Why the Great Divide Is Growing Between Affordable and Expensive U.S. Cities
blogs.wsj.com
blogs.wsj.com
I live in a very cheap city that's very close to the price baseline on that graph. Land here is cheap. My girlfriend lives on close to 1/3 acre, in the city, for less than 200k. The city is seeing a large influx of on new businesses looking to relocate cost centers here, ie lots of call centers. So there are jobs, there are houses, there are all the amenities of a normal city.
But there are next to no cultural outlets. Nightlife is confined to 3 or 4 strips in the entire city. Most festivals boil down to parents and kids buying food from trucks and tents. There are no major music festivals. Craft beer is pretty much limited to IPAs. Natural attractions are woods or lakes. Any sometimes during sporting events in our city, broadcasters show the visiting team's skyline, because ours is so lackluster.
I am looking to move cities, but after factoring in an astronomical rise in housing cost, and a price of living adjustment that does come close to matching, I am having second thoughts. Why move to a city to do stuff, if once I get there I cannot afford to do anything.
Side note, the article is not particularly informative. Its pretty basic info: look at these cities that cost a lot, and the reason is because new builds are limited. Seems like an excuse for someone to make the infographic.
Saying that you live in Houston when you live near Rice is like saying that you live in Texas when you live in Austin.
Lived experience and countless local articles scream otherwise. Of course, when you compare to NYC and LA, just about everything looks 'affordable'-yet this is the most common refrain to Austin: "It's cheaper than NY".
What city in the US that isn't greater-LA, SF or Seattle isn't?
I used to live in South Central Austin and commute north of 183 to work. When my car broke down I took the bus-no big deal, coming from Chicago I don't have many aspersions to public transit-so long as it works and is relatively safe (or as safe as a city can reasonably make it).
When I say "pick your poison" re: cost, I mean getting from my apartment to my job on time meant waking up 3 hours before shift begins and riding for two hours. Getting off work at 5:30 and not getting home until almost 9 depending on traffic conditions (school year meant having to ride through the UT area, that added another hour).
The "personal cost" adevine mentions here is real and it is painful. You're either going to spend more on gas and vehicular maintenance, or you're going to spend every waking moment not at work sitting on the bus (depending on where you live), or waiting for a bus.
First, downtown Austin is now actually more expensive than downtown San Diego. When people say "Austin" and "cheap housing" they mean Round Rock, Pflugerville, San Marcos, etc. Many of those places are now an hour or more commute to downtown Austin in horrific traffic that now rivals Los Angeles. When people think "San Diego" they don't mean commuting from Ramona or Temecula (an equivalent hour of horrific commute).
Second, Austin has some culture, but has been working overtime to flush it down the drain. Stevie Ray Vaughn would be an unwelcome, dirty scumbag on the current 6th Street. Medium sized venues (300-1000 people) that launched major music careers are becoming very scarce (I blame smoking bans mostly). And most of the "cultural" catering is to overpaid DINKs (Dual Income--No Kids) who want desperately to be so cool yet complain about the noise from the very places that they moved in next to in order to be cool.
Source: Lived in South Park, a streetcar suburb about 3 miles from downtown, for the last year. Enjoyed SP, but disliked SD.
Also, many people will decry my use of the word "suburb" for a place 3 miles out, but it was originally built as one and the residents have fought tooth and nail to prevent any development that would change its character or increase density. I'm sure they don't mind that their home values have increased massively as a result of these restrictions on building in nearly the only pleasant, walkable neighborhood in a city composed primarily of aphalt hellscape, though.
This is the reason I didn't move there a few years ago. I flew in for the interview, and was stuck in various traffic jams the entire 2 days I was there. The economy there is booming, so it's not like the traffic is coming from a bad place, but I'm not keen on hour-plus commutes.
Likewise, I live in a culture-free area, but between work and kids and numerous easily affordable vacations to cultural areas, I have no time to go out drinking (which is usually all people mean by "culture" anyway). If, suddenly on the commute home, an art museum fell onto the interstate, I'd merely have to detour around it, I have a little league practice to get to tonight.
I find it ironic that a childhood friend lives in Chicago but can't afford to do anything but scrape by, but as an outsider I can trivially afford to visit and do more in his own hometown than he can afford to do! He does have a much cooler address than I do.
Also, people live in big cities for a variety of reasons. One the biggest ones is finding better jobs. If his current job is not paying enough to live by, I think that living in Chicago offers a lot more opportunities for him to get a job that does.
I love museums, but I go once or twice a year. Same with live sports. It doesn't really justify living in a place. Live music is great, although admittedly I don't do that as much as I used to.
One of my favorite cultural activities? Traveling to experience another cultural. Nothing's quite as conducive to that as a low cost of living when I'm not traveling.
