26 ms·

The new boomtowns: Why more people are relocating to ‘secondary’ cities

127 points by wallflower 8y ago

esotericn 8y ago
I tend to think that a lot of migration trends are obscured by currency-based accounting rather than looking at numbers of people and their preferences. I don't know a lot about the US, but here in the UK, in a city like London I don't think it's useful, for example, to say people are being 'priced out'. What's actually happening is that those that own property as of N years ago are permanent residents, and will never really sell their properties, so it's just full. You have suburbs full of families that will never move out, and if they do move out, will just rent the building out rather than selling. The indirect effect of that is that prices go up, but you're really just seeing that the commuter belt of semi-detached homes is full and that's that. It's common to talk about knocking down homes or building more homes or whatever. The thing is that for the most part, only non-residents actually want that (because for them the choice is between high density or not living there). If you own a decently sized family home with a garden you're just not going to give it up and move into a block of flats. It's a strict downgrade in every sense of the word, even if the square footage is the same. No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a house. So yeah, the answer is to go elsewhere. Go to a city that actually welcomes newcomers. Places like London are no longer income-based, they're wealth-based. Starting from scratch here you're at an enormous disadvantage.
- rayiner 8y ago
  > If you own a decently sized family home with a garden you're just not going to give it up and move into a block of flats. Sure you are, if someone pays you enough for your property to make it worth your while. That’s why it is illegal for property owners to build high density on their own property. Otherwise, people would cash out and allow higher density locations to be built.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    If you live in a place where residents have no say in what's built next to them, sure. (Which I think you've addressed in your comment.)
    - someguydave 8y ago
      “Closed” cities like London globally have laws that prevent landowners from disposing of thier property as they wish.
- cagenut 8y ago
  we are all too "poor" to afford a house, some of us are just making the global-south and future generations pay for it.
  - arduanika 8y ago
    How is the Global South paying for our houses?
    - cagenut 8y ago
      short answer, climate change driven desertification -> drought -> famine -> conflict -> collapse -> refugees. if you want the long answer this is a good book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z2NQCS/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z2NQCS/
      - esotericn 8y ago
        Yeah, no. The fact that cars currently produce large amounts of CO2 is a contributor to that. As soon as we get clean energy that disappears. If we don't get clean energy we're fucked anyway.
        cagenut 8y ago
        Yeah yes. We cannot decarbonize the energy supply fast enough to prevent a total humanitarian nightmare. We must also reduce energy consumption through both efficiency gains and fundamental shifts in cultural values, such as the entitlement people feel to not having to share space with their fellow man. I am a TSLA shareholder, I am very glad that EVs and solar power and batteries are going to play an important role in the overall solution, but it is simply bad math to think its a solution. The land use, infrastructure costs, and energy demands of sprawling detached housing are not currently priced into the market. They are externalized onto the people who are already suffering in a 0.75C world, and we're on a screaming path to a 4C world. Believing magic technology will save us is simply the naive liberal version of denialism.
- hrktb 8y ago
  > No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a house. That’s a pretty extreme. Appartments have a ton of advantages; whatever one values in an independant house can be turned into a disadvantage. For instance an appartment is easier to secure, maintenance fees can be split, commodity fees can also be split which makes it very affordable to have good infra (high speed internet, central heating, automatic post boxes etc), concierge services become an option. Then superb views, lack of surrounding noise, clean air are advantages on the higher floors. I say that as a kid who grew up in houses and wildly prefer appartments as I moved away.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - esotericn 8y ago
    I'm obviously simplifying. Luxury apartments downtown are different to the sort of monstrosities you see in suburbs. Moving from a family home in a suburb into the city =/= moving from a family home into a block of flats on the same street. The latter is what I am calling a 'strict downgrade'. > maintenance fees can be split, commodity fees can also be split which makes it very affordable to have good infra This is all cost-based argumentation. If you own a family home with a garden you've already solved that. Maintenance costs in London are utterly trivial.
    - hrktb 8y ago
      I think it’s a matter of getting what you pay for. That’s why I see it mainly as a matter of cost. A middle level appartment goes roughly for the same price as a low tier house where I live. There is a healthy market for good apartments in the suburbs, it’s just not a cheap choice (but way less expensive as a dame tier house in the same locations) I am not swimming in money, so I also understand people who already own expensive properties will have different priorities.
  - purple_ducks 8y ago
    > lack of surrounding noise in an apartment. can't speak to the US but most apartments in western europe are really poor when it comes to sound. neighbours above/beside/behind all making noise/water pumps/washing machines. near impossible to get a moments peace.
- cenal 8y ago
  Having lived in a home and in high density high rises I couldn’t disagree more about the perspective that it’s a downgrade. 24/7 doorman means someone to sign for packages. A community of people who presumably are in your socioeconomic class will be living with you. These are folks you can interact with and depending on your stage in life you may potentially do business with, befriend, start children’s play groups with, or even date/marry. Big communities tend to have nice amenities that you’d only find in a country club all inclusive. Maintenance of the high rise unit is often included in the fees or rent. These communities tend to get better access to interconnect technologies like fiber. There will tend to be more options for healthy foods, increased opportunities for walkable restaurants and other forms of entertainment as the population density of the area increases. And more... Basically, my preference 10/10 times would be to live in a high density tall building over a single family home in a neighborhood.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    Repeating my post from below: I'm obviously simplifying. Luxury apartments downtown are different to the sort of monstrosities you see in suburbs. Moving from a family home in a suburb into the city =/= moving from a family home into a block of flats on the same street. The latter is what I am calling a 'strict downgrade'.
    - meddlepal 8y ago
      I think you're getting downvoted here or at least misunderstood because in America, suburban apartments are usually very nice in their own regard. So people don't see them as downgrades unless you actually need the space of a full house (eg. For raising a family)
      - virmundi 8y ago
        There is also a cultural difference. While at Oxford, the family that I stayed with had a garden. British people love their gardens. It wasn't much of a garden, but it was in Oxford, and it was their little piece of barely green soil. Americans have their land of course. I have my own equivalent garden. The difference is scarcity. I can travel a continent and still buy a garden relatively cheap. The UK? Not so much.
- quicklime 8y ago
