> “The 18- to 35-year-olds expect something like that, but they just didn’t have it,” said Tyler Hodge, 32, who used crowdfunding to help finance the shop. The same tactic was used for a rock climbing gym opened in September by a group of young engineers who, like Hodge, spend their weekdays working at Cummins Inc., the diesel engine company that is the city’s largest employer.
Crowdfunding for brick-and-mortar? Now that's interesting, any links?
Cooperatives are a similar model. It is maybe more common for places like organic grocery stores, but it seems like it could work for other businesses.
I've seen it done successfully a few times now for board game cafes in particular, but that's all that ever come across my radar. Basically local board game lovers like the idea of getting a public space to play and get food, and want to support it.
My town is on the list and still incredibly affordable. I guess it's time to buy up some properties so I can gouge these youngsters later. Not a bad retirement plan, actually. It will be nice to be on the other end of the transaction for the first time in my life.
Don't feel too guilty. Most of these small towns are in areas where people can move outside of town a bit if they don't care to be gouged. With minimal impact on commute times.
Though amenities like affordable high speed internet drop off pretty precipitously if you get too far out.
That works up to a point, but eventually as more people move out of downtown to less expensive suburbs, roads start to clog and the community can't afford the billions of dollars it would take to build more freeways or public transit.
That's not precisely true. Because we live in a democracy, citizens of local governments can collectively vote to levy additional funds for local schools. I agree that federal and state funding should obviate this, but there's nothing intrinsically undemocratic about the current system. (Unfair or badly designed != undemocratic).
Some of the best public schools in the nation exist where I grew up in the Minnesota suburbs. They served trailer parks and public housing the same as the doctors and lawyers. But they also passed levies to increase their own taxes year after year.
It is unfair, and wrong, that Minneapolis inner city schools don't have the same funding, but the vibrancy of the well funded public schools was a consequence of local, effective, democratic political action.
Yeah, it's a tough problem. I did Americorps work in some of the poorer elementary schools in St. Paul, and one of the biggest problems those schools face is that they have very high special needs burdens that they have to meet before they can deal with the general population, and those are incredibly costly. That said, I completely agree with you that there are a lot of problems facing students in Northeast Minneapolis that hurt outcomes that have nothing to do with funding.
I mean at the end of the day, kids like myself had well-educated parents who read to us every night, did math problems with us, and provided the scaffolding for learning long before we hit school (most of primary education was a waste, at best review). There's no substitute for that.
The experience of tutoring badly off kids in poor neighborhoods was one of the more heartbreaking experiences of my life. The inertia in the students is palpable after about age nine.
That said, I still struggle to call the distribution of effective resources "equitable," and I'll happily foot a tax bill to double education spending until the generational poverty problem is mitigated to a much greater degree (although I suspect non conventional methods might have better returns).
Could it be that the wealthy in those locations predominately send their children to private schools. Public schools aren't a priority for the super rich.
> If we were a democracy, rich neighborhoods wouldn't have better schools.
If we were a democracy, you'd be able to have more choice in how your children were educated. Switching schools or otherwise opting for more innovative educational approaches would be much more viable.
People buy into school districts because that's, bottom line, the only way to have a say in your kids' education.
Democracy isn't just about choice. It includes access, privilege and equality.
I think the imbalance in school district efficacy has more to do with classism and a "just universe" than anything else. The betters should have it better.
At least within states, they more or less are: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/in-2... ("When federal dollars are included, just five states are spending less in their poorest districts than in their wealthiest. Nationwide, the average disparity drops from 15 percent to less than 2 percent.").
Spending’s not the problem. Income just happens to correlate with having kids who aren’t disruptive and (are made to) care about education. The money itself isn’t the main reason for different school outcomes.
Yah the strategy of a cheap house doesn't work as well if you have children who need an education. Most of the areas partly expensive (in high demand) because of the excellent local schools. In being expensive the schools then get even more money. Unless education funding is distributed uniformly I can't see this changing soon.
I think the person you're replying to is referring to the fact you highlight, that money is the qualifier for who lives better or worse, as part of the scam.
Should the impoverished just pull themselves up by their bootstraps harder?
Conversely, do people who reject materialistic tenets of society deserve lower quality education?
It could be that those doctors and CPAs are just following in other peoples' footsteps, following life paths prescribed for them. As a poster below mentioned, they aren't necessarily the happiest people.
Isn't part of what we're talking about is that what is considered "normal" is up for debate, and some people choose something off the beaten path of the high-powered career-oriented lifestyle? That they're diversifying the focus of their waking hours instead of putting in overtime to the man to pay insane rent, and finding out that it is gratifying?
I’m sure it’s a safe bet. However, 20 years is a long time. And, 2037 will be as different from 2017 as 2017 was from 1987. I suggest hedging your bet by raising kids who are flexible and adaptable.
For instance, when I was a kid, parents who wanted their kids to have a ‘better future’ knew that college degrees were the sure thing. And, we all know how that turned out. 20% of my close high school friends are now low-wage post-docs with $100k in debt.
Sound advice for adults w/o kids. Schools matter though and you don't want to have to worry that they can't play outside due to safety. Real concern in some places with cheaper housing.
My wife and I picked a low cost locale, allowing us to pay off our mortgage by mid 30s. This also allows her to be a full time parent, and we're home schooling (two kids). Also, our neighborhood is very safe (low cost housing does not equal dangerous automatically).
Not shackling yourself to a high cost of living area and all of the trappings that go with it allows you a crazy amount of options (our burn rate is under $24k/year with my income many times that).
Yeah, and I think that is why these cities mentioned in the articles are attractive. Low cost while still being acceptable for children. You can't find that though in the major metro areas. Cost almost always translates to safety or school quality.
That assumes you can find a job where the housing is cheap, and you won't end up with as much money. Some things are not cheaper in poor areas like flights.
A little surprised to see my hometown, Bloomington, IL on the list. There's two universities in town, so I know they bring in a lot of young people, but unless you want to open a restaurant or work at State Farm your whole life, there doesn't seem to be a whole ton of opportunities there, especially now that the Mitsubishi plant closed down.
It is still a very affordable place to live, that part is certainly true.
Isn't the point that the "here we come" millenials are bringing their own startups with them, or working remotely? So you can live in a boring, inexpensive college town somewhere, but still have exciting, well-paid work.
Well sure. I do have a friend who's trying to get a 3D print studio startup going that lives in the area, even. But there's not a huge market there for new businesses outside of restaurants (seriously, it's a test market for new restaurants and it has one of the highest amount of restaurants per capita in the US), as far as I can tell at least.
