Great article and also I think this is very country specific. In the UK this is already happening, many people who work in London commute from Slough and Reading. House prices in Reading been increasing for quite a while https://www.zoopla.co.uk/house-prices/reading/
I honestly think this would do great things for the country.
Politically, I believe a major factor in our divisiveness has been a lack of cross-pollination with people who are different from us. People in the city stay in the city, and people in the country stay in the country. It's much easier to empathize with people in your "out-groups" when you know and interact with some of them personally.
Economically, while urban centers have been exploding, rural America has been rotting. There's no economic export bringing money to many areas. And without that, entire towns sink into economic decay. Rural America was built on manufacturing, because all it required was cheap land, and that's largely gone now. Imagine a world where cheap land is once again the deciding factor that draws economic activity, because high-income remote-workers are drawn to it and have no other constraints. And then those people spend lots of money in all those little economies.
Another aspect that's had a big impact on economic inequality is the growing cost-of-living gap. It's really hard to move to the city and seek a way upward in the world when you can't even hope to afford rent. Spreading out the white-collar jobs geographically could spread out the opportunity economically.
This is not going to change the rural/urban dynamic because people are not going to migrate from high-cost cities to rural areas, they are going to migrate from high-cost cities to slightly lower cost cities that still have an acceptable level of culture/amenities/jobs. Techies and other over-educated people are still going to spend almost all of their time interacting with people of a similar education and socio-economic status.
People left rural America for a reason, and a slight deviation from the coastal clustering is not going to change sufficiently to reverse the inevitable hollowing-out of rural counties.
If these Covid shut downs last for much longer, how much "culture" is any city going to have left to offer? All the bars, restaurants and social gathering activities are going to be depressed for quite a few years.
Cities have been popular for thousands of years, for a reason.
There's a huge demand for 'culture' (a way to get away from home). Yes, a lot of small/old venues/clubs are (and will no doubt continue) folding. Pretty sure the cultural vacuum will quickly fill somehow (maybe in evacuated warehouses?) with 'new normal' artistes. Clever restauranteurs will re-jigger their tactics. Etc.
There are lots and lots of professionals who would love to just live on some land in a quiet corner of the country if it didn't mean giving up job prospects. And yes, there are people who would stay in cities for the culture and amenities. But I would guesstimate that the split on who would go where given the choice is more like 50/50.
I'm hopeful on this as well. Having lived both in NYC and rural areas (and places in between), I think that people shouldn't have to live in a place like NYC just for the money.
Not everyone can be remote, but my job seems to be doing okay with it, and I'm inclined to include a 100%-remote requirement for future job hunts. And to move to a lower-density area next time that comes up.
To point out the obvious, if you aim to job hunt only within the "100% remote"-compatible employers:
(1) You used to have a much larger share of the talent in your smaller pool.
(2) You will now be the same sized fish in a much larger pond (potentially the whole world). Expect your salary offers to drop and your job search to last much longer unless you are a unique talent.
Not sure I agree with this. The important point is that a lot of employers have learned in the last few months that it really does work to let people work remotely. If so, the pool of employers is now far larger.
Also, my comp is currently quite low, rather close to my "I'll just retire" line. Yeah, the offers could drop, but not far without market failure.
Finally, I'm well over 50. Turns out that that matters more than anything else we're talking about here.
> As evidence, he pointed to data from real estate companies that showed less interest in California, New York and New Jersey as well as slowing searches for homes in larger cities
This isn’t good evidence for the argument. People who live in cities primarily rent.
As an aside, I do think that a move to smaller cities will help strengthen the American economy overall, similar to the distributed small-cities economy that you see in Germany, where no one city has the primacy and pull of NYC.
Being able to purchase a house and land for 1/4 or less of a similar city price is attractive, and having access to rural PUD-built fiber can be attractive. But the sticking point would be the lack of rural school systems for many looking to move.
But along with those who move would come more tax dollars, which means better schools. There's a bit of a chicken-and-egg effect but the mechanism is there. People without kids could very well "pave the path".
Feel like I see a lot of bold predictions about post COVID life. My take on all of these is that “I don’t know and nobody knows”. Dense cities have been around for thousands of years and have gone through plague, pandemics, terrorist attacks, and much more and have still thrived. I wouldn’t want to make any predictions about post COVID life
> We’d be ‘short’ high-tax markets and ‘long’ low-tax markets over the long-term.”
