
Why Middle-Class Americans Can't Afford to Live in Liberal Cities - SQL2219
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/why-are-liberal-cities-so-unaffordable/382045/?utm_source=atlfb&amp;single_page=true
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euyyn
While all those hypotheses sound reasonable, I think it's expected that to
start looking for those causes, the author first has to argue that the
causation doesn't go the other way around. I.e., why is

> "liberal markets tend to have higher income inequality and worse
> affordability"

assumed instead of:

> Markets with high income inequality and bad affordability tend to be more
> liberal.

?

~~~
sharemywin
or an even better assumption is correlation doesn't prove causation. Of
course, without jumping to conclusions it's hard to produce click bait.

~~~
euyyn
Well, searching for a possible causation chain is the more interesting part;
just showing that two things are correlated is of limited value. Of course
you're right that the correct approach is to look independently for the causes
of both things.

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timoth3y
Perhaps the explanation is much simpler.

1) The way new wealth is generated in America tends to produce income
inequality - at least in the short term.

2) Wealthy people have their lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs met
and are more likely to focus on things like esteem and self-actualization than
are people who need to worry about putting food on the table. So wealthily
people will tend to be more liberal.

Therefore wealthy cities tend to have both income inequality and skew liberal,
but the causes are unrelated.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
"Wealthy" isn't a coherent adjective. People who move up the corporate food
chain are not the smart people, it's the people who adapt to the expected mood
affiliation of their industry, develop the expected after-hours activities and
buy the right clothing.

Entrepreneurs, bluntly, get lucky.

No, income inequality has much more to do with financialization, and I've so
far traced the roots of that back to the Potsdam Conference, at least for the
US. And first the US, then the world.

It's fairly unscientific, but because I have access to a person with a
specialty in population dynamics, my theory about "why inequality" is that
previous efforts to curb older, milder forms of inequality usually backfire.
Current wealth inequality results from gamifying efforts to "fix" inequality.

It "feels" to me like the Pareto distribution just is, and all attempts to
improve on it are in vain.

~~~
sharemywin
current inequality is about globalization and the internet. Most income at the
top of the pyramid is a function of the resources you manage/own(assuming
things like too big to fail are anomalies)

You get to keep a portion of what you make and/or manage. As the organizations
get larger the higher the number of layers.

The internet has even exacerbated the problem because now "customer/users" can
self service and need even few people in the pyramid.

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bko
> If you line up the country's 100 richest metros from 1 to 100, household
> affordability falls as household income rises, even after you consider that
> middle class families in richer cities have more income

One thing to consider is that, although household affordability may be worse,
other things may be cheaper and more convenient (relative to remaining income
after housing expense). For instance, in NYC, although the housing prices are
very high, there is no need for a car. And now with online shopping, anyone in
NYC is able to get Walmart prices with delivery, at least for non-perishable
items. Granted, some items like food are more expensive, but outside delivery
services have brought the cost significantly down over the years. That's not
even taking into consideration other benefits such as historic neighborhoods
and great restaurants.

I think in the end people care about absolute income and not so much on
relative proportions of the rent they are paying in housing. And it's
certainly possible to live in a high cost city , get paid a higher salary and
save a higher absolute amount every year.

~~~
laughfactory
> I think in the end people care about absolute income and not so much on
> relative proportions of the rent they are paying in housing. And it's
> certainly possible to live in a high cost city , get paid a higher salary
> and save a higher absolute amount every year.

Uh, not so much. Or, maybe if they're dumb. I do think people have a hard time
evaluating the relative value of living one place versus another. That is,
it's not that they objectively prefer to make more in a higher cost of living
area (where, for most, compensation does not compensate for the high cost of
living), it's that they have a difficult time understanding objectively that a
high absolute salary number is worthless (and actually detrimental when it
comes to taxes) and what really matters is your cost of living adjusted
salary. I would argue that your assertion that it "possible to live in a high
cost city , get paid a higher salary and save a higher absolute amount every
year" is only true for very few.

In my opinion, and from my experience, most middle class people get really
screwed in big liberal cities. They may make a higher salary in absolute terms
but their costs are simply, across the board, higher. I believe I've even seen
studies to support this.

My wife and I moved to the big city so I could get the experience I needed,
and now, three years later, we're leaving because it doesn't make fiscal sense
to stay. Taxes and housing are impoverishing us, and if we want to have any
sort of viable future (savings, retirement, a house, debt paid off) we've got
to leave and move to a lower cost of living area where salaries are still
relatively robust.

So I know that the relatively higher cost of housing, for example, were a huge
part of us leaving. And while it is technically possible to do financially
very well in any big city, I would argue that the possibility does not become
reality for many.

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dragonwriter
1\. Median income in most places is working class, not middle class.

2\. Liberalism is more common where most people are econimically compelled to
be renters, not owners. This is surprising, why?

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marssaxman
Perhaps the financial vulnerability that comes from having most of one's
wealth tied up in a single not-especially-liquid leveraged asset makes people
tend toward conservatism.

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tropo
Right, but being conservative tends to get you into that situation. You'd want
ownership, control, lack of crowds, privacy, gun rights, security, and space.
This is unavailable in the big coastal cities, so you are effectively forced
out. Just being in the city is stressful.

