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> For 99% of you that means living far away from your preferred locale among people you probably loath. Parent comment is vitriolic but not actually wrong. Mys

by Doches 5y ago

> For 99% of you that means living far away from your preferred locale among people you probably loath. Parent comment is vitriolic but not actually wrong. Myself, I take great comfort in the idea of huge swaths of liberal, well-educated millennials and xennials migrating out of coastal cities and into small towns across the South and Midwest. Can you work remotely? Want to own your own home on a multi-acre lot for $100k, and live in a place with sunshine and warm weather nine months out of the year? Sure, you'll end up living in the most conservative parts of deeply red states -- but try it. Live among people you disagree with -- we're all still Americans, it'll be OK -- and if enough of your friends and fellow Ivy alumns make the jump you'd be surprised how easily you could turn Texas or Georgia nicely purple. We've got to end the big sort, at any cost. And the hilarious difference in cost of living is probably our last, best hope.

rjbwork 5y ago
I was ready to buy an estate in the Georgia mountains earlier this year - then I saw the internet connection options. Then I looked up how much it would cost me to get a decent wired connection out there. Totally unviable for tech workers to live in most of the solid red areas of the country strictly due internet capabilities, or lack thereof.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  Then keep looking. I'm a liberal, minority techie living on a farm: one of my base requirements for moving here 15 years ago was at least a minimal amount of wired broadband. This summer the phone company has been pulling fiber all over the place. I was told that it's not going to be put in use until next year, but at least they're planning ahead. Especially after the last year and a half of distance learning and working from home, there is a big push all over the place to get faster internet connections because the people already living out here are demanding it.
  - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
    Got mine a month ago! In rural Iowa.
  - dogman144 5y ago
    Correct. There is fiber all over non-Asheville Appalachia right now. It’s reflecting in home prices too. I’m looking at this move myself and the final decision point is state taxes (TN, WA, FL) or fiber/cheap homes (largely Western NC and GA), both paired with some cool nature. All ears on places with $200k and below homes and fiber, quite candidly.
- kyleblarson 5y ago
  Extrapolating from 'rural mountainous Georgia' to all red states, including Texas and Florida is a bit of a stretch. I live in a remote mountain town in North Central Washington and there are dozens, if not hundreds, of remote tech workers. I have good internet through a local ISP and starlink is now prevalent in our area as well.
  - rjbwork 5y ago
    Fair enough. I was looking in the triangle between Asheville, Nashville, and Atlanta. The few homes i was like "I will buy this now if i can get good internets" did not play out for me. I'm looking for an excess of land though, to indulge my many hobbies, so that is certainly constraining my options. It's okay though, I'm in no rush. Once Starlink is rolled out en masse I'm sure the equation will drastically change for me. Also, FWIW, I meant more rural areas than just "red states". Even in solidly republican states there is a fairly prominent urban/rural divide.
    - dogman144 5y ago
      There’s fiber all over that area now because of Morris Broadband
taurath 5y ago
I think there’s plenty of real reasons people don’t do this economically, but don’t downplay the social parts of it - we have very Balkanized communities in the US. Ask a minority what it’s like going on a road trip sometime - I guarantee there’s many places where they won’t want to stop. Living in a place with no amenities, an extremely regressive/borderline extreme social climate and a lack of economic opportunity for people who don’t have remote tech jobs and it gets depressing really fast. Also when you try to buy healthy food from a dollar general.
- twofornone 5y ago
  >I guarantee there’s many places where they won’t want to stop. As someone who recently made the jump to a rural area, these problems are almost entirely imaginary. The notion of backwards, ignorant, racist rednecks occupying all the rural lands is nothing but a bigoted stereotype. Southern hospitality is real; and while rural peoples will be more likely to notice and acknowledge cultural differences, they generally are open minded and just as respectful of nonwhite neighbors as white ones. It's the city folk who don't understand the roles that politeness and respect play in southern living, necessary for the unbelievably high trust society that only really exists outside of cities. The truth is that urbanites have been hypersensitized to so called racism, and completely mislead as to what rural/conservative culture is actually like. But I don't mind a bit, that means more cheap land for me.
  - wildrhythms 5y ago
    This contradicts with my experience growing up in WV. The last time I went back there (5 years ago) I still saw the same confederate flags and n-words being thrown around casually. The reality is that 'the south', like anywhere, has pockets of diversity and acceptance; but your stereotype of universal 'southern hospitality' is not in line with my experience at all.
    - twofornone 5y ago
      The reality is that the confederate flag only represents racism to the side that doesn't wave them. The reality is that it's possible to "throw around the n-word" and still have respect for black friends. The reality that we are forbidden from acknowledging is that those rallying the hardest against racism don't actually understand racism. Its not binary.
splistud 5y ago
If you lived in the types of areas where people 'move to', you'd see it's not the state that turns purple, it's the immigrants. Then they turn reddish (or they quickly leave).
polskibus 5y ago
Hey, you can leave US you know. Europe will probably gladly have you.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  Please don't. The housing market is fucked in EU urban areas now too. Without an inheritance you can't afford to buy anything decent around a developed city with jobs even on a tech salary. As selfish as this may sound, the last thing we need is more foreign competition on the housing market with bigger pockets. It would be fair that if people from the US want to buy property here with their foreign megabucks, we should also get unrestricted visa-free access to the US labor market. Tit for tat. Otherwise it's just unfair to Europeans to be outspent out of their own housing market.