If you work completely remotely that's fine, but at least the article was saying more that millennial were moving to these places because the existing demand for workers was there, especially knowledge workers, and that's just not really true here unless you want to work at the headquarters for a giant insurance company.
The scope of the article is generally true, I was just surprised to see my hometown included, is all. If you're just looking for cheap places to live and work completely remotely, there are tons of other towns nearby that are much cheaper. Hell, just go 20 miles outside of Bloomington and you can get a house at about half the price that you would in Bloomington, in much smaller towns. I have old high school buddies that do exactly that.
Do you have any more info on the restaurants per capita? Google isn't very helpful.
I ask only out of mild interest. The village closest to me has ~30 and just 1200 residents. However, it's a tourist town and there are zero franchise fast food places, or the likes.
Wait, mostly disregard this. I was looking for the wrong town and now have a bunch of information.
I don't have hard data, it's just something that's known about the city. With a google search I can find some people mentioning it online, but not with any hard data.
Surprised to see Cedar Rapids, IA on the list. I grew up in the area and it was not very appealing to stay in the area. Growing up, everybody's parents worked at Rockwell Collins, and not many of my peers had intentions of staying in the area. Few did.
In the last few years I have noticed changes around the city. Some big investments downtown, new developments for commercial and shopping space, etc.
I doubt Cedar Rapids would have been on the list if it it wasn't for the 2008 flood. Nothing could get done at a city level because people were always against it for some reason or another. It was a kick in the pants city wide to get stuff done.
Rockwell, the largest employer in the city, has always had a tough time recruiting. Perhaps it will be easier for them to get young talent in the coming years?
>In the last few years I have noticed changes around the city. Some big investments downtown, new developments for commercial and shopping space, etc.
I guess investors have the big cities' real estate markets locked down. Now they're trying the same gentrification game in small towns to get rents raised?
> Perhaps it will be easier for them to get young talent in the coming years?
Dunno what kind of work happens up in Cedar Rapids, but it's a lifestyle sacrifice to be unplugged from the internet and mobile communication during work hours. If a significant portion of the work up there happens in secret labs, they'll absolutely have problems recruiting millenials. Especially software engineers, who benefit from online language references, stack overflow, etc.
Rockwell has a split of commercial and government. No idea on the distribution of levels of confidentiality on the government work, but I definitely agree that a lack of access to online reference materials would a hard pass for many engineers.
I know they do lots with GPS and flight displays.
Beyond Rockwell, much of the city is employed by grain processing. Cargill, Penford (it has a new name now, don't know it), general mills, quaker oats, and Conagra all have large factories in the city.
That was one of the developments I had in mind, along with lots of revitalization on the northeast side. That's on the far other side of town compared to where my parents live, but we still head out to the NewBo market a couple times per year.
Sacramento has all of the disadvantages of living in California (high taxes, regulation, etc) but none of the advantages (great weather, scenery, awesome job market).
You mention the weather... Sacramento's is awful. The heat is unbearable.
You might as well just keep on 80 until you hit Reno.
Sacramento is nearly a half a million people. The article seems to be talking about cities that are roughly a tenth that size, with populations around 40k-60k. (I have checked a few of them, but not all of them.)
Its estimated 2016 population of 493,025 makes it the sixth-largest city in California, the fastest-growing big city in the state,[11] and the 35th largest city in the United States.
I think about this a lot, mostly about Rochester, NY (where I went to college). It has world-class universities (and a renowned music conservatory[1]!), great history, festivals, relatively low unemployment[2] and the housing is dirt, dirt cheap[3].
The thing is, right now I make a pretty great salary in NYC and I don't know that anything in Rochester could come close, even taking into account cost of living. Even if everything is expensive here, and even if expenses might be lower on a percentage basis in Rochester, I think I'm still able to save more in absolute terms where I am now. Not sure about that though, would need to run the numbers to confirm.
Affordable housing and good salaries are usually on the conflicting ends of the same scale.
A place that has high-paying jobs will have residents out-bidding each other, driving up the prices of the housing market. Conversely, super cheap housing is usually an indicator that there really is no demand from affluent residents.
As a counter-point to what I just said, more and more information-based jobs can be done remotely in a very effective manner. This lets people enjoy these small towns and their high salary. Two things could happen, though:
- this could form communities with enough remote workers to start altering the housing prices, and produce a similar effect to gentrification in that the locals end up outpriced of their own town;
- or this could encourage a better spread of higher-paid employees throughout a lot of small towns, and end up not affecting those towns markets. And as a bonus, this might even help relieve the housing pressure on the larger cities.
I feel like if all work was suddenly remote, city residency would drop at least 50% in a week. I hope remote eventually becomes the norm. There are probably a lot more like me out there who even in their 20s only work in a metro area solely out of necessity. I have a hard time imagining that all these people I see on HN pining for city living and making suburbs out to be worse than prison are more than a vocal minority.
They feel entitled to roam around in the woods without adult supervision, they come home muddy, they don't learn that you have to pay for everything, and their self-learned knowledge of manipulating the physical/natural world is scary and disempowering to tech weenie parents.
Children are humans and are social creatures just as much as adult humans are... if not even more so. It is helpful to be around things that humans enjoy culturally, whether that is museums, sports stadiums, restaurants, parks and playgrounds, or just people in general. Population centers allow for critical mass of a lot of things that children enjoy that don’t exist elsewhere (one example in my case is a boys gymnastics competitive team, which is nearly impossible to find outside of cities).
Perhaps most importantly my children spend almost zero time in cars, and will be afforded a freedom that I never had as a suburbanite child...the freedom to go where they want without the explicit accommodation of an adult with a drivers license. It’s also helpful for kids to be afraid of things that can likely hurt them, like cars, and not afraid of things that aren’t likely to hurt them, like black people, gay people, foreign languages, or atheists.
This is why I moved back to the Netherlands after years in California. My children and I can bicycle most everywhere (schools, supermarkets, sports) and there is an excellent public transportation grid.
The freedom afforded to teenagers by being able to safely bicycle on dedicated bike paths is hard to beat.
I realize this will probably go unseen, but as someone who was raised in the middle of nowhere by parents who refused to drive me anywhere to socialize with other kids my age... know that you're doing your children a massive favor. I wish my parents had a tenth your good sense.