  > If you own a decently sized family home with a garden you're just not going to give it up and move into a block of flats. It's a strict downgrade in every sense of the word, even if the square footage is the same. I appreciate that this is probably true for the majority of people (at least in the west?) but it certainly doesn't apply to me, nor some of my friends. I like not having a front/back yard to maintain (I don't enjoy gardening). I like the views that you can only get from higher floors, especially city views. I've even come to rely on some of the conveniences, like having a mail room with someone that'll sign for packages while I'm away. And that's not to mention the many benefits of living in a higher-density neighborhood, which would be impossible in a place full of semi-/fully-detached houses. > No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a house. I almost have the opposite view to you, which is that I wouldn't give up my apartment lifestyle unless I was priced out of the city, and could only afford a house in the suburbs. In the end it's up to personal preference, and you're certainly welcome to prefer a house. But don't assume that everyone has the same preference as you.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    Repeating my post from below: I'm obviously simplifying. Luxury apartments downtown are different to the sort of monstrosities you see in suburbs. Moving from a family home in a suburb into the city =/= moving from a family home into a block of flats on the same street. The latter is what I am calling a 'strict downgrade'.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    People tend to revisit these preferences when their oldest turns 4, and they discover the unfortunate shitshow that is urban schools.
    - screye 8y ago
      I feel that often the complaints associated with loving in urban apartments has less to do with the apartments themselves, and more societal trends that have arisen out of rich people sticking to suburbs over multiple generations. Schools are the #1 example of this. Badly maintained rental apartments and higher crime rates are some other examples of the same.
- jldugger 8y ago
  US has a sizeable renter population. Rent tracks housing prices pretty reliably, and when people complain about being priced out they mean 'rent went up again.' And historically, banks didn't lend to black people or black neighborhoods. > those that own property as of N years ago are permanent residents, and will never really sell their properties, so it's just full. In theory, property taxes should nudge people. In California, those are severely capped via ballot initiative Prop 13. People that should be paying $20k a year in tax on a $1.8 million dollar home are paying perhaps $2k. Long term residents have won some sort of cosmic lottery that they probably would have cashed in on and left town with if not for Prop 13. Or, if they value the community and services, would have found a way to borrow against the property appreciation, instead of effectively defunding state and local government. > No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a house. Some of this is driven in the US by tax policy. Owners get a variety of tax breaks renters do not. In effect there's a sorting process by which people who cannot afford a downpayment rent by necessity, and the well off who want to avoid poor people for as neighbors can buy a home. This effect of paying to buy "good" neighbors is self-perpetuating and reinforcing -- people might be okay with having one sketchy neighbor but not be okay being the only non-sketch. It's a classist (and often racist) attitude, but is probably a decent model of the american population.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    > In theory, property taxes should nudge people We don't have property tax in the UK. I'm frankly quite glad that we don't. If it were instituted at anything other than a token rate I'd leave. If someone buys a home and lives in it, they should not have to care a single jot how it's valued externally. It is their home and their castle and they have every right to live in it. The idea that, say, my grandmother should just get kicked out of her hometown that she's lived in forever, that she bloody _built_, because a bunch of kids decided they like her city is completely absurd. Financialization needs to end somewhere. Let people earn their opt out.
    - scarejunba 8y ago
      It's council tax.
- ransom1538 8y ago
  "You have suburbs full of families that will never move out, and if they do move out, will just rent the building out rather than selling." Exactly. This is what property taxes helped with. Taxes should be increased to keep houses out of the investment game. Once a house is an investment: it is rented out (increased each year), city councils vote no on all new housing,etc, --- it all gets nimby fast.
- johnvanommen 8y ago
  > Places like London are no longer income-based, they're wealth-based. The weird thing about living in San Diego is that it's incredibly expensive to live here, but there are THOUSANDS of people here who don't work whatsoever. It feels a bit like a retirement community, except for the ultra-wealthy.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    That's the thrust of my post. It's not a financial problem. In London a lot of families own homes or have mortgages that are very small compared to current wages (so effectively owned if not quite yet). They're only 'wealthy' because external observers are valuing their home at silly amounts. Generally they're of very modest means otherwise. I think it's weird to call a family that bought a home 30 years ago in Inner London "ultra-wealthy". It basically just shows how odd the financial system is that we're attempting to put values on family homes this way.
    - Mvandenbergh 8y ago
      They're only wealthy if their primary family home, often surrounded by their other family, places of employment, and friends are available for them to sell. If they have no intention of moving then it is indeed odd to count that as part of their wealth in the same way as cash or shares. Incidentally this is the same reason why the Catholic Church is not rich. It looks like it if you value the land on which their churches sit at the development value they would fetch if sold... but running those churches is their primary purpose! So they could only realise that value by shutting down their only reason for existing.
  - danans 8y ago
    It's funny, the very mild - some consider it perfect - weather of San Diego attracts the very wealthy and the very poor. That's the case, though, with several mild-weather tourist destination cities on the California coast, including Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, etc. Many homes in those areas are only occupied a portion of the year, by people with other homes elsewhere. Others are owned and rented out by family trusts. I've talked to many people of mid-high means who are in or near retirement that have made such arrangements part of their financial and estate plans.
- nubbins 8y ago
  I think the city being “full” is a much better way to explain it than saying for example you need to make $300,000 to afford a house in San Francisco, as if there were an arbitrary amount of housing that available just waiting for people who can pay that much. The people who moved there earlier weren’t that well off its just that they’re holding on so the available supply at any one time is small. Journalism should emphsize the supply side more imo.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Fairly unconvincing if disused warehouses must lie empty because people who live miles away don't want anyone else to move into their city. How can SF be 'full' when there are industrial warehouses far from where people live that are abandoned? What exactly is full here? The warehouse isn't. The land is only full of warehouse skeleton.
    - almost_usual 8y ago
      What warehouses are you talking about? South SF? Those definitely are not abandoned and have people working in them. It’s a dying workforce that gets paid minimum wage but they’re around. There is abandoned property in Hunters Point but it’s radioactive.
      - scarejunba 8y ago
        There are definitely warehouses in Soma near the dogpatch not in use.
        coldtea 8y ago
        Still, a few or 100 warehouses, won't make a dent in a city where 100s of thousands want to move in...
- closeparen 8y ago
  Urban condos are routinely more valuable than houses in the same city. Plenty of people do want a level of walkability and street life that is not available in suburbia. It may have been true in the midst of suburban flight that only the desperate would live in urban conditions, but it isn’t any longer. Urbanism is the premium commodity now.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    I have commented on this below but this is a disingenuous comparison that you know that I'm not making. Obviously there are advantages and disadvantages of living in different _places_. Replacing homes with apartments is not related to that. If you could live in the exact same place, but with a house instead of in an apartment, it would be a fairly radical position to take to refuse that.
    - closeparen 8y ago
      Yes, it is. The nature of the place is determined by its density, which is determined by its mix of housing types. There is no such thing as a lively downtown bock of single family detached houses. It might be nice to have a house anachronistically in the middle of a dense area, or right on the edge of one, but it’s not geometrically possible for many people to do that.