  - quantumBerry 5y ago
    Yes, because nothing would ruin Albania or Georgia more than a few tech workers siphoning profits from US into their local economies.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      Of course it wouldn't ruin the countries themselves, the countries would profit somewhat, but it would however hurt the middle class since now they have more competition on the housing market that's much wealthier so you're increasing inequality. Just because the country is profiting from your megabucks, doesn't mean the average Joe is. Look at Austria. The most touristic areas are profiting a lot from all that foreign tourist money, but a lot of the locals can't afford to live there anymore as all that tourist money is only going into a few pockets. Those who don't already own something or have an inheritance have been royaly fucked by that tourist money. It increases inequality between the haves and the have-nots.
      - quantumBerry 5y ago
        > it would however hurt the middle class since If the middle class are the ones buying the properties, then they're the ones selling them. Therefore it actually injects money into the middle class, foreign capital that never existed in that country. >he most touristic areas are profiting a lot from all that foreign tourist money, but a lot of the locals can't afford to live there anymore as all that tourist money Those who move to a country to work and live there on anything but a very short term basis on not generally considered tourists. Most of the money flowing into the rich is a function of capitalism, not just tourism. You can examine virtually any industry and make the same statement. Yet, some fraction of money is usually better than nothing for the middle class people benefitting. The US has your Austrian analogue, it is called Hawaii. In Hawaii most money is made from tourism. The common person there is mostly employed in tourism. Housing prices are high, because lots of people want to live there. The result when it was mostly closed off for coronavirus was that although demand for housing decreased, unemployment skyrocketed without tourism, making the middle class worse off.
jeffbee 5y ago
OK but this is not actually happening. Young, well-educated people with high incomes are the only types of people who continue to flow into California. They are driving out poorer and generally less-well-educated people, because of course that is how it will work in a competitive housing price market. See this report for details: https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/675 https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/675
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  The source just shows a net outmigration of taxpayers from California. It doesn't say that rich young people are replacing old. It just says that wealthy & older people are leaving in big enough numbers that there's a sizeable ourmigration. It's important to note that natural born residents have been fleeing California for a long time, and a substantial portion of the young, high paid workers are on H1B - so non-permanent.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Doesn't sound like you scrolled down. The heat maps clearly show net in-migration of younger high-earners.
jdavis703 5y ago
> Live among people you disagree with -- we're all still Americans, it'll be OK I grew up in the American south, and migrated to California as an adult. As a Black person I can say this doesn’t work as well in practice. It’s better than the old days (when my mom was growing up segregation was still legal and the military warned her parents to be back on base before sunset.) But I’d much rather live in a welcoming area.
- Doches 5y ago
  That is...a very fair qualification. I grew up white in the South, where my mom used to tell me stories about school integration. Knowing that my otherwise-welcoming neighbors/family/peers might randomly turn out to be racist assholes when confronted by someone of slightly different skin tone was and remains my least favorite thing about the place, by a margin that's wider than Texas. There's "be the change you want to see", and then there's "move to a place where you're likely to murdered in the street for pointless, intractable reasons." I can't say I blame you for getting the hell out; I just hope that in our lifetime you feel comfortable going back to where you grew up. The weather's great (except for the hurricanes) and the barbecue is amazing (except in the Carolinas). Maybe one day you can get back here and we can all work together on fixing whatever the hell is wrong with (some of) the people.
  - jasonladuke0311 5y ago
    > the barbecue is amazing (except in the Carolinas) how dare you
wildrhythms 5y ago
I grew up in West Virginia. I'm not going back to 'the south'; people there would slash someone's tires if they found out they're gay. In contradiction to the history of the state, confederate flags fly over every half dozen trailer parks on the 30 mile one-way trip to Walmart (the only supermarket). Multiple bomb and shooter threats every semester at a school with 900 students. My high school graduating class had 1 non-white student to give you an idea of the cultural diversity your child might be exposed to. The jobs are leaving and not coming back. I personally know someone who died of prescription opioid abuse. Would you want to raise a family there? (By the way, the county where I grew up is considered 'progressive' due to its proximity to the NOVA area)
ladyattis 5y ago
I think it's already a foregone conclusion at this point with respect to the migration. Places like Boise Idaho have already been smacked with the SV stick and their housing market has been a horror show ever sense. The problem won't be the personal politics of the migrants but rather the effects that come from them eating up more resources which the governments in those red states haven't accounted for, especially housing and schools. There's already a strong anti-migrant (or rather anti-Californian migrant) sentiment in places like Colorado and Idaho last time I read up on it. I expect this to get worse and probably cause some strange events (not like personal violence but more political upsets in the coming decades).

