6 ms·

> If it doesn't collapse, then society may collapse? But there are plenty very cheap areas to buy houses or rent. Sure, many people don't want to live there, t

• EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  What really attracts people to those places? Cuisine? Night life? Tinder opportunities?
  • illiarian 4y ago
    That you have more shops than one. More restaurants than one. Theaters. Clubs. Sports. Connectivity. Places and activities for kids. Places for hobbies. Concerts. Other various activities and events. There are significantly more of each in a big citu.
    • cudgy 4y ago
      > That you have more shops than one. More restaurants than one. Theaters. Clubs. Sports. Connectivity. Places and activities for kids. Places for hobbies. Concerts. Other various activities and events. Then open a shop, start a restaurant, start a theatre group, gather some kids for sports, organize some concerts, and become an active member of your community, instead of expecting it to be handed to you on a platter.
      • illiarian 4y ago
        So I've opened a shop. Now waht? Are you in all seriousness telling me that a small town can provide the same amount of things as a big city? You'll run out of people long before you get on par with what a big city offers.
        • cudgy 4y ago
          Maybe you missed the whole discussion which was stemmed from complaints about big cities and the frustration many people are finding with being able to save any money, purchase or rent a suitable home, live in a safe neighborhood, avoid long commutes, or raise a family. Life is more than just buying lots of stuff and experiences from other people in big cities. Giving back to your community and allowing them to enjoy your talents should enter the equation too. Don’t always be a taker.
  • CalRobert 4y ago
    I want my kids to be around a variety of perspectives. The groupthink and pressure to conform in rural areas and small towns can be extreme.
    • nec4b 4y ago
      Bigger cities are the same. Politically they are very homogeneous. If you want want you kids to be near variety of perspectives, you should move to a smaller city or near one.
      • CalRobert 4y ago
        That hasn't been my experience. Maybe I'm just tired of being around people who feel the existence of cities is a personal affront.
        • nec4b 4y ago
          My conclusion comes from statistics and logic. In smaller cities the population is a mix a between daily rural migrants, factory workers and office/service workers. In big cities the population is mostly office/service workers. >>Maybe I'm just tired of being around people who feel the existence of cities is a personal affront. It's a bit ironic mentioning that here, because there is a pro urbanization (anti rural, anti suburbs) article on the front page of HN almost every week. And every dominant media in the country promotes the same narrative.
    • PedroBatista 4y ago
      Funnily enough the most narrow minded self-centered provincial people I know are in big cities.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• slaw 4y ago
  Could you point me to these plenty cheap areas? I work remotely and may consider moving there.
  • HeWhoLurksLate 4y ago
    If you're in the USA, the Rio Grande Valley is pretty cheap. Because it's next to Mexico, there's huge amounts of Latino culture & influence. If you want to be somewhere that feels on the up & up and has cool stuff, Brownsville has a decent amount of engineers for SpaceX and you can go watch launches from a public beach if you get there early enough.
  • illiarian 4y ago
    In Sweden if you move from Stockholm to Eskilstuna (1h30m drive away) you can find a 5 room 100 sqm apartment in the dead center of the town for the price of a 2 room 45-50 sqm apartment in any of the immediate suburbs of Stockholm. Or, to put it simply, move out of the big city, and the prices drop by a factor of two or more.
    • luckylion 4y ago
      That's true in Germany as well, but to get cheap property, you have to go very far from the city, and Germany not being that huge, you'll be close to the next metro area by then. Like, sure, a 120sqm house might be 400k in Hamburg and only 230k 60 minutes out to the north west (both needing an additional 25-50% of price in renovation costs), but the average net income is 30k/year and you're expected to have at least 20% in cash. You can get very cheap houses in Saxony or Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, but there will be little to no infrastructure (like, the next gynaecologist might be a 60 minute car trip away), your neighbors will be down on their luck, unemployed and voting far right, and you'll essentially need to rebuild the house - and you'll need to do much of it yourself because the tradesmen work on construction sites in the big cities and rarely take local jobs.
      • ido 4y ago
        We've been living in Berlin for the last 10 year and the prices are making me consider looking outside the city (no other big cities that near Berlin, so there isn't that challenge you speak of). My main issue would be being more socially isolated as all of our local friends are in Berlin, kids having to adapt to new school/kindergarten (& find new friends), new work for my wife who doesn't work remote (but can find work relatively easily)...It's not impossible but it really sucks that we'd have to leave the city if we want a slightly bigger home (we've 2 kids who share a room & our apartment is in general feeling a bit small for a family of 4). Without a large windfall I don't think we'll ever be able to afford buying a 3+ bedroom (4+ rooms as Germans count it) home in Berlin & rent would be high enough that no landlord will want us with our current income.
• Brybry 4y ago
  Also the other obvious answer that people have been doing for centuries is multi-generational households. It's not the end of the world to live with your parents (or your partner's). I think we could see a lot of pressure towards that as Western total fertility rate continues to decrease and larger population groups (Millennials) age with fewer or no children to help out. Even a shift towards non-relatives households wouldn't be the end of society, it would just be change (and require some zoning/code changes).
  • hungryforcodes 4y ago
    The main reason I got my first hob was to be able to move out. My parents drove me nuts. I've been independent ever since. I'd rather live in a tiny studio with just a mattress than live with them. Also nothing signals undateable more than "I love with my parents".
    • midasuni 4y ago
      > Also nothing signals undateable more than "I love with my parents". That’s is true, but I suspect it’s also a typo!
      • hungryforcodes 4y ago
        Haha. The joys of autocorrect :)
    • jjav 4y ago
      > Also nothing signals undateable more than "I l[i]ve with my parents". This is cultural though. In the US that certainly seems very true. In other places (such as where I'm from), living at home with parents until marriage is the normal default.
