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Comment by wgerard | Hacker News Reader

> Gee, I don't remember mentioning "LA/Seattle/etc." by name. Unlike some other cities that I mentioned by name. Did you see the part where I mentioned cities by name?

You mentioned some cities by name that have growing populations, with the implication being that they're moving FROM the city TO those places.

If the the influx in Nashville is from Louisiana, then who cares? What does that have to do with NYC or people chasing lower CoL areas?

> Great, now compare that to the growth rates of Dallas or Nashville or etc.

Great! Let's see how they continue to grow once they reach NYC's size. Adding 3% to a city as large as NYC is significantly different from adding 3% to Omaha.

For example, Nashville's population is about where NYC was at right around the civil war. Sounds like we'll have to wait a bit.

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I mentioned cities by name that have booming tech sectors and an influx of corporate headquarters. If the influx in Nashville is from Louisiana, that's still important, because it represents an influx that previously would have gone to some other city where there are attractive jobs. NYC used to be one of those cities, and now compared to Nashville it has far less to offer than it did in previous decades.

Do you understand my point now? It does not matter whether Nashville's population ever equals that of NYC. The population growth spread across 5 cities in formerly rural areas represents growth that otherwise would have gone to the great economic hubs of the nation, which must now compete for job applicants on something other than the MOMA and the smell of urine in the streets.

Because, if NYC doesn't compete, then it loses the best job applicants to places like Nashville.

That's how equilibria work.

The funny thing is that I just wrote a blog post about people who make pedantic side-comments and act like this defeats the over-arching argument.

You began by suggesting that the cities I mentioned weren't in the Midwest. In other words, you began by ignoring my point. Now you're pulling sentences out of context to still rub against the point.

My point, now as then, was that places such as the cities I mentioned are increasingly attracting the best tech sector job applicants, and that New Yorkers ought to take the time to ask why that is. No matter what other pedantic problems you can find with my basic phraseology, my point stands. Ask yourself, why are places like Nashville growing so much? And why are there multiple such cities? And why are companies like TD Ameritrade shifting their employees out of New York and into Omaha and Dallas?

I don't live in Nashville, but I think it's a nice city. Low taxes, low cost of living, slow pace of life, no urine smell in the streets, and for the price of a NYC shoebox, you can have a 5-bedroom house with a nice yard. It's tough to argue against that lifestyle once you've lived it. I don't know many people who move back to NYC.

So, as I said, New Yorkers ought to think about that. If New York companies want to attract the best job applicants, then they ought to think about what else they can offer, seeing as how they can't offer 5-bedroom houses with nice yards and low tax rates.

> You began by suggesting that the cities I mentioned weren't in the Midwest

Because I agree the midwest has a low CoL. But people are moving to cities like LA, which don't. Even cities like Denver are starting to experience large CoL increases, so I'm not even really sure what your point is.

> My point, now as then, was that places such as the cities I mentioned are increasingly attracting the best tech sector job applicants

What are you basing this on? It seems silly to assume that the population growth in these cities is entirely tech-driven.

> New Yorkers ought to take the time to ask why that is

Why?

> Ask yourself, why are places like Nashville growing so much?

Why do low cap stocks sometimes grow explosively compared to high cap stocks?

Answer: When you're smaller, it's easier to grow at faster rates.

> I don't know many people who move back to NYC.

I do, so I guess we're at an impasse here.

> If New York companies want to attract the best job applicants, then they ought to think about what else they can offer

Large salaries, obviously. Opportunities, if you want that. Tim Hockey lives in the NYC area, not Omaha.

> If the influx in Nashville is from Louisiana, that's still important, because it represents an influx that previously would have gone to some other city where there are attractive jobs.

Your original comment:

> Everyone's moving to more comfortable places with lower costs of living.

Moving from Louisiana to Nashville (or from NYC to Seattle) doesn't encompass that statement, so yeah, it does matter.

> Because, if NYC doesn't compete, then it loses the best job applicants to places like Nashville.

Or, NYC attracts good job applicants and Nashville can as well. This doesn't have to be some weird hyper-competitive thing where NYC < Nashville because Amazon isn't coming to NYC.

People aren't leaving NYC - the city's still growing in population despite being, again, by far the largest city in the country. NYC's doing fine. NYC will be continue to be fine without Amazon. Nashville can be fine too.

I'm not trashing your city, I don't know why you feel the need to trash mine.

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