It depends on which museum you're talking about. The Museum of Modern Art in Houston generally has month long exhibitions which I love. There is a Museum of Art in Austin which has even more regular events, based on different themes etc. So I definitely do visit museums more than once a year :)
That's kind of a treadmill, though. There's no real point to moving somewhere chasing a better job if any increase in salary is going to be eaten up by extra taxes and living expenses. I could get a job with a substantially higher salary if I moved to SF, but at the end of the month I'd have less money.
But are you praising the "culture" of an area while your yearly "culture" itinerary is that you went to an art museum and a mid-list concert?
Are you really using the "culture" of your area, or is it just a rationalization to stay where you are?
I would consider it a successful outcome of this message if those of you who live in a "cultural" area resolve to take better advantage of it in the future. I'm not trying to say the "culture" stuff is useless. I'm just saying that people's words and actions seem divergent here, and the worst case outcome in terms of bang-for-the-buck is to pay to live in a high-culture area, and then not use it.
I think that people obey fashion when it comes to living addresses just as much as they obey fashion when it comes to clothing, cars, and so on. No one likes to say that they living in a suburb of a Midwest city, even if that's actually the best decision they could make with their living circumstances.
As somebody who recently moved to the city centre, from a 1hr away suburb I believe this is very much true. My move was motivated in part by the reactions I would get from people when I told them where I lived. I'm glad I moved downtown as I'm closer to work and all the city amenities are never more than a half-hour away, but occasionally I have mixed feelings about my decision as my disposable income has gone down considerably and I'm not putting away into my savings as much as I'd like to.
Yet, at the same time, I yearn to live inside the city.
I'm not fully thought out on this, but somehow I think it's ultimately a status thing. The cool people live in the city, so I want to live in the city.
Sure I would love to live in one of the leafy old neighborhoods in Portland, but we can get there in less than 30 minutes on the weekends and I don't stress over voluntarily driving into the city midweek once in a while. It would be nice to be a bit less car dependent, but having two cars in our family is more a choice of convenience than a necessity.
I do think there is a split between married (with or without kids) and single people. My wife was gone for a couple weeks last month and it got pretty quiet in the evenings. I can see why single people would prefer the city.
The Warriors are in Oakland (for now)!
The $3m but very unremarkable homes make it a little easier.
It is / is near employment hubs. It offers very little by way of housing options. Hence: housing prices are extreme.
You can still find good beer at almost every bar in town, from Anonio's Nutbar to Sliderbar to Rose and Crown and everything in-between. The presence of Stanford makes for a good restaurant and bar scene.
But... It's still a suburb.
Austin, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Orlando compare favorably to San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento.
Just because it's not "high culture" doesn't mean it's not culture.
There are a number of good, affordable cities. Baltimore is fantastic for how cheap it is.
I'm back in the Bay Area now and, well, it's not New York, but it's still surprisingly accessible. Concerts with local bands, free lectures (on tech topics or not), free events at a park or on the beach... No magical subway system though: public transport exists but, especially if you're coming in from out of SF, it's a bit of a pain.
Point being that you can definitely experience a lot either for free or for pretty cheap. But there's no way to get around the high rent, except with a high salary.
I do have some friends who prefer the busses, so it's clearly not clear-cut.
> especially at off-peak times
Yeah, BART is a much more pleasant experience at off-peak times than anywhere near rush-hour. In my experience, I still find the NL line (at least) uncrowded enough to get a seat any time of day (unless there's significant BART trouble).
It seems much louder than other subways in cities where I have lived. Have others experienced this?
I use a lot of those amenities. Music is a huge part of my life. I'm a performing jazz musician. My kids participate in the youth symphony. We attend classical music concerts together. (Yeah, my kids are weird). I'd have a very hard time living in a culture desert, and would probably not want to live in the US at all unless it's in one of a very short list of cities.
It has to do with "rent-seeking" using politics to create artificial scarcity, in this case scarcity of housing though zoning density restrictions and overuse of historic landmark status. The rent-seeking creates microeconomic market inefficiencies. Ultimately, I believe there will have to be federal laws to break up the "rent-seeking" in cities.
Another example of "rent-seeking" was the artificial limit of 13,000 taxi medallions. The market value of a single medallion rose to $1.2 million until Uber/Lyft came along and increased the supply of taxi-like vehicles. Now the market value is <$700K.
See: Build Big Bill by Glaeser: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-article-1....
Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199926514
I wonder how close the correlation actualy is.
The real question is why do the cities on the coast prosper, even in a recession, and those in Flatland shrink? Why wasn't the tech labour market in NYC and SF in 2003 and 2007 half as affected as the labour market in Dallas or Austin, even though rents in SF are astronomical?
Cities with least price increases: Austin, Raleigh, Atlanta, Vegas, Charlotte, Phoenix...all of them in states leaning Republican.