What do you mean by vibrancy? Are grids of apartment buildings, high rises, and pigeons supposed to be more vibrant than apple orchards, nice houses, and cardinals? Yeah, cities section off squares to be parks sometimes, but it's not the same.
And what's culture? Saying somewhere doesn't have culture makes as much sense as saying you don't have an accent. Where I grew up there's locally made apple cider and other apple products, good farmer's markets, locally butchered meat, the colleges have all the "arts" stuff going on that you'd want if you're into that, and there are great authentic Mexican restaurants everywhere.
Being around people as a mandatory part of the living space isn't really for me.
Maybe I'm just out of touch with the other "young people" my age but I've been to a few cities and I can't say I was exactly "captivated."
I don't agree. Super dense cities like New York might fall out of favor, but smaller cities will still be attractive. Being able to walk to wherever you want to go is very nice. In the suburbs you have to drive 10 minutes to get anywhere, which is quite annoying. Maybe that will change once self driving cars become the norm though.
Whenever I've been to baltimore, it took around 10 minutes just walking this distance, adding in waiting at road crossings: https://i.imgur.com/Vxnt9cq.png
If you want to go to an actual grocery store and you live in a city you're going to spend more than 10 minutes walking. Plus you won't even have access to Walmart, Costco, etc.
Well I lived in SF and in NYC presently. Unless you count corner stores (and I don't, because they are exorbinantly expensive) 10 minutes is better than average for those two cities.
Im pretty sure it's the opposite direction. The economies of scale make it so cities have above and beyond more amenities than the suburbs ever could. Be it food, culture, access to jobs/networks, or even just the dating pool working remotely in a huge house in the middle of nowhere really can't provide a substitution.
Living isolated far away from civilization might be appealing to some, but I'd put money on the idea you're the minority. Growing up in the suburbs was a black mark on a generation and I think most of us aren't looking to subject our children to that. Aside from the space (which I'll never understand; who wants to have more shit to clean and maintain) I can't see any benefit to leaving the city.
There's less crime, driving is viable (what do you do if you want to bring home a large item from a store in a city?), your surroundings are actually nice to look at, it's quieter, establishments aren't crowded, some people don't like walking all day, you can play loud music or whatever in your home without a noise complaint if you don't live right next to anyone, and privacy in your yard, for a few examples.
What's special about city food? That it's more expensive? Calling small towns "away from civilization" is so disingenuous that it seems intentional. I've gone over this in another response, but do you really believe there isn't nice food and events out there?
Less crime in absolute maybe, but it's a toss up as to crime per-captia. Driving being viable is just a twisted way of saying driving is required; a strong con for many people including myself (and eats away at all of those real estate savings when you've got car payments and insurance). You just buy online and ship for most large items; rent a van for everything else. Lack of walking is another con; there's a reason the south sports 40% obesity rates.
The special thing about "city food" is the diversity. Small populations can't support a plurality of niche restaurants and vendors.
Being "away from civilization" I'll admit is subjective, but I don't think at all disingenuous. In the city we have touring bands, brand new stage productions, top of the line art museums, screenings of foreign films, a thriving music scene, and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to meet and learn from people from all over the world. Giving that up for an HOA and yard work seems like a raw deal.
I disagree entirely. Every minute wasted in transit is wasted. I was lucky to make the most of a private school scholarship (Baltimore) and received overlapping theater, voice, writing, instrumental and athletic training alongside academic training and "gifted" early science training provided by state government. From city centers like Boston and DC I was exposed to the world many Americans only know through pictures or books.
Nothing is more damaging to adults or children than lives in remote isolation with delusions of Swiss Family Robinson self-sufficiency on government road, school and mortgage subsidies. We must stop claiming any normalcy to that post-Eisenhower makeshift accounting fiction. Lives in remote isolation are one of the reasons business formation is so low in the United States. Shyness is never any value. Shy people are takers.
Wow, quite the extreme take there, and a strawman argument at that. I don't know why you think that the alternative to not living in a city is a life "in remote isolation with delusions of Swiss Family Robinson self-sufficiency". The original comment even specifically referred to suburbs.
Transit may be wasted time, but for the vast majority of people, that transit consists almost entirely of going to and from work. Living in smaller cities or suburbs means that your transit time for everything outside of work will be roughly the same as someone living in a big city. So, if remote work were to be the norm, the wasted transit time is eliminated. I for one agree. The idea that you and others seem to believe in where anything outside a major city is an apocalyptic hellscape that is "more damaging to adults or children" than anything else is not just melodramatic, its pure fiction, and like the OP, is a viewpoint I imagine is only held by a (very) vocal minority.
That was poetically agressive. I recommend checking out Strong Towns. Across our shifting political and geographic spectrum folks are looking at 2 phenomena that landed Americans in peculiar distributions. First, Eisenhower era highway building. Even early suburbanization was under panic defense logistics influence. Second was supersizing suburbia with white flight overlapping deindustrialization. We need not moralize to calculate the engineering of that with calculable overlapping downstream costs and grim actuarial funding pictures. Those narratives overlap generations kicked off farms into those cities not long ago.
North Americans who buy homes move every 7 years on average. We have troubles building value in places where people stay over generations to enjoy it. Even educators are learning that "tickets out" is too abstract a target to motivate remote kids to study in schools. We inherited our little patches of planet and histories, but we should not normalize our current widespread displacements. Folks are migrating to specific places for different reasons we can examine on maps. Other folks in tons of places have troubles making a go of where they are for reasons we understand and cannot fix. [Edit: grammar]
I don’t want to come across as too skeptical since increased supply will certainly apply downward price pressure. But, I’ve been seeing this argument so often recently that I need to question it. Can you provide contrasting examples of places of similar high population growth where the deregulated ones’ home prices stayed substantially lower than the regulated ones?
I ask this because I believe that demand is the primary influencer of home prices, not supply. I’m open-minded though. So, to challenge my assumptions, I even briefly looked at several of the fastest growing cities of the past couple years (with several in Texas). However, even areas that I assumed had lower regulation and less zoning still had substantial annual price increases.
To me, the only way that you can reduce housing costs is to decrease demand.
That's why I'm trying to get to work remotely. Right now I live in Milan, but I'm planning to move to Palermo where housing costs a fifth, more or less
I wrestled with the same thing recently, moving from Seattle-area to Santa Fe, NM to be closer to my in-laws. It only worked because there was a singular employer who paid approximately what I had grown accustomed to. I think it is going to work out, especially since my wife has better prospects than she did in Seattle, but there's definitely a risk working somewhere that has few other competitive employers in the area. I'm not sure what I would do if I decided I needed to change employers, beyond some sort of remote work.
