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Fleeing New Yorkers resulted in an estimated $34B in lost income – study
- octoberfranklin 6y agoBut... but... but... muh urbanism!
- popup21 6y ago+1 Stay woke, go broke
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoI've been seeing more of these types of stories with a line like this: > About 3.57 million people left New York City this year between Jan. 1 and Dec. 7, according to Unacast, which analyzed anonymized cell phone location data. Sorry, but I don't really trust the "anonymized" very much. Why should some company I've never heard of have access to my cell phone location data in the first place.
- db48x 6y agoYour cell phone company sells it to whoever wants it.
- sneak 6y agoThey're supposed to have stopped, but I'm not sure I believe it. https://www.wired.com/story/fcc-fines-wireless-companies-selling-users-location-data/ https://www.wired.com/story/fcc-fines-wireless-companies-sel...
- db48x 6y agoThey can and do still sell information about their customers, but they've promised that they have implemented reasonable safeguards.
- iso8859-1 6y agoThe fact that you don't like it, does not mean that there are not people with access to IMEI numbers. Actually, it would be weird if there wasn't since it could be useful for research like this. So why do you not trust it? You're only explaining how you disagree.
- Raphmedia 6y agoIt is anonymized in the sense that they can't write your name into a search feature and find your location history. However, they could likely ask to buy the all data for "57 years old males born in february with a history of calling to Alaska every 5 days" and single you out.
- sna1l 6y agohttps://www.wired.com/2013/03/anonymous-phone-location-data/ https://www.wired.com/2013/03/anonymous-phone-location-data/
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoThanks, this is exactly what I was thinking about, glad someone did an actual study.
- Shacklz 6y agoI heard a talk once from some guy working for a company who analyzes this data (it had something to do with transportation of people; where it would be most efficient to have a new bus route and such), some of the regulations are actually rather interesting (Europe). E.g., location-specific data is not allowed to be sold if the amount of data points is below a given threshold, to avoid de-anonymization scenarios such as the one you have mentioned. Granted, I have no idea how well the regulations actually work, but it did sound as if quite a bit of thought went into it. Thinking about this, I wonder if companies providing smartphone apps with invasive tracking are upheld to the same standards...
- spoonjim 6y ago> Sorry, but I don't really trust the "anonymized" very much. Why should some company I've never heard of have access to my cell phone location data in the first place. Not sure how the second follows from the first. There is a company you've never heard of which access to your cell phone location data. In fact, hundreds, and they buy and sell them in commodity marketplaces just like corn or pork bellies. They sell the data with your name attached for one price, and as anonymized aggregates for a much lower price. Unacast is just saying that they bought the cheaper anonymized version for the purpose of this analysis. Whether the data are real or not is another matter altogether.
- sneak 6y ago> Sorry, but I don't really trust the "anonymized" very much. Why should some company I've never heard of have access to my cell phone location data in the first place. If you don't have location services turned off on your phone, chances are they have access to it because you gave it to them (via an app), or gave it to someone who gave it to them.
- jokethrowaway 6y agoI'm pretty sure the study refers to the location of the repeater which talks to your phone, so most likely no permission needed
- economusty 6y agoRemember which political party runs the city.
- j2bax 6y agoWhile we are at it, lets remember which political party runs the areas that are most dependent on the government. Source: https://wallethub.com/edu/most-independent-states/36426#main-findings https://wallethub.com/edu/most-independent-states/36426#main...
- trident1000 6y agoDoes this take into account federal loans and grants for infrastructure spending which is higher in urban areas? Probably not. Does it take into account that many left leaning states like NJ have completely bankrupt pension systems that will need to be rescued at the federal level? Probably not. Also looks like NY scores 38th on gov dependency out of 50 which isnt exactly great. And going back to national highway system assistance, Cali has got to be #1 in receiving federal funds.
- oh_sigh 6y agoThat doesn't control for who benefits from the money spent. For example, Alaska is billed for the early warning and radar systems to detect Russian ICBMs, but Alaskans don't really benefit from it because Russia would never bomb Alaska, and most of the jobs go to people shipped in from the lower 48 states, not Alaskans. Likewise, Nebraskan farmers look like they're on the dole with the corn subsidies, but the other 49 states benefit from lower and stable corn prices, so it isn't clear why Nebraska would get all the costs accounted to them when everyone benefits from it.
- rednerrus 6y agoLooks like lots of places that grow the food you eat.
