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Comment by chrismealy | Hacker News Reader

The reason nice places like SF and NYC are so expensive is that nobody is trying to make more nice places. Tony Hsieh is doing a great thing to trying to make a new nice place.

It's too bad the blocks in Vegas are so large (looks like 380x480) and the streets so wide. It'll be really hard to ever make that appealing, especially given the climate.

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> nobody is trying to make more nice places.

One of the things I learned from an open-ended road trip around half the United States a while back is that there are lots of nice places... maybe more than there's actually time to see, apparently more than the number of slots most US citizens have in their head for Nice Places(TM). And I'm glad some of my favorites are off the mainstream map, because it means I can better afford real estate there (though for most of these the locals and local developers are making it more expensive anyway).

It's arguable that some places offer unique levels of specific opportunities, and if SF and NY are like that for you, there's nothing wrong with choosing them. But there's a whole country of nice places between the two.

> It's too bad the blocks in Vegas are so large (looks like 380x480) and the streets so wide.

This is far from LV's biggest problem; well-subdivided blocks interspersed with good paths suitable for pedestrians and light vehicles could work out fine, keeping auto traffic proper at the periphery, maybe something people don't even have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

The "380x480" blocks comment reminds me of this talk by an urban planner on why people want to live in (European-like) cities, the grid layout seems to be a problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rUH63c1n0c&t=5m24s

that talk is fascinating for the illustration of employment density too, and this factoid: 43% of new yorkers live within 400m of a subway station

Great perspective. I'm curious... would you mind indulging us in a couple of said favorites that are off the mainstream radar?

Well, there are lots of Nice Places(TM) in the US but they're nice across an incredibly wide range of attributes. And the Nice Places I'd want to live in (to say nothing of be likely to get a job in or near) are a pretty subset of the Nice Places I enjoy visiting.

SF and NYC aren't near the nicest places in the US. The reason NYC and SF are so expensive is because of an inability to develop outward (or even upward in SF's case).

Chicago is a fantastic city, with plenty that those cities have, and plenty more that they don't. And yet, a good portion of the neighborhoods have reasonable rent.

NYC is needlessly expensive but not by as much as you think. Building very dense cities is a thing that costs money, and if you look at very dense well-developed cities with good economies, only Hong Kong and Singapore come in as slightly cheaper.

Most of the parts of NYC near the city center are so dense you need to build n-story mid-rise or high-rise condos if you want to add more people. That is expensive even if there were no political barriers.

nyc is also helped once you realize you can get by with zero cars. Your transport cost is $112/mo for an unlimited metro card plus perhaps $100/mo for the odd cab. That replaces car payment, insurance, parking, gas, and repairs -- easily $400+/mo.

Edit: and, distinctly contrary to sf, you won't miss a car. There is a food delivery culture: you may assume the vast majority of restaurants deliver. Seamless web is amazing. Groceries, gyms, dry cleaners, wash-and-folds, restaurants, and delis are so close to the majority of places you can live that you have no need for a vehicle.

> nyc is also helped once you realize you can get by with zero cars. Your transport cost is $112/mo for an unlimited metro card plus perhaps $100/mo for the odd cab. That replaces car payment, insurance, parking, gas, and repairs -- easily $400+/mo.

Now consider the rent differential between NYC and any other "cars required" city in the US. There goes your $400 and then some...

Um, duh? parent of my comment's thesis:

   NYC is needlessly expensive but not by as much as you think.

me: mentions supporting fact

   nyc costs are comparatively helped by not needing a car!

No one claimed nyc is cheaper, merely that just looking at rent doesn't accurately account for the real price differences. Note also that is a $200-$300 cost savings per person, so double it for a couple. And there is a QOL improvement: taking the train and either reading a book or merely being half-zoned out and sipping coffee is much better than driving.

I do know people who by choice live in SF without a car and are mostly fine with it. They also use Zipcar and rentals as needed. That said, NYC (esp. Manhattan) is probably unique in the US in the degree to which not owning a car is just part of the culture. Some do own cars of course--not sure the %--but it's not the norm.

You mean apart from Tokyo?

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...

> You mean apart from Tokyo?

Average Monthly Disposable Salary (After Tax) Tokyo New York 312,241.52 ¥ 464,589.78 ¥

Everything appears "cheaper" up until that point, but that's never the whole picture. You could also assert that you're likely to be paid less living in Tokyo, and the costs of living reflect this. Property is the major difference there.

When I said "well-developed cities with good economies" the intent of the 'good economies' bit was specifically to exclude Tokyo. A bad economy will make anywhere cheap and Japan's had two decades of that.

Chicago is far too 'midwestern' and has worse weather than New York.

far too 'midwestern'

I don't know what that means.

worse weather than New York.

Much worse, no argument there. That said, it's nice to be able to go into a building in the winter and have it be nice and warm, unlike SF, where everything is perpetually chilly.

Have you spent much time in the midwest?

Yes. I'm from Chicago.

Then have you spent much time outside the midwest? (fish, water, etc)

I put 180,000 miles on my first car, traveling the country, and I'm on my fifth vehicle. I've lived on both coasts. The only mid-sized+ city I haven't been to, weirdly enough, is New Orleans. It's on my list.

And you?

Unless you're moving to the South Sandwich Islands or Greenland, who cares about weather? The idea of selecting a place to move based on weather is completely strange to me.

Have you lived through a Chicago winter?

Look at average highs in Las Vegas: http://www.vegas.com/weather/averages.html

June - September is pretty damn hot. I wouldn't want to be caught outside during the day.

The desert southwest is very hot during the summer. Yes, it is a dry heat. But if it's 110 degrees F, I don't care if it's dry. That said, a lot of people are fine with Vegas, Phoenix, and so forth. They don't get a lot of bad weather (aside from the summer heat), they can play golf year round, and they just tend to stay somewhere air conditioned during the middle of the day. Not my thing but it is for a lot of people. (And while I don't like Vegas, there are lots of nice locations relatively nearby during the cooler parts of the year.)

I can see why you might not mind the Chicago weather, but how is moving somewhere based on weather "strange"? I grew up in Minneapolis but now live in Texas, and the warmer weather has dramatically improved my quality of life. I wouldn't move back to the north midwest even for a massive increase in pay.

What does 'midwestern' mean?

It's a region of the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States).

I know that - but the user used it as a sarcastic term that could have 100 different connotations.

I was asking him to clarify.

Think of all the bad stereotypes of white lower middle class suburbanites. They are based on the people of the midwest.

San Diego is fantastic as well. But would hate to see the tech world impregnate it like SF.

Agreed.

I don't see that happening here anytime soon though.

Chicago is fantastic. But the winters are brutal.

I think the problem is, no matter how nice you make new places, people are still going to want to be in those existing nice places.

Megacities are the best example of the network effect.

> It'll be really hard to ever make that appealing

How about folks drinking beer on the street, the ceaseless outside speakers, and totally shameless flaunting of the sex trade on every corner? I'm not a prude, but there is something to be said for a little class. I didn't even notice the block/street size when I was there.

Nothing wrong with drinking outdoors (though Vegas probably brings out the worst in it), but I agree with you on the rest.

I didn't find the sex trade particularly off-putting my only time in Vegas; what I did find awful was the constant hustle and hard sell. The public transport actually seemed pretty good, and I would have been quite comfortable walking about if it weren't for people constantly, constantly in my face, trying to sell me something.

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