      - esotericn 8y ago
        Loads of London is the latter half of your comment. Most streets I've lived on have a mix of family homes, new build apartment blocks, weird split-up family homes that now house multiple individuals, etc. Apparently (at least compared to the US) we're quite unique in mixing rich and poor in this way though.
        rorykoehler 8y ago
        I've lived in London. The city suffers from long transit times due to poor (low density) planning. It was bad enough to make me leave. If I wanted to do anything or go anywhere not in my neighbourhood (stockwell/Brixton) or the centre it took an hour at least.
- closeparen 8y ago
  You’re describing feudalism. Your station in life depends on your family’s ownership of the right hereditary lands. In 50 years, “were you born with access to a productive city or not” will dominate race, gender, etc. in determining life outcomes.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    I think it's more likely that access will always be available, however 'immigrants' quality of life will be far lower. That's already the way it plays out here as far as I can tell. Young people with regular jobs live in single rooms in flatshares or their parents' homes (if they have that access). In middle age I expect them to live in small flats whilst their parents lived in large homes. Over longer time periods, quality of life will decrease across the board and most will be in worse accommodation than the previous generation. The issue we're facing I think is more that this sort of centralization of productive work is unsustainable. You can't* just stuff the entire population of the UK into London, or the entire population of the US into SF, NY, etc. They'd be bloody awful places to live. * well, you can. I don't think we should.
    - closeparen 8y ago
      I don’t think one enormous city is a great idea, but yes, most of the US should end up living in a handful of places that look more like Manhattan than postwar suburbia. Automobile-scaled development does incredible damage to our physical and social environments.
    - CM30 8y ago
      This is why remote work is going to become increasing necessarily, and why bosses/managers/CEOs need to give up the whole 'everyone in the same building between 9-5' idea once and for all. Software engineers, marketers and other folks with similar service jobs do not need to be in the same building as the rest of their team. That'd fix a few issues right away: 1. It'd fix Silicon Valley's housing prices, since tech workers wouldn't be buying all the houses/apartments. This would remove a pool of people making hundreds of thousands a year from the equation, and ideally causing prices to drop down to an affordable value. 2. It'd mean the actual workers who need to live their work (teachers, nurses, retail staff, etc) would likely be able to afford more, since they wouldn't be competing with software engineers for the same properties). 3. It'd give people an incentive to move to smaller towns/cities/not end up crammed into a single area. Does that mean sprawl? Not necessarily, it could mean other large towns and cities in the UK and US could benefit from a higher population rather than the likes of London/New York/San Francisco sucking up new residents by the million. 4. And in future, maybe it could kill off the idea of immigration/emigration too, at least for the most part. The fact you have to live in a wealthy country to get a high paying job is one of the things that makes stuff like the H1B scheme so lucrative. The idea employees have to be watched over in the same building like prisoners or school students is one of the reasons these house prices are so high and everything is becoming so centralised.
- srtjstjsj 8y ago
  There's no apriori reason that the landed gentry should keep their homes without paying a land value tax that makes it not worth their while to keep them. This is the stuff revolutions are made of, when the larger outsider population collectively decides its had enough of landowner privilege. Landowners can go to outer space if they want private ownership of a frontier. In (parts of) China, for example, land is leased to private parties (20-year and 70-year terms), not owned. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahsu/2017/03/21/good-news-for-chinese-homeowners-premier-li-offers-some-clarity-on-land-leases/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahsu/2017/03/21/good-news-fo...
- wbl 8y ago
  They don't want to but developers do and will buy property to do that with. Unfortunately we let governments stop them.
- api 8y ago
  It wouldn't be a problem at all if opportunity weren't so concentrated. I don't know about the UK but in the US opportunity is very concentrated in a few cities.
- GreeniFi 8y ago
  Your argument is, to paraphrase, “it’s less that people are priced out of London, it’s just that London is full”. This argument assumes that the property market is a free market, which it is not. It’s subsidised and manipulated by government and banks. Here we go: 1. Planning laws constrain building out into the green belt and upwards into the skies. There’s a lot of space above and around London that could be built on and in. But we don’t. This throttles supply with price consequences. 2. Tax laws privilege home ownership in the UK. Better to hold your wealth in property than cash or shares because it’s (a) capital gains tax expempt (first home) and (b) inheritance tax efficient. You pay a premium for that perk. 3. Foreign ownership laws leading to London property becoming a global asset class and wealth stash. Again - this creates a premium. Many people would think a Russian oligarch buying up a few luxury flats in London does not a housing crisis make. Economists would however say that all impact is at the margin, and this is probably amplified in a sticky market like London property. 4. Help-to-buy. WTF. This was the government priming the demand pump ahead of an election. 5. Banks realizing that the London property market is basically the magic money tree: increase credit limits, increase loan size, increase profits, rinse and repeat. And the governement will bail them out if there’s a crash. Go figure. So in short, I think a statement that London is full also needs to recognize the extent to which governments use property prices to boost popularity- and its also one of the reasons the UK economy is looking problematic - for far too long property rather than productive investment has sucked up spare cash.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    I think a lot of this is true too. In particular I think lending is out of control (HTB is indeed a complete farce). In the UK we could basically fix this stuff overnight by just building council houses on a trivial amount of the green belt and bringing back the idea that everyone just gets a family home. It won't happen because we have a broken political system. But I also think a major pressure relief valve would be somehow eliminating this idea that everyone has to live in SF/NYC/London/etc. It just doesn't make sense on any level. We can't just have every part of the world outside of a few capital or capital-like cities turn into an economic wasteland.
    - 8y ago
- matt4077 8y ago
  > No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a house. I live in an apartment and wouldn't move to house even if I got it for free. That's mostly due simply to the different environment where you find appartments and houses: almost by definition, the former has higher density. And while I grew up in something like a suburb and can appreciate its advantages to some degree, it would be a sad day in my life when I started to value the comfort of a garden higher than the excitement a city has to offer: theatres, clubs, strange art events by the weirdo crowd this city (Berlin) currently attracts, far more choices for high-quality groceries, et. Plus it sometimes feels like a front-row seat to history. It also helps that apartments are mostly in art deco buildings: heigh ceilings, wooden floors etc. Houses are either new new or (even worse) from the 50s/60s. From my time in the US I remember the rest of the disadvantages: spending an hour commuting, where it takes me 10min on a bike now. Eating out is another 30min drive, and the restaurants, like everything else, look like airport lounges in the middle of a parking lot exhibition. Neighbours that call the police when they see anyone on the sidewalk, because such activity is unusual and suspicious... What I could imagine at some point is a community sort of like the oldschool US towns that still exist here and there, namely a Main Street with a residential area of about a 1-mile radius around it. With a bit of luck (i. e. a few people with initiative) these communities can be lively enough, and the familiarity of a small community compensates for the loss of choice.
- randomsearch 8y ago
