New Yorkers consider relocating post coronavirus | Hacker News Reader

New Yorkers consider relocating post coronavirus

movebuddha.com

84 pointsrcarrigan87137 comments

I think the aftermath of coronavirus is really going to be larger that most people are anticipating when it comes to work and migration patterns:

1. In the past 25 years there has been a huge re-migration back to cores of major cities. I think that is going to stop.

2. Suburbs and exurbs I think will become way more popular. The normal limiting factor on those locations is the commute, but I think so many more companies will be used to remote work after this (even if they don't necessarily prefer it) that you'll see a lot more "come into the office once or twice a week" type things that make living in the exurbs a lot more bearable.

3. I don't foresee migration away from the major metros. People will still go where the jobs are, and if anything I see the pandemic making strong companies stronger and smaller, weaker companies weaker. Definitely would not be willing to put a lot of money down on this 3rd point, though, could see a trend toward 2nd/3rd tier cities.

I think your third point is mostly strong. I see most companies going to partial remote but staying in their current locations. For growth to 2nd/3rd tier cities to dominate we’d need to see stronger job growth there than in major metros, or for near universal remote work. Also with this huge recession most people will be more hesitant to move without a secured job. I think your assertion is correct.

Disagreement on #2 and #3:

#2: Suburbs/exurbs are completely unsustainable. I'd predict that after this is over, local food sources will figure prominently on people's minds. We might see a return to smaller satellite cities if zoning changes to a saner mixed zoning approach. (You don't want big box stores. You do want smaller stores embedded in the local community. I'm not sure there's the political will to go there, because small stores can't afford making lots of campaign donations)

#3 depends highly on how long we'll be distancing. At some point, habits will be formed, and cities will be less appealing. Combine that with likely increased WFH, and way too high rent in cities, and migration might be tempting. I'd hope the satellite cities are smart enough to densify accordingly (because urban sprawl is unsustainable, but again, many interests aligned against that).

Independent point #4 - the importance of communities you're actually part of is currently driven home. I think the desire to be close to family/friends/social groups might increase. (There's the counter argument of our new habits of video socializing, but it's fundamentally less appealing than knowing people who have your back are living close to you)

A lot of these patterns hinges ultimately on how willing companies will be to continue WFH. There's also the interesting question what happens with lots of useless office space if we do move to large-scale WFH on a persistent basis.

In general, I'd expect lots of higher-order effects ricocheting through society for a long time to come :)

Saying that suburbs and exurbs are "completely unsustainable" is a massive exaggeration.

It's a meme that just won't die even when we are currently seeing the major downsides of very high population densities. I moved from SF to a suburb in another state (with a balanced budget requirement) and have 3x the space for ⅓ the price. I am still closer in commute time to the major job centers than most of my SF coworkers were.

High density neighbourhoods are too popular, nobody lives in those places anymore.

Unlike restaurants, which the original quote referred to, people sometimes live in places they don't like because of extenuating circumstances. Just because a whole bunch of people are living in densely-packed neighborhoods doesn't mean they all want to live in them.

If nobody wanted to live in these places they wouldn't be so expensive. Law of supply and demand.

If you define "want" to include "have to be close to work to have a shot at career progression".

That sounds like an allusion to a Yogi Berraism, but I don't think it really is.

When I lived downtown within a 10 minute walk of work, it was pretty nice, but most of the space was not apartments; it was commercial. Offices, restaurants, etc. In fact, my apartment was a converted hotel - the sort of place I couldn't hope to afford in NYC or DC.

So, isn't it kind of normal for central urban areas to be too dense and high rent for (normal) people to live in?

Conversely, I'm living within city limits now, but practically it's indistinguishable from (and adjoining) "suburbs" so saying people need to live in this sort of place instead seems meaningless to me.

"...and way too high rent in cities..."

Rental cost merely reflect the supply and demand. A significant drop in demand should put pressure on rental costs. However, I'm skeptic that such a drop will come from "the desire to be close to family/friends/social groups". People moved against that before and I don't see that changing. I also don't see any time soon people getting less interested in the opportunity that comes with city life.

