7 ms·

Migration to bigger tier one cities is partly to blame. Many young people want to live in NY and rent a shoebox flat for life. They think that they can become F

Migration to bigger tier one cities is partly to blame. Many young people want to live in NY and rent a shoebox flat for life. They think that they can become Friends protagonists when in fact they become broke and blame government.

mjevans 3y ago
Or, it's where their job is, which requires them to come into the office on some sort of basis.
parthdesai 3y ago
Or at least in North America, younger people don't want to live in soulless suburbs where there's literally nothing to do apart from visiting the same big box stores, chain restaurants and bars in exactly same looking plaza.
- prottog 3y ago
  Real estate isn't immune to the law of supply and demand, which mandate that you can only pick at most two out of size (or quality) of the housing unit, location (and the quality thereof), and price. Most places in the US are either affordable and boring or the other way around. > soulless suburbs where there's literally nothing This is a bit of a reductionist take on those younger people's part. You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant no one else has ever heard of in Brooklyn. It's just a matter of who you spend that time with, and how you perceive that time, in the Stoic tradition.
  - P_I_Staker 3y ago
    > You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant no one else has ever heard of in Brooklyn. It's just a matter of who you spend that time with, and how you perceive that time, in the Stoic tradition. It's not just about restaurants. I'm not going to be able to go to concerts or events. There will be no specialized stores. Even in the example you gave, many of these chains are absolutely terrible now. Going to a local place means better food. It's not all pretense. As the saying goes: It's hard to have fun with dogshit in your mouth.
    - Auracle 3y ago
      How often do people actually go to concerts or events? Why do I need specialized stores if I have the internet? Eating out is expensive and generally not good for you, calorie-wise. Cities are fun, but people fail to realize that rural places are also pretty great. You just need to make your own fun, but you actually have the room (and money) to do so. I can go out in my yard and do archery, target shooting, etc. I live surrounded by woods and can go for a walk or just sit in there whenever I want...mosquitoes permitting. My house has room for any new hobby I want. I will say that suburbs are probably the worst of both worlds, but I suppose you're closer to those concerts and better restaurants if you want.
      - ux-app 3y ago
        >suburbs are probably the worst of both worlds hit the nail on the head right there.
      - DeathArrow 3y ago
        And what if you are not rich and you can't work for home? Would you spend hours per day commuting? That translates in loosing some years from your life.
      - anthonypasq 3y ago
        classic hackernews shut-in that doesnt understand that people enjoy culture, i go to a concert/show at least once a month and they are the best things i spend my money on.
        P_I_Staker 3y ago
        Yeah, OP is hilariously myopic. Lots of people would jump off a cliff during one of those walks if they had to live like that.
        imtringued 3y ago
        Once a month is so infrequent that you can afford to, you know, just drive there. Nobody is saying live in the boonies 4 hours from civilization.
  - closeparen 3y ago
    It's true that fun and interesting cities would still command some kind of premium under more liberal permitting regimes, but that's not an excuse to be amplifying it artificially with policy.
  - hifromLA 3y ago
    Let me offer a counterpoint: I live in LA because it is home to the largest immigrant population in the US from the country where my parents were born. When I go to the grocery store, restaurants, concerts, festivals, etc. I am experiencing that cultural connection. There’s numerous spaces I’ve been in where English is rarely spoken and it gives me the opportunity to maintain my language skills. Do you think I could have that in generic suburbia?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - prottog 3y ago
      I'm an immigrant myself, having moved around the US quite a bit and currently living in a part where there aren't very many people from my country of origin. I've never once considered proximity to a large community of people sharing my ethnic background as important in choosing where to live, but of course YMMV. It's funny because I've always thought of LA as a conglomeration of suburbia, but perhaps you're referring to "generic suburbia" as one that's composed primarily of typical white Americans? Then naturally by definition you're not going to have the same kind of access to whichever cultural group that is missing from that town. But I disagree that those kinds of places are entirely devoid of "soul", as the GP put it. It'd be like criticizing Los Angeles (plurality Hispanic, approximately 0% Danish[0]), for not having Danish festivals and grocery stores, or Jackson, MS (roughly 80% black and less than half a percent Asian[1]) for not having enough authentic Asian restaurants. Sure, there's an argument to be made that you can find representation of anything in a big enough city, and that holds in places like NYC or LA. But that's a truism. [0]: https://www.statimetric.com/us-ethnicity/Danish https://www.statimetric.com/us-ethnicity/Danish [1]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/jacksoncitymississippi/BZA115221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/jacksoncitymiss...
      - hifromLA 3y ago
        LA is not Manhattan but it’s not a generic sunbelt city either. It’s comprised of dozens of neighborhoods and cities many of which are dense by any American standard (10000+ people/sq mi). A number of neighborhoods that were previously oriented around the yellow and red cars still have walkable “main streets” (albeit each of these main streets are individually difficult to reach without a car). But that’s kind of beside the point. What I’m pushing back on is the notion that you can live anywhere in the US and it’s just as good as anywhere else so you might as well live wherever it’s cheapest. It’s not about suburbs per se since Orange County is as suburban as it gets and also checks some of the boxes I mentioned (although I’d argue not as many as LA). It is also extremely expensive. I don’t care for the “soul” argument since it’s vague. I just specified something that is personally important to me and justifies living in an very high COL city.