I'm interested in NM (probably Albuquerque) as well. How's Los Alamos as an employer? Anyone from Sandia Labs around? Anyone else worth considering there?
There are interesting parallels between Columbus and Rochester, and, in particular, the roles played by J. Irwin Miller and George Eastman, respectively, in their values and cultural development.
As an aside, both men built interesting residences that are open to the public, and well worth visiting, especially by anyone with even a passing interest in design[1] or photography[2], respectively.
[1] Miller's house was designed by Eero Saarinen, whose other notable projects included the "futuristic" Dulles and JFK airport terminals, and the St. Louis Arch.
[2] In addition to the building itself, the Eastman House now serves more generally as a museum of photography and photographic technology.
Move abroad. That's simple. Lots of places with much better quality of life. European Union is terrific place: multiple nations, different climates, various cultures, freedom of speech, parlamentary democracy, clean ecology, safety, good education, inexpensive housing.
For US Generation Student Debt, there's a significant long-term cost to that decision. If you don't have to double the years it takes you to pay back your debt to do so, maybe moving abroad is more of an option.
Cost of living is really high everywhere comparably with the the salaries. I can't even imagine place where it make sense to live keeping in mind one day you want to settle and buy property, raise kids and so on.
No, you deduct the taxes paid in your place of residence from what you pay in the US. Since taxes are lower in the US than in most developed countries you end up owing the US nothing -- but you still have to file.
Of course, though your taxes may be higher, other expenses may be lower (e.g. telecoms, health care, housing) so you'll probably end up with more in your pocket.
wel the IRS can come after you for property tax as Boris Johnson a dual national (who has never lived in the US) - when his mum died recently the IRS sent him a huge tax bill related to her home.
This is correct, up to a point. Once you pass the threshold of around $90k, you can no longer write the income tax you pay on your foreign income off. For example, if you make the equivalent of $100k in Europe, you can write off the income tax on the first $90k. However, you then have to pay US income tax on that remaining $10k.
I would love to live in Europe if there were any possibility of making a good living at what I do. Comparable level positions I've seen are in the $30-40k USD range for my six figure position in SF. I can't understand why developers are so poorly paid over there.
Software engineer in Munich, salary $120k, it's around $6k per month after taxes, healthcare, pension fund; 30 days paid vacation; 11 months paid parental leave; $2k rent for a big new 3 bedroom in city center, $500 for day care. Free schools, short commute, lots of inexpensive free time perks.
Just open your own business (products or freelance) and move to Mexico to work remotely for US customers. Super cheap, better food, tropical climate.
90% of HN readers would be smart enough to do this and sustain themselves beautifully.
Is that the same Mexico with 100k+ killed in the drug war since 2005? Maybe it's an unreasonable fear, but conducting business and sticking out as a foreigner seem like a risk.
It really isn't a bad idea and it's something I've considered, but I imagine you basically tank your chances of meeting a life partner or friends who enjoy the same culture, politics, music, art, food, etc. as you while you're down there. Not a big deal for some people, but a big deal for someone like me who prizes romantic fulfilment and friendship as the ultimate meaning in life.
Also, it would mean giving up a life of civil disobedience and political action, because as a foreigner in Mexico you really shouldn't stick your neck out in the places that need political action the most. To a degree this seems like a very selfish prioritization.
This article is 5 or 7 years too late. We already moved to cities. Now we want to be married and do things that require yards. Or at least own a small piece of the city and no longer be at the mercy of landlords (non-rent controlled renters).
Most importantly, I’ve learned the joy and importance being near my family and spending time with them. These are all things I never cared about in my 20s.
I'm from the Midwest, from the Cedar Rapids area, moved to Chicago, and I have to say I would NEVER EVER move back there.
People from these areas are extremely conservative and xenophobic.
The restaurants and any business you might frequent are of lower quality.
These cities are not world class cities. Claiming that they are is just ignorant. You end up trapped in a little bubble with nowhere to escape to, surrounded by boring white people.
There is NOTHING TO DO.
What if you want to go out on Friday night and see a rock show? Or get a decent dinner? I hope you like commuting to Chicago...
You will be surrounded by insurance salesmen with none of the diversity and vibrancy a larger city offer.
That is to say: These places have no culture. No diversity. They have nothing going on, nobody creating anything, no one performing anything. Just going about their little lives selling insurance.
Additionally: Their nature sucks. I hope you're fine with never hiking through any interesting terrain, going skiing, or rock climbing, or really doing any interesting outdoor activities. ( I guess hunting is popular? )
Also.. where are you going to work? I'm a software developer: Where am I going to work in Cedar Rapids, IA? Some insurance firm doing meaningless banking bullshit?
"But I moved there for my kids!"
What if your kid wants to start a rock band, or be a painter, or do anything creative or interesting? Or, what if they are extremely intelligent and want to progress through a decent, competitive school system?
I can answer this one from personal experience: They will be completely alone surrounded by mediocre, extremely homogeneous racially and otherwise, people with no community of peers driving each other forward.
There will be no friday-night rock shows, no musical culture in general, no museums or after-school clubs or protests to attend. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Nowhere to explore.
So, after all I've said: What's left to inspire you, or your kids, in these mediocre little cities?
So I guess if you're willing to do nothing and be nowhere and be nothing, wasting your days watching television, moving to a smaller city is a great bet. Personally, I'd rather live in a decent city than slouch though a mediocre one.
Oddly enough, I lived in Chicago most of my life and moved up the Bay Area. I'd be hard pressed to ever move back despite the network of family and friends there.
The weather is beyond awful. The crime rate is through the roof. Rents and house prices have gone through the roof, while comp has not. The city is broke and horribly corrupt.
Don't get me wrong... There's a lot of amazing things about Chicago and it will always have a place in my heart. And the food is indeed good (if leaning towards the super unhealthy and indulgent side). But I'd be hard-pressed to ever move back from my overpriced starter home in the Bay.
I agree with you, Chicago is brutal. I'm actually moving out west in a few months for the exact reasons you listed! But, as I said, I grew up in the rural midwest. I would caution people against considering it a cheap-land utopia.
Also, I would not equate moving to a small city in the midwest to moving to a small city in the Bay Area. You have at least a proximity to larger cities, and there is beautiful nature and weather to enjoy, along with better culture in general.