We've currently got an extended period of time ahead, where we'll have to learn to do without a lot of the cultural opportunities that come with city life.

A lot will depend on how much and how rapidly lockdown can be eased. If we spend 18-24 months without many of the benefits/opportunities of city life, or at least with those opportunities significantly diminished, culture will rapidly shift to different models - and those are likely more location independent.

And yes, of course rent is a supply/demand question, but the current experience is "the rent is too damn high", and that puts a certain amount of pressure on city living. Take away enough upsides, and it's not worth it any more.

Rent might drop as a result, but it will be a lagging indicator of cities becoming unpopular.

At the same time, closeness to social groups is being valued higher, because we're currently learning that a lonely/isolated life is not a good life. And, like any traumatic event, we're also learning that a supportive community matters, a lot.

You seem to assume that current forces and values hold, despite a global traumatic event. I think that we're in for a complete change of the landscape. The future will tell.

Long-term NYC resident here (I haven't hit my decade yet, so I'll avoid calling myself a New Yorker to dodge any ire).

I've heard rumblings from a lot of people about moving out, mostly from people who haven't really set down roots here - which makes sense. The appeal of New York is largely all the stuff to do, and without being able to do stuff you're just stuck in a very small space that you pay a lot of money for.

Most of the people I hear this from expect social-distancing type measures to continue for quite some time, so especially those with small children/etc. are really thinking about whether they can do this for another year.

Interestingly I haven't really met anyone considering leaving the city because of the virus itself (i.e. because of concern due to population density), only those really feeling the lifestyle restrictions. They're responsible and social distancing, etc. so the thought of continuing that lifestyle without significantly more living space is getting to them.

>Interestingly I haven't really met anyone considering leaving the city because of the virus itself (i.e. because of concern due to population density), only those really feeling the lifestyle restrictions.

Are you really even meeting people at all though considering pretty much everyone in NYC is home in isolation.

I left when Day Care closed and am not sure how I feel about ever returning while social distancing is still common sense. Because Day Care is essentially exposing yourself to the germs carried by twenty other children, their families, the caregivers, and their families.

Yeah, quite a few people with small children I know have left to be close to parents/in-laws (somewhat I assume to get some help with the additional childcare burden), and I'm curious to see if they come back.

I'm one of those people who live

"I'm not leaving because of the virus, I'm leaving because because of the virus I can't go out"

Strange distinction to make, isn't it?

Eh, not really.

A lot of the discussion revolves around mortality rates, and in particular about NYC as the US epicenter.

Most people I talk to who are thinking about leaving the city aren't concerned about their own risk as a result of being in a dense urban center, rather the lifestyle adjustments are the most difficult thing for them.

Granted that's almost entirely because most people I talk to are relatively healthy young adults who are being responsible and avoiding contact as much as possible, so they're not concerned as much about their own mortality or being a possible vector for others.

I mean, they kinda are concerned about the risk of mortality, aren't they? That's the only reason they're not going about their lives as normal. If you removed the risk of mortality, surely their lifestyles would return to normal, and they would have no reason to leave?

> I mean, they kinda are concerned about the risk of mortality, aren't they?

Not their own mortality, which is a pretty major distinction. They're social distancing largely so they don't spread it to other, more susceptible, people unwittingly.

In the aftermath of 9/11, nobody wanted to live in skyscrapers. But that fear soon faded and prices went back up.

It's probably too early to tell if this is a lasting trend.

Yeah, the double-wammy of 9/11/01 and the post-tech-bubble recession drove people out of NYC for a while. Vacancies went up and re prices went down. But it didn't last forever, obviously. It is hard to say if this will be different--we're going to be living with this for some time at some level, and it's still hard to say how much for how long.

As a native New Yorker there's so much about this that bugs me.

One, talk is cheap.

Two, what happened in NYC was not destined to be, and it's an easy lie leaders and those who look down on New Yorkers love to spread. Lots of big dense cities have handled this crisis well, just like some rural areas have not. Epidemics have been devastating throughout human history.

