11 ms·

New Yorkers consider relocating post coronavirus

84 points by rcarrigan87 6y ago

nugget 6y ago
I saw a statistic that 0.25% of NYC’s population has already died from Coronavirus (15k/6m). It seems worse there due to the density, and similarly dense cities like London are in the same boat.
- ummonk 6y ago
  Yeah, that statistic is what I point out to people who claim that the IFR from coronavirus is actually tiny due to undiagnosed infections.
  - Finnucane 6y ago
    The biggest spike in the local death rate since 9/11/01 is not "just another flu season". Though NYC's population is probably closer to 9m now.
    - Animats 6y ago
      Biggest spike, period. NYC confirmed deaths related to Covid-19: 7,890 and counting.[1] 9/11 death toll: 2,996. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-citys-coronavirus-deaths-match-demographics-in-other-hot-spots-11587214800 https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-citys-coronavirus-deat...
- acchow 6y ago
  citation please?
  - nkozyra 6y ago
    Doesn't seem quite right but not too far off. .25% of NYC's population is 21,000. Johns Hopkins shows 14,451 deaths as of now: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
  - zamfi 6y ago
    As of today, 10,344 confirmed deaths [0] from COVID-19, of a population of 8.4m [1] is 0.12% [2]. This is less than the original parent states, but only by 2x. [0] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=coronavirus+deaths+in+NYC&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=coronav... [1] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nyc+population&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nyc+pop... [2] Elementary math?
    - votepaunchy 6y ago
      NYS has 18,776 deaths as of today’s count. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
      - zamfi 6y ago
        That’s New York State. My numbers are for the city proper.
    - vkou 6y ago
      Not all the deaths are tested for COVID. Those that aren't don't make it into the stats. [1] Overall mortality, compared to the baseline, has skyrocketed in the past few weeks. For the March 4 - April 4 time period, it was double the usual rate. [2] [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/08/829506542/after-deaths-at-home-in-nyc-officials-plan-to-count-many-as-covid-19 https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/corona...
      - zamfi 6y ago
        Yes, this is a very obvious and severe underestimate for sure. But the point is that the death rate must be at least 0.12%!
  - __s 6y ago
    Look up a death toll Look up population Derive percentage https://www.google.com/search?q=nyc+population https://www.google.com/search?q=nyc+population says 8.4M https://www.google.com/search?q=corona+death+toll+nyc https://www.google.com/search?q=corona+death+toll+nyc says 10k https://nypost.com/2020/04/18/nyc-coronavirus-deaths-near-13000-but-daily-toll-is-going-down https://nypost.com/2020/04/18/nyc-coronavirus-deaths-near-13... says 13k This gives 0.1%. The OP's numbers are based on 6M population & 15k deaths. I believe their trying to cite total deaths, not just covid-19 related. Their NYC region also seems to be more localized
- downerending 6y ago
  It doesn't just seem worse, it is worse (a lot worse), at least so far. Sort this table by per-capita total deaths: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ And that's just by state. NYC proper is likely even worse than that would suggest.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  Important to point out that about 155k people die in NY every year. About 1% of Americans die each year, so there is a crucial distinction between dying with a disease, and dying of a disease. Risk is not additive. The median age for covid deaths is well into the late 70s, which means that there is a high risk of death in the same period anyway would the person not have been infected with covid. The overall mortality numbers will be up, but throwing that stat out there is hugely misleading.
  - nkozyra 6y ago
    This seems to misrepresent overall mortality with cause-specific mortality. If I'm struck by a car with stage 4 cancer, the car accident killed me, regardless of my outlook. If that car accident happens to be highly contagious, well then the cause is even more important. > Risk is not additive. It isn't always, but it very often is and it is in this case.
    - kryogen1c 6y ago
      > If I'm struck by a car with stage 4 cancer, the car accident killed me, regardless of my outlook. this is not obviously true. the analogy is good, but you didn't go into enough detail. if someone with terminal cancer is hit by a car, makes it to a hospital, and dies some weeks later, why did they die? both things likely played a role; how do you report this statistic? i stopped worrying about the virus and started worrying about the economy and its politics weeks ago.
    - Barrin92 6y ago
      if someone dies in a traffic death while having stage four cancer then this would indeed not change year on year mortality (assuming the person dies of cancer). This is an awful example though because the victim profile of car deaths is generally middle aged adults, who would not have died otherwise. If your average car driver was a stage four cancer patient traffic safety would indeed be less of an issue relatively speaking. The risk profile of covid patients skews so heavily towards old age and existing preconditions that it is actually not trivial at all. It's immensely important to look at death rates in the context of general mortality, not a vacuum. It may very well be the case that covid 'crams' the deaths of people who would have died anyway into a short timeframe and there'll be singificantly lower flu mortality and so on later this year.