  - thebooktocome 3y ago
    > You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant no one else has ever heard of in Brooklyn. It's just a matter of who you spend that time with, and how you perceive that time, in the Stoic tradition. There is something fundamentally different about the cultural life in cities. The suburbs are actually "soulless" in comparison. https://www.iwritewordsgood.com/apl/patterns/apl010.htm https://www.iwritewordsgood.com/apl/patterns/apl010.htm Worth pointing out that every Stoic I can think of was an upper-class city-dweller. Epicurus—Athens. Marcus Aurelius—Rome. Zeno of Citium—Athens again, but perhaps apocryphal. Seneca, Cicero, Epictetus—Rome again [0]. [0] I'm reminded now that Epictetus was not particularly wealthy, and did live an ascetic lifestyle. Perhaps the exception that makes the rule.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    … You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant… Have you actually eaten at a TGIFridays? The food is awful. I suppose if the actual meal is completely secondary to your enjoyment of the experience, you might be right, but for me, eating out is as much for the food as the company.
    - lotsoweiners 3y ago
      In my early 20s I used to sit at the bar at TGIFridays 3-4 nights a week and play trivia with my girlfriend (now wife) and other friends. It was less than a 10 minute walk from our suburban condo and across the street from our work so we would have lots of coworkers stop in and hang out. I’d usually eat some of their shitty wings and fries but the experience was definitely hanging out, drinking, and playing trivia. I’d imagine this type of experience is common whether you live in suburbia or NYC.
      - Symbiote 3y ago
        In a city, that 10 minute walk encompasses several bars and restaurants. Competition increases quality or decreases price.
  - parthdesai 3y ago
    > This is a bit of a reductionist take on those younger people's part. You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant no one else has ever heard of in Brooklyn. I'm one of those younger people. The main difference here is, "the hip" restaurant in Brooklyn will have vastly different food than a hip restaurant in SF. Can't say that about TGIFs
    - HWR_14 3y ago
      I haven't noticed that there is "vastly different food" in SF vs Brooklyn. TGIF has bad food, but that's a different question.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    Most places in the US are either affordable and boring or the other way around. This isn't saying much. Isn't this true in all highly developed countries?
- nervousvarun 3y ago
  Until they get married/have kids and do the same thing their parents and their parent's parents did...move to the suburbs. One difference with "younger" kids now is they're getting married later...but once you have kids the suburbs look completely different and it's been that way for as long as there have been suburbs.
  - parthdesai 3y ago
    This often comes up, and I'm genuinely curious, is space really that much more important when it comes to kids? I grew up in an apartment sharing a bedroom with my sister, and tons and tons of kids grow up in an apartment all over the world; all the older European cities, Asian cities (Mumbai, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc). Netherlands has the happiest kids in the world, where in Amsterdam a lot of kids would be growing up in an apartment. The flip side is, they get their freedom where they can go to places without needing their parents to drive them everywhere.
    - charlie0 3y ago
      In the States that seems to be the case. I surmise that's due to our strong sense of individualism in our culture. Hard to see whether prosperity causes individualism or the other way around.
      - parthdesai 3y ago
        Define prosperity though. If it's strictly financial prosperity, then sure. But various studies have found people in western countries to be lonelier and less happier than their asian/european/south american counterparts where sense of community is higher.
    - chongli 3y ago
      The U.S. doesn’t generally build a lot of multi-bedroom apartments suitable for families. The emphasis is on single bedrooms and studios. Furthermore, people also prefer the suburbs for raising a family because that’s where all the nice schools are built. For better or worse, inner city schools are avoided like the plague for parents with the means to buy a house in the suburbs.
- huuhee3 3y ago
  There's lots to do outside big city centres if your life doesn't evolve around consumiption of services provided by others. Big cities suck for most physical and creative outdoor activities.
goodpoint 3y ago
No, people move to cities because of jobs and because the countryside is dying. No need for weird theories about Friends.
khuey 3y ago
> Many young people want to live in NY and rent a shoebox flat for life. Nobody wants to rent a shoebox apartment in NYC for the rest of their life. But if you're not rich your only choices are to rent the shoebox or to leave NYC, and people choose which one matters more to them.
- clpm4j 3y ago
  And if not already rich in NYC then you're probably there because you're trying to become rich.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Do you think all 8+ million residents of NYC are trying to get rich? It’s not all investment bankers and engineers.
idontpost 3y ago
[dead]
coliveira 3y ago
Big cities are not created because of dreams of "Friends", but because they have lots of jobs. That's why NYC is still attracting people. If it had zero jobs, it would go broke in less than a year, no matter how many TV shows are shot over there.
m_fayer 3y ago
I grew up in NYC, when big parts of it were still affordable. That was a time when people migrated there without assuming an impoverished lifestyle and locals didn’t get priced out. It breaks my heart that we now accept that big cities are for the rich or the masochistic. There was a lot of magic in my childhood, that will now become a thing of the past, unfortunately. You should read about Vienna, which is a relatively large city that’s bucking the trend.
spaceman_2020 3y ago
At least where I live, the difference in wages between big cities and even tier-2 cities is night and day. And forget wages, sticking around in small cities is often career suicide. As a young person, you can’t be blamed for wanting McKinsey in NYC on your resume instead of Acme Hardware Store in random town, Idaho.
- frankfrank13 3y ago
  Mck pays the same in all cities in NA :)