Three, to the people who live here and see this as inevitable and would rather flee than work together and fix the issue and protect our communities - good riddance.

I'm considering relocating from Seattle purely based on the fact that we can make WFH commonplace. Why pay insane rents to physically be in a location I can work remotely?

Because Seattle's a pretty great city to live in? You can still easily find rent below $1500/month for a 1 bedroom on Capitol Hill, it isn't too insane.

Editing to add Seattle has world-class rock climbing, mountaineering, and hiking under an hour's drive from downtown, and if you aren't doing that you're probably missing out on half the joy of living here.

I lived in Chicago and paid $1500/mo for a 1500 sq/ft loft in River North, AC, dishwasher, in-unit laundry. The rents here are insane compared to other places.

How long ago was this?

For a smaller place (900sqft for a 2 or 3 bedroom) they're asking $3200 in logan square.

Right arround the corner (western/armitage) they're asking $1800 for a studio.

This was 7 years ago. It was also on the top floor of a building with no elevator, so there were contributing factors to the $/foot. Everywhere I lived in Chicago got much more "bang for the buck" than Seattle though. Better summers and winters (I enjoy snow), and much better food as well. The difference in the homeless situation was shocking as well. The only thing Seattle has going for it, imo, is the nearby nature, but I honestly haven't taken advantage of it to warrant the cost of living increases on everything else.

If you’re in a trendy neighborhood in new construction, sure. There are plenty of neighborhoods where you can. Get $1.6/sqft

Chicago rents have been increasing but nowhere near west coast or east coast prices

Those are becoming further and further way from the city. Even Pilsen is seeing costs higher than that.

You can still get $1500/mo for a 2br on the north side. Just be on the brown line instead of the blue line.

The trendy neighborhoods can be just as expensive as SF SOMA, but there's so much inventory, so the non-trendy but nice neighborhoods are much, much cheaper.

Not sure people will want to live in a one bedroom if they start working from home even some of the time, you want space.

Define "great". A lot of people don't give a fuck about blings aside from cushy job. So far blings are what make up for the sad reality of city living. But if cushy jobs are not restricted to few areas anymore... Why bother.

Most companies are not going to go fully distributed. Partial remote? Sure. Maybe a few full remote roles set aside for superstars? Sure. But mass distributed remote? Highly unlikely. This experiment hasn’t gone that well.

> "Because Seattle's a pretty great city to live in?"

I feel like thats a minority opinion. The weather is terrible, the food is terrible, service at restaurants (or pretty much service in general) is terrible. A huge portion of the city shuts down at night. Where NYC is a city that doesn't sleep, Seattle sleeps. There are drug needles in the streets, and I routinely see homeless people defecating on sidewalks. I even saw a bus stop turned into a homeless person's 'house'.

The only thing I see that Seattle has going for it is low taxes.

> Where NYC is a city that doesn't sleep, Seattle sleeps

Are there any other US cities that don't sleep?

I'd argue Las Vegas.

NYC bars close at 4am. Las Vegas bars don't close. I don't think there's much of an argument, really.

Agreed.

So two cities then?

I'm a native New Yorker with all the chauvinism that comes with it, but I didn't find Seattle that bad! The weather is no worse than New York's brutal humidity in the summer. The food isn't that bad. Sure the Asian food is thoroughly mediocre compared to New York's, but that's mostly cause New York has great Asian food. The seafood is wonderful too. Service wasn't that bad either—I suspect that's very subjective. Sure, Seattle does shut down at night but how many cities realistically have an all night culture? Even New York's "city that never sleeps" is super exaggerated. There's only a handful of places that stay open past 2-3 am (Gammeeok, Veselka, Coppelia, Great NY Noodletown, Wonjo if you want a few). The homeless does seem to be a problem, albeit I'd say the homeless in Seattle are a little less grungy (heh) then New York's.

"New York's brutal humidity in the summer. "

Dude, either I have been away too long from NYC or you have not lived in hot humid places.

New York isn't as bad as say, Houston or SE Asia, but the subway platforms can get pretty bad: https://ny.curbed.com/2018/8/10/17674900/nyc-subway-summer-h...