  > I don't think it's useful, for example, to say people are being 'priced out'. Perhaps not useful, but accurate. There was no way I could afford to stay in London when I lived there. I know several other people who left or are in the process of leaving for exactly that purpose. London is a playground for the rich and a struggle for everyone else. Away from anecdotes, "social cleansing" is a byword for the fact that people are being priced out of London. http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2017/09/14/social-cleansing-hundreds-of-families-moved-out-of-london-bo http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2017/09/14/social-cleansing-h...
jorblumesea 8y ago
For how long, I wonder. Many of those cities are intensely adverse to new taxes and public works that make larger cities livable. If they keep growing, they'll end up in a similar if not worse situation as the coastal cities. A big reason the coastal cities (LA, SF etc) are unlivable is due to a lack of investment in mass transit and housing.
- claydavisss 8y ago
  Simple solution, you just move again. People escaping high costs are typically moving to a place where they will probably have few roots and connections, so there will be little reason to stick around if costs rise again
- chroem- 8y ago
  >new taxes and public works that make larger cities livable I thought people are moving specifically because large cities are unliveable. The article actually cites a more lax regulatory and tax environment as one of the reasons for why people and businesses are moving.
  - jorblumesea 8y ago
    Sure, and then the realization that cities need to pay for things like infrastructure and transit to support their growing (and increasingly dense) population, and either way a a possibly unlivable situation develops. High taxes/high rents, or low taxes but zero infrastructure or support. No US city has managed to figure out the formula. That low tax situation has only lasted because there was previously no need for real serious spending.
    - claydavisss 8y ago
      Taxes in California are funding public employee pensions, not supporting infrastructure (as evidenced by countless remedial propositions)
      - jorblumesea 8y ago
c3534l 8y ago
People have been moving out of high-cost urban centers to cheaper areas since at least the 50s. And the "secondary" cities the author mentions are quite massive cities. Second, the authors narrative that people are moving "from coastal cities to “secondary” cities" is not factually accurate in the narrowest sense: LA, NYC, and San Francisco (which was a secondary city not that long ago) continue to have population growth. People are still moving to these cities, except NYC which has leveled off a bit. And most of the secondary cities the author mentions are also coastal cities, they're just different coastal cities. The only phenomenon is one that's as old as the industrial revolution: increased urbanization.
- jjjensen90 8y ago
  In fact Phoenix is on the list of "secondary cities" and is the 5th largest city in the US.
  - dawhizkid 8y ago
    “Secondary” is not a matter of size but about socioeconomic influence
  - snarfy 8y ago
    It's still secondary to Los Angeles, where many are migrating from.
- rayiner 8y ago
  There is a very large amount of out-migration from NYC. The city’s population keeps growing because of births and immigration, but many more people move from NYC to the rest of the US than the other way around.
  - mdorazio 8y ago
    This is also true of California in general [1] although I'm not sure if it holds for specific CA cities (I think it does, though). [1] https://lao.ca.gov/laoecontax/article/detail/265 https://lao.ca.gov/laoecontax/article/detail/265
throwaway713 8y ago
I see this going one of two ways. Either tech decentralizes and spreads out into places like Atlanta, Austin, and Nashville, or these jobs continue to further concentrate in SF/NYC/Seattle and the other cities fall way behind. In the first case, I think it's likely that inequality will continue to increase across the U.S. and the median American will be worse off for it; i.e., there will be a positive feedback loop where winner cities take all. In the second case, I think inequality will decrease, and the tech industry (and similar "big city" industries) can play to each region’s cultural strengths. I think this inter-city competition would be a positive effect and lead to accelerating innovation across a variety of different fields. Judging by recent Amazon/Google news though, I fear the first case is more likely to happen.
- Cyclone_ 8y ago
  I agree, I'll also note that it seems with all of the modern communication tools that satellite offices in secondary and tertiary markets wouldn't be as big of a deal now as it would have been 20 years ago.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    It’s also no longer necessary for satellite offices to duplicate headquarters functions. The work done at HQ is infinitely reusable. HQ has near-perfect visibility into the goings-on at each office, so they no longer need independent decision making capability. And the economics have changed to favor quality over quantity: 100 top engineers are better than 1,000 cheap ones. Where are you find the highest concentrations of top talent?
simonebrunozzi 8y ago
Outline: https://outline.com/KzcRSa https://outline.com/KzcRSa
dawhizkid 8y ago
$1500 for a 1 bedroom in LA seems like a good deal?
- fiblye 8y ago
  The point is people are getting more for less elsewhere. For people working normal jobs, California wages don't even begin to cover California costs.
  - dawhizkid 8y ago
    I guess it depends on what you value. I pay more than $1500 in SF for half a house, but I don’t have a car and my commute downtown is very easy on public transit. I don’t have a lot of stuff so don’t need a big, new place either. If I saved 25% on rent by moving to a city with non-existent poor public transit (like Atlanta) I’d just end up paying close to what I pay now by upgrading my living situation (new construction apt and no roommate) and factoring in a car and commute time.
    - fiblye 8y ago
      It also very much depends on your situation. If you're a single young tech worker, SF is great. If you've got kids or you're not working in tech, SF is the kind of place most people will actively avoid.
      - cinquemb 8y ago
        Yeah, very much situation dependent. I started working remotely while in the US and then decided I would just move out of the country. 2br apt for 750$ per month. I paid that much for a room in Boston in a Apt that I had to share with 2 other people that was old and had no amenties… yeah not going back to that. My working motto now is "make my money in/from the US, spend it elsewhere".
- dawnerd 8y ago
  It made me laugh that it mentioned they looked at Portland. Uh, rent is just about the same as LA here, but with a much smaller available supply.
secabeen 8y ago
In the US, a lot of these secondary cities are in states run by conservatives. As someone who cares about reproductive rights, that concerns me. I have a friend who had her amniotic sac rupture while in Arizona, and had to wait 72 hours before she could have the no-longer-viable fetus removed. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, and I worry about what laws I would be subject to in states like that, even if the city or neighborhood I lived in was populated with people who valued those rights in the same way I do.
- AlexB138 8y ago
  There are plenty of people who feel the same way about the laws in New York and California. Having strong talent pools, and economies, in cities with different political climates means more people can live somewhere they're politically aligned and still have decent jobs.
jacobmoe 8y ago
The conversation here is interesting to contrast with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18403497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18403497.
xte 8y ago
I do not know nearly nothing about USA real estate market however in most part of Europe the number of people think cities as a workplace or an interim location for students, young workers or people who can't afford anything better is skyrocketing, in few EU countries there is already a reasonably developed "distributed economy" but in others (like Germany, Italy, Spain) there isn't so many choose small towns because being distributed means also have far less services and "urban comfort" nearby. I suspect that this situation start to be common in any western/developed world. Perhaps the USA are a bit late since their cities are generally "newer" than EU so they are probably "less compressed"/with a lower mean density that allow more green spaces and generally a little bit better mean life quality (something like you do not need 10' to go from A to B + 20' to find a park place around B or it does not take 40' for 15Km trip in peek hours).