mjevans 3y ago

Or, it's where their job is, which requires them to come into the office on some sort of basis.

parthdesai 3y ago

Or at least in North America, younger people don't want to live in soulless suburbs where there's literally nothing to do apart from visiting the same big box stores, chain restaurants and bars in exactly same looking plaza.

prottog 3y ago
Real estate isn't immune to the law of supply and demand, which mandate that you can only pick at most two out of size (or quality) of the housing unit, location (and the quality thereof), and price. Most places in the US are either affordable and boring or the other way around. > soulless suburbs where there's literally nothing This is a bit of a reductionist take on those younger people's part. You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant no one else has ever heard of in Brooklyn. It's just a matter of who you spend that time with, and how you perceive that time, in the Stoic tradition.
- P_I_Staker 3y ago
  > You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant no one else has ever heard of in Brooklyn. It's just a matter of who you spend that time with, and how you perceive that time, in the Stoic tradition. It's not just about restaurants. I'm not going to be able to go to concerts or events. There will be no specialized stores. Even in the example you gave, many of these chains are absolutely terrible now. Going to a local place means better food. It's not all pretense. As the saying goes: It's hard to have fun with dogshit in your mouth.
  - Auracle 3y ago
    How often do people actually go to concerts or events? Why do I need specialized stores if I have the internet? Eating out is expensive and generally not good for you, calorie-wise. Cities are fun, but people fail to realize that rural places are also pretty great. You just need to make your own fun, but you actually have the room (and money) to do so. I can go out in my yard and do archery, target shooting, etc. I live surrounded by woods and can go for a walk or just sit in there whenever I want...mosquitoes permitting. My house has room for any new hobby I want. I will say that suburbs are probably the worst of both worlds, but I suppose you're closer to those concerts and better restaurants if you want.
    - ux-app 3y ago
      >suburbs are probably the worst of both worlds hit the nail on the head right there.
    - DeathArrow 3y ago
      And what if you are not rich and you can't work for home? Would you spend hours per day commuting? That translates in loosing some years from your life.
    - anthonypasq 3y ago
      classic hackernews shut-in that doesnt understand that people enjoy culture, i go to a concert/show at least once a month and they are the best things i spend my money on.
      - P_I_Staker 3y ago
        Yeah, OP is hilariously myopic. Lots of people would jump off a cliff during one of those walks if they had to live like that.
      - imtringued 3y ago
        Once a month is so infrequent that you can afford to, you know, just drive there. Nobody is saying live in the boonies 4 hours from civilization.
- closeparen 3y ago
  It's true that fun and interesting cities would still command some kind of premium under more liberal permitting regimes, but that's not an excuse to be amplifying it artificially with policy.
- hifromLA 3y ago
  Let me offer a counterpoint: I live in LA because it is home to the largest immigrant population in the US from the country where my parents were born. When I go to the grocery store, restaurants, concerts, festivals, etc. I am experiencing that cultural connection. There’s numerous spaces I’ve been in where English is rarely spoken and it gives me the opportunity to maintain my language skills. Do you think I could have that in generic suburbia?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - prottog 3y ago
    I'm an immigrant myself, having moved around the US quite a bit and currently living in a part where there aren't very many people from my country of origin. I've never once considered proximity to a large community of people sharing my ethnic background as important in choosing where to live, but of course YMMV. It's funny because I've always thought of LA as a conglomeration of suburbia, but perhaps you're referring to "generic suburbia" as one that's composed primarily of typical white Americans? Then naturally by definition you're not going to have the same kind of access to whichever cultural group that is missing from that town. But I disagree that those kinds of places are entirely devoid of "soul", as the GP put it. It'd be like criticizing Los Angeles (plurality Hispanic, approximately 0% Danish[0]), for not having Danish festivals and grocery stores, or Jackson, MS (roughly 80% black and less than half a percent Asian[1]) for not having enough authentic Asian restaurants. Sure, there's an argument to be made that you can find representation of anything in a big enough city, and that holds in places like NYC or LA. But that's a truism. [0]: https://www.statimetric.com/us-ethnicity/Danish https://www.statimetric.com/us-ethnicity/Danish [1]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/jacksoncitymississippi/BZA115221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/jacksoncitymiss...
    - hifromLA 3y ago