I grew up in a town with 30,000 people (much smaller than Cedar Rapids) in the PNW. It's rabidly republican. Also 30% Hispanic. Sure, there's racists around, probably more than your average city, but it's not an intolerable amount.
> Additionally: Their nature sucks. I hope you're fine with never hiking through any interesting terrain, going skiing, or rock climbing, or really doing any interesting outdoor activities. ( I guess hunting is popular? )
That's a pretty broad generalization. Around the edge of my hometown we had tons of hiking trails in the foothills. If you were up for a short 30 minute drive you could get to some real interesting terrain. If you were determined enough and wanted to invest a whole day or a few days in to it you can trek through a literal wilderness.
It's also 45 minutes from a ski resort, and about the same distance for two great rock climbing spots. Oh, plus there's a 10 mile paved trail at the waterfront that loops around the entire center of the city. Lots of biking, mountain biking, plenty of good water, etc etc...
We have people from Seattle move here all the time for the nature, enough to have an effect on the housing market even.
> What if your kid wants to start a rock band, or be a painter, or do anything creative or interesting?
Oddly enough, I did start a rock band in my hometown. We had a great little punk scene. Someone would throw down the money to rent out a building then we'd pass out flyers around school and charge $5 a head. Usually got between 100 to 200 kids to show up. A couple of my friends went on to build careers in the industry, and actually do work for big names in Seattle now.
> Also.. where are you going to work? I'm a software developer: Where am I going to work in Cedar Rapids, IA? Some insurance firm doing meaningless banking bullshit?
You can work remotely, number one. Bu there's actually a lot of businesses in rural areas that have a really, really hard time getting software developers, to the point where they sometimes just stop looking. You're not gonna have job offers in spades, but you can definitely find something.
You paint a really ugly picture of small towns, but I think it might be clouded by whatever negative experience you had in Cedar Rapids.
> grew up in a town with 30,000 people (much smaller than Cedar Rapids) in the PNW. It's rabidly republican. Also 30% Hispanic.
You grew up in a completely different part of the country than what I am referring to: The Midwest, specifically the Cedar Rapids area, so I don't really see how your arguments about how somewhere completely across the country is a better place to live is applicable.
In fact: Your statement that the nature around you is great is EXACTLY MY POINT! The Midwest is flat and we've butchered all of our forests in order to plant corn fields. Don't move there. The cheap land isn't worth it.
Yeah, the PNW is amazing. I think living there would be great, which is why I'm moving there in the next few months.
edit: A apologize if I came off smarmy in my reply, it's obviously my fault that I wasn't clear enough that my feelings are very specific to the midwest, and even more specifically for the cedar rapids area.
I did not ever expect to see my old hometown of 30k people on HN. Growing up there in the 80s and 90s, it was a nice enough place, but basically 0 tech jobs outside of doing basic IT or support. My parents still live there (my dad an EE at the mentioned Cummins), but the fortunes of the town are tied to Cummins' stock price. They've done a lot to revitalize the downtown in the last decade, it used to be pretty run down. That said, its still in Indiana, with hot muggy summers and wet cold winters where you don't see the sun for 4 months. People are generally friendly, as long as you're "normal". There's a lot of casual racism and homophobia, I didn't even recognize it until I moved away and had my eyes opened.
I moved to Indy to get a programming job in the early 2000s, and then to Colorado a few years after that. I'm much happier with the climate, the people, and the tech out here. However, the house I close on this month cost 3x what my parents' place is worth.
Im mexican american, and grew up in a similar town in Missouri. I was 'normal' as I practiced good English and had no accent. But the casual racism was real, and I have trouble explaining it to those who think racism is only an explicit hatred.
Its a lifestyle habit for much of America and rather than discuss it I see people just bark and bark about how ignorant it sounds.
Tangential rant, but to circle the wagon to the point, these towns have some ways to go and will need a transformation culturally
Denver and surrounding areas will be unaffordable in the next few years, much like San Francisco today. It's a good time to buy property now and see it double in value.
Yep! The only way I'm able to afford this house is because I'm selling the house I bought 5 years ago for 50% more than I paid for it. So many of my friends and colleagues, even in the tech industry, the 20% down payment they're saving for is going up faster than they're able to save for it. I don't think this is sustainable for much longer.
I think you'd be surprised. I moved to Columbus in the early 2000s after college from another Indiana city. Perhaps I have blinders on, but I don't ever recall any casual racism or homophobia. If anything I'd say it's a more progressive city than many other small conservative midwestern towns. There is considerable diversity in the city, given that many of the engineers who live here have come from other countries. There was a recent presentation about the problems of "conversion therapy", and the presbyterian church a few weeks ago had a day of remembrance specifically for those who are transgender.
Not saying it's anything along the lines of Colorado, or the bay area, which I've frequented the past decade - but I think 2017 Columbus IN is vastly different than late 90s Columbus IN. The article really nails it.
Do you identify as LGBT or non white? No dig against you personally, but if so you are most likely not in a good position to judge the state of racism/homophobia/etc.
Oh sure, Columbus is way more progressive than just about anywhere else in southern Indiana, save Bloomington (home of Indiana University). But still, my high school graduating class of 350 had one black kid and a couple Hispanics. There were more Japanese than any other minority, and that was because Cummins had hired their parents from the manufacturing powerhouses there.
Several of my friends had lived their entire lives in the area, the type of family where both of their grandparents lived within 30 minutes, and they had no will or desire to leave and explore the rest of the country. Most of them grew up in racist and homophobic families, so making remarks and jokes was commonplace. It didn't seem so at the time, but now having left I realize just how rampant it was, and I'm actually a little ashamed to have taken part in it.
I'm wondering where's the equivalent for California. Sacramento is too significant and big a city to be comparable. I'm thinking Bakersfield and Elk Grove.
There are plenty of affordable smaller cities around California. I'm not sure if any of them are attracting younger people. I haven't spent much time in Bakersfield but it wasn't that bad, and the mountains are close. Palmdale/Lancaster might be good, some tech/aerospace out there, you have to like the desert though. Vacaville seems to have industry, mostly manufacturing. There are also plenty of smaller communities in the north state, not sure about jobs, probably none.
I don't think there really is an equivalent in California. I searched for a small town with affordable housing and some minimal level of infrastructure. I found what I needed in another state.
I work remotely, so my income is portable. I could potentially go anywhere in the US. I couldn't find anything in California that met my needs.
It's funny how deeply they buried the lead in this article. The real story of Columbus is: stable manufacturing jobs + corporate commitment to community = good quality of life.