      • hungryforcodes 4y ago
        Cultural...and economic. I guess in places where there are arranged marriages, or living together is shunned upon, this is true. However as far as I can tell generation z is complaining about the economic situation that disables them from moving out. So it's definitely not cultural there.
• plufz 4y ago
  Manhattan is one of the most expensive places in the world. I would guess most ppl are not really aspiring for that. I would guess that the problem for a lot of people is to continue being able to live in their medium sized city where they have all their friends, family and life.
• gladiatr72 4y ago
  And you stroll into whatever town/city/village with your income that barely meets the cost of living in NYC/SF/LA and destroy that housing market. Your solution is someone else's nightmare.
  • jjav 4y ago
    > And you stroll into whatever town/city/village with your income that barely meets the cost of living in NYC/SF/LA and destroy that housing market. There's a lot of truth in that. The ubiquity of remote work has made this much worse. It used to be that one could move to a cheaper area (as I did) but it still had to be within orbiting distance of a source of income. Remote work broke that constraint which is causing a lot of disruption in very remote areas.
• quags 4y ago
  I started looking for houses in 2005-2006. The outlook sounded similar, constant prices going up and missing out. House flipping was booming and I was priced out of all the desirable areas. What I did was start near where I work and move down the line farther out getting to less desirable towns. 2008 hit and at that point mortgages dried up. I finally got a house in 2009, in an area where schools were not as good and was not as desirable and prices fell for the next few years where I felt like I over paid. With all the money I put in , being a fixer upper too, I just assumed if I sold I’d simple take a loss and move on with my life. Now, a decade plus later the area has moved from less desirable to decent. In the end it worked out. Once again today though the same areas I couldn’t afford are still the desirable area. People want the cute down time I was priced out of 15 years ago. There are still towns that are more affordable.
• rcarr 4y ago
  > It's always an option to move to a cheaper location! If you’ve got no savings and are trapped in debt, how do you suggest people do this? How are these people managed to scrape together the deposit and moving costs? The people who would need to do this the most are locked out of it. If you don’t have family members to stay with, what you end up with is skyrocketing homeless numbers which seems to be what is happening in California.
  • nickersonm 4y ago
    Sell all your furniture and all but irreplaceable and critical belongings, possibly including selling any cars you may have. Use a few thousand dollars of that money for airfare or gas money and move yourself and minimal belongings to a new location. Stay in a long-term-stay hotel (<$100/day) for a week or two until you can get the cheapest apartment you can find. Slowly repurchase essentials as needed. Done.
    • rcarr 4y ago
      > Sell all your furniture and all but irreplaceable and critical belongings, possibly including selling any cars you may have. Use a few thousand dollars of that money for airfare or gas money and move yourself and minimal belongings to a new location. We’re talking about the poorest people in society here so let’s assume they don’t have a car. And they’re probably not taking a flight anywhere, they’re most likely taking a greyhound bus if we’re running this thought experiment in America. How many thousands of dollars do you think they have in furniture? Do you really think it is going to get that person out of any existing debts they have, and then leave them with multiple thousands of dollars to spare? Because if you’ve got $1500 dollars and the hotel room costs $75 a night, you’ve got 20 days to find this cheap apartment and find a job in this city where you know no one before you’re homeless. In reality, you have less time because you’ve got food and transport costs on top of that. Oh and now you’re probably not getting any benefits because you’re in a different town and probably have to go through the system again. Do you really think this is a good way for someone to turn their life around or do you think that the desperation of their situation means it is far more likely they are going to get exploited by both landlords, employers and possibly criminals in this new town, made all the worse by the fact that they don’t have any contacts and zero support network?
• jdietrich 4y ago
  But there are plenty very cheap areas to buy houses or rent. Sure, many people don't want to live there, that's why it's cheap today. But it is a possibility nonetheless, one that is better than collapsing society. I'm always honestly confused why today it is seen as impossible to move to a cheap area? People have been doing this for generations (centuries?). It's never the most fun solution, but it is a solution. Jobs. Most people don't have the luxury of working fully remotely. Areas with cheap housing are overwhelmingly geographically isolated and economically depressed, which is why the housing is cheap - local residents simply can't afford to bid up the price of housing. A lot of people would rather struggle to make rent than raise their kids in a community with high crime, bad schools, poor healthcare, limited prospects and a general atmosphere of despair.
  • Glawen 4y ago
    I don't know the US situation, but in my city in Europe, there is a factor 2 to 3 for flats in fashionable location compared to my location. I have the same traveling distance to the city center, but my location has less public transport options. Schools are ok, it's even better than in the fashionable district, and I have less criminality. I've spoken to a few colleagues who just arrived in the city from another region, and they all went into the fashionable district without considering any other locations, because someone from that district told them any other district is bad. The fact is that if you bought your flat in this fashionable district, it doubled in value over 7 years, whereas in my district, prices went up 50% at most. For me it is the same as the stock market, people follow the trend and smart folk get out before it goes downhill.
  • jjav 4y ago
    > Jobs. Most people don't have the luxury of working fully remotely. Then you commute. Yes, sacrifices are required but it's not the end of the world (or collapse of society, as GP put it). When I moved to a cheaper place over 20 years ago working remotely wasn't much of a thing so I had to drive 60-90 minutes (occasionally 2 hours). It wasn't great but it was a pragmatic solution that allowed me to have a nice place to live and leftover money to save. > A lot of people would rather struggle to make rent than raise their kids in a community with high crime, bad schools, poor healthcare, limited prospects and a general atmosphere of despair. There is a very wide gray area of reasonable places with reasonable prices between the extremes of San Franciso/Manhattan vs. economically depressed areas with "a general atmosphere of despair".