- macinjosh 6y agoI read through your source and it is non-obvious how it is relevant as a whole. It really just seems like a rationalization for a specific view point. The methodology is completely arbitrary. They just assigned seemingly whatever weights they wanted to a handful of loosely related statistical figures. I am not even sure WTH "wallethub" is anyway. It is essentially bullshit. Also even if state X gets more federal $$ than state Y it is not useful information as each state is completely unique geographically, demographically, industrially, strategically, etc. So there are endless legitimate reasons money might be spent in one place over another.
- sqrt17 6y agoHow about: US citizens saved $34B by not having to stay in the highest COL areas? Why should we sympathize with a minority of rent-seekers?
- threatofrain 6y agoWe don't have to sympathize with rent-seekers necessarily, but I would wonder if the rest of the city can move as adaptively to wherever opportunity beckons, and whether NY can downscale their city services accordingly.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoIt serves as a cautionary tale when your budget isn’t as agile as those who make up the tax base.
- iratewizard 6y agoIn a lot of ways, city infrastructure investment is a ponzi scheme with one layer of abstraction.
- ABCLAW 6y ago>Why should we sympathize with a minority of rent-seekers? I don't really think this is about sympathizing with rent-seekers. Cities invest in infrastructure to cover anticipated service delivery well before it's due, and the financing for doing so is a multi-decade affair. Before you complain, this includes things like providing running water, roads that are paved, etc. Really core essential pieces of making a city work. If your tax base moves to suburbs or just plain leaves the city, the city is still on the hook for those payments, so it results in dramatically cut services or increased taxes on residents. The flight of some of the tax base incentivizes the flight of many, resulting in further cuts to maintenance contracts, preventative work, and the general crumbling of infrastructure. Sometimes this can be gracefully managed by planned downsizing and renegotiating deals with vendors and financiers. In other cases, this doesn't occur and the city simply... dies. While the US is very young and doesn't have many large examples of this, Flint and Detroit come to mind.
- russh 6y agoThat's a pretty slow start, Hopefully it will ramp up quickly.
- webkike 6y agoWhy hopefully?
- Firebrand 6y ago3.57 million people left New York City this year to live out their lives in comfort someplace else, and then 3.5 million people hungry for opportunity arrived to take their place. I hope to see similar results in San Francisco.
- johnnyb9 6y agoThe top 1% of earners pay 40% of New York City's income tax. The real question is how will NYC cope with the decreased tax base.
- criddell 6y agoDoes it cost more per capita to run NYC than it does smaller cities like Austin?
- foota 6y agoMaybe not to run, but the capital investment is probably higher. As well as things like subways, which there isn't one of in Austin.
- abernard1 6y agoEducation, healthcare, and public employees are almost always the largest expenses. For instance, in CA, only about $100M a year out of the $100 billion a year budget is spent on transportation [1]. Because of prop 98 in CA, a minimum of 40% of the budget has to go to education [2]. In NY, it's only 4% spent on transportation [3]. [1] https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/California%27s_state_budget_and_transportation_infrastructure_spending https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/California%27s_state_budg... [2] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_98,_Mandatory_Education_Spending_(1988) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_98,_Mandatory... [3] https://openbudget.ny.gov/overview.html https://openbudget.ny.gov/overview.html
- criddell 6y agoAustin is building a subway. If NYC is less expensive to manage per capita, I'm guessing that's reflected in a lower taxation rate. Don't they have a lot of room to raise taxes?
- snissn 6y agoi tried to negotiate being month to month at my manhattan apt at the same rate and my land lord wouldn't accommodate me. Now the apt has been unrented for a few months and they're asking for a 10% drop in rent and probably won't get it for a long long time. happily commenting from hawaii
- Dig1t 6y agoWow, good for you, that is awesome.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- raverbashing 6y agoReal estate, being a straightforward investment attracts those who couldn't be making more money at pretty much any other type of investment. Hence you get the most clueless people managing the properties.
- llampx 6y agoAgree. If these landlords saw their p&l on a screen like stocks, they would smash that sell button.
- throwaway201103 6y agoPutting your money in an index fund will probably make more money than the average real estate investment.
- raverbashing 6y agoMy point exactly
- fizwhiz 6y agoLooking at the returns alone is an incomplete picture; a huge part of being a real estate investor is having clever tricks at your disposal to reduce your taxes.
- jere 6y ago>In Tribeca, a wealthy neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, residents who left this year earned an average income of about $140,000, Walle said. The typical person moving into the neighborhood earned an average $82,000, he said. I was going to ask if we might call this "de-gentrification" and if that's a good thing, right? I'm sitting here in disbelief after a quick search reveals that the actual average income is $879,000. So now I'm thinking those numbers above don't mean much of anything. https://www.businessinsider.com/tribeca-new-york-city-richest-neighborhood-photos-tour-2019-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/tribeca-new-york-city-riches...
