Comment by swozey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by swozey | Hacker News Reader

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"Metro" is what suburbanites use to make it sound like they live somewhere more interesting, know anything about that city and its lifestyle, to people who don't know where, and not some suburb outside of it. So, no that doesn't matter. It's not your city.

People who live in BFE an hour or two north of Dallas, that isn't Dallas, love to say they live in Dallas, then you go further, "dallas metro." Nah. Then they find out you actually live downtown because you're asking for neighborhoods IN the city and call you a downtown pretty boy who probably has to fight off muggers daily. Christ, Fort WORTH is in the "Dallas metro" and it's literally it's own city that NOBODY in Dallas ever visits and has NOTHING in common with Dallas. "The Dallas metro has 10 billion people!" Yeah who never interact with one another and live an hour away.

So they love it till it's actually, you know, big scary city stuff. And that's a huge reason why WE don't claim them back. Hearing someone from Plano (rich af suburb) say they live in Dallas to someone from Texas themselves is so cringe. Because I absolutely know they actually hate Dallas, the city. It's different if the person has no idea where and you're just giving a general area.

It’s more useful for many purposes. You have oddball cities like St Louis where the city is really made up of a ton of small cities and towns—but treating them as separate would be misleading in many contexts.

In our midwestern city, we do live in the city limits proper. But if you drive straight from here to the city center, you’ll pass through at least two other towns before reaching it! There are probably seven or eight tiny to large towns in the same general direction as us, but which are closer to downtown than we are (some are just 5 minutes to downtown by car). And our school district is separate from the rest of the city (and shared by parts of some of those other towns)

Like 30% of the population of our metro area and probably 40% of the money is in another state! And many of them closer to downtown than us.

That's a good point, I never saw the point of "metros" how they used them in Texas. I'm assuming it's basically a common economy sort of thing.

But I know nothing about Townships and all the MW/Michigan style of .. cities? I guess. Tend to forget those even exist.

> Tend to forget those even exist.

Ha ha—that’s fair.

> That's a good point, I never saw the point of "metros" how they used them in Texas.

One role of that way of categorizing, even in less-atomized cities, is to capture the area that’s basically economically dependent on the city. Nobody (more or less) would live in those suburbs and exurbs if not for the presence of the city. It’s like looking at a lake’s drainage basin.

I live in the city proper. It's Columbus OH just to make it easier for you. I live ~10 minutes from downtown. I'm sure you'll find a way to reason that's not a major city but it is (multiple Fortune 500 companies HQ'd, major league sport team etc). It's also bigger than Portland and Denver (but not their metro areas, see why people use that term?). The metro itself is similar to Portland or Austin in size.

You're 25 in Columbus and most/all of your friends own homes? That's .. really impressive. I was one of the first people I know friend-wise, like out of everyone I know in ever city to buy a house, in Austin, and I was .. around 33 I think. $365k 1970s 3/2 in 2016.

Starting salaries post 2019 have skyrocketed though. It took me about 10 years experience to get over 120k, my ex, her second job at 25 was 150k. My first engineering job was $40k in 2006 or so. 2008 wrecked salaries for a decade. Hopping job to job to make an extra $10k because nobody was giving raises and everyone was treated like trash.

Cool good work man, maybe I'll check it out. My rent in Denver is $3100 for a 2br. Denver is SUPER dense for a mid sized city though, it feels way bigger than Austin/Dallas people+shop+bar+etc wise to me because of that. I never drive.

I mean yeah, I'm definitely an outlier. Neither me and my spouse have student debt which helps massively. And while we've done it without the help of parents, I'm pretty sure some of my friends got some kind of assistance that way.

Columbus is nice because it still feels kinda small and driving is still super comfortable because you can get anywhere in about 15 minutes. I still prefer to bike to work because it feels nice but I'm definitely in the minority here doing that.

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