Comment by dionidium | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dionidium | Hacker News Reader

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> "Well, they should care more about A B C instead (because I do)."

I'm guilty of this, but I think your formulation is a straw man. All I want to tell people is that they shouldn't reflexively rule out the middle of the country, because a lot of people really would be happier there. Not everybody, but some people.

And the way (some people on) the coasts talk about the Midwest and the South is as though they're a complete and total non-starter that's out of consideration entirely. "Yeah, New York's expensive, but what am I going to do? Live in Cleveland? Obviously I can't do that!"

I think that kind of talk convinces a lot of people who would be happier somewhere else that they shouldn't even bother looking into those places. And that's a tragedy of human flourishing.

Edit to respond to one comment below:

> I think you're dismissing people's issues too easily.

On the contrary, I think you're inordinately focused on your own particular (and somewhat eccentric) issues. Most Americans prefer car ownership. You might think they're wrong to prefer this. I do, too! But, "I don't want to live somewhere where I have to own a car" isn't a mainstream American opinion.

I grew up in Michigan and moved to greater NYC after grad school, and I want to push back a bit against the idea that nobody on the coasts even considers the middle of the country.

My spouse and I would love to move somewhere less expensive than NYC, but we just can't make it work. We're both in fairly specialized tech fields, and prioritize walkability, diversity, great schools and career growth opportunity. Outside of say Chicago, it's hard to come up with a place that checks those boxes.

It would be pointless to try to speak to your particular situation, but I think a lot of people who think they can't get this or that thing out of, say, Nashville or Minneapolis, or whatever, are wrong. I don't mean to say their opinion is wrong. Live wherever you want! I mean to say that they have objectively false impressions about quantifiable aspects of those cities.

> I think a lot of people who think they can't get this or that thing out of, say, Nashville or Minneapolis, or whatever, are wrong.

If a person values a thing, saying, "well [thing] exists in these other cities too, there's just a whole lot less of it there" is maybe not a super effective counterpoint.

Like, I realize that basically every major city in the US does have public transit...technically. But pointing out that out is not useful when for most of those cities, said transit is slow, unreliable, sparse, and infrequent.

I don't just want transit. I want good transit. I don't just want walkability in a few isolated neighborhoods. I want widespread walkability.

Minneapolis does have a growing tech field, and it is laid out in such a way that you can get out into the country quite quickly after the work day.

However, unless your working in medical devices I wouldn't call it a hub like New York, Boston or the valley.

I don't think that is generally people's concern. What people in bigger cities would want from smaller cities are things that are significantly better to offset the lesser verity and upside. If you to a large degree still have to deal with commuting, the housing market, education and health care (or whatever) it doesn't really do that. If these cities want to be competitive they have be attractive in their own right, not relative to a bigger city.

I think you're dismissing people's issues too easily. I've lived in Alabama before, and heeellll no I wouldn't want to settle down there. This isn't the only problem I had with the area (I lived in several different parts), but it felt super, super hostile to not-driving. And I should know, I had to bike around a lot as a mormon missionary there. We didn't even bother checking transit, it was taken as a given that it would be too slow and sparse to be useful.

My wife is even harder on this line than I am. We live in Munich now, and the biggest reason she doesn't want to come back to the US is that she doesn't want to go back to driving everywhere, and there are only a few cities where a family can reasonably and easily get away without a car.

No, I'm not.

Firstly, I recognize this is just one factor. I focused on it because it's one I'm highly familiar with, not because it's the end-all be-all. I've already pointed this out in multiple comments. We could also talk about educational opportunities or tolerance/discrimination, but those things either aren't as clear cut or would be more contentious to discuss.

Americans saying they prefer cars when you ask makes sense when you consider the other options are usually hilariously bad wherever they live, and where they've lived in the past, too. Give them an option where walking and biking and transit actually work, and suddenly many people find those options desirable. Just look at how many American tourists say they love the transit system in, say, Tokyo, when they visit. Americans mostly "love cars" because they've been given no other serious options.

Lastly, while many people may not think of it in explicit terms, they may nonetheless enjoy some of the knock-on effects of urbanism, like a city "feeling more lively".

People prefer car ownership because car manufactures lobbied for laws that shaped most modern american cities around the car. However, New York is so dense that getting around without owning a car is the norm.

Car ownership is a multi thousand dollar expense, every year. Many people would be happier with that cash in their pocket.

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