atlanta, Dallas, Raleigh, Nashville, Charlotte, Orlando) will have cycled further along the affordability transition, so they won't draw nearly as much residents during the southwest's decline as they do now.
  • lisper 8y ago
    > rising property values If property values are rising, then manifestly it is becoming more appealing to live there, not less.
    • niftich 8y ago
      If property values are rising, it becomes more difficult to move there. People who do move are either wealthier (because they are increasingly the only ones who can afford it), or poorer (because a higher amount of their income is going towards rent). This is how the middle hollows out.
    • seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      It depends on why they are rising. If it’s just speculation, maybe not. If property values are rising because of inequalities in the tech industry, appealing depends on if you are in or out of that.
  • gascan 8y ago
    Yeah, the Sunbelt migration could be sustainable if people were moving there to live in the heat and xeriscape their yards, but apparently people want to move to Phoenix and live at 72 degrees with lush green everywhere. Aside from the limited water, there's the total dependence on air conditioning running headlong into the urban heat island and a warming climate.
    • toasterlovin 8y ago
      I get that air conditioning is expensive in a place like Phoenix, but isn't heating similarly expensive in the Great Lakes and northeast?
      • eropple 8y ago
        The answer, as with many things, is "it depends." All other things being equal, air conditioning is a little cooler on a degree-by-degree basis than some forms of heating...but it never is that simple. Heat pumps have a higher cost to entry but lower operating costs, air conditioners have a lower cost of entry but nontrivially higher operating costs. A common pattern is to use heat pumps, ducted or no, for high-efficiency cooling and heating, with a backup solution like a gas furnace for heating below the point where a heat pump can function.
      • Xylakant 8y ago
        One of the problems of aircon is that it deposits the heat into the surrounding air, adding more heat in the process and increasing the temperature gradient. Denser cities also heat up much faster since they restrict air flow and replace for example trees or other areas that can buffer or reduce heat. So cooling a city gets harder as it grows denser. If you want to warm up your city, all of this is in your favor.
    • pathseeker 8y ago
      >Aside from the limited water, there's the total dependence on air conditioning running headlong into the urban heat island and a warming climate. And everyone in the north has a total dependence on heat. Solar panels are viable in the desert so it's easy to have self-sustaining houses when it comes to A/C.