by Doches 5y ago

rjbwork 5y ago

I was ready to buy an estate in the Georgia mountains earlier this year - then I saw the internet connection options. Then I looked up how much it would cost me to get a decent wired connection out there. Totally unviable for tech workers to live in most of the solid red areas of the country strictly due internet capabilities, or lack thereof.

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
Then keep looking. I'm a liberal, minority techie living on a farm: one of my base requirements for moving here 15 years ago was at least a minimal amount of wired broadband. This summer the phone company has been pulling fiber all over the place. I was told that it's not going to be put in use until next year, but at least they're planning ahead. Especially after the last year and a half of distance learning and working from home, there is a big push all over the place to get faster internet connections because the people already living out here are demanding it.
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  Got mine a month ago! In rural Iowa.
- dogman144 5y ago
  Correct. There is fiber all over non-Asheville Appalachia right now. It’s reflecting in home prices too. I’m looking at this move myself and the final decision point is state taxes (TN, WA, FL) or fiber/cheap homes (largely Western NC and GA), both paired with some cool nature. All ears on places with $200k and below homes and fiber, quite candidly.
kyleblarson 5y ago
Extrapolating from 'rural mountainous Georgia' to all red states, including Texas and Florida is a bit of a stretch. I live in a remote mountain town in North Central Washington and there are dozens, if not hundreds, of remote tech workers. I have good internet through a local ISP and starlink is now prevalent in our area as well.
- rjbwork 5y ago
  Fair enough. I was looking in the triangle between Asheville, Nashville, and Atlanta. The few homes i was like "I will buy this now if i can get good internets" did not play out for me. I'm looking for an excess of land though, to indulge my many hobbies, so that is certainly constraining my options. It's okay though, I'm in no rush. Once Starlink is rolled out en masse I'm sure the equation will drastically change for me. Also, FWIW, I meant more rural areas than just "red states". Even in solidly republican states there is a fairly prominent urban/rural divide.
  - dogman144 5y ago
    There’s fiber all over that area now because of Morris Broadband

taurath 5y ago

I think there’s plenty of real reasons people don’t do this economically, but don’t downplay the social parts of it - we have very Balkanized communities in the US. Ask a minority what it’s like going on a road trip sometime - I guarantee there’s many places where they won’t want to stop. Living in a place with no amenities, an extremely regressive/borderline extreme social climate and a lack of economic opportunity for people who don’t have remote tech jobs and it gets depressing really fast. Also when you try to buy healthy food from a dollar general.

twofornone 5y ago
>I guarantee there’s many places where they won’t want to stop. As someone who recently made the jump to a rural area, these problems are almost entirely imaginary. The notion of backwards, ignorant, racist rednecks occupying all the rural lands is nothing but a bigoted stereotype. Southern hospitality is real; and while rural peoples will be more likely to notice and acknowledge cultural differences, they generally are open minded and just as respectful of nonwhite neighbors as white ones. It's the city folk who don't understand the roles that politeness and respect play in southern living, necessary for the unbelievably high trust society that only really exists outside of cities. The truth is that urbanites have been hypersensitized to so called racism, and completely mislead as to what rural/conservative culture is actually like. But I don't mind a bit, that means more cheap land for me.
- wildrhythms 5y ago
  This contradicts with my experience growing up in WV. The last time I went back there (5 years ago) I still saw the same confederate flags and n-words being thrown around casually. The reality is that 'the south', like anywhere, has pockets of diversity and acceptance; but your stereotype of universal 'southern hospitality' is not in line with my experience at all.
  - twofornone 5y ago
    The reality is that the confederate flag only represents racism to the side that doesn't wave them. The reality is that it's possible to "throw around the n-word" and still have respect for black friends. The reality that we are forbidden from acknowledging is that those rallying the hardest against racism don't actually understand racism. Its not binary.

splistud 5y ago

If you lived in the types of areas where people 'move to', you'd see it's not the state that turns purple, it's the immigrants. Then they turn reddish (or they quickly leave).

