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As least the article acknowledges that higher income individuals can do better on expensive cities even after paying for housing. HN is full of smug LCOLers who
by esoterica 7y ago
As least the article acknowledges that higher income individuals can do better on expensive cities even after paying for housing. HN is full of smug LCOLers who love brag about how much better they are doing than those SF losers because their mortgage is only $2/month or whatever.
- Kurtz79 7y agoHN as also full of smug SFers and SVers who love to brag (masking it as a half-hearthed complaint) how much the pay for housing, implying that they can afford it. Usually, neither type is able to provide meaningful discussion about the topic at hand. Not being from US, but often traveling there, I have always wondered how mimimum-wage workers are able to afford living even remotely close to Manhattan or SF. The answer seems to be that they increasingly can't.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoSmugness on both sides. The only thing that we can really trust is data and math. Minimum wage workers in these communities are usually immigrants who double up on very family style living accommodations. It’s still better for them in SF than it was in say Manila.
- dfxm12 7y agoI have always wondered how mimimum-wage workers are able to afford living even remotely close to Manhattan or SF. They split the cost with someone. Either with roommates or a wealthy parent who lives somewhere else.
- manishsharan 7y agoManhattan is just one of the five boroughs of New York and it is very well connected to also New jersey and upstate NY and Long Island. SF on the other hand ..
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoThey live in outlying towns with bus service to Manhattan. You see them waiting at bus stops on Saturday mornings waiting to come in to work when everybody else has the day off.
- askafriend 7y agoWhy do you take it as bragging? People on HN can afford it because they get paid a lot. It’s pretty simple.
- antisthenes 7y agoBecause when you flaunt that you can afford something objectively expensive, it's called bragging. It fits the definition of the word, so it's taken as such. Not sure what's confusing you.
- askafriend 7y agoAre people flaunting, or are they participating in a discussion about affordability of housing while you interpret them as flaunting? I only ask this because I've rarely seen people here outright flaunt/brag in the original sense of those words. There's a difference between: "Doesn't matter to me, I can afford it lol, sucks for people who can't." and "I pay X for housing and get paid Y in salary and that's why living here makes sense for me."
- goobynight 7y agoI've never seen the latter even once.
- goobynight 7y agoIt's a classic thing people interject when it isn't relevant. You nearly cannot discuss housing costs in Florida or Indiana on the internet without someone from SF feeling the urgent need to say "lol that would get me a cardboard box where I live". Why they feel the need? I don't know.
- askafriend 7y agoI think a large part of it is just venting. Not necessarily bragging.
- tych0 7y agoOne thing I've never understood about this argument is: iPhones/Pixels are $1000 no matter where you live. A new decent sedan is $25k no matter where you live. Even if housing is 20% of your income in both HCOL and LCOL and it seems completely ridiculous to pay $500k * 20% and not ridiculous to pay $150k * 20%, you can still by more cars, phones, etc. with your remaining $500k * 80%. This is ignoring the cost of consumables like food, etc. But I believe the same argument applies.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago> A new decent sedan is $25k no matter where you live. In the states of course. That logic no longer applies in Singapore. But yes, many expenses are fixed across the country; they might even be cheaper in high COL areas (international travel, foreign food). So 100k in mobile Alabama isn’t 200k in SF. Once you get over your housing differential, everything else is much more mellow.
- icebraining 7y agoI think the argument is that comparable housing is not the same percentage of your income is both areas - ie, people in a LCOL may be paying the same 20%, but they live in a two-story house instead of a room or tiny apartment.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoMuch of the value is living next to other people with high incomes, with secondary effects such as your children going to school with others whose parents have high incomes.
- tych0 7y ago$100k/year rents you one hell of a nice apartment, though, right? It must be competitive with whatever you can get in a LCOL area. 150k/500k were numbers I pulled out of the air for "well compensated engineers" in L/HCOL. I absolutely agree that people who are not well compensated are fucked. But the thing I've never understood is people who could make 500k by moving to the Bay Area arguing that they're better off staying in a LCOL for purely financial reasons. Now, note that I currently do not live in the Bay Area and have consistently refused to move there for employment reasons, because there are other things to value besides money. But I've definitely seen the argument made on a purely financial basis, and I think it is misguided.
- bradjohnson 7y agoIt's strange to hear someone tell people making less money that they're too 'smug' about living in a less universally desirable part of the world.