6 ms·

salaries for people in smaller cities will increase

tjr225 4y ago
So will housing costs. The problems facing SF, Seattle, LA will spread to smaller towns. SF, Seattle, LA, will continue to be expensive because people spend $$$$$$ to live there for reasons other than tech jobs. Be careful what you wish for. I live in the Seattle metro, and would live nowhere else in the country, for what its worth. You already see this happening in rural communities outside of big cities. "Tech-bro" approved towns such as Asheville, Knoxville, Ann Arbor, Twin Cities, etc, etc are getting so expensive the locals can't move. Where I am from in Southwest Michigan has been facing a worsening housing crisis for years. Luckily for most of the country, the weather isn't as nice as it is on the west coast, so homelessness will probably not explode as much as it has here. On the other hand, you have to deal with shitty weather ;) I think the reality is that our housing costs and our fuel costs will catch up with Europe's. In this case it sucks because never built out the public transportation capabilities that could facilitate this being as "pleasant" as it is in Europe. So now if you want to visit the rest of your country you're going to have to pony up for fuel.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  > In this case it sucks because never built out the public transportation capabilities that could facilitate this being as "pleasant" as it is in Europe. Or the publicly subsidized healthcare and higher education!
- kerbs 4y ago
  The Twin Cities are tech bro approved?
  - tjr225 4y ago
    Erm, yeah. Pretty much anywhere with 100k+ people is at this point.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Your logic doesn't really track. People move from HCOL to LCOL, so LCOL becomes more expensive. Yet the HCOL areas continue to go up too? Also why does public transit matter in a WFH/remote world? Seems to obviate it to a large degree, e.g. subway in NYC, which while used for many things, was majority used for commuting. It was losing large amounts of money even before the pandemic hit
  - tjr225 4y ago
    People in hcol cities still need to move around. People from outside of the country move to hcol cities because of their reputation. Rich people live in hcol places because they can. My logic doesn’t really need to track with whatever you are talking about- look at the cost of housing in high cost of living places; has it gone down during the last two years of pandemic? Has literally -everyone- becoming a remote worker driven down the cost of housing? No; it has made it worse. Is it cheaper to live anywhere on the planet now than it was 2,5,10 years ago? Take for instance where I am from- Kalamazoo, Michigan. This is a great town I love with all of my heart but have no wish to live there. Houses are difficult and expensive to buy there! And compared to Seattle it is pennies. Wages aren’t rising in Kalamazoo to match the money coming in: but houses aren’t getting cheaper in Seattle either.
    - adam_arthur 4y ago
      It just defies basic logic. The reason most central areas became so expensive was the need to cluster close to them for work. And in some areas, leisure, but that's the exception. Residential real estate prices skyrocketing has more to do with government interventions. I fully expect ex tech hubs such as the Bay Area to trend down in prices in real terms over many years Foreclosure moratorium, eviction moratorium, stimulus checks that allowed new households to form (kids moving out) as well as preventing the normal level of foreclosures, Fed buying trillions in MBS pushing rates artificially low, massive amounts of cash out refis to use in ad hoc projects that sucked up labor and resources for new builds. Yes migration from HCOL to LCOL will drive pricing up too, but to say HCOL will go higher because remote work is here does not track logically at all. Sure, leisure areas will go up in value, work areas should logically decline. e.g. Manhattan, Chicago, SF, Seattle

So will housing costs. The problems facing SF, Seattle, LA will spread to smaller towns. SF, Seattle, LA, will continue to be expensive because people spend $$$$$$ to live there for reasons other than tech jobs. Be careful what you wish for. I live in the Seattle metro, and would live nowhere else in the country, for what its worth. You already see this happening in rural communities outside of big cities. "Tech-bro" approved towns such as Asheville, Knoxville, Ann Arbor, Twin Cities, etc, etc are getting so expensive the locals can't move. Where I am from in Southwest Michigan has been facing a worsening housing crisis for years. Luckily for most of the country, the weather isn't as nice as it is on the west coast, so homelessness will probably not explode as much as it has here. On the other hand, you have to deal with shitty weather ;) I think the reality is that our housing costs and our fuel costs will catch up with Europe's. In this case it sucks because never built out the public transportation capabilities that could facilitate this being as "pleasant" as it is in Europe. So now if you want to visit the rest of your country you're going to have to pony up for fuel.

Apocryphon 4y ago
> In this case it sucks because never built out the public transportation capabilities that could facilitate this being as "pleasant" as it is in Europe. Or the publicly subsidized healthcare and higher education!
kerbs 4y ago
The Twin Cities are tech bro approved?
- tjr225 4y ago
  Erm, yeah. Pretty much anywhere with 100k+ people is at this point.
adam_arthur 4y ago
Your logic doesn't really track. People move from HCOL to LCOL, so LCOL becomes more expensive. Yet the HCOL areas continue to go up too? Also why does public transit matter in a WFH/remote world? Seems to obviate it to a large degree, e.g. subway in NYC, which while used for many things, was majority used for commuting. It was losing large amounts of money even before the pandemic hit
- tjr225 4y ago
  People in hcol cities still need to move around. People from outside of the country move to hcol cities because of their reputation. Rich people live in hcol places because they can. My logic doesn’t really need to track with whatever you are talking about- look at the cost of housing in high cost of living places; has it gone down during the last two years of pandemic? Has literally -everyone- becoming a remote worker driven down the cost of housing? No; it has made it worse. Is it cheaper to live anywhere on the planet now than it was 2,5,10 years ago? Take for instance where I am from- Kalamazoo, Michigan. This is a great town I love with all of my heart but have no wish to live there. Houses are difficult and expensive to buy there! And compared to Seattle it is pennies. Wages aren’t rising in Kalamazoo to match the money coming in: but houses aren’t getting cheaper in Seattle either.
  - adam_arthur 4y ago
    It just defies basic logic. The reason most central areas became so expensive was the need to cluster close to them for work. And in some areas, leisure, but that's the exception. Residential real estate prices skyrocketing has more to do with government interventions. I fully expect ex tech hubs such as the Bay Area to trend down in prices in real terms over many years Foreclosure moratorium, eviction moratorium, stimulus checks that allowed new households to form (kids moving out) as well as preventing the normal level of foreclosures, Fed buying trillions in MBS pushing rates artificially low, massive amounts of cash out refis to use in ad hoc projects that sucked up labor and resources for new builds. Yes migration from HCOL to LCOL will drive pricing up too, but to say HCOL will go higher because remote work is here does not track logically at all. Sure, leisure areas will go up in value, work areas should logically decline. e.g. Manhattan, Chicago, SF, Seattle