[python_gt_r3]

Yet living standards aren't improving an inch. Housing price to income ratios are higher than at any time on record. Outside the city, populations are decaying year after year, and the only chances of benefiting from global economic trends are in the city. There's a housing bubble in virtually every major city of Europe due to speculation and migration from smaller towns.

To put an example, in London median house price hovers around half a million, while median London salary is about 30k. Sure, your washing machine is cheaper than 40 years ago, but the basic element in any economy -housing- has become more expensive. Cities are saturated in every sense.

Except maybe the idea The Economist wants to push is somehow that we need millions and millions more ex-EU immigrants? Because they have seen a spike in underpaid IT vacancies.

[emn13]

The median UK salary is 30k pounds (https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/average-uk-salary); it's higher in london, but I find differing numbers depending on where I look.

But in any case: Although house prices are a problem - and one UK politics feels uncomfortable addressing. You imply impure motives on the economists's side in that they're what exactly? In any case, it was the economist that suggested an annual tax based on property value, which would be a step towards a solution of that problem. But this is primarily a political problem. Extra taxes, particularly on something that is near to voters hearts and will hurt their investments, albeit in a bubble - those aren't an easy sell.

Still, while you're right that house prices are problematic, it's not reasonable to compare rising house prices to stagnant median incomes, and thus imply that housing is less affordable than previously: interest rates are extremely low, so the cost of housing is low too. The high price merely means the risk and reward of ownership is high; but low interest rate means that the amount of income you need to support a given price of housing is much lower than before. I'm not saying this is good or healthy or anything; it's just not so simple as that previously housing was affordable and now it's not.

Nor is the political problem of housing - which voters really have themselves to blame for, nobody else - any reason to ignore the employment boom. Not everything in the world is going great; what else is new? But we can still appreciate what is going well while acknowledging that other - distinct - problems exist.

[jdietrich]

>The high price merely means the risk and reward of ownership is high; but low interest rate means that the amount of income you need to support a given price of housing is much lower than before

Cheap repayments don't really influence affordability of ownership, because banks won't lend more than 3.5x income. If you're earning £30k and a house in your area costs £150k, you're stuck renting unless you can somehow save a £45k deposit.

Rents have been increasing faster than inflation for many years, which is a major problem if your income is barely keeping up with inflation.

[jajag]

The cost of housing is not low. For one thing, a lot of people can't get a mortgage due to deposit amounts being higher (because of higher house prices) and so are paying over the odds in overheated rental markets. On the other hand, those that can get a mortgage might be paying lower interest but they are still paying larger amounts overall because of the higher house cost.

[emn13]

Yeah, not disagreeing with there being a problem. Just saying that it's a little more complicated than "stagnant wages + rising prices = boom". Because it's nontrivial: what's the best fix? Does it render the jobs boom irrelevant?

[ivansavz]

> it was the economist that suggested an annual tax based on property value

Is this what you're referring to https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/08/09/overhaul-tax-fo... ?

Very interesting idea, especially if implemented as a progressive tax. I wonder how that would work for corporations (e.g. landlord who owns the hundreds of apartments managed through a real estate corporation). Also why only property? Why should other assets like stock holdings be excluded?

[emn13]

That's a whole 'nother discussion; the point is simply that an ad hominem vs. the economist on this matter seem incongruous - and, more importantly, a distraction in poor form.

But I won't dispute that the idea seems applicable more broadly, especially since it's so much simpler and less fraud-sensitive than capital gains taxes. And while it's politically tricky, if implemented with a slow ramp up (i.e., don't do what Thatcher did) it probably won't hurt critical constituencies too bad. You could think of something like an X% tax of value above threshhold Y, and start with X low and Y high, and creep from there; e.g. X 1% and Y 500k pounds, conveniently hurting the rich not too much, and the bottom 50% of households even in london not at all. Even just the message that there's political will to do something about this would likely deflate the bubble a little.

[simonh]

The land property tax is intended to address specific issues with land value due to it's fixed availability and role in the economy. For example it's very hard to substitute unproductive land with something else, because you can't (to any significant degree) create new land, and certainly not with the same locational characteristics as existing land.

