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I'm not sure that it makes sense to group Boise with the other cities they mention (Austin, Denver, Portland, Indianapolis, etc.). Boise has less than half the
by harimau777 7y ago
I'm not sure that it makes sense to group Boise with the other cities they mention (Austin, Denver, Portland, Indianapolis, etc.). Boise has less than half the population of Raleigh which I think is the next least populated of the cities that they mention.
In addition, while this is much more subjective, most of those cities seem to share a similar "cultural prestige"/influence as compared to other large cities like Columbus, Jacksonville, etc.
It seems to me that a more accurate description is that people are moving from the most expensive and culturally prestigious cities to slightly less expensive and culturally prestigious cities. It doesn't sound to me like they are moving to what people generally think of as "small cities".
- ajmurmann 7y agoYou are exactly describing the reasoning I went through when selecting Portland as the place to move to from SF. Edit: to be clear, price for me was really the main reason to move away from SF and not to move for example to NYC. If there had been city similarly vibrant and interesting, large city as NYC or SF that is affordable I'd have chosen that in a heart beat over Portland.
- fillskills 7y agoHow is Portland doing for you? I am moving there in a few days
- rayiner 7y agoShowed my wife (6th generation Oregonian) this thread. Steam is coming out her ears.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ironmagma 7y agoSome people really hate change.
- a3n 7y agoOnly change that they didn't cause.
- lubujackson 7y agoSo... most things in the world? I get it, I grew up in a small town and this feels like straight townie-ism to me. Portland people who hate CA transplants have the same mindset as SF people who hate "techies" who have the same mindset as Red Americans who hate immigrants. There are always some cultural differences people point to (they are raising prices!/taking jobs!/crappy people!/more traffic!) but it is really just a form of territorial pissing that dumps negativity on individuals for societal shifts.
- perl4ever 7y agoI went to college in Arizona in the 90s, and got the impression a large number of people were annoyed by newcomers from CA.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoHaving been born in Portland myself (and otherwise a 4th gen Washingtonian), transplanting is just a way of life in the PNW.
- Aloha 7y agoI was a transplant from California over a decade ago I guess I never fully took root, I ended up moving to Texas
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoTexas has a lot of transplants as well. If you look at the population today vs 20 years ago, it becomes really obvious that it has to be the case.
- jamiek88 7y agoI showed your comment to my 7th generation wife and she was glad people like her birthplace.
- a3n 7y agoIf she's angry about the problems that come with newcomers, she can ask the govt or people to outlaw newcomers. Otherwise ... No one occupies the high moral ground. Every newcomer, no matter how far back, changed forever what was there. Edit: when I lived in San Diego in the seventies, it was all but impossible to get a permit for a new water hookup, effectively banning new homes and therefore new people. Your wife could start with that.
- rayiner 7y agoIt’s not newcomers. (The native Americans weren’t too thrilled when here ancestors came into town, I’ll tell you what.) It’s Californians specifically.
- a3n 7y agoOK, different bias. And the native Americans changed the land when they arrived.
- cylinder 7y agoPeople say this as if Californian is an ethnicity. Please.
- Macross8299 7y agoThe popular perception is that the people leaving California bring their politics with them and vote for the same things they did in California, therefore making their new state just as miserable as the parts of California they fled.
- a3n 7y agoThere was a big influx of Californians to Seattle early 90s from aerospace tectonic shifts and normal moving around. The worry was rising property prices mainly, because they brought lots of cash from selling their expensive California homes. And they were always leaving off the last syllables of words. But mainly property prices.
- wnmurphy 7y agoNothing personal, I can very much relate to this attitude as someone who grew up in the Bay Area and watched it explode... but cities grow. Everyone came from somewhere else, right?
- city41 7y agoThe US has gained 40 million people since the year 2000. Growth is just an inevitability.
- cylinder 7y agoTell your wife her ancestors should have bought all the land in the state if they didn't want anyone moving there. I don't find these sentiments funny or cheeky at all.
- fillskills 7y agoPlease convey to your spouse that we come in peace
- ajmurmann 7y agoPortland is great. My wife likes to call it "the last liveable city in America". I like the culture; food is varied and superb; public transit exists. Especially the east side has a funk going that I really like. Although local chains are growing in recent years and making most little downtown areas a lot more alike. It sometimes grid a little provincial to me and I more frequently get on an airplane then I drive outside of the Portland metro area. All that might say more about me you than the city and region. I could say a lot more, but am not sure what you'd be interested in.
- bilbo0s 7y ago>It seems to me that a more accurate description is that people are moving from the most expensive and culturally prestigious cities to slightly less expensive and culturally prestigious cities. It doesn't sound to me like they are moving to what people generally think of as "small cities". Maybe? But how many clicks would that get?
- im3w1l 7y agoAre you saying we shouldn't call out inaccuracies?
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoBoise is at the wrong end of a fire-hose of people leaving big cities in CA and will likely have the same economic growth and social problems as other cities with similiar circumstances. Grouping it with Denver, Portland, Austin makes sense. Indianapolis I'm not so sure about.
- mkr-hn 7y agoYou can see this out in Northeast Metro Atlanta. People flee the perimeter to escape the things they hate about the city. Then they realize they miss what they like about the city, so that gets built, and now they move further out. Repeat. Now I-85/985, I-20, and every highway between them is littered with tiny Atlantas at every exit for 50+ miles. Every former bedroom community is turning into its own little city. At least some of them are trying to manage it in a way that leaves them better off once the exodus ends and flips back around. People seem to have decided 50 miles is enough, so the escapist development has turned to the west and north sides.