127 points by wallflower 8y ago

I tend to think that a lot of migration trends are obscured by currency-based accounting rather than looking at numbers of people and their preferences. I don't know a lot about the US, but here in the UK, in a city like London I don't think it's useful, for example, to say people are being 'priced out'. What's actually happening is that those that own property as of N years ago are permanent residents, and will never really sell their properties, so it's just full. You have suburbs full of families that will never move out, and if they do move out, will just rent the building out rather than selling. The indirect effect of that is that prices go up, but you're really just seeing that the commuter belt of semi-detached homes is full and that's that. It's common to talk about knocking down homes or building more homes or whatever. The thing is that for the most part, only non-residents actually want that (because for them the choice is between high density or not living there). If you own a decently sized family home with a garden you're just not going to give it up and move into a block of flats. It's a strict downgrade in every sense of the word, even if the square footage is the same. No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a house. So yeah, the answer is to go elsewhere. Go to a city that actually welcomes newcomers. Places like London are no longer income-based, they're wealth-based. Starting from scratch here you're at an enormous disadvantage.

rayiner 8y ago
> If you own a decently sized family home with a garden you're just not going to give it up and move into a block of flats. Sure you are, if someone pays you enough for your property to make it worth your while. That’s why it is illegal for property owners to build high density on their own property. Otherwise, people would cash out and allow higher density locations to be built.
- esotericn 8y ago
  If you live in a place where residents have no say in what's built next to them, sure. (Which I think you've addressed in your comment.)
  - someguydave 8y ago
    “Closed” cities like London globally have laws that prevent landowners from disposing of thier property as they wish.
cagenut 8y ago
we are all too "poor" to afford a house, some of us are just making the global-south and future generations pay for it.
- arduanika 8y ago
  How is the Global South paying for our houses?
  - cagenut 8y ago
    short answer, climate change driven desertification -> drought -> famine -> conflict -> collapse -> refugees. if you want the long answer this is a good book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z2NQCS/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z2NQCS/
    - esotericn 8y ago
      Yeah, no. The fact that cars currently produce large amounts of CO2 is a contributor to that. As soon as we get clean energy that disappears. If we don't get clean energy we're fucked anyway.
      - cagenut 8y ago
        Yeah yes. We cannot decarbonize the energy supply fast enough to prevent a total humanitarian nightmare. We must also reduce energy consumption through both efficiency gains and fundamental shifts in cultural values, such as the entitlement people feel to not having to share space with their fellow man. I am a TSLA shareholder, I am very glad that EVs and solar power and batteries are going to play an important role in the overall solution, but it is simply bad math to think its a solution. The land use, infrastructure costs, and energy demands of sprawling detached housing are not currently priced into the market. They are externalized onto the people who are already suffering in a 0.75C world, and we're on a screaming path to a 4C world. Believing magic technology will save us is simply the naive liberal version of denialism.
hrktb 8y ago
> No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a house. That’s a pretty extreme. Appartments have a ton of advantages; whatever one values in an independant house can be turned into a disadvantage. For instance an appartment is easier to secure, maintenance fees can be split, commodity fees can also be split which makes it very affordable to have good infra (high speed internet, central heating, automatic post boxes etc), concierge services become an option. Then superb views, lack of surrounding noise, clean air are advantages on the higher floors. I say that as a kid who grew up in houses and wildly prefer appartments as I moved away.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- esotericn 8y ago
  I'm obviously simplifying. Luxury apartments downtown are different to the sort of monstrosities you see in suburbs. Moving from a family home in a suburb into the city =/= moving from a family home into a block of flats on the same street. The latter is what I am calling a 'strict downgrade'. > maintenance fees can be split, commodity fees can also be split which makes it very affordable to have good infra This is all cost-based argumentation. If you own a family home with a garden you've already solved that. Maintenance costs in London are utterly trivial.
  - hrktb 8y ago
    I think it’s a matter of getting what you pay for. That’s why I see it mainly as a matter of cost. A middle level appartment goes roughly for the same price as a low tier house where I live. There is a healthy market for good apartments in the suburbs, it’s just not a cheap choice (but way less expensive as a dame tier house in the same locations) I am not swimming in money, so I also understand people who already own expensive properties will have different priorities.
- purple_ducks 8y ago
  > lack of surrounding noise in an apartment. can't speak to the US but most apartments in western europe are really poor when it comes to sound. neighbours above/beside/behind all making noise/water pumps/washing machines. near impossible to get a moments peace.
cenal 8y ago
Having lived in a home and in high density high rises I couldn’t disagree more about the perspective that it’s a downgrade. 24/7 doorman means someone to sign for packages. A community of people who presumably are in your socioeconomic class will be living with you. These are folks you can interact with and depending on your stage in life you may potentially do business with, befriend, start children’s play groups with, or even date/marry. Big communities tend to have nice amenities that you’d only find in a country club all inclusive. Maintenance of the high rise unit is often included in the fees or rent. These communities tend to get better access to interconnect technologies like fiber. There will tend to be more options for healthy foods, increased opportunities for walkable restaurants and other forms of entertainment as the population density of the area increases. And more... Basically, my preference 10/10 times would be to live in a high density tall building over a single family home in a neighborhood.
- esotericn 8y ago
  Repeating my post from below: I'm obviously simplifying. Luxury apartments downtown are different to the sort of monstrosities you see in suburbs. Moving from a family home in a suburb into the city =/= moving from a family home into a block of flats on the same street. The latter is what I am calling a 'strict downgrade'.
  - meddlepal 8y ago
    I think you're getting downvoted here or at least misunderstood because in America, suburban apartments are usually very nice in their own regard. So people don't see them as downgrades unless you actually need the space of a full house (eg. For raising a family)
    - virmundi 8y ago
      There is also a cultural difference. While at Oxford, the family that I stayed with had a garden. British people love their gardens. It wasn't much of a garden, but it was in Oxford, and it was their little piece of barely green soil. Americans have their land of course. I have my own equivalent garden. The difference is scarcity. I can travel a continent and still buy a garden relatively cheap. The UK? Not so much.
quicklime 8y ago
> If you own a decently sized family home with a garden you're just not going to give it up and move into a block of flats. It's a strict downgrade in every sense of the word, even if the square footage is the same. I appreciate that this is probably true for the majority of people (at least in the west?) but it certainly doesn't apply to me, nor some of my friends. I like not having a front/back yard to maintain (I don't enjoy gardening). I like the views that you can only get from higher floors, especially city views. I've even come to rely on some of the conveniences, like having a mail room with someone that'll sign for packages while I'm away. And that's not to mention the many benefits of living in a higher-density neighborhood, which would be impossible in a place full of semi-/fully-detached houses. > No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a house. I almost have the opposite view to you, which is that I wouldn't give up my apartment lifestyle unless I was priced out of the city, and could only afford a house in the suburbs. In the end it's up to personal preference, and you're certainly welcome to prefer a house. But don't assume that everyone has the same preference as you.
