
Young Join the Rich Fleeing America’s Big Cities for Suburbs - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-20/young-join-the-rich-fleeing-america-s-big-cities-for-suburbs
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dvtrn
_One roommate took a pay cut and moved home with her family. Another decided
to stay with an ex-boyfriend in Oregon, while the master tenant put in her
30-day notice. That left only Lewis and the other remaining roommate, who has
been living with family in Sacramento since late March, to renew the lease and
come up with $4,900 for May’s rent._

$4900 for just _May_ rent? Not April _and_ May? Hoooly moly.

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CydeWeys
There's four roommates in total. My 4 bedroom apartment in Manhattan several
years back cost more than $4,900/month and it was a good deal.

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mandelbrotwurst
I think it's five actually: "one", "another", and "master tenant" left,
leaving two

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CydeWeys
Yeah, if it's five, then each person is paying less than $1,000 for rent.
That's really not bad at all to live in a city. And if they're splitting an
entire house amongst them (vs the 3 bedroom apartment flexed to a 4 bedroom
that I was living in), then their living situation is going to be quite
pleasant.

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skrtskrt
This is uninformed speculation, but it seems like remote work becoming more
common could be better for lower-income people everywhere, by creating an
"evening out" of job opportunities, away from places where housing supply is
too low.

People crowd into the cities for the high-paying jobs, and they create demand
for the lower-paying service industries and such. So people also crowd to the
cities for the lower-paying jobs, but housing is scarce and therefore
expensive. They still come though, even though so much of their money goes to
rent, because the city has actual (if low-paying) jobs, and opportunity for
other, better jobs.

So if the higher paying jobs "spread out" to suburbs and smaller cities, there
will be more of that demand created by higher-paid individuals, creating lower
and mid-paying jobs in those areas too, instead of what they have now which is
like, cashier at the Starbucks or Chipotle. So if more people can have
opportunity outside the major cities - high, mid, or low-paying - then housing
demand wicouldll drop in the cities and make it more realistic for people who
still prefer to live there.

Housing demand will rise in suburbs, but there tends to be a lot less zoning
regulation and lot more sprawl there than in cities, so hopefully the effect
is dampened. My experiences with suburbs/exurbs is that the housing supply is
often too high if anything due to zealous developers trying to cash in on
empty farmland.

This is all kind of long-term wishful thinking, but it seems possible.

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diogenescynic
Now that companies are moving to remote-first and permanent work from home and
there are fewer benefits of living in the city due to social distancing, it
seems like this is a natural consequence. Companies will likely give a stipend
for home offices instead of paying for food or commuting, then people can will
want to move somewhere they can get more space for their money. I know people
in their 40s living with roommates in SF paying rent that could be a mortgage
payment in a suburb not far away.

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scarmig
To be fair, rent in SF is basically a mortgage payment in SF, when you compare
apples to apples. It's accumulating the down payment and a buffer that's hard.

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skrtskrt
Yeah this is tough everywhere. In Chicago I could easily be paying for
mortgage on decent house for what I'm paying in rent. It's just that I'm in my
mid-20s and only really been making decent money for a year. It's going to
take years to build up the down payment, meanwhile rent money is just flying
out the window into someone else's pocket every month.

I could save a lot more by just not doing any retirement saving, but that
doesn't seem like a good trade off, considering the money I put in now is
going to have the most time to compound.

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dclusin
I didn't start contributing to 401k, equity accounts, and such until now (my
mid 30s). I'm not in a crisis, my life isn't terrible, and its definitely
still fixable with minor changes. But the feeling of falling behind peers
savings/housing wise is definitely palpable. You're making a very safe and
reasonable choice. You can always start a business or take more financial risk
down the line too if you want, and you'll have the benefit of savings as a
cushion.

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lurker213
I moved from a big city to a small provincial town, the town is big enough to
have everything I need. I sold my apartment in the big city and with that
money, have financed the purchase of two houses with land. Luckily I have
still been able to keep my clients in the big city and work remotely (and for
big city rates). It can work for some people, especially in our industry.

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tedmcory77
I'm super curious how this will impact the future of elections; big cities
tend to skew heavily blue. Suburbs tend to skew red. Will this change the
suburbs? Example in the article was from NY to SC; SC tends to be red...

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lurker213
probably at least for one election cycle, until the blue voters that moved to
the suburbs see how blue policies make it worse for them in the suburbs, and
then start voting red (or whatever colour looks after their interests better)
:p

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osdiab
I love city life but US cities are so poorly managed that I've lost hope that
they'll be affordable nor pleasant to live in before I die, so now I've moving
abroad to Tokyo and am living the lifestyle I'd hoped to in US cities - it's
sad, cities don't have to be so prohibitively expensive and filthy if local
governments were able to better manage themselves, actually reacting to the
problems society faces, but even changing tiny things about the legislative
process in US cities feels like a lifetime endeavor.

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duxup
[https://outline.com/5urSXr](https://outline.com/5urSXr)