- milemi 6y ago
  Population of NYC was 8.4e6 in 2018
- gnulinux 6y ago
  There are other densely populated areas in the US, namely LA Metropolitan Area, South Florida metropolitan Area and Boston metropolitan area. E.g. NYC area is 26,403 people per mile^2, and Boston metropolitan area is 13,841 people per mile^2. But NYC seems to be doing much worse than 2 times worse than Boston. Maybe it's because NYC population is older? E.g. in Boston 52% of deaths are from LTC facilities (yesterday's data), which seems to imply virus hasn't penetrated into community that much.
  - hnra 6y ago
    I don't think you should be expecting people per square mile to scale 1:1 with mortality rate anyhow. I would guess putting twice as many people within a square would result in the virus spreading an order of magnitude faster. Similar to how increasing infection radius in an SIR model increases spread by much more.
- crooked-v 6y ago
  On the other hand, California has a much lower death rate despite having cities with a population density in the same magnitude as NYC, which seems to suggest some level of luck of the draw here in initial unrecorded spread before lockdowns came into place.
  - bestnameever 6y ago
    > California has a much lower death rate despite having cities with a population density in the same magnitude as NYC New York is denser than any city in California. "New York is far more crowded than any other major city in the United States. It has 28,000 residents per square mile, while San Francisco, the next most jammed city, has 17,000, according to data from the U.S. Census Bur" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-crowds-density.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-...
    - vsef 6y ago
      If it's just density, why does SF have so few deaths (20), fewer than cities much less dense than SF? eg Seattle is much less dense but has 15x as many deaths as SF. There is clearly an element of chance/which sub-population was infected/timing of responses in play here. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/04/07/coronavirus-lessons-from-new-york-and-san-francisco/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/04/07...
      - perl4ever 6y ago
        From another thread, subway?
        zamfi 6y ago
        Subway doesn’t explain why Seattle more than SF. Basically only timing of shelter-in-place does.
    - fh973 6y ago
      Manhattan 69,467 per square mile (Wikipedia).
kolikotime 6y ago
This isn’t any surprise, we will see a swelling of growth in Westchester, Long Island, Southern Connecticut, and Northern New Jersey, especially if partial remote work stays normalised as well. I don’t see a massive exodus out of the metro area, but the suburban share will likely grow.
- gshdg 6y ago
  Growth in those areas is supply-constrained, though. There aren't a ton of available homes; construction lags demand; there isn't all that much undeveloped land left in those counties; and they'll all be resistant to denser zoning.
wombat-man 6y ago
I've entertained the idea, but then again, if I stick around I might get a sweet deal on a condo.
- kolikotime 6y ago
  Property prices are definitely already declining in the city, so this could be a smart move as well.
OrangeMango 6y ago
In the aftermath of 9/11, nobody wanted to live in skyscrapers. But that fear soon faded and prices went back up. It's probably too early to tell if this is a lasting trend.
- Finnucane 6y ago
  Yeah, the double-wammy of 9/11/01 and the post-tech-bubble recession drove people out of NYC for a while. Vacancies went up and re prices went down. But it didn't last forever, obviously. It is hard to say if this will be different--we're going to be living with this for some time at some level, and it's still hard to say how much for how long.
daenz 6y ago
I'm considering relocating from Seattle purely based on the fact that we can make WFH commonplace. Why pay insane rents to physically be in a location I can work remotely?
- ahelwer 6y ago
  Because Seattle's a pretty great city to live in? You can still easily find rent below $1500/month for a 1 bedroom on Capitol Hill, it isn't too insane. Editing to add Seattle has world-class rock climbing, mountaineering, and hiking under an hour's drive from downtown, and if you aren't doing that you're probably missing out on half the joy of living here.
  - daenz 6y ago
    I lived in Chicago and paid $1500/mo for a 1500 sq/ft loft in River North, AC, dishwasher, in-unit laundry. The rents here are insane compared to other places.
    - monksy 6y ago
      How long ago was this? For a smaller place (900sqft for a 2 or 3 bedroom) they're asking $3200 in logan square. Right arround the corner (western/armitage) they're asking $1800 for a studio.
      - daenz 6y ago
        This was 7 years ago. It was also on the top floor of a building with no elevator, so there were contributing factors to the $/foot. Everywhere I lived in Chicago got much more "bang for the buck" than Seattle though. Better summers and winters (I enjoy snow), and much better food as well. The difference in the homeless situation was shocking as well. The only thing Seattle has going for it, imo, is the nearby nature, but I honestly haven't taken advantage of it to warrant the cost of living increases on everything else.