- vrperson 6y agode-gentrification is a good thing if you don't like cupcakes and cafes and nice restaurants and nice shops.
- yurielt 6y agoANd if you like payable rent non obnoxious hipsters and their shitty music, POC and people that have politics informed by more than buzzfeed
- cmdshiftf4 6y agoDo you know how I can tell you’ve never lived in a low income area?
- yurielt 6y agoI lived in the latino part of the brooklyn for a good time it was much better before the hipsters came I will always prefer that to what gentrification brings
- wavefunction 6y agoToo bad people can't make cupcakes for themselves.
- hikerclimb 6y agoNice
- pushcx 6y agoOr in context, they estimate NYC lost a net 0.8% of its residents and the average income of the incoming and outgoing cohorts differ by -$8,055/y. It multiplies to a big dollar figure because NYC is big and rich. The original content marketing: https://global-uploads.webflow.com/5dc3e2af6a906d9cc232e1bc/5fd7d57d5ddb801d05608297_Unacast%20Covid%20Whitepaper.pdf https://global-uploads.webflow.com/5dc3e2af6a906d9cc232e1bc/... It explains that they're extrapolating from three NYC neighborhoods (Astoria, Tribeca, and Williamsburg). I'm not an NYC expert and I'm not going to research these claims further, but I think those are quite well-off neighborhoods and not likely representative of NYC in terms of income or pandemic mobility. This article feels like Reuters lightly rewrote an ad for Unacast.
- CydeWeys 6y agoYes. A net 0.8% of residents leaving in a year is believable. An astounding 40% of the city's population leaving, and then another 40% entering the city, which is an order of magnitude higher than any turn-over the city has ever experienced, is clearly not believable. That is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, and they have not remotely provided it. Indeed I suspect this claim will be very easy to disprove by looking at voter rolls, tax rolls, jury pool rolls, DMV rolls, etc. > It explains that they're extrapolating from three NYC neighborhoods (Astoria, Tribeca, and Williamsburg). Wow. This is garbage-tier methodology that doesn't remotely deserve anyone paying attention to the "results". Talk about sampling bias galore.
- ralusek 6y agoThere is a reason that the people with the most aggressive social policies tend to also be the least in favor of federalism/local politics, because of this exact problem: people will just leave. If your system makes life worse for a certain group of people, you either need to prevent that group from leaving altogether, or ensure that there is no place that they can go to. If you iterate this to the logical conclusion, you end up with something like "globalism." In this particular case, this is mostly to do with not wanting to live in places with strict lockdown policies, high rates of homelessness and criminality, while simultaneously paying much more in taxes and living expenses, and seeing few of the benefits of being in an urban hub while doing it. But my point stands: don't forget how quickly people will be willing to upend their lives at the very moment their existence is sufficiently worse than it would be elsewhere. And when you target the wealthy, you target the people most capable of moving anywhere else.
- tqi 6y ago> There is a reason that the people with the most aggressive social policies tend to also be the least in favor of federalism/local politics, because of this exact problem: people will just leave. I don't think that has anything to do with it. Whether people are in favor of or against local politics is mostly based on whether or not they share the same opinions as their local politicians. For example, look at the fight over California Emission standards. People just want to have things their way - everything else is just hot air and posturing.
- gltchkrft 6y agoWhat ever happened to making the place attractive so people actually choose to live there ? You are talking about forcing people into situations that they are unhappy with, like it's normal or ethical. The people who pay for the infrastructure and services are free to leave to more attractive places when they feel like they are being exploited. It's the city's responsibility to manage itself in a way that keeps residents satisfied. If the residents feel like they are getting the short end of the stick, they are right to leave and many will do so. Then you are left with those who had no choice and good luck getting them to fund your bloated, inefficient and needless projects. The policy makers are in charge of just that, making policy. The residents have little control over that, but they do control where they live.
- Merman_Mike 6y agoI permanently left NYC this year. The combination of high taxes, corruption, and incompetence really wear on you after a while. I'm all for high taxes in service of a strong social safety net and a well-run, modern city. I am happy to pay them. But I can't help but feel that my taxes were being outright stolen and squandered in this city.
- jokethrowaway 6y agoThat's an interesting point of view Don't you think it's exactly the high taxes that give space for corruption and incompetence? Once you accumulate a large pool of money (especially if it's someone else money), the larger the pool, the easier it is to waste it. We see it with governments, big tech companies, VC funded startups, even when pooling money for a road trip with friends. I think the enemy is human nature and centralisation, not specific malicious individuals
- medium_burrito 6y agoEverything gives room for corruption and incompetence. The problem is the US has some of the most incompetent government on a local level in the developed world. Part of it is American individualism, part of it is the Republican party starving the beast, part of it is the government as a giant jobs program. There is no reason we cannot have competent civil servants, long term planning, clean cities, etc. I'm completely serious when I say we should just outsource everything on the county level and lower to the Swiss or Dutch.