      LA is not Manhattan but it’s not a generic sunbelt city either. It’s comprised of dozens of neighborhoods and cities many of which are dense by any American standard (10000+ people/sq mi). A number of neighborhoods that were previously oriented around the yellow and red cars still have walkable “main streets” (albeit each of these main streets are individually difficult to reach without a car). But that’s kind of beside the point. What I’m pushing back on is the notion that you can live anywhere in the US and it’s just as good as anywhere else so you might as well live wherever it’s cheapest. It’s not about suburbs per se since Orange County is as suburban as it gets and also checks some of the boxes I mentioned (although I’d argue not as many as LA). It is also extremely expensive. I don’t care for the “soul” argument since it’s vague. I just specified something that is personally important to me and justifies living in an very high COL city.
- thebooktocome 3y ago
  > You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant no one else has ever heard of in Brooklyn. It's just a matter of who you spend that time with, and how you perceive that time, in the Stoic tradition. There is something fundamentally different about the cultural life in cities. The suburbs are actually "soulless" in comparison. https://www.iwritewordsgood.com/apl/patterns/apl010.htm https://www.iwritewordsgood.com/apl/patterns/apl010.htm Worth pointing out that every Stoic I can think of was an upper-class city-dweller. Epicurus—Athens. Marcus Aurelius—Rome. Zeno of Citium—Athens again, but perhaps apocryphal. Seneca, Cicero, Epictetus—Rome again [0]. [0] I'm reminded now that Epictetus was not particularly wealthy, and did live an ascetic lifestyle. Perhaps the exception that makes the rule.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  … You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant… Have you actually eaten at a TGIFridays? The food is awful. I suppose if the actual meal is completely secondary to your enjoyment of the experience, you might be right, but for me, eating out is as much for the food as the company.
  - lotsoweiners 3y ago
    In my early 20s I used to sit at the bar at TGIFridays 3-4 nights a week and play trivia with my girlfriend (now wife) and other friends. It was less than a 10 minute walk from our suburban condo and across the street from our work so we would have lots of coworkers stop in and hang out. I’d usually eat some of their shitty wings and fries but the experience was definitely hanging out, drinking, and playing trivia. I’d imagine this type of experience is common whether you live in suburbia or NYC.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      In a city, that 10 minute walk encompasses several bars and restaurants. Competition increases quality or decreases price.
- parthdesai 3y ago
  > This is a bit of a reductionist take on those younger people's part. You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant no one else has ever heard of in Brooklyn. I'm one of those younger people. The main difference here is, "the hip" restaurant in Brooklyn will have vastly different food than a hip restaurant in SF. Can't say that about TGIFs
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    I haven't noticed that there is "vastly different food" in SF vs Brooklyn. TGIF has bad food, but that's a different question.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  Most places in the US are either affordable and boring or the other way around. This isn't saying much. Isn't this true in all highly developed countries?
nervousvarun 3y ago
Until they get married/have kids and do the same thing their parents and their parent's parents did...move to the suburbs. One difference with "younger" kids now is they're getting married later...but once you have kids the suburbs look completely different and it's been that way for as long as there have been suburbs.
- parthdesai 3y ago
  This often comes up, and I'm genuinely curious, is space really that much more important when it comes to kids? I grew up in an apartment sharing a bedroom with my sister, and tons and tons of kids grow up in an apartment all over the world; all the older European cities, Asian cities (Mumbai, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc). Netherlands has the happiest kids in the world, where in Amsterdam a lot of kids would be growing up in an apartment. The flip side is, they get their freedom where they can go to places without needing their parents to drive them everywhere.
  - charlie0 3y ago
    In the States that seems to be the case. I surmise that's due to our strong sense of individualism in our culture. Hard to see whether prosperity causes individualism or the other way around.
    - parthdesai 3y ago
      Define prosperity though. If it's strictly financial prosperity, then sure. But various studies have found people in western countries to be lonelier and less happier than their asian/european/south american counterparts where sense of community is higher.
  - chongli 3y ago
    The U.S. doesn’t generally build a lot of multi-bedroom apartments suitable for families. The emphasis is on single bedrooms and studios. Furthermore, people also prefer the suburbs for raising a family because that’s where all the nice schools are built. For better or worse, inner city schools are avoided like the plague for parents with the means to buy a house in the suburbs.
huuhee3 3y ago
There's lots to do outside big city centres if your life doesn't evolve around consumiption of services provided by others. Big cities suck for most physical and creative outdoor activities.