- esotericn 8y ago
  Repeating my post from below: I'm obviously simplifying. Luxury apartments downtown are different to the sort of monstrosities you see in suburbs. Moving from a family home in a suburb into the city =/= moving from a family home into a block of flats on the same street. The latter is what I am calling a 'strict downgrade'.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  People tend to revisit these preferences when their oldest turns 4, and they discover the unfortunate shitshow that is urban schools.
  - screye 8y ago
    I feel that often the complaints associated with loving in urban apartments has less to do with the apartments themselves, and more societal trends that have arisen out of rich people sticking to suburbs over multiple generations. Schools are the #1 example of this. Badly maintained rental apartments and higher crime rates are some other examples of the same.
jldugger 8y ago
US has a sizeable renter population. Rent tracks housing prices pretty reliably, and when people complain about being priced out they mean 'rent went up again.' And historically, banks didn't lend to black people or black neighborhoods. > those that own property as of N years ago are permanent residents, and will never really sell their properties, so it's just full. In theory, property taxes should nudge people. In California, those are severely capped via ballot initiative Prop 13. People that should be paying $20k a year in tax on a $1.8 million dollar home are paying perhaps $2k. Long term residents have won some sort of cosmic lottery that they probably would have cashed in on and left town with if not for Prop 13. Or, if they value the community and services, would have found a way to borrow against the property appreciation, instead of effectively defunding state and local government. > No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a house. Some of this is driven in the US by tax policy. Owners get a variety of tax breaks renters do not. In effect there's a sorting process by which people who cannot afford a downpayment rent by necessity, and the well off who want to avoid poor people for as neighbors can buy a home. This effect of paying to buy "good" neighbors is self-perpetuating and reinforcing -- people might be okay with having one sketchy neighbor but not be okay being the only non-sketch. It's a classist (and often racist) attitude, but is probably a decent model of the american population.
- esotericn 8y ago
  > In theory, property taxes should nudge people We don't have property tax in the UK. I'm frankly quite glad that we don't. If it were instituted at anything other than a token rate I'd leave. If someone buys a home and lives in it, they should not have to care a single jot how it's valued externally. It is their home and their castle and they have every right to live in it. The idea that, say, my grandmother should just get kicked out of her hometown that she's lived in forever, that she bloody _built_, because a bunch of kids decided they like her city is completely absurd. Financialization needs to end somewhere. Let people earn their opt out.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    It's council tax.
ransom1538 8y ago
"You have suburbs full of families that will never move out, and if they do move out, will just rent the building out rather than selling." Exactly. This is what property taxes helped with. Taxes should be increased to keep houses out of the investment game. Once a house is an investment: it is rented out (increased each year), city councils vote no on all new housing,etc, --- it all gets nimby fast.
johnvanommen 8y ago
> Places like London are no longer income-based, they're wealth-based. The weird thing about living in San Diego is that it's incredibly expensive to live here, but there are THOUSANDS of people here who don't work whatsoever. It feels a bit like a retirement community, except for the ultra-wealthy.
- esotericn 8y ago
  That's the thrust of my post. It's not a financial problem. In London a lot of families own homes or have mortgages that are very small compared to current wages (so effectively owned if not quite yet). They're only 'wealthy' because external observers are valuing their home at silly amounts. Generally they're of very modest means otherwise. I think it's weird to call a family that bought a home 30 years ago in Inner London "ultra-wealthy". It basically just shows how odd the financial system is that we're attempting to put values on family homes this way.
  - Mvandenbergh 8y ago
    They're only wealthy if their primary family home, often surrounded by their other family, places of employment, and friends are available for them to sell. If they have no intention of moving then it is indeed odd to count that as part of their wealth in the same way as cash or shares. Incidentally this is the same reason why the Catholic Church is not rich. It looks like it if you value the land on which their churches sit at the development value they would fetch if sold... but running those churches is their primary purpose! So they could only realise that value by shutting down their only reason for existing.
- danans 8y ago
  It's funny, the very mild - some consider it perfect - weather of San Diego attracts the very wealthy and the very poor. That's the case, though, with several mild-weather tourist destination cities on the California coast, including Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, etc. Many homes in those areas are only occupied a portion of the year, by people with other homes elsewhere. Others are owned and rented out by family trusts. I've talked to many people of mid-high means who are in or near retirement that have made such arrangements part of their financial and estate plans.
nubbins 8y ago
I think the city being “full” is a much better way to explain it than saying for example you need to make $300,000 to afford a house in San Francisco, as if there were an arbitrary amount of housing that available just waiting for people who can pay that much. The people who moved there earlier weren’t that well off its just that they’re holding on so the available supply at any one time is small. Journalism should emphsize the supply side more imo.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Fairly unconvincing if disused warehouses must lie empty because people who live miles away don't want anyone else to move into their city. How can SF be 'full' when there are industrial warehouses far from where people live that are abandoned? What exactly is full here? The warehouse isn't. The land is only full of warehouse skeleton.
  - almost_usual 8y ago
    What warehouses are you talking about? South SF? Those definitely are not abandoned and have people working in them. It’s a dying workforce that gets paid minimum wage but they’re around. There is abandoned property in Hunters Point but it’s radioactive.
    - scarejunba 8y ago
      There are definitely warehouses in Soma near the dogpatch not in use.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        Still, a few or 100 warehouses, won't make a dent in a city where 100s of thousands want to move in...
closeparen 8y ago
Urban condos are routinely more valuable than houses in the same city. Plenty of people do want a level of walkability and street life that is not available in suburbia. It may have been true in the midst of suburban flight that only the desperate would live in urban conditions, but it isn’t any longer. Urbanism is the premium commodity now.
- esotericn 8y ago
  I have commented on this below but this is a disingenuous comparison that you know that I'm not making. Obviously there are advantages and disadvantages of living in different _places_. Replacing homes with apartments is not related to that. If you could live in the exact same place, but with a house instead of in an apartment, it would be a fairly radical position to take to refuse that.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    Yes, it is. The nature of the place is determined by its density, which is determined by its mix of housing types. There is no such thing as a lively downtown bock of single family detached houses. It might be nice to have a house anachronistically in the middle of a dense area, or right on the edge of one, but it’s not geometrically possible for many people to do that.
    - esotericn 8y ago
      Loads of London is the latter half of your comment. Most streets I've lived on have a mix of family homes, new build apartment blocks, weird split-up family homes that now house multiple individuals, etc. Apparently (at least compared to the US) we're quite unique in mixing rich and poor in this way though.
      - rorykoehler 8y ago