- llampx 7y ago> Every former bedroom community is turning into its own little city. Isn't that a good thing, if you want people to have everything they need in their own neighborhood, rather than needing to commute 20 miles for a Costco and another 10 miles for a latte? I'd rather have smaller (potentially walkable) communities than rows and rows of suburban housing where people just get in their car to drive elsewhere when they need to do something.
- a3n 7y agoAgreed. Highly recommend Alexander's "A Pattern Language." I just did an insanely massive purge, and this is one of the few books I kept. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- VWWHFSfQ 7y ago> For each worker who left Boise over the past four years, 1.57 workers moved in, making the city the biggest magnet for new residents in the LinkedIn analysis. It may not be as large presently as those other places, but they're seeing higher growth rates. So it's reasonable to compare them in this report.
- rossdavidh 7y agoWhile I don't disagree with your fundamental point, the fact that these places are smaller (hence less crowded/expensive) than Los Angeles and New York City, is a big part of the appeal. Even Boise and Austin are more similar in size to each other than they are to L.A. Austin metro area is about 3x the population of Boise, but L.A. metro area is about 8x the population of Austin, for example.
- Aloha 7y agoI think you might have that backwards
- ajmurmann 7y agoI'd love to see a survey on what actually went into the decision making progress. I know for myself larger city equaled more desirable, but there also is a correlation between size and affordability, especially if a short commute is desired.
- HillaryBriss 7y agoper Wikipedia, the difference is even larger: LA Metro area: about 13 million Austin: about 1 million.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoAustin metro area: 2 million. Let’s compares apples to apples at least.
- afpx 7y agoSome of these small cities have decent infrastructure, lots of charm, natural beauty, and cute city centers - for really cheap! I recently purchased a street of $30,000 homes that I’m turning into a creative community.
- ransom1538 7y agoTaxes. State income tax. This can be as high as 9.0% (CA or NY). That is insane. If you make 100k, the state could take 9k a year. In some states that will cover your entire mortgage on a house. I love CA or NY, but FL, TX, NV, etc have NO state income tax. ID is awesome, but 7% taxes is no go.
- eigenvector 7y agoIdaho has a very small tax base, so they have to tax what's there at a higher rate. At the same time, what a lot of people like about Idaho is vast amounts of wilderness and unspoiled nature. If somebody loves to hike in the mountains, they're sooner going to pay 7% income tax and live in Idaho than move to Florida or Texas. It's the luxury of choice that someone making 100k/year in Idaho can afford.
- m0llusk 7y agoThat isn't necessarily a robust analysis of cost trade offs. A good example of how this can be inaccurate is Texas which has a reputation as a relatively low tax state, but in order to fund its considerable road network levies extremely high property taxes which in turn trigger higher rents than might be expected. New Hampshire has a similar situation with low taxes being made up for with high property taxes which pay the cost of rebuilding the roads which are ripped up seasonally by frost heaves and geologic activity. Ultimately people demand basic services which have to be paid for. Eliminating one source of funding may reduce the overall burden but more likely simply shifts funding.
- walshemj 7y agoUS property taxes (even in lower cost states) are huge compared to the UK's council tax.
- mokus 7y agoIsn’t this just another example of what you’re replying to? UK’s VAT sounds appallingly high to American ears too, but it isn’t really meaningful to compare a single type of tax in isolation.
- ImprovedSilence 7y agoAbout 7 or so years ago I visited Boise for the first time when I was coming back from a backpacking trip. I instantly fell in love with the city, and if proximity to family wasn’t a priority for me (I’m on the east coast), I’d have started looking for jobs there the next week. (I may have done a cursory search anyway, but not with any real seriousness.) It surprises me zero percent that it’s been growing like crazy, and I think it absolutely merits being included here. Denver, on the other hand, has already “arrived” in my mind, as anyone I know who had any inkling of outdoor adventureness in them ended up there 10 years ago, the traffic is/has been a mess for years, and the ski slopes are way too crowded.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoHP used to do a lot in Boise, not sure about these days. As a tech hub in that area, SLC is probably more successful, especially when a growing tech scene in Provo is included (they even have a Starbucks now near BYU, if that is believable). Boise is a lot less Mormon than SLC is (15 vs 50%).
- desert_boi 7y agoBoise's tech scene is still very Mormon. Lots of people commute in from the outer burb of Meridian to downtown. I work in downtown Boise, and my tech lead, middle manager, and his boss are all Mormon. I'm the only guy on my team that didn't go on a mission or go to BYU for part of my schooling.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoIdaho is very Mormon in the south, and Mormons tend to be significant in the tech scene throughout the west (eg at Microsoft in Redmond), so that doesn’t sound surprising at all.
- leereeves 7y ago> It seems to me that a more accurate description is that people are moving from the most expensive and culturally prestigious cities to slightly less expensive and culturally prestigious cities. It doesn't sound to me like they are moving to what people generally think of as "small cities". Agree completely. Many workers are moving from LA or Chicago to Phoenix, which is far from a small city, but is less expensive.
- qroshan 7y agoRule # 1 of any economic analysis: Analysis done during boom periods (low unemployment, high stock market) is worthless. During the dot com, housing and crypto bubbles, there were many trends of people doing X. As Buffett says, "It's only when the tide goes down, you'll see who is swimming naked". Real trends survive recessions and market busts. Take everything else with a grain of salt
- patthebunny 7y agoI want to leave Seattle cause it's too expensive. Immediately Austin, Denver (or boulder), and Portland come to mind as reasonable alternatives. It's just about money. You can have an absurdly well paying job in Seattle and it really doesn't matter because you still can't afford a house. You can pay absurd amounts for a small condo. You can have a god awful commute. Or you can move 3 hours south and your money goes further while you still get the appealing parts of living in a city.