Compare this to Seattle where I could wear a sweater in August and I'd say it's brutal.

> "Compare this to Seattle where I could wear a sweater in August and I'd say it's brutal."

That just means New York has a summer time.

I never found New York very humid, but Seattle is more humid than New York.

* World-class rock climbing, mountaineering, and hiking less than an hour's drive from downtown

* I moved here from Canada, the weather really isn't that bad; it's been a beautiful spring here while all my Canadian friends are still dealing with snow

* Seattle has a huge number of sakura and so the city has beautiful pink cherry blossom clouds everywhere for the entire month of April

* The entire environment is so incredibly lush & green; it's called the Emerald City for a reason!

* The food is quite good, actually

It's funny that the thing you think Seattle has going for it - low taxes - directly contributes to the issue of homelessness and half of your complaints.

The uniquely differentiating thing in Seattle is the geography (as you say). If you don't care about having nearby skiing and mountaineering (and more but you get the idea), you can do better elsewhere.

> low taxes - directly contributes to the issue of homelessness and half of your complaints.

I've lived here for 40 years. It's always had low taxes, but the problems you're talking about are very recent.

Yes, the rise in rent has been quite dramatic recently - and our social services have been utterly ill-prepared to handle the fallout, because of low taxes.

Despite low tax rates, tax revenue for the city has risen dramatically alongside the local economic boom.

Yes, but real estate prices have risen even faster - and helping people experiencing homelessness fundamentally requires real estate to house them.

So you're saying that we should raise taxes to spend on the homeless problem? That hasn't worked for San Francisco, which spends a crazy amount per person and the only thing they have to show for it is more homelessness. Perhaps your heuristic is wrong. Perhaps, when you pay for something, you tend to get more of it, not less.

I can't think of a single place that spends money on homelessness that doesn't get more of it.

Furthermore, if a city is expensive and getting more expensive like SF and Seattle, it means that city is becoming harder for people without decent earning power to stick around. It's like a video game being changed from easy mode to hard mode. Seattle and SF are hard mode, which means most people at the bottom will fail to ever succeed there. By spending the money in Seattle and San Francisco, you're throwing good money after bad money because you're helping many people stay in a place in which they likely won't ever succeed. The money would be better spent in locales around the country where it's easy mode for someone to get back on their feet.

Trying to solve homelessness in Seattle and San Francisco is one of the most egregious wastes of money I've ever seen. It's practically a homelessness industrial complex in San Francisco already and starting to become one in Seattle. Everyone advocating most ardently for it are people whose salary is paid from these tax dollars. It's the Shirky Principle in action.

https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/

The only viable long-term solution to homelessness is building socialized housing with integrated mental health services. The patchwork of shelters and social programs will never work. Building socialized housing requires a lot of money, and this is what the Tax Amazon movement is trying to accomplish: https://www.taxamazon.net/sign

I ardently advocate for this and my salary isn't paid by it, because I want to live in a strong society where shelter is provided for everyone who needs it. Your vision of society is, what, to ship people off somewhere else? Out of sight out of mind, right?

> The only viable long-term solution to homelessness is building socialized housing with integrated mental health services.

Back up that assertion with evidence. Also include evidence showing that places like Seattle and San Francisco are the best places to implement such solutions.

> and this is what the Tax Amazon movement is trying to accomplish: https://www.taxamazon.net/sign

Why should Amazon pay for this? If you think this is so important and the right solution, how much money have you donated towards this? If you're expecting Amazon to pay for this then you've got no skin in the game and risk nothing by being wrong.

> I ardently advocate for this and my salary isn't paid by it

And as an ardent advocate, how much have you spent on this?

> Your vision of society is, what, to ship people off somewhere else? Out of sight out of mind, right?

I have no vision. I'm a utilitarian and care purely about successful outcomes, optics be damned. I'm just not so naive as to think that the best place to try and get people back on their feet are places where they stand the least chance of doing so because even competent, educated people that have no vices like drug addiction have to work hard to succeed in a place like Seattle and San Francisco.