These aren't attributes shared by stocks or other financial assets. For example it's not straightforward to charge a rent on stocks, and they're not fungible to different economic uses in the same way land is.

[adventured]

> Yet living standards aren't improving an inch.

That isn't true. Living standards have improved for some large demographics and not for others. You're entirely discounting the massive improvement the eg poor in the US have seen in the last 40 to 50 years. It was horrific to be in the bottom 1/4 in the US just as recently as 1980 and prior, far worse than it is now.

Just look at welfare state related spending as a share of GDP in the US in 1960 or 1970, versus today (hint: it barely existed at all in the 1960s). Over 40 years, spending on low-income programs increased by 10 fold. Look at homelessness just as recently as the 1980s vs today, it has been cut in half. Look at the poverty rate in the 1960s vs today (23% down to ~12.x% today, near a record low). Look at violent crime and murder in the 1970s and 1980s vs today, both rates have plunged (the poor are far more likely to be victims of both).

There was no widespread free healthcare for the bottom 25% in 1970, for another example. That socialized healthcare costs the US an enormous amount of money to fund. That's a dramatic quality of life improvement for poor people who a generation prior would have had no consistent access to healthcare.

[AnimalMuppet]

> Outside the city, populations are decaying year after year, and the only chances of benefiting from global economic trends are in the city.

We keep expecting the internet to change this, and it keeps not happening. Why doesn't it? Why haven't remote workers or remote teams spread into the smaller towns and countryside?

[ta1234567890]

> We keep expecting the internet to change this, and it keeps not happening.

Because the Internet has enabled clusters like Silicon Valley or Hollywood to be even more prominent. Before the Internet, if you wanted to do something in tech, you probably would have only looked for local opportunities, but now because of the Internet, you have the impression that SV is almost the only place where you can do something notable in tech.

Big names have gotten bigger and global, a lot of them becoming de facto monopolies.

The Internet makes access to information easier, but at the same time it narrows information sources enormously because it puts all of them on the same playing field, leaving only very few winners.

For example, pre-internet you might have read your local paper to be up to date with the news, now instead you probably read the news at the website of a global news company. It's almost impossible for the local paper to compete with the global company.

Basically the Internet has created a global winner-takes-all market where everyone is competing for attention, and mostly only the big players win, or at least that's what the Internet makes us believe.

[SantalBlush]

With regard to places like Hollywood and SV, they almost certainly benefit from large economies of agglomeration, particularly from having a large and very specialized local labor pool. The network effects via the internet must not be comparable (yet).

[lotsofpulp]

>Basically the Internet has created a global winner-takes-all market where everyone is competing for attention, and mostly only the big players win, or at least that's what the Internet makes us believe.

Numbers such as market cap, net income per employee, and median average salary clearly indicate this is true.

[njepa]

> Because the Internet has enabled clusters like Silicon Valley or Hollywood to be even more prominent.

And bigger cities in general. But I also think people tend to underestimate changes. Small and medium sized cities have been hit hard by the recession and rising housing markets. There are increasingly no good deals to be had anymore. Unless you go to Chiang Mai or something.

[cameldrv]

Because there are only a small portion of jobs that can effectively be done remotely.

A few long-term trends I see driving the move to big cities are:

1. Jobs are becoming more specialized, and so it's more difficult to find every specialty you need for many businesses in a smaller town.

2. There are many more two earner households. In the past, many people would conduct a job search over a wide area and move the family for the man's new job. If the woman already has a job she likes, especially one that would be hard to replace in another town, the couple is much less likely to move for a job opportunity.

3. Businesses know this and have noticed that it has become harder to recruit people to move to a smaller "company town" for an opportunity. They therefore have tended to locate new operations in bigger cities.

[paganel]

Case number 2 applies to my situation, as I’ve been able to work remote for almost half a year now but my gf has to be in the office.

[jandrewrogers]

These locales are severely lacking in amenities that cater to people with incomes significantly above the national median. In most rural and semi-rural areas in the US and elsewhere, the household income is well below the national level, so the goods and services available in those communities reflect that. This puts a very low ceiling on the lifestyle that is achievable living in these locales even if you could afford it as a remote tech worker.