      - notfromhere 6y ago
jbaudanza 6y ago
Seoul is sounding pretty appealing right now.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  SF Bay Area is the best. Corona already widely spread for months before lockdown, so no need to feel alarmed now. Grocery stores are packed and very few reported cases!
- def8cefe 6y ago
  Seoul is very close to the North Korean border, I doubt you would sleep much easier.
perseusprime11 6y ago
WFH will become norm and folks can move around easily.
- fortran77 6y ago
  Not for a great number of people.
- vsef 6y ago
  I love WFH and work for a large company which shifted to WFH early and in which in theory remote work should be very doable. My hope for this experience was that people would realize how productive WFH is and this would be great because it would normalize it and everyone would realize how well it works and... my perception of the reaction to it is unfortunately that most people at the company are wildly negative about it right now. Across the board. So much so that it's kind of shocked me. I had to stop talking about how much I liked it because it was upsetting people. I wish people wouldn't judge the productivity of WFH from doing so under a duress during a pandemic but I'm actually really worried this whole experience is pushing people to be more convinced that WFH is unproductive than they were before the pandemic :(
  - perseusprime11 6y ago
    Right now WFH has a negative public perception because kids are at home and nobody can leave their home. So there is a lot of frustration that I can understand. But once it is all over, imagine folks working remotely and able to move around the world with freedom and bring more creativity because of their newfound happiness.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I think the aftermath of coronavirus is really going to be larger that most people are anticipating when it comes to work and migration patterns: 1. In the past 25 years there has been a huge re-migration back to cores of major cities. I think that is going to stop. 2. Suburbs and exurbs I think will become way more popular. The normal limiting factor on those locations is the commute, but I think so many more companies will be used to remote work after this (even if they don't necessarily prefer it) that you'll see a lot more "come into the office once or twice a week" type things that make living in the exurbs a lot more bearable. 3. I don't foresee migration away from the major metros. People will still go where the jobs are, and if anything I see the pandemic making strong companies stronger and smaller, weaker companies weaker. Definitely would not be willing to put a lot of money down on this 3rd point, though, could see a trend toward 2nd/3rd tier cities.
- kolikotime 6y ago
  I think your third point is mostly strong. I see most companies going to partial remote but staying in their current locations. For growth to 2nd/3rd tier cities to dominate we’d need to see stronger job growth there than in major metros, or for near universal remote work. Also with this huge recession most people will be more hesitant to move without a secured job. I think your assertion is correct.
- groby_b 6y ago
  Disagreement on #2 and #3: #2: Suburbs/exurbs are completely unsustainable. I'd predict that after this is over, local food sources will figure prominently on people's minds. We might see a return to smaller satellite cities if zoning changes to a saner mixed zoning approach. (You don't want big box stores. You do want smaller stores embedded in the local community. I'm not sure there's the political will to go there, because small stores can't afford making lots of campaign donations) #3 depends highly on how long we'll be distancing. At some point, habits will be formed, and cities will be less appealing. Combine that with likely increased WFH, and way too high rent in cities, and migration might be tempting. I'd hope the satellite cities are smart enough to densify accordingly (because urban sprawl is unsustainable, but again, many interests aligned against that). Independent point #4 - the importance of communities you're actually part of is currently driven home. I think the desire to be close to family/friends/social groups might increase. (There's the counter argument of our new habits of video socializing, but it's fundamentally less appealing than knowing people who have your back are living close to you) A lot of these patterns hinges ultimately on how willing companies will be to continue WFH. There's also the interesting question what happens with lots of useless office space if we do move to large-scale WFH on a persistent basis. In general, I'd expect lots of higher-order effects ricocheting through society for a long time to come :)
Animats 6y ago
Browsing of real estate ads probably isn't a strong indicator. It's something people can do while home and frustrated, but it's not action.
- saddestcatever 6y ago
  ...or at least provide a better constant? Due to WFH, free time, and general discontent I'm sure site traffic for any location is up. How does the increase in suburb searches compare to the (likely) increase in urban searches?
rchaud 6y ago
The scale of the search interest is hard to understand because no numbers are provided, just percentages. Searches are up 250%. Percent of what? 1000 searches? 1 million searches? I understand that this post is content marketing for the company, but I haven't heard of it before, so I don't know if they can simply toss out a YOY % and claim that it's a trend. Reading the article, it's also not clear that the queries were coming from users based in NYC. I think looking at something like Google Trends might be more representative of interest, as you can filter the data by State, try different search terms and see the % change by day, week, year or 5 years.