Your approach just puts people in the middle of the ocean, but gives them a life jackets. They are almost certainly still going to drown under those conditions. My proposal is to find a kiddy pool or at least someplace shallow with calm waters and give them a life jacket.

You have to have more heart than brains to think some of the most expensive, competitive markets like Seattle and San Francisco are good places to try and get people back on their feet again. And if you genuinely think that such an approach is a good one, you should be the first to spend your hard-earned money to prove it.

I donated $12.5k to Plymouth Housing (housing-first org in Seattle) last year, which was matched by Microsoft to $25k. It barely matters, voluntary individual charity won't solve structural problems. Given that half your post is now an utterly wrong & irrelevant personal attack, I have license to tell you your mode of interaction here (and in other comments, from a brief perusal of your profile) comes off as incredibly smug and not nearly so clever as you clearly believe. We've all read Taleb, you don't have intellectual superpowers from knowing what skin in the game is.

The Tax Amazon movement would also levy a tax on Microsoft, because it's a tax on all big businesses which operate within Seattle, which I'm perfectly happy about, but I'm sure you're very used to being wrong about everything so this matters not.

I have no idea how you can care about "successful outcomes" without vision since success is not a value-free metric. That should suffice to make you think a bit, I'm going to cut short the gish-gallop here because interacting with you is generally unpleasant. Goodbye.

So you work for Microsoft, which explains why you're interested in taxing Amazon. Good to know that your conflict of interest is now laid bare. Your salary may not be paid by the homelessness industrial complex, but it is paid by a direct competitor to the entity you want to see taxed to pay for this. Let's tax Microsoft instead.

You're really stuck on this desire to expose my fraudulent underlying motivations for not wanting homeless people to die in the streets. You'll be happy to learn far smarter people than you have taken a crack at this problem! Go read the first few sections of Industrial Society and its Future and you'll have all the ammo you need to attack leftist motivations. Its analysis is quite a bit more robust than your (frankly, extremely basic) idea that everyone must have a financial stake in policy to desire its realization. Happy to help.

> You're really stuck on this desire to expose my fraudulent underlying motivations for not wanting homeless people to die in the streets

What's fraudulent is your shameless promotion of taxing a direct competitor of your employer.

Many of your comments on this HN story have included a plug for the tax amazon pac, making all those comments basically political spam and spam has no place on HN.

> You'll be happy to learn far smarter people than you have taken a crack at this problem! Go read the first few sections of Industrial Society and its Future

Referencing the Unabomber? Really? Someone sending mail bombs and killing innocent people is your idea of "far smarter people than you have taken a crack at this problem"? In one breathe you say you don't want people dying in the street, and in the next you're quoting a serial murderer.

> your (frankly, extremely basic) idea that everyone must have a financial stake in policy to desire its realization.

People can desire the realization of whatever policy they want. However, if they have no skin in the game, that desire can be summarily dismissed by others, especially by those that do have skin in the game.

The Tax Amazon movement also would tax Microsoft, because it's a tax on all big businesses which operate in Seattle. You struck out yet?

This is a payroll tax for employees that work in Seattle. The overwhelming majority of Microsoft employees are in Redmond, Bellevue and Issaquah and the overwhelming majority of Amazon employees are in Seattle. I can't even find an address for a Microsoft office in Seattle. All I can find is a single Microsoft retail store. This initiative would cost Microsoft peanuts and Amazon tons. It's now clear that you're willfully misrepresenting this initiative.

Yep. It's totally terrible. Possibly even the worst. Don't move there- and if you are there, please leave!

> The only thing I see that Seattle has going for it is low taxes.

The Seattle City Council is tirelessly working to fix that.

God yes, I left there for my hometown a year ago and it's so much better. I have sunlight again, I live in a 3-bedroom house in the middle of town that I pay 2/3 of what I paid for a decaying 2br in the U, there's all kinds of colorful wildlife around, there's a thriving arts scene because people who are not making big IT money can actually afford to live there. And homelessness is much more under control, Seattle was insane on that front.

I miss legal weed, but I sure don't miss much of anything else in Seattle.