        I've lived in London. The city suffers from long transit times due to poor (low density) planning. It was bad enough to make me leave. If I wanted to do anything or go anywhere not in my neighbourhood (stockwell/Brixton) or the centre it took an hour at least.
closeparen 8y ago
You’re describing feudalism. Your station in life depends on your family’s ownership of the right hereditary lands. In 50 years, “were you born with access to a productive city or not” will dominate race, gender, etc. in determining life outcomes.
- esotericn 8y ago
  I think it's more likely that access will always be available, however 'immigrants' quality of life will be far lower. That's already the way it plays out here as far as I can tell. Young people with regular jobs live in single rooms in flatshares or their parents' homes (if they have that access). In middle age I expect them to live in small flats whilst their parents lived in large homes. Over longer time periods, quality of life will decrease across the board and most will be in worse accommodation than the previous generation. The issue we're facing I think is more that this sort of centralization of productive work is unsustainable. You can't* just stuff the entire population of the UK into London, or the entire population of the US into SF, NY, etc. They'd be bloody awful places to live. * well, you can. I don't think we should.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    I don’t think one enormous city is a great idea, but yes, most of the US should end up living in a handful of places that look more like Manhattan than postwar suburbia. Automobile-scaled development does incredible damage to our physical and social environments.
  - CM30 8y ago
    This is why remote work is going to become increasing necessarily, and why bosses/managers/CEOs need to give up the whole 'everyone in the same building between 9-5' idea once and for all. Software engineers, marketers and other folks with similar service jobs do not need to be in the same building as the rest of their team. That'd fix a few issues right away: 1. It'd fix Silicon Valley's housing prices, since tech workers wouldn't be buying all the houses/apartments. This would remove a pool of people making hundreds of thousands a year from the equation, and ideally causing prices to drop down to an affordable value. 2. It'd mean the actual workers who need to live their work (teachers, nurses, retail staff, etc) would likely be able to afford more, since they wouldn't be competing with software engineers for the same properties). 3. It'd give people an incentive to move to smaller towns/cities/not end up crammed into a single area. Does that mean sprawl? Not necessarily, it could mean other large towns and cities in the UK and US could benefit from a higher population rather than the likes of London/New York/San Francisco sucking up new residents by the million. 4. And in future, maybe it could kill off the idea of immigration/emigration too, at least for the most part. The fact you have to live in a wealthy country to get a high paying job is one of the things that makes stuff like the H1B scheme so lucrative. The idea employees have to be watched over in the same building like prisoners or school students is one of the reasons these house prices are so high and everything is becoming so centralised.
srtjstjsj 8y ago
There's no apriori reason that the landed gentry should keep their homes without paying a land value tax that makes it not worth their while to keep them. This is the stuff revolutions are made of, when the larger outsider population collectively decides its had enough of landowner privilege. Landowners can go to outer space if they want private ownership of a frontier. In (parts of) China, for example, land is leased to private parties (20-year and 70-year terms), not owned. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahsu/2017/03/21/good-news-for-chinese-homeowners-premier-li-offers-some-clarity-on-land-leases/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahsu/2017/03/21/good-news-fo...
wbl 8y ago
They don't want to but developers do and will buy property to do that with. Unfortunately we let governments stop them.
api 8y ago
It wouldn't be a problem at all if opportunity weren't so concentrated. I don't know about the UK but in the US opportunity is very concentrated in a few cities.
GreeniFi 8y ago
Your argument is, to paraphrase, “it’s less that people are priced out of London, it’s just that London is full”. This argument assumes that the property market is a free market, which it is not. It’s subsidised and manipulated by government and banks. Here we go: 1. Planning laws constrain building out into the green belt and upwards into the skies. There’s a lot of space above and around London that could be built on and in. But we don’t. This throttles supply with price consequences. 2. Tax laws privilege home ownership in the UK. Better to hold your wealth in property than cash or shares because it’s (a) capital gains tax expempt (first home) and (b) inheritance tax efficient. You pay a premium for that perk. 3. Foreign ownership laws leading to London property becoming a global asset class and wealth stash. Again - this creates a premium. Many people would think a Russian oligarch buying up a few luxury flats in London does not a housing crisis make. Economists would however say that all impact is at the margin, and this is probably amplified in a sticky market like London property. 4. Help-to-buy. WTF. This was the government priming the demand pump ahead of an election. 5. Banks realizing that the London property market is basically the magic money tree: increase credit limits, increase loan size, increase profits, rinse and repeat. And the governement will bail them out if there’s a crash. Go figure. So in short, I think a statement that London is full also needs to recognize the extent to which governments use property prices to boost popularity- and its also one of the reasons the UK economy is looking problematic - for far too long property rather than productive investment has sucked up spare cash.
- esotericn 8y ago
  I think a lot of this is true too. In particular I think lending is out of control (HTB is indeed a complete farce). In the UK we could basically fix this stuff overnight by just building council houses on a trivial amount of the green belt and bringing back the idea that everyone just gets a family home. It won't happen because we have a broken political system. But I also think a major pressure relief valve would be somehow eliminating this idea that everyone has to live in SF/NYC/London/etc. It just doesn't make sense on any level. We can't just have every part of the world outside of a few capital or capital-like cities turn into an economic wasteland.
  - 8y ago
matt4077 8y ago
> No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a house. I live in an apartment and wouldn't move to house even if I got it for free. That's mostly due simply to the different environment where you find appartments and houses: almost by definition, the former has higher density. And while I grew up in something like a suburb and can appreciate its advantages to some degree, it would be a sad day in my life when I started to value the comfort of a garden higher than the excitement a city has to offer: theatres, clubs, strange art events by the weirdo crowd this city (Berlin) currently attracts, far more choices for high-quality groceries, et. Plus it sometimes feels like a front-row seat to history. It also helps that apartments are mostly in art deco buildings: heigh ceilings, wooden floors etc. Houses are either new new or (even worse) from the 50s/60s. From my time in the US I remember the rest of the disadvantages: spending an hour commuting, where it takes me 10min on a bike now. Eating out is another 30min drive, and the restaurants, like everything else, look like airport lounges in the middle of a parking lot exhibition. Neighbours that call the police when they see anyone on the sidewalk, because such activity is unusual and suspicious... What I could imagine at some point is a community sort of like the oldschool US towns that still exist here and there, namely a Main Street with a residential area of about a 1-mile radius around it. With a bit of luck (i. e. a few people with initiative) these communities can be lively enough, and the familiarity of a small community compensates for the loss of choice.
randomsearch 8y ago
> I don't think it's useful, for example, to say people are being 'priced out'. Perhaps not useful, but accurate. There was no way I could afford to stay in London when I lived there. I know several other people who left or are in the process of leaving for exactly that purpose. London is a playground for the rich and a struggle for everyone else. Away from anecdotes, "social cleansing" is a byword for the fact that people are being priced out of London. http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2017/09/14/social-cleansing-hundreds-of-families-moved-out-of-london-bo http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2017/09/14/social-cleansing-h...

