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Comment by brenden2 | Hacker News Reader

Desirable areas will always be (relatively) more expensive. Even if we see significant deflation (which is unlikely given the scale of money printing), these areas (NYC, SF) will probably remain expensive so long as they remain significant culturally and economically. When it becomes uncool to live in SF or NYC, then perhaps people will move to places like Wyoming en masse.

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Silicon Valley and San Francisco are two different things.

Most junior people in Silicon Valley live in cookie-cutter apartment buildings smack in the middle of a vast wasteland of anonymous subdivisions. Pull up some satellite views and take a look.

That's not desirable. It's just expensive.

I always lived near work, mostly with roommates. It's definitely possible to do, you just need to be willing to figure out a way. I would rather have a short commute than anything else, plus I prefer living with other people.

Thats something that has always amused me about the peninsula (other than SF). Other than the weather there really isn't anything remarkable about the place.

The cultural amenities of cities are in serious jeopardy, generally. Many of the restaurants, clubs, theaters, museums, bars, etc that make the city a desirable place may never reopen.

Restaurants and bars require very little capital to open (the low barrier to entry explains why margins are so low in the industry). Even if many of the existing restaurants go out of business, new ones will quickly open up once the pandemic is over and people start going out again (which might take a little while, to be fair).

They'll all be replaced. Theaters, for example, will rebound because they're still sitting there, even if they need a new owner. The demand for food, drinks, and entertainment will still exist, even if it's reduced somewhat, and the costs of opening a business and low competition will make for some very tempting business opportunities for entrepreneurs.

These are also the same cultural amenities that make a rural area desirable (what's really left after you've listed everything). These businesses are far more likely to come back in cities with different investors, they may never open up again in rural areas.

Sure, but that's likely only temporary. And if it's not, then we probably have much worse things to worry about than which cities are hip.

Parts of Wyoming (Jackson area) have actually been having lots of people (relatively) moving there and is now surprisingly expensive.

Perhaps Wyoming wasn't the best example, but I was looking for something very sparsely populated and WY fits that bill.

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