4 ms·
I grew up in a small rust belt city. 40 years ago there were reasons to live there: factories with union jobs and an entire local economy built upon them (finan
by ng12 6y ago
I grew up in a small rust belt city. 40 years ago there were reasons to live there: factories with union jobs and an entire local economy built upon them (financial services, a hospital, bustling main street, etc). All that's gone now. It's not that I wouldn't be content like my parents were, it's that it's fundamentally not the same city it was back then.
- pnutjam 6y agoYou can't get that through to the parent poster. He only see's spherical cows, not reality.
- tstewart161 6y agoIt’s not like the dichotomy is so stark. Like the parent comment said: Raleigh is cheap but still bustling with plenty to do, Richmond, Baltimore, Atlanta, and so on are bustling but not stupid expensive. It’s not just “ghosts town” vs “expensive modern city”
- Zippogriff 6y agoI don't know whether it accounts for the entire "housing's more expensive everywhere" perception, but it sure seems like the only houses that exist near good schools and are cheap on a per-square-foot basis are giant, so still not cheap, thanks to a combination of zoning and developer incentives. It's not like we could live in a significantly smaller house if we wanted to. Another change is that smaller houses have giant rooms. If you want a 4-bedroom in a decent school district (so, around here it'll be 80s construction at the very earliest, probably late-90s or later, or else in one of a couple very rich and expensive areas that have older houses) you're in for a giant house. A 1960s middle-class 4-bedroom probably has about the square footage of a modern 2-bedroom. Sqft./room is way up across the board. Further, floorplans that look nice in a walk-through or in photos but are incredibly wasteful of all that "cheap" square footage are the norm.