
The new boomtowns: Why more people are relocating to ‘secondary’ cities - wallflower
https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/the-new-boomtowns-why-more-people-are-relocating-to-secondary-cities/2018/11/07/f55f96f4-d618-11e8-aeb7-ddcad4a0a54e_story.html
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esotericn
I tend to think that a lot of migration trends are obscured by currency-based
accounting rather than looking at numbers of people and their preferences.

I don't know a lot about the US, but here in the UK, in a city like London I
don't think it's useful, for example, to say people are being 'priced out'.

What's actually happening is that those that own property as of N years ago
are permanent residents, and will never really sell their properties, so it's
just full. You have suburbs full of families that will never move out, and if
they do move out, will just rent the building out rather than selling.

The indirect effect of that is that prices go up, but you're really just
seeing that the commuter belt of semi-detached homes is full and that's that.

It's common to talk about knocking down homes or building more homes or
whatever. The thing is that for the most part, only non-residents actually
want that (because for them the choice is between high density or not living
there). If you own a decently sized family home with a garden you're just not
going to give it up and move into a block of flats. It's a strict downgrade in
every sense of the word, even if the square footage is the same.

No-one wants to live in a block of flats unless they're too poor to afford a
house.

So yeah, the answer is to go elsewhere. Go to a city that actually welcomes
newcomers. Places like London are no longer income-based, they're wealth-
based. Starting from scratch here you're at an enormous disadvantage.

~~~
cenal
Having lived in a home and in high density high rises I couldn’t disagree more
about the perspective that it’s a downgrade.

24/7 doorman means someone to sign for packages.

A community of people who presumably are in your socioeconomic class will be
living with you. These are folks you can interact with and depending on your
stage in life you may potentially do business with, befriend, start children’s
play groups with, or even date/marry.

Big communities tend to have nice amenities that you’d only find in a country
club all inclusive.

Maintenance of the high rise unit is often included in the fees or rent.

These communities tend to get better access to interconnect technologies like
fiber.

There will tend to be more options for healthy foods, increased opportunities
for walkable restaurants and other forms of entertainment as the population
density of the area increases.

And more...

Basically, my preference 10/10 times would be to live in a high density tall
building over a single family home in a neighborhood.

~~~
esotericn
Repeating my post from below:

I'm obviously simplifying. Luxury apartments downtown are different to the
sort of monstrosities you see in suburbs.

Moving from a family home in a suburb into the city =/= moving from a family
home into a block of flats on the same street. The latter is what I am calling
a 'strict downgrade'.

~~~
meddlepal
I think you're getting downvoted here or at least misunderstood because in
America, suburban apartments are usually very nice in their own regard. So
people don't see them as downgrades unless you actually need the space of a
full house (eg. For raising a family)

~~~
esotericn
Possibly.

I think the misunderstanding comes from making a comparison that I obviously
haven't attempted to, and that no reasonable person would (basically, a
strawman).

I can't see how a suburban apartment can be as nice as a suburban house unless
you're making a cost argument.

Yes, perhaps an apartment at price X is better than a house at price X.
(Perhaps at price X a house doesn't even exist).

The point is that someone who already owns a decent home doesn't have to make
that decision, and that describes huge swathes of the city. The financial
decision is for newcomers who are attempting to push these people out (or push
them in to inferior conditions).

If you have a 4 bedroom semi in Zone 4 London then I cannot see an equivalent
apartment. It doesn't even make sense to me. No apartment block on the same
street could be nicer.

Only if you compared it with, say, some skyscraper in the City does it make
sense to even talk about it, and that's a complete lifestyle change.

~~~
Retric
Saying it’s suburban housing, or detached homes is a pure straw man argument
as people can move from a suburban home to an apartment in the city very
easily.

If you can sell a house, move to an apartment and net X00,000 $ that’s very
attractive. So price difference are really part of the equation.

Also, people might prefer a detached home for ~30 years when having kids, but
their is a constant stream of people exiting that life stage. How and where to
downsize is a real question people deal with daily.

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throwaway713
I see this going one of two ways. Either tech decentralizes and spreads out
into places like Atlanta, Austin, and Nashville, or these jobs continue to
further concentrate in SF/NYC/Seattle and the other cities fall way behind.

In the first case, I think it's likely that inequality will continue to
increase across the U.S. and the median American will be worse off for it;
i.e., there will be a positive feedback loop where winner cities take all.

In the second case, I think inequality will decrease, and the tech industry
(and similar "big city" industries) can play to each region’s cultural
strengths. I think this inter-city competition would be a positive effect and
lead to accelerating innovation across a variety of different fields. Judging
by recent Amazon/Google news though, I fear the first case is more likely to
happen.