Most people who earn $100+k aspire to more than a lower-middle class lifestyle, which makes most rural towns unattractive. Small semi-rural towns composed primarily of high-income people exist but they are the exception rather than the rule, and the lifestyle in these places often suffers from a high percentage of part-time residents.

[chrisco255]

What goods and services, exactly? Other than a vast array of restaurants and night life to choose from, struggling to see what you mean here. It doesn't have to be a "rural" city in the traditional sense. Plenty of 100-250K population cities out there.

[jandrewrogers]

Access to diverse groceries for eating and cooking. Availability of many types of high-quality clothing. Availability of many types of high-end durable goods. Proximity to an airport. Adequate Internet connectivity, though a handful of semi-rural regions have competing residential fiber options as an accident of history (wish I could get that in downtown Seattle). Availability of social activities outside of a very narrow range that reflect the one-dimensional background of the population. Now, there are also some goods and services available in these towns that you would be hard-pressed to find in an urban city but these are usually on the margin of lifestyle and not a reason to move to these places.

I lived a significant percentage of my life in rural towns across the US. While I really enjoy spending time in rural American towns because it is very comfortable and familiar for me, I am under no delusions about what actually living there entails. The lack of access to goods and services even for those that fit within the economic class of the town (which I did last time I lived in one) is inadequate enough that it is considered normal to drive 50-100 miles each way once or twice per week to get to a "real" city for various errands. You spend a lot of time in vehicles; instead of spending hours each day stuck in traffic, you spend hours covering distance at speed.

By the way, a 250k population city (i.e. larger than e.g. Geneva, Switzerland) is a very different animal than your average rural town, which is more commonly thousands to tens of thousands of population. I find cities in this range (also lived in these) to be the worst of both worlds, being neither as rural or intimate as a small town while also having few of the benefits of a real urban city. Of course, this is a personal preference.

[AnimalMuppet]

To me, the ideal is something like Fort Collins, Colorado. It's maybe 120,000 people. It's an hour north of Denver, so when you need an international airport, or a big city children's hospital, or a professional opera company, or whatever, they're available - at the cost of some time. But when you don't want them, all that big city isn't in your face.

Fort Collins is also a college town, and has a fairly educated population.

And if Fort Collins is too big for your taste, there are a ring of smaller towns (Loveland, Ault, Windsor or Westminster or something to the north) maybe 10 miles away.

Note well: It is my impression that this is my ideal. I've never lived there.

[ghaff]

What you describe is the case to greater or lesser degrees with a lot of large cities. Head an hour out of the city and you have the option of various flavors of semi-rural/suburbs/smaller cities with varying degrees of affordability depending upon the town. The geographical constraints of the Bay Area (together with the magnet of tech) means that you really can't commute out of high housing prices in an hour. That's not the case with most other cities.

I live about an hour west of Boston which is certainly close enough to go in for a tech event or theatre/dinner for the evening. But my house is a lot cheaper than it would be in the city or a more expensive near-in suburb and you simply wouldn't be able to get the land I have near-in.

I get a lot of the advantages of a semi-rural lifestyle while still living close to decent supermarkets and having access to pretty much anything I would want within an hour.

[munificent]

> What goods and services, exactly?

Good schools.

Many HN readers don't have kids so they don't realize what a profoundly important factor this is when choosing where to live for many people. Once you have kids, their well-being and opportunity in life typically becomes the dominant attribute you're trying to maximize.

Parents would live in an active lava field where it rained urine every afternoon if the schools in the area were top notch.

Schooling is generally expensive. Nothing compares to one-on-one attention from a skilled, experience teacher and that doesn't scale, so to have a better school, you really need to simply have more money to put into hiring more and better teachers. In the US, a lot of school funding comes from local taxes, which means the amount of money schools have varies widely [0].

You could argue that this shouldn't be the case and that schools should be funded more equally out of larger pools. But if you are a parent with some money, it is your logical incentive to want to use that to improve your own child's schooling, so money naturally tends to flow towards schools that have more wealth children.

