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You make a good point. I have no data to back up the comment you replied to. It’s just how I feel being from Austin and watching it grow way too fast. I wish I

You make a good point. I have no data to back up the comment you replied to. It’s just how I feel being from Austin and watching it grow way too fast. I wish I had another home town to move back to. I should have thought through my comment a bit more. Today I did some genealogy research and was amazed at how often my relatives moved in the 1700s and 1800s. It wasn’t uncommon for them to move cities three or four times during their life in a time when you couldn’t just rent a uhaul and head down the road.

majormajor 4y ago
Yeah, I don't know how to get out of that dilemna. It's a behavioral change for the whole society with big impact: if your parents moved from LA to Dallas to escape rising costs (as a friend of mine's did in middle school), where do you move when the rising costs come for you? Why aren't there new destinations in the same way? Or is it that now that the prices are up in so many places, the behaviors will revert back? Is it gonna be places like Boise post-Covid? Will anyone do that same level of massive development? Would they be allowed to?
- onionisafruit 4y ago
  Maybe we just need to emulate my ancestors and move on to the next opportunity every 20 years. All I want at this point is to be near my grandkids. I don’t care where that is.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > Why aren't there new destinations in the same way A few possible reasons that spring to mind are population growth, high quality information quickly traveling around the world rapidly removing arbitrage opportunities, automation and outsourcing obviating certain businesses in certain areas, technology and automation allowing economies of scale such that big only get bigger and suck the air out of the room for small players.
bsder 4y ago
> It wasn’t uncommon for them to move cities three or four times during their life in a time when you couldn’t just rent a uhaul and head down the road. Except that you only needed one person to find a better job back then. The problem with now is that you need two people two find better jobs simultaneously. This was blocking people from moving when better opportunities pop up. I suspect this is more responsible for the Great Resignation than anything else. Once one person of a couple loses their job and has to start a job search, there's no longer anything slowing down the other from taking a better offer even if you have to move.
- majormajor 4y ago
  This is a compelling theory for the 30+ crowd, makes a lot of sense. Something else was going on with the unattached 20-something millenials that crowded to existing cities instead of striking out on their own, though. Maybe when Elon gets to Mars, Gen Z+1 will have somewhere new to go. ;)
  - c22 4y ago
    > ...Gen Z+1... I think we should call this generation the ampersands.
- onionisafruit 4y ago
  If you go by the census data of my relatives the head of household usually had the job title “laborer” or “farmer”. When he was married his wife was either “maid”, “cook” or “home maker”. Given that, I don’t think they looked too hard for any job before moving on to the next town. It was probably more of getting a letter from a brother or friend saying “Montgomery isn’t as shitty as Durham”.
  - yourusername 4y ago
    > It was probably more of getting a letter from a brother or friend saying “Montgomery isn’t as shitty as Durham”. There's always work in California. And you can eat the grapes right from the vine. Got a handbill here that says so.
ip26 4y ago
I wish I had another home town to move back to. Is it possible you only see it this way because your home town is a desirable place to live? If you had a home town nobody wanted to move to- would you want to move back there either?
- onionisafruit 4y ago
  I’ve thought about that too. I’m aware that I am biased and assuming that every home town is a great place to live.
danaris 4y ago
As a counterpoint to that, my wife recently did some genealogy work and found that her ancestors came over on the Mayflower, moved to a small Upstate NY city, and then lived right there for roughly 300 years.

majormajor 4y ago

Yeah, I don't know how to get out of that dilemna. It's a behavioral change for the whole society with big impact: if your parents moved from LA to Dallas to escape rising costs (as a friend of mine's did in middle school), where do you move when the rising costs come for you? Why aren't there new destinations in the same way? Or is it that now that the prices are up in so many places, the behaviors will revert back? Is it gonna be places like Boise post-Covid? Will anyone do that same level of massive development? Would they be allowed to?

onionisafruit 4y ago
Maybe we just need to emulate my ancestors and move on to the next opportunity every 20 years. All I want at this point is to be near my grandkids. I don’t care where that is.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> Why aren't there new destinations in the same way A few possible reasons that spring to mind are population growth, high quality information quickly traveling around the world rapidly removing arbitrage opportunities, automation and outsourcing obviating certain businesses in certain areas, technology and automation allowing economies of scale such that big only get bigger and suck the air out of the room for small players.

bsder 4y ago

> It wasn’t uncommon for them to move cities three or four times during their life in a time when you couldn’t just rent a uhaul and head down the road. Except that you only needed one person to find a better job back then. The problem with now is that you need two people two find better jobs simultaneously. This was blocking people from moving when better opportunities pop up. I suspect this is more responsible for the Great Resignation than anything else. Once one person of a couple loses their job and has to start a job search, there's no longer anything slowing down the other from taking a better offer even if you have to move.

majormajor 4y ago
This is a compelling theory for the 30+ crowd, makes a lot of sense. Something else was going on with the unattached 20-something millenials that crowded to existing cities instead of striking out on their own, though. Maybe when Elon gets to Mars, Gen Z+1 will have somewhere new to go. ;)
- c22 4y ago
  > ...Gen Z+1... I think we should call this generation the ampersands.
onionisafruit 4y ago
If you go by the census data of my relatives the head of household usually had the job title “laborer” or “farmer”. When he was married his wife was either “maid”, “cook” or “home maker”. Given that, I don’t think they looked too hard for any job before moving on to the next town. It was probably more of getting a letter from a brother or friend saying “Montgomery isn’t as shitty as Durham”.
- yourusername 4y ago
  > It was probably more of getting a letter from a brother or friend saying “Montgomery isn’t as shitty as Durham”. There's always work in California. And you can eat the grapes right from the vine. Got a handbill here that says so.

ip26 4y ago

I wish I had another home town to move back to. Is it possible you only see it this way because your home town is a desirable place to live? If you had a home town nobody wanted to move to- would you want to move back there either?

onionisafruit 4y ago
I’ve thought about that too. I’m aware that I am biased and assuming that every home town is a great place to live.

danaris 4y ago

As a counterpoint to that, my wife recently did some genealogy work and found that her ancestors came over on the Mayflower, moved to a small Upstate NY city, and then lived right there for roughly 300 years.