goodpoint 3y ago

No, people move to cities because of jobs and because the countryside is dying. No need for weird theories about Friends.

khuey 3y ago

> Many young people want to live in NY and rent a shoebox flat for life. Nobody wants to rent a shoebox apartment in NYC for the rest of their life. But if you're not rich your only choices are to rent the shoebox or to leave NYC, and people choose which one matters more to them.

clpm4j 3y ago
And if not already rich in NYC then you're probably there because you're trying to become rich.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Do you think all 8+ million residents of NYC are trying to get rich? It’s not all investment bankers and engineers.

idontpost 3y ago

[dead]

coliveira 3y ago

Big cities are not created because of dreams of "Friends", but because they have lots of jobs. That's why NYC is still attracting people. If it had zero jobs, it would go broke in less than a year, no matter how many TV shows are shot over there.

m_fayer 3y ago

I grew up in NYC, when big parts of it were still affordable. That was a time when people migrated there without assuming an impoverished lifestyle and locals didn’t get priced out. It breaks my heart that we now accept that big cities are for the rich or the masochistic. There was a lot of magic in my childhood, that will now become a thing of the past, unfortunately. You should read about Vienna, which is a relatively large city that’s bucking the trend.

spaceman_2020 3y ago

At least where I live, the difference in wages between big cities and even tier-2 cities is night and day. And forget wages, sticking around in small cities is often career suicide. As a young person, you can’t be blamed for wanting McKinsey in NYC on your resume instead of Acme Hardware Store in random town, Idaho.

frankfrank13 3y ago
Mck pays the same in all cities in NA :)