This seems really silly. My wife and I are considering leaving the city we love but tax rates have nothing to do with it. The reasons we want to live in the city (public transit, activities, social lives) have evaporated overnight. With no schools, no parks, and no office to commute into, there's an obvious appeal to buying a bigger house with a big yard. But for a family that's fortunate enough to be able to choose, the choice is about what kind of lifestyle we want, not the delta in tax rates.
This article is low on substance. They quote a generic "analyst" from Susquehanna Financial Group, but never say why that company is worth listening to. The details were in "a note published Monday." Published where? Was it a company-wide memo, an email to clients, or a Post-It on the analyst's fridge?
Then the evidence for the claim: "As evidence, he pointed to data from real estate companies that showed less interest in California, New York and New Jersey as well as slowing searches for homes in larger cities."
No time frame. No numbers. No comparison to other markets Are many people shopping for new homes at the start of a recession?
But, on the topic of whether this is going to reinforce a "great migration" out of large cities, my wife phrased it best: after the pandemic scare is done, people will want to go back to "normal life." It'll be just as easy to not consider a pandemic in choosing where to live, even on the other side of a pandemic.
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[ 0.84 ms ] story [ 19.7 ms ] threadPolitically, I believe a major factor in our divisiveness has been a lack of cross-pollination with people who are different from us. People in the city stay in the city, and people in the country stay in the country. It's much easier to empathize with people in your "out-groups" when you know and interact with some of them personally.
Economically, while urban centers have been exploding, rural America has been rotting. There's no economic export bringing money to many areas. And without that, entire towns sink into economic decay. Rural America was built on manufacturing, because all it required was cheap land, and that's largely gone now. Imagine a world where cheap land is once again the deciding factor that draws economic activity, because high-income remote-workers are drawn to it and have no other constraints. And then those people spend lots of money in all those little economies.
Another aspect that's had a big impact on economic inequality is the growing cost-of-living gap. It's really hard to move to the city and seek a way upward in the world when you can't even hope to afford rent. Spreading out the white-collar jobs geographically could spread out the opportunity economically.
People left rural America for a reason, and a slight deviation from the coastal clustering is not going to change sufficiently to reverse the inevitable hollowing-out of rural counties.
There's a huge demand for 'culture' (a way to get away from home). Yes, a lot of small/old venues/clubs are (and will no doubt continue) folding. Pretty sure the cultural vacuum will quickly fill somehow (maybe in evacuated warehouses?) with 'new normal' artistes. Clever restauranteurs will re-jigger their tactics. Etc.
Not everyone can be remote, but my job seems to be doing okay with it, and I'm inclined to include a 100%-remote requirement for future job hunts. And to move to a lower-density area next time that comes up.
(1) You used to have a much larger share of the talent in your smaller pool.
(2) You will now be the same sized fish in a much larger pond (potentially the whole world). Expect your salary offers to drop and your job search to last much longer unless you are a unique talent.
Also, my comp is currently quite low, rather close to my "I'll just retire" line. Yeah, the offers could drop, but not far without market failure.
Finally, I'm well over 50. Turns out that that matters more than anything else we're talking about here.
This isn’t good evidence for the argument. People who live in cities primarily rent.
As an aside, I do think that a move to smaller cities will help strengthen the American economy overall, similar to the distributed small-cities economy that you see in Germany, where no one city has the primacy and pull of NYC.
This seems really silly. My wife and I are considering leaving the city we love but tax rates have nothing to do with it. The reasons we want to live in the city (public transit, activities, social lives) have evaporated overnight. With no schools, no parks, and no office to commute into, there's an obvious appeal to buying a bigger house with a big yard. But for a family that's fortunate enough to be able to choose, the choice is about what kind of lifestyle we want, not the delta in tax rates.
Then the evidence for the claim: "As evidence, he pointed to data from real estate companies that showed less interest in California, New York and New Jersey as well as slowing searches for homes in larger cities."
No time frame. No numbers. No comparison to other markets Are many people shopping for new homes at the start of a recession?
But, on the topic of whether this is going to reinforce a "great migration" out of large cities, my wife phrased it best: after the pandemic scare is done, people will want to go back to "normal life." It'll be just as easy to not consider a pandemic in choosing where to live, even on the other side of a pandemic.