polskibus 5y ago

Hey, you can leave US you know. Europe will probably gladly have you.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
Please don't. The housing market is fucked in EU urban areas now too. Without an inheritance you can't afford to buy anything decent around a developed city with jobs even on a tech salary. As selfish as this may sound, the last thing we need is more foreign competition on the housing market with bigger pockets. It would be fair that if people from the US want to buy property here with their foreign megabucks, we should also get unrestricted visa-free access to the US labor market. Tit for tat. Otherwise it's just unfair to Europeans to be outspent out of their own housing market.
- quantumBerry 5y ago
  Yes, because nothing would ruin Albania or Georgia more than a few tech workers siphoning profits from US into their local economies.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    Of course it wouldn't ruin the countries themselves, the countries would profit somewhat, but it would however hurt the middle class since now they have more competition on the housing market that's much wealthier so you're increasing inequality. Just because the country is profiting from your megabucks, doesn't mean the average Joe is. Look at Austria. The most touristic areas are profiting a lot from all that foreign tourist money, but a lot of the locals can't afford to live there anymore as all that tourist money is only going into a few pockets. Those who don't already own something or have an inheritance have been royaly fucked by that tourist money. It increases inequality between the haves and the have-nots.
    - quantumBerry 5y ago
      > it would however hurt the middle class since If the middle class are the ones buying the properties, then they're the ones selling them. Therefore it actually injects money into the middle class, foreign capital that never existed in that country. >he most touristic areas are profiting a lot from all that foreign tourist money, but a lot of the locals can't afford to live there anymore as all that tourist money Those who move to a country to work and live there on anything but a very short term basis on not generally considered tourists. Most of the money flowing into the rich is a function of capitalism, not just tourism. You can examine virtually any industry and make the same statement. Yet, some fraction of money is usually better than nothing for the middle class people benefitting. The US has your Austrian analogue, it is called Hawaii. In Hawaii most money is made from tourism. The common person there is mostly employed in tourism. Housing prices are high, because lots of people want to live there. The result when it was mostly closed off for coronavirus was that although demand for housing decreased, unemployment skyrocketed without tourism, making the middle class worse off.

jeffbee 5y ago

OK but this is not actually happening. Young, well-educated people with high incomes are the only types of people who continue to flow into California. They are driving out poorer and generally less-well-educated people, because of course that is how it will work in a competitive housing price market. See this report for details: https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/675 https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/675

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
The source just shows a net outmigration of taxpayers from California. It doesn't say that rich young people are replacing old. It just says that wealthy & older people are leaving in big enough numbers that there's a sizeable ourmigration. It's important to note that natural born residents have been fleeing California for a long time, and a substantial portion of the young, high paid workers are on H1B - so non-permanent.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Doesn't sound like you scrolled down. The heat maps clearly show net in-migration of younger high-earners.

jdavis703 5y ago

> Live among people you disagree with -- we're all still Americans, it'll be OK I grew up in the American south, and migrated to California as an adult. As a Black person I can say this doesn’t work as well in practice. It’s better than the old days (when my mom was growing up segregation was still legal and the military warned her parents to be back on base before sunset.) But I’d much rather live in a welcoming area.

Doches 5y ago
That is...a very fair qualification. I grew up white in the South, where my mom used to tell me stories about school integration. Knowing that my otherwise-welcoming neighbors/family/peers might randomly turn out to be racist assholes when confronted by someone of slightly different skin tone was and remains my least favorite thing about the place, by a margin that's wider than Texas. There's "be the change you want to see", and then there's "move to a place where you're likely to murdered in the street for pointless, intractable reasons." I can't say I blame you for getting the hell out; I just hope that in our lifetime you feel comfortable going back to where you grew up. The weather's great (except for the hurricanes) and the barbecue is amazing (except in the Carolinas). Maybe one day you can get back here and we can all work together on fixing whatever the hell is wrong with (some of) the people.
- jasonladuke0311 5y ago
  > the barbecue is amazing (except in the Carolinas) how dare you

wildrhythms 5y ago

I grew up in West Virginia. I'm not going back to 'the south'; people there would slash someone's tires if they found out they're gay. In contradiction to the history of the state, confederate flags fly over every half dozen trailer parks on the 30 mile one-way trip to Walmart (the only supermarket). Multiple bomb and shooter threats every semester at a school with 900 students. My high school graduating class had 1 non-white student to give you an idea of the cultural diversity your child might be exposed to. The jobs are leaving and not coming back. I personally know someone who died of prescription opioid abuse. Would you want to raise a family there? (By the way, the county where I grew up is considered 'progressive' due to its proximity to the NOVA area)

ladyattis 5y ago

I think it's already a foregone conclusion at this point with respect to the migration. Places like Boise Idaho have already been smacked with the SV stick and their housing market has been a horror show ever sense. The problem won't be the personal politics of the migrants but rather the effects that come from them eating up more resources which the governments in those red states haven't accounted for, especially housing and schools. There's already a strong anti-migrant (or rather anti-Californian migrant) sentiment in places like Colorado and Idaho last time I read up on it. I expect this to get worse and probably cause some strange events (not like personal violence but more political upsets in the coming decades).