Cities with most price increases: San Jose, Boston, NYC, LA, Seattle, San Diego, DC... all of them in states leaning Democratic.
Could it be because of the parties' philosophies about regulations? Conservatives would let you build without much hassle, thus letting supply meet demand. Liberals, on the other hand, would regulate and constrain the supply.
Apart from political ideologies, what could be other possible reasons for such disparity?
I didn't check all of them, but these are the least dense cities in the second group, in people per sq mile:
1. San Jose: 5000
2. San Diego: 4000
LA is 8000. NYC is 28000.
For the former, "build without hassle" group, here are the highest densities
1. Atlanta: 3360
2. Austin: 3358
3. Raleigh: 3158
4. Phoenix: 3025
Las Vegas is 1659, Charlotte is 2720.
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I pulled the numbers from Wikipedia. Here's an alternate theory: the cities in the second list are pretty full. So costs go up, despite the fact that the cities are unusually dense.
Further, it's impossible to build NYC in modern America. Zoning laws now require more sprawl. The cities in the first list are mostly building low density housing. (Hint: even tall buildings neighborhoods can be low density if built wrong.)
Where does all the extra water come from?
Where does the extra sewage get processed?
Where do you bury the extra garbage?
San Francisco: 18,451
Tokyo: 16,000
San Francisco is not all that high, but denser than Tokyo. Cities don't need to be high to be dense. That's one of the biggest misconceptions. Most of the world's high density cities don't do so by using skyscrapers.
The actual problem? I think it comes down to two factors:
1. Almost all density in NA was built pre-car
2. So density is limited by the size of areas that were built in the pre-car area.
Taller buildings isn't necessarily the answer. Narrower streets is a larger determinant of density. But it's very hard to tear down streets, make them narrower and add new buildings.
It's especially hard to rebuild the suburbs around cities like San Francisco and make them more San Francisco-like. If the whole Bay area was built like SF, there would be no silicon valley rent crisis. Yet for some reason everyone focuses on SF.
I'm writing this in Montreal, a city built like SF. It's infuriating that this whole debate happens without people googling density stats.
How many people would have guessed that SF is denser than Tokyo, per square mile? Tokyo is bigger, and holds more people, because the Japanese have sensible zoning. But "tall buildings" is not how they do it over the whole span of the megalopolis.
My main point is that SF is not the problem. It's the Bay Area.
It's the bay area around SF that fails to be dense. The Bay Area as a whole is around 1000.
I agree the US should be denser. I'm just wondering why all the attention is focussed on a place that, relatively speaking, is already doing a rather good job on density as far as America goes.
For that matter, Paris is largely low rise. I'm generally in favour of low rise density. I'm trying to figure out why everyone ignores that model, and argues for tall buildings instead.
In general, less population density , small homogenous towns ,leans Republican, and high density, where people encounter more people less like themselves, lean Democrat.
The most expensive citiesare coastal cities that have geographical barriers to growth.
Remember this is the same Austin that Uber is decrying for over-regulation compared to other cities.
Country side / low density = Republican.
You'll find this correlation pretty much everywhere in the world: big cities are progressive and the country side is conservative.
That's the key line for me. As an urban planner, I'm bought in on the idea of growth management--at least much of it. But every policy has its unintended consequences. As far as planning is concerned, I think it's pretty incontrovertible that more upward development is needed. Getting there politically is an unsolved problem.
Thomas Sowell: Oh, because Dallas wasn't part of the boom and it wasn't part of the bust. Peter Robinson: How come? Thomas Sowell: Because in Dallas they don't have the restrictions on building houses that we have in Coastal California. Houston was--is very similar. Houston doesn't even have zoning laws. And so therefore if people wanted more houses in Dallas or Houston, the villages built more houses and the prices didn't rise. Peter Robinson: Supply is able to adjust to demand. Thomas Sowell: That's it. Peter Robinson: Much more easily, much more easily in these markets. Thomas Sowell: Yes. http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/documents/uk-sow...
IIRC, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Raleigh all had housing markets that were hugely outpacing the local salaries until everything crashed.
But usually, it's geography. Manhattan and SF have water borders. There's sprawl outside them, but the good stuff is near the center.
If you don't have geographic obstacles, cities can get insanely huge. Mexico City. Beijing. Shanghai. Tokyo. The US has the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, with about 20 million people, the world's second largest city area. That's what happens when expansion jumps the geographic obstacles.
"Many of the more expensive cities are prevented from growing outward by natural barriers, such as oceans or mountains. Those cities are unlikely to grow significantly upward or outward in the next couple of decades, he said, and thus the price divide is likely to continue to widen."
Southie is booming right now, but it sure as hell isn't for cheap housing. The headaches of dealing with Boston zoning are now far outweighed by the benefits of building in the Seaport.
(See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_..., though some of the data on that page is out of date)