- Merman_Mike 6y ago> There is no reason we cannot have competent civil servants, long term planning, clean cities, etc. I agree absolutely. That's what makes it so frustrating.
- rayiner 6y agoWhy do you think that's true? Many (most?) countries don't have competent civil servants, long term planning, clean cities, etc. Why do we just assume Americans can do it when say Italians cannot?
- solidsnack9000 6y agoThe "lost income" is more than 485000 USD per person? About 3.57 million people left New York City this year between Jan. 1 and Dec. 7 ... Some 3.5 million people earning lower average incomes moved into the city during that same period, the report showed. [...] In Tribeca, a wealthy neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, residents who left this year earned an average income of about $140,000, Walle said. The typical person moving into the neighborhood earned an average $82,000, he said.
- blackrock 6y agoHow will SpaceX’s Starlink increase the trend to work-from-home or do remote work? If you can develop software, or write your blog, from a remote island, at the edge of a (dormant) volcano (aka: extreme remoters), then why not? Or from any rural farmland area of the country. Just video call into your daily Zoom Standup Meeting. How’s the latency of it?
- cbozeman 6y agoIts incredible... on a clear day 25-35 ms. Even on less-than-stellar weather days, 100-150 ms. Data throughput is fantastic. 15-50 mbps upstream, 50-200 mbps downstream already.
- ajsnigrutin 6y agoLouis Rossman said it in many of his recent videos.... new york has everything, but also costs alot. You have cinemas, broadway, restaurants, everything.... and you pay for that privilige. Now, when all that is closed, you have only the "bad" parts (the homeless, crime, noise, bad smells... all that with a "premium price")... so, why stay? Poor people have no jobs, have to move out.... rich people don't have anything to do there, and move out because they can.
- stefan_ 6y agoBut you don't pay for these things. You pay for a class of ancient benefactors of one huge ponzi scheme.
- kepler1 6y agoEven worse for San Francisco. Basically just "restaurants" and an easy getaway to outdoors. And worse on all the other fronts as well (crime, homeless, cost of living, etc). How well a city takes care of these issues in the good times and has rational/sensible policies sets it up for how it will do in bad times.
- siquick 6y ago> Even worse for San Francisco. Basically just "restaurants" and an easy getaway to outdoors. This wasn't my experience in San Francisco when I visited in 2016 - I saw some of the best live music in small bars I've ever heard, went to a couple of awesome free outdoor events, record shopping was quality, just walking around an area like Mission I came across a lot of interesting cafes, shops, bars, street art, and people. I was visiting from Melbourne, Australia - supposed live music capital of the world, ranked worlds most liveable city, and it has a lot of the above - and San Francisco felt pretty exciting with a lot to do.
- TuringNYC 6y agoNYC is costly, but not as costly as people think. The lifestyle is also different. 1. Most of my life in NY (pre children), we had no car, no car insurance, no parking, and rare taxis (and before our current mayor, subways worked very, very well, I rarely considered taxis.) 2. Property taxes are comparatively low to other states 3. Access to culture is widespread and cheaper than people think -- there are subsidized tickets for students, etc. Museums are plentiful and often free. Libraries are literally everywhere. 4. Access to jobs is great and you dont crush your soul with hour-long drives. And when you lose/change your job, your next job is also often in the city center, so you dont have to move homes. I live in DC suburbs now and we have one car. It is hard getting places w/o a car and the train system is good but does not cover as much of the metro as one wishes, and there are last mile issues. Property taxes are way, way higher both both homes and other property (e.g., $800/yr on my Kia minivan), but there isnt a city income tax.
- chickenpotpie 6y agoAnother case of lower income groups responding strongly to financial incentives and higher income groups responding to quality of life incentives. Lower income renters see a discount to be had, higher income renters see an opportunity to get higher quality housing with more space.
- Exmoor 6y agoThe most eye-raising part of this data to me is that 3.5 million people apparently decided 2020 was the perfect year to move to New York. Even if I thought NYC was the place I wanted to live more than anywhere else, I would still heavily consider delaying that move in light of the current health and economic situation. The information on who those people are would be interesting to me.
- ruddct 6y ago> About 3.57 million people left New York City this year between Jan. 1 and Dec. 7, according to Unacast, which analyzed anonymized cell phone location data. Some 3.5 million people earning lower average incomes moved into the city during that same period, the report showed. Uhhh I'd take this with a HEAVY grain of salt, given that it's based off of anonymized cell phone location data. Were this true, 40% of NYC's population has turned over in the past year, which feels like absolute nonsense from anecdotal experience.