This story is so alien to us now in America that we don't even recognize it when it's staring us in the face.
The financial crisis delayed the usual process of marriage, having children, and house buying for millenials. Instead of doing it in their mid/late 20's, they held off until late 20's/early 30s.
Everyone likes to be young and in the city. It's fun. You can go out and have unlimited options for things to do, places to eat, etc.
The exorbitant rent charges for luxury apartments is something that becomes unpalatable once you get sick of living with roommates, or want to have a family. As people get older they generally go out less and appreciate nature, personal space, and quiet more. (Obviously a generalization but in aggregate is true)
It's also easier than ever to take an Uber in to the city, should you wish, to avoid parking and drinking and driving.
My wife and I spent some time in the Bay Area in our twenties. It was nice and I'm glad we did it, but I am so happy that we moved back to a small town in Ohio before beginning to raise a family. SF is a nice place to visit, but Ohio is home.
It definitely helps that programming can be done remotely, but I think I'd still prefer it here, even if it meant working for a local shop at half my current salary.
I'm extremely envious of anyone who can tolerate those horrific climates, I'll remain unhappy in bay area until I can find a better climate to escape to.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 198 ms ] threadCrowdfunding for brick-and-mortar? Now that's interesting, any links?
~37k raised from this campaign
http://borderlands-books.blogspot.com/2017/10/haight-street-...
If you invested $1,000, you got free beer for life.
Though amenities like affordable high speed internet drop off pretty precipitously if you get too far out.
That works up to a point, but eventually as more people move out of downtown to less expensive suburbs, roads start to clog and the community can't afford the billions of dollars it would take to build more freeways or public transit.
And if/when there are major budget changes to the district, who do you think are the first parents in line advocating for their school?
You literally buy your kids a chance at a better future.
Some of the best public schools in the nation exist where I grew up in the Minnesota suburbs. They served trailer parks and public housing the same as the doctors and lawyers. But they also passed levies to increase their own taxes year after year.
It is unfair, and wrong, that Minneapolis inner city schools don't have the same funding, but the vibrancy of the well funded public schools was a consequence of local, effective, democratic political action.
North Minneapolis has bad outcomes not because of lack of money, that's for sure.
I mean at the end of the day, kids like myself had well-educated parents who read to us every night, did math problems with us, and provided the scaffolding for learning long before we hit school (most of primary education was a waste, at best review). There's no substitute for that.
The experience of tutoring badly off kids in poor neighborhoods was one of the more heartbreaking experiences of my life. The inertia in the students is palpable after about age nine.
That said, I still struggle to call the distribution of effective resources "equitable," and I'll happily foot a tax bill to double education spending until the generational poverty problem is mitigated to a much greater degree (although I suspect non conventional methods might have better returns).
Out of the top 5, only Montgomery County has a high-income student population.
If we were a democracy, you'd be able to have more choice in how your children were educated. Switching schools or otherwise opting for more innovative educational approaches would be much more viable.
People buy into school districts because that's, bottom line, the only way to have a say in your kids' education.
I think the imbalance in school district efficacy has more to do with classism and a "just universe" than anything else. The betters should have it better.
Should the impoverished just pull themselves up by their bootstraps harder?
Conversely, do people who reject materialistic tenets of society deserve lower quality education?
It could be that those doctors and CPAs are just following in other peoples' footsteps, following life paths prescribed for them. As a poster below mentioned, they aren't necessarily the happiest people.
Isn't part of what we're talking about is that what is considered "normal" is up for debate, and some people choose something off the beaten path of the high-powered career-oriented lifestyle? That they're diversifying the focus of their waking hours instead of putting in overtime to the man to pay insane rent, and finding out that it is gratifying?
For instance, when I was a kid, parents who wanted their kids to have a ‘better future’ knew that college degrees were the sure thing. And, we all know how that turned out. 20% of my close high school friends are now low-wage post-docs with $100k in debt.
Not shackling yourself to a high cost of living area and all of the trappings that go with it allows you a crazy amount of options (our burn rate is under $24k/year with my income many times that).
It is still a very affordable place to live, that part is certainly true.
If you work completely remotely that's fine, but at least the article was saying more that millennial were moving to these places because the existing demand for workers was there, especially knowledge workers, and that's just not really true here unless you want to work at the headquarters for a giant insurance company.
The scope of the article is generally true, I was just surprised to see my hometown included, is all. If you're just looking for cheap places to live and work completely remotely, there are tons of other towns nearby that are much cheaper. Hell, just go 20 miles outside of Bloomington and you can get a house at about half the price that you would in Bloomington, in much smaller towns. I have old high school buddies that do exactly that.
I ask only out of mild interest. The village closest to me has ~30 and just 1200 residents. However, it's a tourist town and there are zero franchise fast food places, or the likes.
Wait, mostly disregard this. I was looking for the wrong town and now have a bunch of information.
In the last few years I have noticed changes around the city. Some big investments downtown, new developments for commercial and shopping space, etc.
I doubt Cedar Rapids would have been on the list if it it wasn't for the 2008 flood. Nothing could get done at a city level because people were always against it for some reason or another. It was a kick in the pants city wide to get stuff done.
Rockwell, the largest employer in the city, has always had a tough time recruiting. Perhaps it will be easier for them to get young talent in the coming years?
I guess investors have the big cities' real estate markets locked down. Now they're trying the same gentrification game in small towns to get rents raised?
Dunno what kind of work happens up in Cedar Rapids, but it's a lifestyle sacrifice to be unplugged from the internet and mobile communication during work hours. If a significant portion of the work up there happens in secret labs, they'll absolutely have problems recruiting millenials. Especially software engineers, who benefit from online language references, stack overflow, etc.
I know they do lots with GPS and flight displays.
Beyond Rockwell, much of the city is employed by grain processing. Cargill, Penford (it has a new name now, don't know it), general mills, quaker oats, and Conagra all have large factories in the city.
They’ve got a startup accelerator, a code school, a coworking space, and run lots of great events.
[1] https://newbo.co
You mention the weather... Sacramento's is awful. The heat is unbearable.
You might as well just keep on 80 until you hit Reno.
There's quite a few people who have done just that. I feel like every 3rd person in Reno is a California expat.