Many of those local taxes are local property taxes, so often the places that are affordable to live are by the very same process places that don't have great schools.

There's a nasty feedback loop here. You want your kids to go to good schools. The best schools have lots of rich parents. Those parents can afford expensive housing. Thus, most of the places with good schools have expensive housing.

Good government can and does push against this instinct, but it is a difficult, uphill battle.

[0]: https://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474256366/why-americas-school...

[lotsofpulp]

>Schooling is generally expensive. Nothing compares to one-on-one attention from a skilled, experience teacher and that doesn't scale, so to have a better school, you really need to simply have more money to put into hiring more and better teachers.

Teaching is important, but I would argue that even more important are the goals and resources of the other students, which correlate nicely with wealth/income of their parents, and hence the neighborhood, and hence the school they all attend.

This is all barely noticeable when everyone is not so far apart on the wealth/income ladder, but over the past few decades, as that gets wider and wider, the data gets clearer and clearer about the consequences.

[chrisco255]

There's diminishing returns on quality of K-12 education. There are A school districts everywhere. Between parenting your child right and giving them an above average education, combined with natural talent, they would have no trouble getting into state university (assuming they don't want to do perfectly acceptable blue collar work like plumbing, carpentry, firefighting, etc) I never took AP classes, for example, but make much more than many of my HS peers that did.

[CM30]

Are most good schools in large cities in the US? Because I definitely heard about how different neighbourhoods have different quality schools there based on the income of the people in the area, but I haven't heard anything about whether that correlates to the area's overall population.

It certainly doesn't seem to here in the UK, where quite a few of the top schools are old fashioned 'public schools' located in rural/semi rural areas.

[paganel]

I’m not American and don’t live in the States but as a guy who works remotely I can say that I highly value the coffee shops from the city I live in (an Eastern European capital) so much so that whenever I visit other European cities I always compare them to my city in this respect: I was happily surprised to find out that Madrid has coffee houses almost as good as ours, I was unpleasantly surprised when a friend of mine told me that Milano doesn’t have the same quality of coffee houses.

I also highly value being able to watch non-mainstream movies in a real cinema and I also very much like being able to physically touch and purchase books from a real bookstore. All of these things are impossible for me to do were I to move to a small town.

[mperham]

90% of high earners will have kids. A great school district becomes a top 3 criteria, typically this is only found in affluent clusters in each state.

[lotsofpulp]

This is the big one, in my opinion. "It's not what you know, who you know" makes it very consequential to choose your kids' school district properly.

https://www.opportunityatlas.org

[chrisco255]

You're going to be much bigger influence on your kids than their school ever will be, besides the fact that A level school districts are scattered all over the country. It's also not going to matter that much until college, to the extent that such networking matters, as there are plenty of successful life paths to take without being in the upper echelon of the socially connected.

[nightski]

Personally I feel that "great schools" are not nearly as important as people think they are (many bright individuals I have worked with came from smaller cities/towns). I also think that you find a lot of great teachers in smaller communities. Lastly, I find the "great schools" thing to be a cop out for piss poor parenting because the parents are too busy with big city jobs with crazy commute times. In reality great parenting and time with kids will get them very far in life vs. the perfect school district.

[derekp7]

I can second this. But it also fits in real good with households that can't afford a lot too, as that creates more educational / bonding opportunities. For example, my dad always worked on the family vehicles, where I learned a lot about basic auto mechanics (even just handing a wrench when needed, taught me about fractions (what's the next size up from a 5/8th?). When the parents have to do many domestic chores themselves because they can't hire it out, it is natural for the kids to be involved (anything from car mechanics, to cooking, deck building, renovating the bathroom, etc).

When both parents work a high end job, chances are the car gets dropped off at a mechanic to change the oil or for a tuneup. And many meals are carry out or in restaurants.

[gizmo686]

Schools are a central part of a childs life; far moreso then a workplace plays in an adults life.

[dillonmckay]

You named 2, also a selection of retail stores, besides Walmart, is also nice.

[AnimalMuppet]

There are a lot of things that you get anywhere that FedEx delivers. Of course, the delivery charges may eat into the rural cost-of-living advantage...

