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Comment by jaggederest | Hacker News Reader

If you draw a circle 50 miles in diameter around LA, SF, NYC, Boston, and DC: basically anywhere outside of those circles in the mainland US is pretty reasonable. It's not just the rust belt, really. You can live in Miami, Seattle or Chicago and do just fine.

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For that matter, I live about 40 miles outside of Boston/Cambridge and housing prices are pretty reasonable. Yeah, the commute in is a pain if you work in the city (although there's decent commuter rail service). But if you don't have to work in the city (I don't), there's reasonable housing within a distance that lets you go into the city for an evening.

I think some of those other locations (SF in particular) probably have a bigger radius but a lot of the angst about housing prices turns out to apply to very specific urban locales. And new grads were complaining about the price of crappy Manhattan apartments at least since the 80s.

Commuting outside of areas well-served by public transportation is a huge detriment to quality-of-life. Those extra hours really add up, especially during the shorter days of winter. The advantage of moving to a second or third city is that you can still enjoy the amenities of an urban or semi-urban setting at a lower price point. It doesn't even have to be in the Rust Belt (although personally I like Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Cleveland a great deal) - Raleigh and Charlotte are still affordable for people who like that area and climate. And there are any number of small towns in VT, NH, CO, UT, upstate NY, or central MA for the outdoorsy who don't need an urban setting

That assumes you like cities. I don't dislike cities in general but I also like my rural property. I honestly don't see a particular advantage to small towns. What I like about cities is things like theater, good restaurants, and related culture which typically take significant scale.

Not sure what extra hours you're talking about. I have a modest (25 min or so) commute when I go into the (suburban/exurban) office and frequently work remotely. I can't say I miss depending on public transit though I use it when I am in a city.

Not sure if it's what he was referring to, but when I was able to commute on public transit my commute was longer but I was free to do other things during that time, primarily reading. Now that I live somewhere without public transit my commute is just dead time.

I listen to podcasts and don't actually commute in that often anyway. To the degree that public transportation = subways/busses, I don't find it all that different as it's not that conducive to reading anyway in my experience.

I concur. My daily trip starts with the not so reliable and overcrowded commuter rail, with its spotty connection, so reading it is, (with my earbuds on, no music, because this thing is so noisy). I don't deal with the subway/bus frequently but it is only good for podcast time, and often I prefer walking, because it takes about the same time as the bus, and has more benefits.

> (with my earbuds on, no music, because this thing is so noisy)

Have you tried a pair of closed-back headphones?

You don't have to go far from some of the mid-sized cities to get a relatively rural experience. I'm 7 miles (15 minutes) from Red Hat's building in Raleigh, and 1 mile from a corn field. My house is definitely suburban, not rural, and with the way growth in my town is going, that corn field will be gone in a few years, but there's plenty of rural land just a little further out.

I wouldn't place Raleigh in the same league as NY, LA, SF, WDC, Chicago and Boston. These have 5-fold or more the population density than Raleigh.

But the distance metric would stick: if you can leave ~7 miles (15 min) outside Raleigh and afford a good land, it compares with Boston area (5-fold pop. density), with 35 miles outside for a house on 1 acre land, and about 75 minutes commute during rush hour (would drop to 35 minutes outside rush hour).

But I don't think most people get 5x the benefit from living in Boston vs Raleigh. That said, I strongly suspect the greater Raleigh-Durham area is going to dwarf Boston in population in another 15-20 years. It's been growing like gangbusters, honestly since about 1980, and although property has become quite a bit more expensive, it's still nothing like the historically dense urban centers. For example, I'm in the process of selling my 4300sqft house in a beautiful neighborhood in Cary for $525k so I can move to San Jose (into a 1700sqft hovel I paid $1.35m for). If an expected salary for an experienced tech worker in the RDU area is in the $125-150k range (say, 10+ years exp), and is in the $175-220k range in the SFBA, that money goes MUCH further in a second tier metro like Raleigh-Durham.

Raleigh seems to be a hard market to penetrate, though. I have tried to get a job there but every application seems to go into a black hole.

You're going to have to include Seattle in the "expensive" set either now or very soon. New homes are going for millions. But other than that, agreed, just go outside the commuting range of all the major hubs and it's cheap!

And I would like to add that now is the time to buy within those metropolitan area, because they are expanding, so housing in the suburb is going up.

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