~~~
Cyclone_
I agree, I'll also note that it seems with all of the modern communication
tools that satellite offices in secondary and tertiary markets wouldn't be as
big of a deal now as it would have been 20 years ago.

~~~
closeparen
It’s also no longer necessary for satellite offices to duplicate headquarters
functions. The work done at HQ is infinitely reusable. HQ has near-perfect
visibility into the goings-on at each office, so they no longer need
independent decision making capability. And the economics have changed to
favor quality over quantity: 100 top engineers are better than 1,000 cheap
ones. Where are you find the highest concentrations of top talent?

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jorblumesea
For how long, I wonder. Many of those cities are intensely adverse to new
taxes and public works that make larger cities livable. If they keep growing,
they'll end up in a similar if not worse situation as the coastal cities. A
big reason the coastal cities (LA, SF etc) are unlivable is due to a lack of
investment in mass transit and housing.

~~~
chroem-
>new taxes and public works that make larger cities livable

I thought people are moving specifically because large cities are _un_
liveable. The article actually cites a more lax regulatory and tax environment
as one of the reasons for why people and businesses are moving.

~~~
jorblumesea
Sure, and then the realization that cities need to pay for things like
infrastructure and transit to support their growing (and increasingly dense)
population, and either way a a possibly unlivable situation develops. High
taxes/high rents, or low taxes but zero infrastructure or support. No US city
has managed to figure out the formula. That low tax situation has only lasted
because there was previously no need for real serious spending.

~~~
nawitus
Wouldn't the cost of infrastructure scale with the increased tax revenue from
the increased population? I would also assume that infrastructure is actually
cheaper per capita if population density increases, which would imply lower
tax rates.

~~~
jorblumesea
It depends on how the infrastructure is funded. In some states, that budget is
based on property taxes. In some states, income and state taxes. It's not
really a one size fits all problem. In some cases, the money is there but the
voter will is not because there's a real "tax is theft" movement in many
states.

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xte
I do not know nearly nothing about USA real estate market however in most part
of Europe the number of people think cities as a workplace or an interim
location for students, young workers or people who can't afford anything
better is skyrocketing, in few EU countries there is already a reasonably
developed "distributed economy" but in others (like Germany, Italy, Spain)
there isn't so many choose small towns because being distributed means also
have far less services and "urban comfort" nearby.

I suspect that this situation start to be common in any western/developed
world. Perhaps the USA are a bit late since their cities are generally "newer"
than EU so they are probably "less compressed"/with a lower mean density that
allow more green spaces and generally a little bit better mean life quality
(something like you do not need 10' to go from A to B + 20' to find a park
place around B or it does not take 40' for 15Km trip in peek hours).

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c3534l
People have been moving out of high-cost urban centers to cheaper areas since
at least the 50s. And the "secondary" cities the author mentions are quite
massive cities. Second, the authors narrative that people are moving "from
coastal cities to “secondary” cities" is not factually accurate in the
narrowest sense: LA, NYC, and San Francisco (which was a secondary city not
that long ago) continue to have population growth. People are still moving to
these cities, except NYC which has leveled off a bit. And most of the
secondary cities the author mentions are also coastal cities, they're just
different coastal cities. The only phenomenon is one that's as old as the
industrial revolution: increased urbanization.

~~~
jjjensen90
In fact Phoenix is on the list of "secondary cities" and is the 5th largest
city in the US.

~~~
dawhizkid
“Secondary” is not a matter of size but about socioeconomic influence

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jacobmoe
The conversation here is interesting to contrast with
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18403497](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18403497).

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secabeen
In the US, a lot of these secondary cities are in states run by conservatives.
As someone who cares about reproductive rights, that concerns me. I have a
friend who had her amniotic sac rupture while in Arizona, and had to wait 72
hours before she could have the no-longer-viable fetus removed. I wouldn't
wish that on anyone, and I worry about what laws I would be subject to in
states like that, even if the city or neighborhood I lived in was populated
with people who valued those rights in the same way I do.

~~~
AlexB138
There are plenty of people who feel the same way about the laws in New York
and California. Having strong talent pools, and economies, in cities with
different political climates means more people can live somewhere they're
politically aligned and still have decent jobs.

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dawhizkid
$1500 for a 1 bedroom in LA seems like a good deal?

~~~
fiblye
The point is people are getting more for less elsewhere. For people working
normal jobs, California wages don't even begin to cover California costs.

~~~
dawhizkid
I guess it depends on what you value. I pay more than $1500 in SF for half a
house, but I don’t have a car and my commute downtown is very easy on public
transit. I don’t have a lot of stuff so don’t need a big, new place either. If
I saved 25% on rent by moving to a city with non-existent poor public transit
(like Atlanta) I’d just end up paying close to what I pay now by upgrading my
living situation (new construction apt and no roommate) and factoring in a car
and commute time.

~~~
fiblye
It also very much depends on your situation. If you're a single young tech
worker, SF is great. If you've got kids or you're not working in tech, SF is
the kind of place most people will actively avoid.

~~~
cinquemb
Yeah, very much situation dependent. I started working remotely while in the
US and then decided I would just move out of the country. 2br apt for 750$ per
month. I paid that much for a room in Boston in a Apt that I had to share with
2 other people that was old and had no amenties… yeah not going back to that.
My working motto now is "make my money in/from the US, spend it elsewhere".

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simonebrunozzi
Outline: [https://outline.com/KzcRSa](https://outline.com/KzcRSa)