Its estimated 2016 population of 493,025 makes it the sixth-largest city in California, the fastest-growing big city in the state,[11] and the 35th largest city in the United States.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento,_California
The thing is, right now I make a pretty great salary in NYC and I don't know that anything in Rochester could come close, even taking into account cost of living. Even if everything is expensive here, and even if expenses might be lower on a percentage basis in Rochester, I think I'm still able to save more in absolute terms where I am now. Not sure about that though, would need to run the numbers to confirm.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_School_of_Music
[2] https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ny_rochester_msa.htm#eag_ny_roch...
[3] https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Rochester,-NY_rb/?from...
A place that has high-paying jobs will have residents out-bidding each other, driving up the prices of the housing market. Conversely, super cheap housing is usually an indicator that there really is no demand from affluent residents.
As a counter-point to what I just said, more and more information-based jobs can be done remotely in a very effective manner. This lets people enjoy these small towns and their high salary. Two things could happen, though:
- this could form communities with enough remote workers to start altering the housing prices, and produce a similar effect to gentrification in that the locals end up outpriced of their own town;
- or this could encourage a better spread of higher-paid employees throughout a lot of small towns, and end up not affecting those towns markets. And as a bonus, this might even help relieve the housing pressure on the larger cities.
Could not disagree more. (Young) people move to cities for vibrancy, culture, and to be around each other.
(Tho worth it)
Perhaps most importantly my children spend almost zero time in cars, and will be afforded a freedom that I never had as a suburbanite child...the freedom to go where they want without the explicit accommodation of an adult with a drivers license. It’s also helpful for kids to be afraid of things that can likely hurt them, like cars, and not afraid of things that aren’t likely to hurt them, like black people, gay people, foreign languages, or atheists.
The freedom afforded to teenagers by being able to safely bicycle on dedicated bike paths is hard to beat.
And what's culture? Saying somewhere doesn't have culture makes as much sense as saying you don't have an accent. Where I grew up there's locally made apple cider and other apple products, good farmer's markets, locally butchered meat, the colleges have all the "arts" stuff going on that you'd want if you're into that, and there are great authentic Mexican restaurants everywhere.
Being around people as a mandatory part of the living space isn't really for me.
Maybe I'm just out of touch with the other "young people" my age but I've been to a few cities and I can't say I was exactly "captivated."
Living isolated far away from civilization might be appealing to some, but I'd put money on the idea you're the minority. Growing up in the suburbs was a black mark on a generation and I think most of us aren't looking to subject our children to that. Aside from the space (which I'll never understand; who wants to have more shit to clean and maintain) I can't see any benefit to leaving the city.
There's less crime, driving is viable (what do you do if you want to bring home a large item from a store in a city?), your surroundings are actually nice to look at, it's quieter, establishments aren't crowded, some people don't like walking all day, you can play loud music or whatever in your home without a noise complaint if you don't live right next to anyone, and privacy in your yard, for a few examples.
What's special about city food? That it's more expensive? Calling small towns "away from civilization" is so disingenuous that it seems intentional. I've gone over this in another response, but do you really believe there isn't nice food and events out there?
Less crime in absolute maybe, but it's a toss up as to crime per-captia. Driving being viable is just a twisted way of saying driving is required; a strong con for many people including myself (and eats away at all of those real estate savings when you've got car payments and insurance). You just buy online and ship for most large items; rent a van for everything else. Lack of walking is another con; there's a reason the south sports 40% obesity rates.
The special thing about "city food" is the diversity. Small populations can't support a plurality of niche restaurants and vendors.
Being "away from civilization" I'll admit is subjective, but I don't think at all disingenuous. In the city we have touring bands, brand new stage productions, top of the line art museums, screenings of foreign films, a thriving music scene, and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to meet and learn from people from all over the world. Giving that up for an HOA and yard work seems like a raw deal.
Nothing is more damaging to adults or children than lives in remote isolation with delusions of Swiss Family Robinson self-sufficiency on government road, school and mortgage subsidies. We must stop claiming any normalcy to that post-Eisenhower makeshift accounting fiction. Lives in remote isolation are one of the reasons business formation is so low in the United States. Shyness is never any value. Shy people are takers.
Transit may be wasted time, but for the vast majority of people, that transit consists almost entirely of going to and from work. Living in smaller cities or suburbs means that your transit time for everything outside of work will be roughly the same as someone living in a big city. So, if remote work were to be the norm, the wasted transit time is eliminated. I for one agree. The idea that you and others seem to believe in where anything outside a major city is an apocalyptic hellscape that is "more damaging to adults or children" than anything else is not just melodramatic, its pure fiction, and like the OP, is a viewpoint I imagine is only held by a (very) vocal minority.
North Americans who buy homes move every 7 years on average. We have troubles building value in places where people stay over generations to enjoy it. Even educators are learning that "tickets out" is too abstract a target to motivate remote kids to study in schools. We inherited our little patches of planet and histories, but we should not normalize our current widespread displacements. Folks are migrating to specific places for different reasons we can examine on maps. Other folks in tons of places have troubles making a go of where they are for reasons we understand and cannot fix. [Edit: grammar]
Not necessarily; some cities simply build enough to keep a lid on housing prices: https://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-explained/. Many Texas cities do this and even Chicago does to some extent. Tokyo also does this: https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-....
We have the technology to build a lot of housing units on a given parcel of land, if doing so is legal.
I ask this because I believe that demand is the primary influencer of home prices, not supply. I’m open-minded though. So, to challenge my assumptions, I even briefly looked at several of the fastest growing cities of the past couple years (with several in Texas). However, even areas that I assumed had lower regulation and less zoning still had substantial annual price increases.
To me, the only way that you can reduce housing costs is to decrease demand.
As an aside, both men built interesting residences that are open to the public, and well worth visiting, especially by anyone with even a passing interest in design[1] or photography[2], respectively.
[1] Miller's house was designed by Eero Saarinen, whose other notable projects included the "futuristic" Dulles and JFK airport terminals, and the St. Louis Arch.
[2] In addition to the building itself, the Eastman House now serves more generally as a museum of photography and photographic technology.
We like and have most of those things, too.
Of course, though your taxes may be higher, other expenses may be lower (e.g. telecoms, health care, housing) so you'll probably end up with more in your pocket.
Get yourself an American style condo in Cancún and that’s it. Mexico is not all uniformly violent, unlike US.
Also, it would mean giving up a life of civil disobedience and political action, because as a foreigner in Mexico you really shouldn't stick your neck out in the places that need political action the most. To a degree this seems like a very selfish prioritization.
Most importantly, I’ve learned the joy and importance being near my family and spending time with them. These are all things I never cared about in my 20s.