$1500/month is absolutely insane for one bedroom lol

My apartment is $850 and that gets me 2 bedrooms, 1200sqft. In a definitely not as large city mind you, but $1500 is insanely expensive for one bedroom.

Ever looked into San Francisco prices?

SF is practically free compared to a room on the International Space Station.

what kinds of businesses can you walk to?

Paying double my rent is not worth being able to walk more places, sorry bud.

> world-class rock climbing, mountaineering, and hiking under an hour's drive from downtown,

Seems like you could have all of that without living in downtown...

Yeah, but then you lack all the benefits of the city. Downtown isn't a nice place to live, also.

You can maybe get a micro studio in cap hill for $1500/mo, but any 1 Bed / 1 Bath at that price point probably hasn't been renovated since 1974. You need to spend 50% more to get something "decent", and your walking commute to actual jobs is going to approach 30 minutes for the lower priced stuff.

Let go of your desire to have something built within the past five years and your horizons broaden considerably. There are plenty of beautiful buildings just a few blocks off the Pike/Pine corridor that are perfectly comfortable & livable. A quick look at craigslist confirms this, although prices are higher now that weather is nice - you can usually save $200/month by renewing your lease in January or February.

In those old buildings without a concierge your packages will get stolen and you'll be living in a high crime area. I've lived in old places before and it's terrible. At minimum, you deal with poor infrastructure (no in unit laundry or dish washer) and bugs. Prices are actually low due to COVID. I've lived nearby to Pike and Pine and know the area well.

I'm happy to maximize my TC and not worry about the extra $10k a year to live in a nice, modern building.

You can move to the country like me, but you'll give up: * steady cellular signal * internet competition * cuisine diversity of restaurants * tech meetups

But you gain: * cheap land * neighbors with skills beyond typing * cheaper labor pool for assistance you might need (electrician, plumber, private pilot training, etc, etc)

Browsing of real estate ads probably isn't a strong indicator. It's something people can do while home and frustrated, but it's not action.

...or at least provide a better constant? Due to WFH, free time, and general discontent I'm sure site traffic for any location is up. How does the increase in suburb searches compare to the (likely) increase in urban searches?

I saw a statistic that 0.25% of NYC’s population has already died from Coronavirus (15k/6m). It seems worse there due to the density, and similarly dense cities like London are in the same boat.

Yeah, that statistic is what I point out to people who claim that the IFR from coronavirus is actually tiny due to undiagnosed infections.

The biggest spike in the local death rate since 9/11/01 is not "just another flu season". Though NYC's population is probably closer to 9m now.

Biggest spike, period.

NYC confirmed deaths related to Covid-19: 7,890 and counting.[1]

9/11 death toll: 2,996.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-citys-coronavirus-deat...

citation please?

Doesn't seem quite right but not too far off. .25% of NYC's population is 21,000.

Johns Hopkins shows 14,451 deaths as of now: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

As of today, 10,344 confirmed deaths [0] from COVID-19, of a population of 8.4m [1] is 0.12% [2].

This is less than the original parent states, but only by 2x.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=coronav...

[1] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nyc+pop...

[2] Elementary math?

NYS has 18,776 deaths as of today’s count.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

That’s New York State. My numbers are for the city proper.

Not all the deaths are tested for COVID. Those that aren't don't make it into the stats. [1]

Overall mortality, compared to the baseline, has skyrocketed in the past few weeks. For the March 4 - April 4 time period, it was double the usual rate. [2]

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/corona...

Yes, this is a very obvious and severe underestimate for sure. But the point is that the death rate must be at least 0.12%!

Look up a death toll

Look up population

Derive percentage

https://www.google.com/search?q=nyc+population says 8.4M

https://www.google.com/search?q=corona+death+toll+nyc says 10k

https://nypost.com/2020/04/18/nyc-coronavirus-deaths-near-13... says 13k

This gives 0.1%. The OP's numbers are based on 6M population & 15k deaths. I believe their trying to cite total deaths, not just covid-19 related. Their NYC region also seems to be more localized

It doesn't just seem worse, it is worse (a lot worse), at least so far.