eterm 6y ago
Talk is cheap.
rsync 6y ago
Densely urban ... obese[1][2] and sedentary ... contagion free. Choose two. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States [2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.p...
- skipants 6y ago
  Alright -- I choose densely urban and contagion free
wgerard 6y ago
Long-term NYC resident here (I haven't hit my decade yet, so I'll avoid calling myself a New Yorker to dodge any ire). I've heard rumblings from a lot of people about moving out, mostly from people who haven't really set down roots here - which makes sense. The appeal of New York is largely all the stuff to do, and without being able to do stuff you're just stuck in a very small space that you pay a lot of money for. Most of the people I hear this from expect social-distancing type measures to continue for quite some time, so especially those with small children/etc. are really thinking about whether they can do this for another year. Interestingly I haven't really met anyone considering leaving the city because of the virus itself (i.e. because of concern due to population density), only those really feeling the lifestyle restrictions. They're responsible and social distancing, etc. so the thought of continuing that lifestyle without significantly more living space is getting to them.
- thrmway 6y ago
  >Interestingly I haven't really met anyone considering leaving the city because of the virus itself (i.e. because of concern due to population density), only those really feeling the lifestyle restrictions. Are you really even meeting people at all though considering pretty much everyone in NYC is home in isolation.
- subpixel 6y ago
  I left when Day Care closed and am not sure how I feel about ever returning while social distancing is still common sense. Because Day Care is essentially exposing yourself to the germs carried by twenty other children, their families, the caregivers, and their families.
  - wgerard 6y ago
    Yeah, quite a few people with small children I know have left to be close to parents/in-laws (somewhat I assume to get some help with the additional childcare burden), and I'm curious to see if they come back.
- tomg 6y ago
  I'm one of those people who live
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nradov 6y ago
Every time there's an earthquake in California a bunch of people consider relocating. Very few actually do.
TSiege 6y ago
As a native New Yorker there's so much about this that bugs me. One, talk is cheap. Two, what happened in NYC was not destined to be, and it's an easy lie leaders and those who look down on New Yorkers love to spread. Lots of big dense cities have handled this crisis well, just like some rural areas have not. Epidemics have been devastating throughout human history. Three, to the people who live here and see this as inevitable and would rather flee than work together and fix the issue and protect our communities - good riddance.
say_it_as_it_is 6y ago
America is devolving into a Margaret Atwood dystopia so quickly that the frog may already be boiling in the pot at this point
jacquesm 6y ago
Not just New Yorkers, and not just 'post' Coronavirus. I've seen a fairly large number of people that had moved within the EU to other countries move back to their original home country because they don't want to be cut off from their family.
jshaqaw 6y ago
Non-New Yorkers love to speculate about the end of New York with a passion which fascinates me as someone who has lived here for two decades. I love it here. Not for everyone. If you dig your exurb keep at it and enjoy. NYC always has a transient crowd and a permanent crowd. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of the people who would have moved to the burbs within 1-5 years are accelerating that timeline. For us permanent residents we can't imagine living anywhere else. All of this was said after 9/11. I don't find that my rent today is lower than it was in 2002. Let me also add that people today are fleeing dense areas under the belief that they can escape Coronavirus. Newsflash - everyone is probably going to get this. Flatten the curve was never about escaping the virus altogether - it is about smoothing out the burden on the healthcare system.
- viklove 6y ago
  > Non-New Yorkers love to speculate about the end of New York with a passion which fascinates me What makes you say this? Looks like it's pretty much only "New-Yorkers" commenting on this submission...
runawaybottle 6y ago
‘Location location location’ Doesn’t hurt to test proverbs. I personally wouldn’t bet against it.
personaenon 6y ago
WFH gonna be short lived.....too many troglodyte managers must SEE butts in seats......
perl4ever 6y ago
In recent weeks I've been getting different ads from usual, particularly ones for luxury NYC apartments, such as in Brooklyn, e.g. $4K/month. I'm roughly 3 hours away. People will tell you that the ad algorithm knows all, but I can't imagine why this makes sense.
gniv 6y ago
Note that NYC has seen net outmigration for a few years now [1], so this could be just an acceleration of that trend. [1] https://nypost.com/2019/12/30/new-york-is-losing-residents-at-an-alarming-rate-report/ https://nypost.com/2019/12/30/new-york-is-losing-residents-a...