[dillonmckay]

Sometimes it is nice to try on clothing or shoes before you buy them, or not have to wait at least 2 days to receive something you may wind up returning.

[thorwasdfasdf]

i guess he's talking about food desserts. there's many parts of the US that don't have food available, only food-like substances: packaged stuff, etc.

[seanmcdirmid]

Amenities and education for your kids, mostly. Big cities have more than just jobs.

I think resort communities might do better, like Bali, Jackson Hole, Bend, Gulf Shores, but not Hawaii, COL is just too high. Also, decent schooling for kids is still a problem in those areas.

[AnimalMuppet]

When you said "education", I first thought that you meant college. That's not so much a problem - kids go away to college all the time, and there's online if they don't want that. But primary/secondary schooling... yeah, that could be a concern. On the other hand, that's a concern in the city, too, unless you can afford the suburbs. Even there... we lived in the suburbs, and the elementary school in our area was ranked in the bottom third in our state. My wife called the vice-principal there, and asked why we should put our daughter in their school. He said, "Well, going here can toughen kids up." Becoming tough was not our priority for our daughter, and we didn't put her there. (We homeschooled, but I recognize that most people won't want to go that route.)

[seanmcdirmid]

You have options in the city. Make a lot of money? Private school is an option. I live in the Seattle area, according to Zillow Seattle schools are ok, nothing special but definitely better than Spokane or Walla Walla schools. And then there is Bellevue, mercer islands, north lake WA, and so on that are all 10s. Works well enough.

I can see it as a huge problem if one lives in Chicago, I guess. The Midwest isn’t a great place for that kind of thing.

[debaserab2]

Actually I think it's exact opposite - the midwest is great for k-12 education. Illinois is ranked #7 overall in k-12 education (washington sits at #19 for comparison). Most other midwest states are somewhere in the top 20 [1].

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/p...

[JamesBarney]

> Hawaii, COL is just too high Yeah nobody goes there anymore, it's way too popular.

[pchristensen]

Hawaii had the 7th worst out-migration in the nation in 2016.

From "Census data shows that Hawaii has the highest median home value in the entire US, at $617,400. CNBC also ranked Hawaii as the state with the highest cost of living in 2018, with the cost of a half-gallon of milk coming in at $3.64."

Citation: https://www.insider.com/the-top-10-states-people-are-moving-...

[JamesBarney]

Thanks, today I learned something about Hawaii. I assumed with the high COL it must be really desirable. But I guess tourists are pushing out locals?

Oh and there's a lot of housing regulation.

[seanmcdirmid]

Nobody moves there unless they have a few million up spare or are just naive.

[manfredo]

> We keep expecting the internet to change this, and it keeps not happening. Why doesn't it? Why haven't remote workers or remote teams spread into the smaller towns and countryside?

Because there are benefits to living in the city even if your job can be done in arbitrary locations. It's easier to deliver goods and services (on a per capita basis) in dense population centers. It also means that people have much more options for entertainment, dining, socialization, dating, and plenty of other advantages. Really, the only disadvantage is space but that's mitigated by skyscrapers (effectively multiplying the surface area of a city). Urbanization is directly correlated to educational attainment, income, and other quality of life metrics. Urbanization is also nothing new. Humanity as a whole has been on an continuous overall trend towards urbanization since the industrial revolution. Really, the only reason why we weren't urbanized until now is because postindustrial societies couldn't function without >70% of their population working in agriculture.

[tehbeard]

Ignoring internet access issues in rural areas, What is there to do in your free time in smaller towns and the countryside?

That's the reason.

[switchbak]

I've got gigabit fibre running to my house, and some of the best natural beauty and outdoor activities available anywhere just minutes away. Mountain biking, climbing, white water paddling, kite surfing, trail running, sailing, hiking, etc.

Let me assure you, there is plenty to do if you're into this lifestyle. Don't knock it just cause it's not something you're into.

I think as more people get good remote jobs that many of them will realize that living in nice small towns is really desirable.