Sort this table by per-capita total deaths: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

And that's just by state. NYC proper is likely even worse than that would suggest.

Important to point out that about 155k people die in NY every year. About 1% of Americans die each year, so there is a crucial distinction between dying with a disease, and dying of a disease.

Risk is not additive. The median age for covid deaths is well into the late 70s, which means that there is a high risk of death in the same period anyway would the person not have been infected with covid.

The overall mortality numbers will be up, but throwing that stat out there is hugely misleading.

This seems to misrepresent overall mortality with cause-specific mortality.

If I'm struck by a car with stage 4 cancer, the car accident killed me, regardless of my outlook. If that car accident happens to be highly contagious, well then the cause is even more important.

> Risk is not additive.

It isn't always, but it very often is and it is in this case.

> If I'm struck by a car with stage 4 cancer, the car accident killed me, regardless of my outlook.

this is not obviously true. the analogy is good, but you didn't go into enough detail.

if someone with terminal cancer is hit by a car, makes it to a hospital, and dies some weeks later, why did they die? both things likely played a role; how do you report this statistic?

i stopped worrying about the virus and started worrying about the economy and its politics weeks ago.

if someone dies in a traffic death while having stage four cancer then this would indeed not change year on year mortality (assuming the person dies of cancer).

This is an awful example though because the victim profile of car deaths is generally middle aged adults, who would not have died otherwise. If your average car driver was a stage four cancer patient traffic safety would indeed be less of an issue relatively speaking.

The risk profile of covid patients skews so heavily towards old age and existing preconditions that it is actually not trivial at all. It's immensely important to look at death rates in the context of general mortality, not a vacuum.

It may very well be the case that covid 'crams' the deaths of people who would have died anyway into a short timeframe and there'll be singificantly lower flu mortality and so on later this year.

> It may very well be the case that covid 'crams' the deaths of people who would have died anyway into a short timeframe

You've highlighted the exact problem with your argument via this supposition.

Population of NYC was 8.4e6 in 2018

There are other densely populated areas in the US, namely LA Metropolitan Area, South Florida metropolitan Area and Boston metropolitan area. E.g. NYC area is 26,403 people per mile^2, and Boston metropolitan area is 13,841 people per mile^2. But NYC seems to be doing much worse than 2 times worse than Boston. Maybe it's because NYC population is older? E.g. in Boston 52% of deaths are from LTC facilities (yesterday's data), which seems to imply virus hasn't penetrated into community that much.

I don't think you should be expecting people per square mile to scale 1:1 with mortality rate anyhow. I would guess putting twice as many people within a square would result in the virus spreading an order of magnitude faster. Similar to how increasing infection radius in an SIR model increases spread by much more.

On the other hand, California has a much lower death rate despite having cities with a population density in the same magnitude as NYC, which seems to suggest some level of luck of the draw here in initial unrecorded spread before lockdowns came into place.

> California has a much lower death rate despite having cities with a population density in the same magnitude as NYC

New York is denser than any city in California.

"New York is far more crowded than any other major city in the United States. It has 28,000 residents per square mile, while San Francisco, the next most jammed city, has 17,000, according to data from the U.S. Census Bur"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-...

If it's just density, why does SF have so few deaths (20), fewer than cities much less dense than SF? eg Seattle is much less dense but has 15x as many deaths as SF. There is clearly an element of chance/which sub-population was infected/timing of responses in play here.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/04/07...

From another thread, subway?

Subway doesn’t explain why Seattle more than SF.

Basically only timing of shelter-in-place does.

Manhattan 69,467 per square mile (Wikipedia).

This doesn't explain Staten Island. Its population density is half of San Francisco's, its population half, but has had 533 deaths vs. SF's 20.

And a sibling thread mentioned the subway; it doesn't go to Staten Island.

I'm going to venture a guess that lifestyle is a huge factor in the difference. People are generally more active out west (better weather, more open spaces/ parks/ mountains, better beaches, etc.) and smoke far fewer cigarettes.