jorblumesea 8y ago

For how long, I wonder. Many of those cities are intensely adverse to new taxes and public works that make larger cities livable. If they keep growing, they'll end up in a similar if not worse situation as the coastal cities. A big reason the coastal cities (LA, SF etc) are unlivable is due to a lack of investment in mass transit and housing.

claydavisss 8y ago
Simple solution, you just move again. People escaping high costs are typically moving to a place where they will probably have few roots and connections, so there will be little reason to stick around if costs rise again
chroem- 8y ago
>new taxes and public works that make larger cities livable I thought people are moving specifically because large cities are unliveable. The article actually cites a more lax regulatory and tax environment as one of the reasons for why people and businesses are moving.
- jorblumesea 8y ago
  Sure, and then the realization that cities need to pay for things like infrastructure and transit to support their growing (and increasingly dense) population, and either way a a possibly unlivable situation develops. High taxes/high rents, or low taxes but zero infrastructure or support. No US city has managed to figure out the formula. That low tax situation has only lasted because there was previously no need for real serious spending.
  - claydavisss 8y ago
    Taxes in California are funding public employee pensions, not supporting infrastructure (as evidenced by countless remedial propositions)
    - jorblumesea 8y ago

c3534l 8y ago

People have been moving out of high-cost urban centers to cheaper areas since at least the 50s. And the "secondary" cities the author mentions are quite massive cities. Second, the authors narrative that people are moving "from coastal cities to “secondary” cities" is not factually accurate in the narrowest sense: LA, NYC, and San Francisco (which was a secondary city not that long ago) continue to have population growth. People are still moving to these cities, except NYC which has leveled off a bit. And most of the secondary cities the author mentions are also coastal cities, they're just different coastal cities. The only phenomenon is one that's as old as the industrial revolution: increased urbanization.

jjjensen90 8y ago
In fact Phoenix is on the list of "secondary cities" and is the 5th largest city in the US.
- dawhizkid 8y ago
  “Secondary” is not a matter of size but about socioeconomic influence
- snarfy 8y ago
  It's still secondary to Los Angeles, where many are migrating from.
rayiner 8y ago
There is a very large amount of out-migration from NYC. The city’s population keeps growing because of births and immigration, but many more people move from NYC to the rest of the US than the other way around.
- mdorazio 8y ago
  This is also true of California in general [1] although I'm not sure if it holds for specific CA cities (I think it does, though). [1] https://lao.ca.gov/laoecontax/article/detail/265 https://lao.ca.gov/laoecontax/article/detail/265

throwaway713 8y ago

I see this going one of two ways. Either tech decentralizes and spreads out into places like Atlanta, Austin, and Nashville, or these jobs continue to further concentrate in SF/NYC/Seattle and the other cities fall way behind. In the first case, I think it's likely that inequality will continue to increase across the U.S. and the median American will be worse off for it; i.e., there will be a positive feedback loop where winner cities take all. In the second case, I think inequality will decrease, and the tech industry (and similar "big city" industries) can play to each region’s cultural strengths. I think this inter-city competition would be a positive effect and lead to accelerating innovation across a variety of different fields. Judging by recent Amazon/Google news though, I fear the first case is more likely to happen.

Cyclone_ 8y ago
I agree, I'll also note that it seems with all of the modern communication tools that satellite offices in secondary and tertiary markets wouldn't be as big of a deal now as it would have been 20 years ago.
- closeparen 8y ago
  It’s also no longer necessary for satellite offices to duplicate headquarters functions. The work done at HQ is infinitely reusable. HQ has near-perfect visibility into the goings-on at each office, so they no longer need independent decision making capability. And the economics have changed to favor quality over quantity: 100 top engineers are better than 1,000 cheap ones. Where are you find the highest concentrations of top talent?

simonebrunozzi 8y ago

Outline: https://outline.com/KzcRSa https://outline.com/KzcRSa

dawhizkid 8y ago

$1500 for a 1 bedroom in LA seems like a good deal?

fiblye 8y ago
The point is people are getting more for less elsewhere. For people working normal jobs, California wages don't even begin to cover California costs.
- dawhizkid 8y ago
  I guess it depends on what you value. I pay more than $1500 in SF for half a house, but I don’t have a car and my commute downtown is very easy on public transit. I don’t have a lot of stuff so don’t need a big, new place either. If I saved 25% on rent by moving to a city with non-existent poor public transit (like Atlanta) I’d just end up paying close to what I pay now by upgrading my living situation (new construction apt and no roommate) and factoring in a car and commute time.
  - fiblye 8y ago
    It also very much depends on your situation. If you're a single young tech worker, SF is great. If you've got kids or you're not working in tech, SF is the kind of place most people will actively avoid.
    - cinquemb 8y ago
      Yeah, very much situation dependent. I started working remotely while in the US and then decided I would just move out of the country. 2br apt for 750$ per month. I paid that much for a room in Boston in a Apt that I had to share with 2 other people that was old and had no amenties… yeah not going back to that. My working motto now is "make my money in/from the US, spend it elsewhere".
dawnerd 8y ago
It made me laugh that it mentioned they looked at Portland. Uh, rent is just about the same as LA here, but with a much smaller available supply.

secabeen 8y ago

In the US, a lot of these secondary cities are in states run by conservatives. As someone who cares about reproductive rights, that concerns me. I have a friend who had her amniotic sac rupture while in Arizona, and had to wait 72 hours before she could have the no-longer-viable fetus removed. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, and I worry about what laws I would be subject to in states like that, even if the city or neighborhood I lived in was populated with people who valued those rights in the same way I do.

AlexB138 8y ago
There are plenty of people who feel the same way about the laws in New York and California. Having strong talent pools, and economies, in cities with different political climates means more people can live somewhere they're politically aligned and still have decent jobs.

jacobmoe 8y ago

The conversation here is interesting to contrast with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18403497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18403497.

xte 8y ago

I do not know nearly nothing about USA real estate market however in most part of Europe the number of people think cities as a workplace or an interim location for students, young workers or people who can't afford anything better is skyrocketing, in few EU countries there is already a reasonably developed "distributed economy" but in others (like Germany, Italy, Spain) there isn't so many choose small towns because being distributed means also have far less services and "urban comfort" nearby. I suspect that this situation start to be common in any western/developed world. Perhaps the USA are a bit late since their cities are generally "newer" than EU so they are probably "less compressed"/with a lower mean density that allow more green spaces and generally a little bit better mean life quality (something like you do not need 10' to go from A to B + 20' to find a park place around B or it does not take 40' for 15Km trip in peek hours).