- CydeWeys 6y agoIt's absolute nonsense from my anecdotal experience here in NYC as well. I don't even see how it's remotely possible for a full 40% of NYC's population to have turned over in the span of 9 months. New lease signings are down, not up many hundreds of percentage points! Every single thing that would have to be true for this to be true as well, isn't. It's bad methodology from one company trying to get its name in the news and then a media outlet running an uncritical article using this as fact. We just had an election. Go look at the voter rolls and who actually voted, and for the absentee ballots, where the absentee ballots were sent. There's no way in hell 40% of the voter rolls have turned over since the last time we held an election. The data is out there to easily disprove this ridiculous notion.
- throwaway2245 6y ago> Go look at the voter rolls I used to do this, and can report the area of London that I lived in turned over 25% of its (voting) residents in a typical 12 month period: that is, before coronavirus time! They may have relocated within London, of course. I assume that New York City is comparable in this respect. Further assumptions: People not vote-registered are likely to turn over even quicker than that. People who you know personally are more likely to be settled and therefore less likely to move out, just by statistical virtue of having any such personal connection - your anecdotal data will be extremely biased by this.
- CydeWeys 6y agoYou need to look further into the voter rolls and actually correlate voters by identity. 25% moving within the city every year doesn't count; the linked article is talking about "Fleeing New Yorkers", not "New Yorkers moving between neighborhoods" (which is commonplace, unremarkable, and doesn't affect NYC's tax revenue in any way). What we care about here is people that actually moved out of the city entirely, or that moved into the city entirely from elsewhere, not typical movement within the city. If the article is including normal movement within the city in its 40% figure then it's being extremely misleading.
- john_moscow 6y agoI think, this highlights a bigger problem. You can very roughly split people's mindsets into 2 groups: * Long-termers. They don't mind delayed gratification. They like planning and saving for the future. Most have complex multi-year degrees or have business experience. They are generally happy with life and want to teach their ways to their kids. What they want from the political environment is a clear set of rules (e.g. taxes, laws backed by a truly independent court system) with minimum interference in their lives. * Short-termers. They prefer instant gratification. They gather credit card debts on impulsive purchases. They live here and now don't want the headache of long-term planning. They are usually less happy with life and expect politicians to appeal to their emotions. Recognize them through identity gestures, say great words, show attention. Long-termers tend to earn more, except something in our society changed, and they are quickly becoming a dying breed. So many new social policies, especially in high-density areas, are targeting short-termers and blaming long-termers for inequity. Quite predictably, they are leaving these areas, driving the median income lower. But, what's even more alarming, the same trend is happening all over the West - the middle class of happy independent thinkers satisfied with life, is vanishing, replaced by unhappy low-earners driven by divisive tribal instincts.
- medium_burrito 6y agoI think you have it backwards: Circumstances drive mindset, to large degree. If I have a comfortable middle class job, and the assurance of keeping it for a long time, knowing I won't be laid off to pad 3rd quarter results, or forced to train my offshored replacement, yeah, I'll be much happier and satisfied with life. The mindset change you describe is the direct result of a shrinking class and a generation of entrants to workforce with no expectations of permanence from the employer, and big expectations of being automated out of a job. It's hard to think long term when this is your life.
- siquick 6y agoI haven't been to my office in the city center since March and it feels so much better to be spending my money on local businesses in my area than it does in a lot of the faceless corporate businesses in the city. I've lived in this area for almost 3 years and feel far more connected to my area because of COVID.
- RickJWagner 6y agoI've seen articles that show Detroit in it's heyday, bustling and prosperous. Today it's much different, of course. Some say New York, San Francisco and others will bounce right back. I'm not so sure, it just does not sound appealing. I took a vacation to New York a few years back, and I've been to California many times. Right now I have no desire to go to either. I think they'd better be planning a massive PR campaign.
- marek22 6y agoHey, in almost all states (there are exceptions), car insurance is mandatory in terms of LIABILITY (civil liability), that is, if a stranger is injured by us. The amount of coverage required varies from state to state. For example, in California, this amounts to up to $ 15,000 bodily injury for one victim and up to $ 30,000 for more than one. In addition, liability for damage to someone else's property is provided - $ 5,000. All this is calculated per exident. Fractional notation is commonly used to express coverage dimensions. More here https://www.americaninsurance.com/if-my-car-registration-expires-my-car-insurance-still-valid https://www.americaninsurance.com/if-my-car-registration-exp...