[0xffff2]

Lucky you. I have a house just outside a small town of 700, about 30 miles outside a town of 30,000. I can't even get DSL; I'm stuck with terrible satellite internet when I'm out there. I really can't wait for Starlink. If it works as promised, I'll finally be able to ditch my Silicon Valley apartment and go full remote.

[fzeroracer]

There are plenty of cities where this is also the case however. You're also not locked into the local area only (where the nearest airport might be hours away) and your options for everything else other than leisure aren't limited

Living in small towns is incredibly stifling for people that prefer to use their feet to get around, at least in America. It always seemed fittingly ironic that people move to small towns so they can drive out to their outdoorsy hobbies.

[rb808]

> there is plenty to do if you're into this lifestyle

I wonder if there are fewer people that like the outdoors lifestyle now. New generation prefers xbox and eating at restaurants and doesn't like yard work or hiking.

I'd love to move somewhere quieter but my wife would kill me.

[rootusrootus]

That sounds wonderful. Can I be your neighbor?

Edit: Ah, I'd have to move to Canada. Not a deal killer :)

[arethuza]

Garden, walk, cycle, fish, run, hunt, sail, ride horses, keep bees, kayak, swim, view historical stuff.... [I'm just naming things that people do within a couple of km from where I live].

NB Personally I garden, walk and look at mysterious old stuff. But plenty of people doing the others.

Edit: Until 2 years ago I lived in the very centre of Edinburgh - which is quite a nice place to live. So far I've never regretted moving out of town to the country.

[tdb7893]

Ride horses, hang out with friends, play video games, go hiking, pay music with friends, cook food, shoot guns, watch Netflix, play poker with friends. My wife grew up in a small town and she always found stuff to do, it's really not that hard depending on what you like.

Edit: to add some more specific flavor my wife liked to ride horses, play her guitar, swim, and watch TV. Her parents were pretty busy but they would hang out with friends and liked to cook and play in what was essentially an Irish folk band in the area.

[nostalgk]

Exactly, all of these things. The notion that city living is the only way to live and that smaller towns are simply flyover communities is pretty ignorant. I love visiting the city as well, there are excellent opportunities like restaurants and events, but the culture is different and I am always happy to return to my small town hobbies.

[landryraccoon]

I don't think the problem is not having stuff to do, the problem is finding people to do it with.

Small towns and nature have no end of things to do. But it has way fewer people. I think modern society has a bigger problem with loneliness than with not having enough entertaining activities.

[circlefavshape]

This. I live in the countryside, 5km from the nearest village (<1000 people). It's a very pleasant village, and I know plenty of people in it, but the population is too small and sparse for me to find a group of people like me. To hang out with my real friends I need to go into the city

[thrower123]

A whole lot more than you can do if you are stuck in an urban area or worse, a suburban hellscape. At least if you like doing things outside, or want to do more worthwhile things than mindless consumer hedonism.

Go fishing, go hunting, go hiking, do some trailriding on an ATV or a snowmobile or a horse. Plant a garden or an orchard and tend to that. Have a barbecue with the neighbors. Get involved with the community. Work up your firewood. You can read books, or watch TV or engage with the internet just as easily as anywhere else, and you can get anything in the world delivered to you with two-day delivery from Amazon. You can look up at night and see the stars, rather than just washed out orange halogen haze.

[madengr]

Guns Archery Model rocketry Ham radio Fireworks

[kawfey]

+1 for ham radio, HF is much better in rural areas since it's farther from manmade electrical noise, however VHF+ is boring due to lack of people (and typically line of sight range) unless you're into satellites, sporadic-E, and tropospheric ducting.

[madengr]

Even then, getting a decent satellite station the the suburbs is problematic. I’d like nice rotor setup with dual band, dual polarized yagi.

I have a active loop for HF RX, which does a good job of rejecting local noise, but would still be better in rural area.

[PerfectElement]

It depends on what you like to do. Countryside living is appealing to many people.

[neom]

Except then your best friend moves to San Fransisco and now you have no friends, so you move to San Fransisco and then you live in San Fransisco (I'm not bitter or anything....) :(

[seanmcdirmid]

Technologists are probably not typically the ones that find it appealing.