84 points by rcarrigan87 6y ago

I saw a statistic that 0.25% of NYC’s population has already died from Coronavirus (15k/6m). It seems worse there due to the density, and similarly dense cities like London are in the same boat.

ummonk 6y ago
Yeah, that statistic is what I point out to people who claim that the IFR from coronavirus is actually tiny due to undiagnosed infections.
- Finnucane 6y ago
  The biggest spike in the local death rate since 9/11/01 is not "just another flu season". Though NYC's population is probably closer to 9m now.
  - Animats 6y ago
    Biggest spike, period. NYC confirmed deaths related to Covid-19: 7,890 and counting.[1] 9/11 death toll: 2,996. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-citys-coronavirus-deaths-match-demographics-in-other-hot-spots-11587214800 https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-citys-coronavirus-deat...
acchow 6y ago
citation please?
- nkozyra 6y ago
  Doesn't seem quite right but not too far off. .25% of NYC's population is 21,000. Johns Hopkins shows 14,451 deaths as of now: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
- zamfi 6y ago
  As of today, 10,344 confirmed deaths [0] from COVID-19, of a population of 8.4m [1] is 0.12% [2]. This is less than the original parent states, but only by 2x. [0] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=coronavirus+deaths+in+NYC&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=coronav... [1] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nyc+population&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nyc+pop... [2] Elementary math?
  - votepaunchy 6y ago
    NYS has 18,776 deaths as of today’s count. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
    - zamfi 6y ago
      That’s New York State. My numbers are for the city proper.
  - vkou 6y ago
    Not all the deaths are tested for COVID. Those that aren't don't make it into the stats. [1] Overall mortality, compared to the baseline, has skyrocketed in the past few weeks. For the March 4 - April 4 time period, it was double the usual rate. [2] [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/08/829506542/after-deaths-at-home-in-nyc-officials-plan-to-count-many-as-covid-19 https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/corona...
    - zamfi 6y ago
      Yes, this is a very obvious and severe underestimate for sure. But the point is that the death rate must be at least 0.12%!
- __s 6y ago
  Look up a death toll Look up population Derive percentage https://www.google.com/search?q=nyc+population https://www.google.com/search?q=nyc+population says 8.4M https://www.google.com/search?q=corona+death+toll+nyc https://www.google.com/search?q=corona+death+toll+nyc says 10k https://nypost.com/2020/04/18/nyc-coronavirus-deaths-near-13000-but-daily-toll-is-going-down https://nypost.com/2020/04/18/nyc-coronavirus-deaths-near-13... says 13k This gives 0.1%. The OP's numbers are based on 6M population & 15k deaths. I believe their trying to cite total deaths, not just covid-19 related. Their NYC region also seems to be more localized
downerending 6y ago
It doesn't just seem worse, it is worse (a lot worse), at least so far. Sort this table by per-capita total deaths: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ And that's just by state. NYC proper is likely even worse than that would suggest.
Barrin92 6y ago
Important to point out that about 155k people die in NY every year. About 1% of Americans die each year, so there is a crucial distinction between dying with a disease, and dying of a disease. Risk is not additive. The median age for covid deaths is well into the late 70s, which means that there is a high risk of death in the same period anyway would the person not have been infected with covid. The overall mortality numbers will be up, but throwing that stat out there is hugely misleading.
- nkozyra 6y ago
  This seems to misrepresent overall mortality with cause-specific mortality. If I'm struck by a car with stage 4 cancer, the car accident killed me, regardless of my outlook. If that car accident happens to be highly contagious, well then the cause is even more important. > Risk is not additive. It isn't always, but it very often is and it is in this case.
  - kryogen1c 6y ago
    > If I'm struck by a car with stage 4 cancer, the car accident killed me, regardless of my outlook. this is not obviously true. the analogy is good, but you didn't go into enough detail. if someone with terminal cancer is hit by a car, makes it to a hospital, and dies some weeks later, why did they die? both things likely played a role; how do you report this statistic? i stopped worrying about the virus and started worrying about the economy and its politics weeks ago.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    if someone dies in a traffic death while having stage four cancer then this would indeed not change year on year mortality (assuming the person dies of cancer). This is an awful example though because the victim profile of car deaths is generally middle aged adults, who would not have died otherwise. If your average car driver was a stage four cancer patient traffic safety would indeed be less of an issue relatively speaking. The risk profile of covid patients skews so heavily towards old age and existing preconditions that it is actually not trivial at all. It's immensely important to look at death rates in the context of general mortality, not a vacuum. It may very well be the case that covid 'crams' the deaths of people who would have died anyway into a short timeframe and there'll be singificantly lower flu mortality and so on later this year.
milemi 6y ago
Population of NYC was 8.4e6 in 2018
gnulinux 6y ago
There are other densely populated areas in the US, namely LA Metropolitan Area, South Florida metropolitan Area and Boston metropolitan area. E.g. NYC area is 26,403 people per mile^2, and Boston metropolitan area is 13,841 people per mile^2. But NYC seems to be doing much worse than 2 times worse than Boston. Maybe it's because NYC population is older? E.g. in Boston 52% of deaths are from LTC facilities (yesterday's data), which seems to imply virus hasn't penetrated into community that much.
- hnra 6y ago
  I don't think you should be expecting people per square mile to scale 1:1 with mortality rate anyhow. I would guess putting twice as many people within a square would result in the virus spreading an order of magnitude faster. Similar to how increasing infection radius in an SIR model increases spread by much more.
crooked-v 6y ago
On the other hand, California has a much lower death rate despite having cities with a population density in the same magnitude as NYC, which seems to suggest some level of luck of the draw here in initial unrecorded spread before lockdowns came into place.
- bestnameever 6y ago
  > California has a much lower death rate despite having cities with a population density in the same magnitude as NYC New York is denser than any city in California. "New York is far more crowded than any other major city in the United States. It has 28,000 residents per square mile, while San Francisco, the next most jammed city, has 17,000, according to data from the U.S. Census Bur" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-crowds-density.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-...
  - vsef 6y ago
    If it's just density, why does SF have so few deaths (20), fewer than cities much less dense than SF? eg Seattle is much less dense but has 15x as many deaths as SF. There is clearly an element of chance/which sub-population was infected/timing of responses in play here. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/04/07/coronavirus-lessons-from-new-york-and-san-francisco/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/04/07...
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      From another thread, subway?
      - zamfi 6y ago
        Subway doesn’t explain why Seattle more than SF. Basically only timing of shelter-in-place does.
  - fh973 6y ago
    Manhattan 69,467 per square mile (Wikipedia).

