5 ms·

There are lots and lots of nice cheap housing in small towns. Example, when all my coworkers were fighting over insanely overpriced condos and apartments in San

There are lots and lots of nice cheap housing in small towns. Example, when all my coworkers were fighting over insanely overpriced condos and apartments in San Fran, I bought a 1300 sq ft house outside of Tracy for less than $200k (1/3 of rent in the city) Get out of the cities...

justinrubek 1y ago
Great, now most people can spend their lives driving. I see so many people on their phones on the road, and I'm sure that part of it is that they don't want to be commuting as much as they have to. Not to mention, it's more inefficient to sprawl.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
  1/3 of the staff where I work are remote and it's a super conservative run factory. Most live within 20 minutes of the site. Customer support, sales, accounting, HR, IT, etc., all don't need to go into the office most of the time. Why force them? It also opens up the job market to a larger pool, cuts health care and child care cost, insurance, etc.
  - SecretDreams 1y ago
    As it should be. All I'd do is occasionally try to get staff onsite or offsite for team building or when it's crunch time. Most of the time, work can be done remote - it just dehumanizes things a bit. Some on/off site team building can mostly bridge the gap.
xmprt 1y ago
> Get out of the cities... This is a terrible public policy if it's the plan. And while I think selfishly it might be better for individuals if they did, I don't think it's actually helping anyone. Cities used to be a place where you made a life for yourself and could earn more and innovate more than you could in rural/suburban areas. Now it's a luxury to live in one and that doesn't bode well for the future of the country.
- v5v3 1y ago
  But that was before tech became so common. You don't need to live in the city to earn more and innovate. Warren Buffet didn't move to Wall Street and he did ok...
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  Your argument seems to be, "That might be better, but it would mean change, and that's bad!"
  - xmprt 1y ago
    Better for individuals in the short term but worse for society as a whole.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
  Cities have always been the most expensive option... they are meat grinders for careers. There's plenty of jobs but it is very diffcult to get ahead. Always has been that way. I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - uxp100 1y ago
    I don’t think it has always been that way, actually. But I don’t have hard data.
SecretDreams 1y ago
I promise you this is only a short term solution that will eventually ruin the small towns and their youth as well. Canada is seeing that right now where so many people from big cities flooded small towns. All that has happened is something to the tune of 200% appreciation in small housing prices over the last decade with almost no appreciation in wages. It's crushed housing for the smaller towns and the individuals that lived there. It's truly just a kick the can down the road approach.
- pfannkuchen 1y ago
  That’s just money supply increase cascading through different markets. Closest to money printer gets hit first, it goes out from there.
  - euroderf 1y ago
    Your assertion seems intuitively correct, but I can't say I've seen any studies that explore the idea.
    - pfannkuchen 1y ago
      I think this is mainstream Austrian school thinking. They seem ideologically opposed to the kinds of studies that the branches that pretend to be a science do, though. I Am Not an Economist, though, open to being better informed by those more Austrian than myself.
dnissley 1y ago
This discussion is in the context of how creative scenes like those of 60s NYC develop. We were discussing "one crucial factor in the city’s creative energy: cheap rents". Apparently we now need to discuss another crucial factor notably absent in small towns: "density of and proximity to other creative types"
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  Density has to be even higher today to reach the same quantity of interactions as the past, given how many in the city will sit in their apartment and be online instead of outside.

justinrubek 1y ago

Great, now most people can spend their lives driving. I see so many people on their phones on the road, and I'm sure that part of it is that they don't want to be commuting as much as they have to. Not to mention, it's more inefficient to sprawl.

FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
1/3 of the staff where I work are remote and it's a super conservative run factory. Most live within 20 minutes of the site. Customer support, sales, accounting, HR, IT, etc., all don't need to go into the office most of the time. Why force them? It also opens up the job market to a larger pool, cuts health care and child care cost, insurance, etc.
- SecretDreams 1y ago
  As it should be. All I'd do is occasionally try to get staff onsite or offsite for team building or when it's crunch time. Most of the time, work can be done remote - it just dehumanizes things a bit. Some on/off site team building can mostly bridge the gap.

xmprt 1y ago

> Get out of the cities... This is a terrible public policy if it's the plan. And while I think selfishly it might be better for individuals if they did, I don't think it's actually helping anyone. Cities used to be a place where you made a life for yourself and could earn more and innovate more than you could in rural/suburban areas. Now it's a luxury to live in one and that doesn't bode well for the future of the country.

v5v3 1y ago
But that was before tech became so common. You don't need to live in the city to earn more and innovate. Warren Buffet didn't move to Wall Street and he did ok...
IAmBroom 1y ago
Your argument seems to be, "That might be better, but it would mean change, and that's bad!"
- xmprt 1y ago
  Better for individuals in the short term but worse for society as a whole.
FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
Cities have always been the most expensive option... they are meat grinders for careers. There's plenty of jobs but it is very diffcult to get ahead. Always has been that way. I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- uxp100 1y ago
  I don’t think it has always been that way, actually. But I don’t have hard data.

SecretDreams 1y ago

I promise you this is only a short term solution that will eventually ruin the small towns and their youth as well. Canada is seeing that right now where so many people from big cities flooded small towns. All that has happened is something to the tune of 200% appreciation in small housing prices over the last decade with almost no appreciation in wages. It's crushed housing for the smaller towns and the individuals that lived there. It's truly just a kick the can down the road approach.

pfannkuchen 1y ago
That’s just money supply increase cascading through different markets. Closest to money printer gets hit first, it goes out from there.
- euroderf 1y ago
  Your assertion seems intuitively correct, but I can't say I've seen any studies that explore the idea.
  - pfannkuchen 1y ago
    I think this is mainstream Austrian school thinking. They seem ideologically opposed to the kinds of studies that the branches that pretend to be a science do, though. I Am Not an Economist, though, open to being better informed by those more Austrian than myself.

dnissley 1y ago

This discussion is in the context of how creative scenes like those of 60s NYC develop. We were discussing "one crucial factor in the city’s creative energy: cheap rents". Apparently we now need to discuss another crucial factor notably absent in small towns: "density of and proximity to other creative types"

kjkjadksj 1y ago
Density has to be even higher today to reach the same quantity of interactions as the past, given how many in the city will sit in their apartment and be online instead of outside.