Millennials to Small Cities: Ready or Not, Here We Come
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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.
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]
Could not disagree more. (Young) people move to cities for vibrancy, culture, and to be around each other.
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."
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Crowdfunding for brick-and-mortar? Now that's interesting, any links?
If you invested $1,000, you got free beer for life.
http://borderlands-books.blogspot.com/2017/10/haight-street-...
~37k raised from this campaign
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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).
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.
Out of the top 5, only Montgomery County has a high-income student population.
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).
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.
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.
“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?
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.
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.
Would that I could attend more protests. Good riddance.
> 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.