kolikotime 6y ago

This isn’t any surprise, we will see a swelling of growth in Westchester, Long Island, Southern Connecticut, and Northern New Jersey, especially if partial remote work stays normalised as well. I don’t see a massive exodus out of the metro area, but the suburban share will likely grow.

gshdg 6y ago
Growth in those areas is supply-constrained, though. There aren't a ton of available homes; construction lags demand; there isn't all that much undeveloped land left in those counties; and they'll all be resistant to denser zoning.

wombat-man 6y ago

I've entertained the idea, but then again, if I stick around I might get a sweet deal on a condo.

kolikotime 6y ago
Property prices are definitely already declining in the city, so this could be a smart move as well.

OrangeMango 6y ago

In the aftermath of 9/11, nobody wanted to live in skyscrapers. But that fear soon faded and prices went back up. It's probably too early to tell if this is a lasting trend.

Finnucane 6y ago
Yeah, the double-wammy of 9/11/01 and the post-tech-bubble recession drove people out of NYC for a while. Vacancies went up and re prices went down. But it didn't last forever, obviously. It is hard to say if this will be different--we're going to be living with this for some time at some level, and it's still hard to say how much for how long.

daenz 6y ago

I'm considering relocating from Seattle purely based on the fact that we can make WFH commonplace. Why pay insane rents to physically be in a location I can work remotely?

ahelwer 6y ago
Because Seattle's a pretty great city to live in? You can still easily find rent below $1500/month for a 1 bedroom on Capitol Hill, it isn't too insane. Editing to add Seattle has world-class rock climbing, mountaineering, and hiking under an hour's drive from downtown, and if you aren't doing that you're probably missing out on half the joy of living here.
- daenz 6y ago
  I lived in Chicago and paid $1500/mo for a 1500 sq/ft loft in River North, AC, dishwasher, in-unit laundry. The rents here are insane compared to other places.
  - monksy 6y ago
    How long ago was this? For a smaller place (900sqft for a 2 or 3 bedroom) they're asking $3200 in logan square. Right arround the corner (western/armitage) they're asking $1800 for a studio.
    - daenz 6y ago
      This was 7 years ago. It was also on the top floor of a building with no elevator, so there were contributing factors to the $/foot. Everywhere I lived in Chicago got much more "bang for the buck" than Seattle though. Better summers and winters (I enjoy snow), and much better food as well. The difference in the homeless situation was shocking as well. The only thing Seattle has going for it, imo, is the nearby nature, but I honestly haven't taken advantage of it to warrant the cost of living increases on everything else.
    - notfromhere 6y ago

jbaudanza 6y ago

Seoul is sounding pretty appealing right now.

