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Comment by offtop5 | Hacker News Reader

Okay, cheaper American city !

Sadly most american cities are cheap for a reason, unless you're into suburban life obviously.

One of these reasons is often the lack of jobs. Suburbs are actually often fairly expensive since they try to bring the good of the country (individual houses, bigger lots) closer to the city where good jobs are located.

Actually I found Chicago to be extremely affordable, and really lively. The absolute friendliest people on earth.

If remote work holds up I expect to see San Fran's real estate market, at least it's rental market collapse

The cost of living in Chicago is amazing for a Top 3 metro. My theory has always been that the winter weather discount is baked into the CoL.

Such a great place, I try to tell, particularly young people how important picking the right city is. If you pick a bad City, you're going to end up not being able to afford to live your life will be needlessly stressful, you won't be able to find a partner. But if you pick a good city live can be pretty good

Chicago has a wealthy, top-tier global city of 500k inside a depressed Rust Belt city of 2.5M. There's significantly less economic and population pressure on the core global city.

Chicago's a very nice city. There are basically three main factors keeping the cost low currently:

1. Population decline. 2. A very large amount of good housing stock. Chicago's completely flat with solid public transit reaching out to the suburbs. 3. Lower proportion of tech and startups. Similar to how tech has driven up the CoL in many cities, the relative lack of tech in Chicago has kept CoL down.

Winter is rough in Chicago, but the CoL in Boston has skyrocketed which invalidates that as being the _only_ reason.

Agreed, weather cannot be the only reason. What drives the population decline in Chicago despite the low CoL?

Rising tax burden and fiscal mismanagement. Check out property taxes and the debt Chicago, Cook County, and the state carry.

Your dollars go further in Tennessee, Florida, or Texas (all of which have no state income tax).

Chicago has a huge part (1M+) that's effectively a Rust Belt city like Cleveland, St. Louis, or Detroit. It has deindustrialized and suffered disinvestment, and anyone in that section that has the ability to leave does.

> If remote work holds up I expect to see San Fran's real estate market, at least it's rental market collapse

San Francisco's climate, walkable hoods, having a ton of things to do will probably make it come back from the dead even if the tech industry were to actually leave.

Just curious, why a city? What does a city give you personally that a town doesn't?

Public transportation.

Events and opportunities to socialize.

Even if I have a family one day, I still would want my kids to take language classes , etc.

I hate driving ( particularly when commuting), so a town wouldn't really work.

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