Non-New Yorkers love to speculate about the end of New York with a passion which fascinates me as someone who has lived here for two decades. I love it here. Not for everyone. If you dig your exurb keep at it and enjoy.

NYC always has a transient crowd and a permanent crowd. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of the people who would have moved to the burbs within 1-5 years are accelerating that timeline. For us permanent residents we can't imagine living anywhere else. All of this was said after 9/11. I don't find that my rent today is lower than it was in 2002.

Let me also add that people today are fleeing dense areas under the belief that they can escape Coronavirus. Newsflash - everyone is probably going to get this. Flatten the curve was never about escaping the virus altogether - it is about smoothing out the burden on the healthcare system.

> Non-New Yorkers love to speculate about the end of New York with a passion which fascinates me

What makes you say this? Looks like it's pretty much only "New-Yorkers" commenting on this submission...

Not just New Yorkers, and not just 'post' Coronavirus. I've seen a fairly large number of people that had moved within the EU to other countries move back to their original home country because they don't want to be cut off from their family.

The scale of the search interest is hard to understand because no numbers are provided, just percentages.

Searches are up 250%. Percent of what? 1000 searches? 1 million searches? I understand that this post is content marketing for the company, but I haven't heard of it before, so I don't know if they can simply toss out a YOY % and claim that it's a trend. Reading the article, it's also not clear that the queries were coming from users based in NYC.

I think looking at something like Google Trends might be more representative of interest, as you can filter the data by State, try different search terms and see the % change by day, week, year or 5 years.

I've entertained the idea, but then again, if I stick around I might get a sweet deal on a condo.

Property prices are definitely already declining in the city, so this could be a smart move as well.

Seoul is sounding pretty appealing right now.

SF Bay Area is the best.

Corona already widely spread for months before lockdown, so no need to feel alarmed now. Grocery stores are packed and very few reported cases!

Seoul is very close to the North Korean border, I doubt you would sleep much easier.

Every time there's an earthquake in California a bunch of people consider relocating. Very few actually do.

This isn’t any surprise, we will see a swelling of growth in Westchester, Long Island, Southern Connecticut, and Northern New Jersey, especially if partial remote work stays normalised as well. I don’t see a massive exodus out of the metro area, but the suburban share will likely grow.

Growth in those areas is supply-constrained, though. There aren't a ton of available homes; construction lags demand; there isn't all that much undeveloped land left in those counties; and they'll all be resistant to denser zoning.

Note that NYC has seen net outmigration for a few years now [1], so this could be just an acceleration of that trend.

[1] https://nypost.com/2019/12/30/new-york-is-losing-residents-a...

In recent weeks I've been getting different ads from usual, particularly ones for luxury NYC apartments, such as in Brooklyn, e.g. $4K/month. I'm roughly 3 hours away. People will tell you that the ad algorithm knows all, but I can't imagine why this makes sense.

America is devolving into a Margaret Atwood dystopia so quickly that the frog may already be boiling in the pot at this point

Densely urban ... obese[1][2] and sedentary ... contagion free.

Choose two.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States

[2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/obesity.p...

Alright -- I choose densely urban and contagion free

‘Location location location’

Doesn’t hurt to test proverbs. I personally wouldn’t bet against it.

WFH will become norm and folks can move around easily.

Not for a great number of people.

I love WFH and work for a large company which shifted to WFH early and in which in theory remote work should be very doable.

My hope for this experience was that people would realize how productive WFH is and this would be great because it would normalize it and everyone would realize how well it works and... my perception of the reaction to it is unfortunately that most people at the company are wildly negative about it right now. Across the board. So much so that it's kind of shocked me. I had to stop talking about how much I liked it because it was upsetting people.

I wish people wouldn't judge the productivity of WFH from doing so under a duress during a pandemic but I'm actually really worried this whole experience is pushing people to be more convinced that WFH is unproductive than they were before the pandemic :(

Right now WFH has a negative public perception because kids are at home and nobody can leave their home. So there is a lot of frustration that I can understand. But once it is all over, imagine folks working remotely and able to move around the world with freedom and bring more creativity because of their newfound happiness.

Talk is cheap.

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