redis_mlc 6y ago
SF Bay Area is the best. Corona already widely spread for months before lockdown, so no need to feel alarmed now. Grocery stores are packed and very few reported cases!
def8cefe 6y ago
Seoul is very close to the North Korean border, I doubt you would sleep much easier.

perseusprime11 6y ago

WFH will become norm and folks can move around easily.

fortran77 6y ago
Not for a great number of people.
vsef 6y ago
I love WFH and work for a large company which shifted to WFH early and in which in theory remote work should be very doable. My hope for this experience was that people would realize how productive WFH is and this would be great because it would normalize it and everyone would realize how well it works and... my perception of the reaction to it is unfortunately that most people at the company are wildly negative about it right now. Across the board. So much so that it's kind of shocked me. I had to stop talking about how much I liked it because it was upsetting people. I wish people wouldn't judge the productivity of WFH from doing so under a duress during a pandemic but I'm actually really worried this whole experience is pushing people to be more convinced that WFH is unproductive than they were before the pandemic :(
- perseusprime11 6y ago
  Right now WFH has a negative public perception because kids are at home and nobody can leave their home. So there is a lot of frustration that I can understand. But once it is all over, imagine folks working remotely and able to move around the world with freedom and bring more creativity because of their newfound happiness.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

I think the aftermath of coronavirus is really going to be larger that most people are anticipating when it comes to work and migration patterns: 1. In the past 25 years there has been a huge re-migration back to cores of major cities. I think that is going to stop. 2. Suburbs and exurbs I think will become way more popular. The normal limiting factor on those locations is the commute, but I think so many more companies will be used to remote work after this (even if they don't necessarily prefer it) that you'll see a lot more "come into the office once or twice a week" type things that make living in the exurbs a lot more bearable. 3. I don't foresee migration away from the major metros. People will still go where the jobs are, and if anything I see the pandemic making strong companies stronger and smaller, weaker companies weaker. Definitely would not be willing to put a lot of money down on this 3rd point, though, could see a trend toward 2nd/3rd tier cities.

kolikotime 6y ago
I think your third point is mostly strong. I see most companies going to partial remote but staying in their current locations. For growth to 2nd/3rd tier cities to dominate we’d need to see stronger job growth there than in major metros, or for near universal remote work. Also with this huge recession most people will be more hesitant to move without a secured job. I think your assertion is correct.
groby_b 6y ago
Disagreement on #2 and #3: #2: Suburbs/exurbs are completely unsustainable. I'd predict that after this is over, local food sources will figure prominently on people's minds. We might see a return to smaller satellite cities if zoning changes to a saner mixed zoning approach. (You don't want big box stores. You do want smaller stores embedded in the local community. I'm not sure there's the political will to go there, because small stores can't afford making lots of campaign donations) #3 depends highly on how long we'll be distancing. At some point, habits will be formed, and cities will be less appealing. Combine that with likely increased WFH, and way too high rent in cities, and migration might be tempting. I'd hope the satellite cities are smart enough to densify accordingly (because urban sprawl is unsustainable, but again, many interests aligned against that). Independent point #4 - the importance of communities you're actually part of is currently driven home. I think the desire to be close to family/friends/social groups might increase. (There's the counter argument of our new habits of video socializing, but it's fundamentally less appealing than knowing people who have your back are living close to you) A lot of these patterns hinges ultimately on how willing companies will be to continue WFH. There's also the interesting question what happens with lots of useless office space if we do move to large-scale WFH on a persistent basis. In general, I'd expect lots of higher-order effects ricocheting through society for a long time to come :)

Animats 6y ago

Browsing of real estate ads probably isn't a strong indicator. It's something people can do while home and frustrated, but it's not action.

saddestcatever 6y ago
...or at least provide a better constant? Due to WFH, free time, and general discontent I'm sure site traffic for any location is up. How does the increase in suburb searches compare to the (likely) increase in urban searches?

rchaud 6y ago

The scale of the search interest is hard to understand because no numbers are provided, just percentages. Searches are up 250%. Percent of what? 1000 searches? 1 million searches? I understand that this post is content marketing for the company, but I haven't heard of it before, so I don't know if they can simply toss out a YOY % and claim that it's a trend. Reading the article, it's also not clear that the queries were coming from users based in NYC. I think looking at something like Google Trends might be more representative of interest, as you can filter the data by State, try different search terms and see the % change by day, week, year or 5 years.

