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Comment by avn2109 | Hacker News Reader

>> "...but not both."

What about Chicago. Way cheaper than New York, and has the second best train system in the country.

It is worth noting that Chicago Public Schools is functionally insolvent and the City of Chicago has a $20B pension liability (relative to a $7.8B annual budget). Pension payments have been routinely deferred ("pension holidays") to balance the budget. Bankruptcy is inevitable at this point.

You can have affordable housing, good mass transit, and jobs. Pick two.

Chicago has all three. It just has a really shitty climate and is surrounded by...corn fields

Don't forget the soy!

And Lake Michigan.

Ah Lake Michigan. How I hated you in the winter when your freezing winds suck the life out of me, but how I loved your cold cold waters come summer

Finance seems to be a strong employer there, no?

It's a scale issue. There are plenty of small metro areas (600K-1.2MM pop) with affordable housing, plenty of jobs, and absolutely zero useful mass transit. Traffic is bad for about one hour in the morning and two hours in the evening, at most, and usually just in one direction with plenty of side streets.

You double that and the infrastructure collapses. The tax base doesn't support large investments in transit to get a system built from nothing, and the roads and bridges aren't equipped to handle 2x the volume.

Chicago is adding knowledge jobs at a pretty impressive clip. If you want to work in a factory though, this isn't the city for you.

Brutal climate, though

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