
New Yorkers consider relocating post coronavirus - rcarrigan87
https://www.movebuddha.com/blog/new-yorkers-relocate-post-coronavirus/
======
hn_throwaway_99
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.

~~~
groby_b
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 :)

~~~
restalis
_"...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.

~~~
groby_b
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.

------
wgerard
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.

~~~
subpixel
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.

~~~
wgerard
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.

------
OrangeMango
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.

~~~
Finnucane
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.

------
TSiege
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.

------
daenz
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?

~~~
ahelwer
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.

~~~
autokad
> "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.

~~~
ahelwer
* 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.

~~~
WalterBright
> 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.

~~~
ahelwer
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.

~~~
malandrew
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/](https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-
shirky-prin/)

~~~
ahelwer
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](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?

~~~
malandrew
> 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](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.

~~~
ahelwer
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.

~~~
malandrew
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.

~~~
ahelwer
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.

~~~
malandrew
> 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.

~~~
ahelwer
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?

~~~
malandrew
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.

------
Animats
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.

~~~
saddestcatever
...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?

------
nugget
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.

~~~
acchow
citation please?

~~~
zamfi
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...](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=coronavirus+deaths+in+NYC&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

[1]
[https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nyc+pop...](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=nyc+population&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

[2] Elementary math?

~~~
vkou
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...](https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-
updates/2020/04/08/829506542/after-deaths-at-home-in-nyc-officials-plan-to-
count-many-as-covid-19)

[2]
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/corona...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-
deaths-new-york-city.html)

~~~
zamfi
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%!

------
jshaqaw
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.

~~~
viklove
> 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...

------
jacquesm
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.

------
rchaud
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.

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

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

------
jbaudanza
Seoul is sounding pretty appealing right now.

~~~
def8cefe
Seoul is very close to the North Korean border, I doubt you would sleep much
easier.

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

------
kolikotime
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.

~~~
gshdg
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.

------
gniv
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...](https://nypost.com/2019/12/30/new-york-is-losing-residents-at-
an-alarming-rate-report/)

------
perl4ever
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.

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

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

Choose two.

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

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

~~~
skipants
Alright -- I choose densely urban and contagion free

------
runawaybottle
‘Location location location’

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

------
perseusprime11
WFH will become norm and folks can move around easily.

~~~
vsef
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 :(

~~~
perseusprime11
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.

------
eterm
Talk is cheap.