eterm 6y ago

Talk is cheap.

rsync 6y ago

Densely urban ... obese[1][2] and sedentary ... contagion free. Choose two. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States [2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.p...

skipants 6y ago
Alright -- I choose densely urban and contagion free

wgerard 6y ago

Long-term NYC resident here (I haven't hit my decade yet, so I'll avoid calling myself a New Yorker to dodge any ire). I've heard rumblings from a lot of people about moving out, mostly from people who haven't really set down roots here - which makes sense. The appeal of New York is largely all the stuff to do, and without being able to do stuff you're just stuck in a very small space that you pay a lot of money for. Most of the people I hear this from expect social-distancing type measures to continue for quite some time, so especially those with small children/etc. are really thinking about whether they can do this for another year. Interestingly I haven't really met anyone considering leaving the city because of the virus itself (i.e. because of concern due to population density), only those really feeling the lifestyle restrictions. They're responsible and social distancing, etc. so the thought of continuing that lifestyle without significantly more living space is getting to them.

thrmway 6y ago
>Interestingly I haven't really met anyone considering leaving the city because of the virus itself (i.e. because of concern due to population density), only those really feeling the lifestyle restrictions. Are you really even meeting people at all though considering pretty much everyone in NYC is home in isolation.
subpixel 6y ago
I left when Day Care closed and am not sure how I feel about ever returning while social distancing is still common sense. Because Day Care is essentially exposing yourself to the germs carried by twenty other children, their families, the caregivers, and their families.
- wgerard 6y ago
  Yeah, quite a few people with small children I know have left to be close to parents/in-laws (somewhat I assume to get some help with the additional childcare burden), and I'm curious to see if they come back.
tomg 6y ago
I'm one of those people who live

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nradov 6y ago

Every time there's an earthquake in California a bunch of people consider relocating. Very few actually do.

TSiege 6y ago

As a native New Yorker there's so much about this that bugs me. One, talk is cheap. Two, what happened in NYC was not destined to be, and it's an easy lie leaders and those who look down on New Yorkers love to spread. Lots of big dense cities have handled this crisis well, just like some rural areas have not. Epidemics have been devastating throughout human history. Three, to the people who live here and see this as inevitable and would rather flee than work together and fix the issue and protect our communities - good riddance.

say_it_as_it_is 6y ago

America is devolving into a Margaret Atwood dystopia so quickly that the frog may already be boiling in the pot at this point

jacquesm 6y ago

Not just New Yorkers, and not just 'post' Coronavirus. I've seen a fairly large number of people that had moved within the EU to other countries move back to their original home country because they don't want to be cut off from their family.

jshaqaw 6y ago

Non-New Yorkers love to speculate about the end of New York with a passion which fascinates me as someone who has lived here for two decades. I love it here. Not for everyone. If you dig your exurb keep at it and enjoy. NYC always has a transient crowd and a permanent crowd. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of the people who would have moved to the burbs within 1-5 years are accelerating that timeline. For us permanent residents we can't imagine living anywhere else. All of this was said after 9/11. I don't find that my rent today is lower than it was in 2002. Let me also add that people today are fleeing dense areas under the belief that they can escape Coronavirus. Newsflash - everyone is probably going to get this. Flatten the curve was never about escaping the virus altogether - it is about smoothing out the burden on the healthcare system.

viklove 6y ago
> Non-New Yorkers love to speculate about the end of New York with a passion which fascinates me What makes you say this? Looks like it's pretty much only "New-Yorkers" commenting on this submission...

runawaybottle 6y ago

‘Location location location’ Doesn’t hurt to test proverbs. I personally wouldn’t bet against it.

personaenon 6y ago

WFH gonna be short lived.....too many troglodyte managers must SEE butts in seats......

perl4ever 6y ago

In recent weeks I've been getting different ads from usual, particularly ones for luxury NYC apartments, such as in Brooklyn, e.g. $4K/month. I'm roughly 3 hours away. People will tell you that the ad algorithm knows all, but I can't imagine why this makes sense.

gniv 6y ago

Note that NYC has seen net outmigration for a few years now [1], so this could be just an acceleration of that trend. [1] https://nypost.com/2019/12/30/new-york-is-losing-residents-at-an-alarming-rate-report/ https://nypost.com/2019/12/30/new-york-is-losing-residents-a...