People from these areas are extremely conservative and xenophobic.
The restaurants and any business you might frequent are of lower quality.
These cities are not world class cities. Claiming that they are is just ignorant. You end up trapped in a little bubble with nowhere to escape to, surrounded by boring white people.
There is NOTHING TO DO.
What if you want to go out on Friday night and see a rock show? Or get a decent dinner? I hope you like commuting to Chicago...
You will be surrounded by insurance salesmen with none of the diversity and vibrancy a larger city offer.
That is to say: These places have no culture. No diversity. They have nothing going on, nobody creating anything, no one performing anything. Just going about their little lives selling insurance.
Additionally: Their nature sucks. I hope you're fine with never hiking through any interesting terrain, going skiing, or rock climbing, or really doing any interesting outdoor activities. ( I guess hunting is popular? )
Also.. where are you going to work? I'm a software developer: Where am I going to work in Cedar Rapids, IA? Some insurance firm doing meaningless banking bullshit?
"But I moved there for my kids!"
What if your kid wants to start a rock band, or be a painter, or do anything creative or interesting? Or, what if they are extremely intelligent and want to progress through a decent, competitive school system?
I can answer this one from personal experience: They will be completely alone surrounded by mediocre, extremely homogeneous racially and otherwise, people with no community of peers driving each other forward.
There will be no friday-night rock shows, no musical culture in general, no museums or after-school clubs or protests to attend. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Nowhere to explore.
So, after all I've said: What's left to inspire you, or your kids, in these mediocre little cities?
So I guess if you're willing to do nothing and be nowhere and be nothing, wasting your days watching television, moving to a smaller city is a great bet. Personally, I'd rather live in a decent city than slouch though a mediocre one.
Would that I could attend more protests. Good riddance.
The weather is beyond awful. The crime rate is through the roof. Rents and house prices have gone through the roof, while comp has not. The city is broke and horribly corrupt.
Don't get me wrong... There's a lot of amazing things about Chicago and it will always have a place in my heart. And the food is indeed good (if leaning towards the super unhealthy and indulgent side). But I'd be hard-pressed to ever move back from my overpriced starter home in the Bay.
Also, I would not equate moving to a small city in the midwest to moving to a small city in the Bay Area. You have at least a proximity to larger cities, and there is beautiful nature and weather to enjoy, along with better culture in general.
> Additionally: Their nature sucks. I hope you're fine with never hiking through any interesting terrain, going skiing, or rock climbing, or really doing any interesting outdoor activities. ( I guess hunting is popular? )
That's a pretty broad generalization. Around the edge of my hometown we had tons of hiking trails in the foothills. If you were up for a short 30 minute drive you could get to some real interesting terrain. If you were determined enough and wanted to invest a whole day or a few days in to it you can trek through a literal wilderness.
It's also 45 minutes from a ski resort, and about the same distance for two great rock climbing spots. Oh, plus there's a 10 mile paved trail at the waterfront that loops around the entire center of the city. Lots of biking, mountain biking, plenty of good water, etc etc...
We have people from Seattle move here all the time for the nature, enough to have an effect on the housing market even.
> What if your kid wants to start a rock band, or be a painter, or do anything creative or interesting?
Oddly enough, I did start a rock band in my hometown. We had a great little punk scene. Someone would throw down the money to rent out a building then we'd pass out flyers around school and charge $5 a head. Usually got between 100 to 200 kids to show up. A couple of my friends went on to build careers in the industry, and actually do work for big names in Seattle now.
> Also.. where are you going to work? I'm a software developer: Where am I going to work in Cedar Rapids, IA? Some insurance firm doing meaningless banking bullshit?
You can work remotely, number one. Bu there's actually a lot of businesses in rural areas that have a really, really hard time getting software developers, to the point where they sometimes just stop looking. You're not gonna have job offers in spades, but you can definitely find something.
You paint a really ugly picture of small towns, but I think it might be clouded by whatever negative experience you had in Cedar Rapids.
You grew up in a completely different part of the country than what I am referring to: The Midwest, specifically the Cedar Rapids area, so I don't really see how your arguments about how somewhere completely across the country is a better place to live is applicable.
In fact: Your statement that the nature around you is great is EXACTLY MY POINT! The Midwest is flat and we've butchered all of our forests in order to plant corn fields. Don't move there. The cheap land isn't worth it.
Yeah, the PNW is amazing. I think living there would be great, which is why I'm moving there in the next few months.
edit: A apologize if I came off smarmy in my reply, it's obviously my fault that I wasn't clear enough that my feelings are very specific to the midwest, and even more specifically for the cedar rapids area.
I moved to Indy to get a programming job in the early 2000s, and then to Colorado a few years after that. I'm much happier with the climate, the people, and the tech out here. However, the house I close on this month cost 3x what my parents' place is worth.
Tangential rant, but to circle the wagon to the point, these towns have some ways to go and will need a transformation culturally
Not saying it's anything along the lines of Colorado, or the bay area, which I've frequented the past decade - but I think 2017 Columbus IN is vastly different than late 90s Columbus IN. The article really nails it.
Several of my friends had lived their entire lives in the area, the type of family where both of their grandparents lived within 30 minutes, and they had no will or desire to leave and explore the rest of the country. Most of them grew up in racist and homophobic families, so making remarks and jokes was commonplace. It didn't seem so at the time, but now having left I realize just how rampant it was, and I'm actually a little ashamed to have taken part in it.
http://kedc.com/kern-county-fast-becoming-a-mecca-for-millen...
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/4-cities-where-millennials...
I work remotely, so my income is portable. I could potentially go anywhere in the US. I couldn't find anything in California that met my needs.
This story is so alien to us now in America that we don't even recognize it when it's staring us in the face.
Everyone likes to be young and in the city. It's fun. You can go out and have unlimited options for things to do, places to eat, etc.
The exorbitant rent charges for luxury apartments is something that becomes unpalatable once you get sick of living with roommates, or want to have a family. As people get older they generally go out less and appreciate nature, personal space, and quiet more. (Obviously a generalization but in aggregate is true)
It's also easier than ever to take an Uber in to the city, should you wish, to avoid parking and drinking and driving.
It definitely helps that programming can be done remotely, but I think I'd still prefer it here, even if it meant working for a local shop at half my current salary.
“At The Pew Charitable Trusts, return on investment is not measured in profits but in long-lasting, positive, powerful change.”
Is this one of those "philanthropic" tax dodges that very wealthy people put their money in?