[nostalgk]

On the contrary, most of my peers are either living in the country on their own land or saving to do so. Especially if it's within driving distance of a city.

[ghaff]

The Bay Area is something on an exception in that you really can't easily drive out to reasonably priced exurban/rural housing quickly enough to go into the city for an evening. With many other popular cities, an hour outside the city can get you into the countryside (and many employers are well outside the city in any case).

[seanmcdirmid]

That’s anecdotal, but I’m willing to bet the typical technologist is not like your peers.

[sudosteph]

Plenty of introverts who like building things (the stereotypical technologist) are into it.

More income savings to spend on new gadgets, space to build things (plus No HOAs to say you can't run a business or put up a big antenna on your property), and relative peace and quiet in your environment are quite appealing. I know some brilliant technologists who work remote and wouldn't trade their life-style for any salary in a big city. I'm a city-lover myself, but easily understand the appeal of working in tech while living in the country.

[ghaff]

What do you think is so special about technologists that they uniquely prefer urban (or suburban) living?

[seanmcdirmid]

It really isn’t a mystery: they like tech obviously, they probably went to a big university with lots of diversity and eat out options, they feel a strong need to network. All hint toward city living rather than country side living.

Also, many techies in the USA aren’t even Americans, they are even less likely to be craving for the countryside lifestyle.

[hutgu]

For anyone who isn't into highly social hobbies the countryside is usually at least equally good. Apart from restaurants and larger selection of food in stores, city life has not changed my free time much at all.

[e40]

Why haven't remote workers or remote teams spread into the smaller towns and countryside?

Because when you live in an area you become entrenched. I would love to move out of the Bay Area for cheaper everything, but all my friends and family are here.

This is the element that people forget about in these discussions.

[AnimalMuppet]

> but all my friends and family are here.

Ah. That explains quite a bit, actually.

But it doesn't explain everything. It explains why people who are there stay there. It doesn't explain why people have to move there to make decent money.

[jdietrich]

I can't speak for anywhere else, but the key problem in the UK is casualisation and underemployment. Lots of people are in work, but it's not good work. On one side, we've pushed people off welfare benefits through an increasingly punitive sanctions regime; on the other, we've allowed for a proliferation of insecure temporary, part-time and gig-based work. The unemployment rate is low, but there's still a severe shortage of work, we've just spread the jam thinner.

According to the official statistics, anyone working for at least one hour a week is counted as employed. If your objective is to reduce the unemployment figures, that's a loophole big enough to drive a bus through. We've got a million people in part-time work who want a full-time job but can't find one. We've got two million self-employed people earning less than the minimum wage. More people are working, but they aren't enjoying most of the rewards we associate with work.

That's before we consider the statistical black hole that is "economic inactivity" - about eight million people who aren't in the labour market and aren't seeking work. Maybe they're contented housewives and househusbands, maybe they've won the lottery, maybe they've been unemployed for so long that they've given up looking. We don't know and we don't care to ask.

https://www.businessinsider.com/ons-underemployment-double-u...

https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/two-million-self-employed-adults...

[lbotos]

I'm just a young punk, but isn't it cyclical?

- Youth Makes money in city

- Grows tired of city and wants space, moves out of city

- Starts family

- Needs supporting culture/services outside of city

- Small town grows

- Small town can't grow bigger due to geo/resources/politics

- Economic opportunity in town shrinks

- Child seeks city to make money

[seanmcdirmid]

It was never “move to small towns” but “move to big city suburbs.” Those places have done well, but have often become cities themselves.

[JimboOmega]

Suburbs are a (relatively) new invention, and the original reason to move there was "get away from the black people" not "tired of city and wants space".

It was made possible (sort of) by cars and freeways which made living 25 miles away from your job a thing that was practical (sort of).

[seanmcdirmid]

> get away from the black people

That’s only true in a few places, there were plenty of places (like Seattle) that didn’t have many black people at all yet people still moved to the suburbs.

The suburbs were mostly an invention of a post World War 2 housing and baby boom.

