People move for one of three reasons, which to me feel successively less discretionary: (a) they get a job offer (e.g. Wall Street, Chicago), (b) they're moving

People move for one of three reasons, which to me feel successively less discretionary: (a) they get a job offer (e.g. Wall Street, Chicago), (b) they're moving to a job cluster hoping to find something eventually (e.g. LA, NYC, SF, Vegas, DC), or (c) they are priced out of every other place. Typically, their economic precariousness increases with each category. It's true that many well-to-do young adults move to big cities, but plenty are moving to 1950s-1980s era suburbs too [1], where they're living in cheaper, older housing stock and neighborhoods that are less affected by developmental pressures [2][3]. International working-class immigrants, subject to many of the same pressures, are following suit. This system is really difficult for an average person (or family) to game. Most people are caught in economic pressure to go either where the jobs are or shift within the same metro to find their acceptable balance between amenities and cost. And anyone willing to take a chance on cross-country relocation to some second or third-tier metro is probably being taken for a fool; by the time they read about a place being a 'great place to raise a family' it's probably already experiencing rising costs of living [4]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16744401#16746390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16744401#16746390 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079269#17080117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079269#17080117 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16898200#16898850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16898200#16898850 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16898200#16899874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16898200#16899874