[scottlocklin]

Suburbs were in part fallout from establishment aggression against Catholic ethnic enclaves in the cities. But mostly it seems it was encouraged as a civil defense measure:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713999949

"Though suburbanization in the United States during the 1950s is a well known story, scholars still consider postwar prosperity and basic desire on the part of the American people to move further away from problems of the inner city as its primary causes. While it is true that various factors contributed to phenomenal growth of the suburbs between 1945 and 1960, historians have thus far paid little attention to policymakers' fears of atomic attack as a significant factor in population dispersal. This article examines how sociologists, scientists, and other experts considered the reduction of urban vulnerability a Cold War priority, and worked to encourage dispersion of people and factories as a civil defence measure."

[ghaff]

And, of course, many jobs moved or were established in the suburbs/exurbs where potential employees mostly lived. It's easy to forget that a city like Boston was still losing population in the 90s and had basically no tech jobs in the city proper.

[dawhizkid]

Birthrates in the US are falling every year. The assumption that your typical young person hitting late 20s/30s will get married or have kids and move to the burbs is outdated.

[beat]

Birthrates are falling worldwide, and rapidly. We're already at a point where the birth rate worldwide is just at replacement level - the current growth in population is due to increased lifespans from 1-2 generations ahead of the flattening. Only a handful of desperately poor countries - places like Yemen and Afghanistan - have high birthrates. To give a sense of how much it's changed, Iran's birthrate is lower than Europe or the US. In 1980, Iran's birthrate was four times higher than it is now.

[tenpies]

This. It's quite clear that the fertility rates we've seen historically will not hold into the future. We are on a timer to figure out why we're structuring society in a way that so many people find repulsive enough to not wish to reproduce.

This is not a Western or first world problem, because we see it spreading as countries become more developed. In many ways, I would argue that this is an exponentially bigger problem than climate change, although I am sure there is some overlap since there mere psychological pessimism from how the media/pre-university education handles climate change is enough to get people to not want to reproduce.

[beat]

I don't see it as a problem, myself. Children have gone from economic boon (more child labor to help the family) to economic expense. It makes more sense to parents to have one or two kids and pour resources into them, rather than having a half-dozen, half of whom will die as children. And for adults who aren't really infatuated with parenting, they can skip it altogether, not needing children to care for them in their old age.

[jwatt]

> We're already at a point where the birth rate worldwide is just at replacement level

We're at around 2.5 according to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

And there are lots of countries in Africa that have high rates:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

[beat]

Yes. Desperately poor ones. And most of them are improving, rapidly. The process takes a couple of generations, once it gets rolling.

Take Egypt, for example. Its birth rate is currently 3.26, which is "high". but That's down from 6.72 in 1960 and 5.60 in 1980. Over the same period, life expectancy has risen from 48 to 71. This means population growth hasn't changed that much, from 2.8% to 1.9% - but as birth rate continues to fall and life expectancy levels out, it'll go negative, just like it did in the US and Europe, which would have negative growth, were it not for immigration.

Think this nations are just doomed and can't get any better? In the mid-19th century, places like Sweden and England had birthrates above 6, and 90% illiteracy rates. They got better. The "third world" is dropping its birth rates and increasing its economic standing far, far faster than Europe did.

edit: Over the same-ish 1965-present period, Egypt's per capita GDP grew from $165 to a recent peak of $3548, about a 20x improvement (this is constant dollars). So wealth goes up, life expectancy goes up, birth rate goes down. These things are linked in virtually every nation.

[jwatt]

> Think this nations are just doomed and can't get any better?

I'm not sure if that question was directed at me or to all readers, but if directed to me, no, I certainly don't think that.

> So wealth goes up, life expectancy goes up, birth rate goes down.

Indeed, there is a strong and important link there.

[betaby]

No.

[beat]

No what? Are you disputing any of the facts stated here? I'll give you my reference... Factfulness, by Hans Rosling.

If you seriously intend to disagree, cite sources. If you're just saying no to something that is a demonstrably true, objective fact... maybe ask yourself why that is.

[betaby]

"We're already at a point where the birth rate worldwide is just at replacement level" - that's just false.

[rootusrootus]

Falling, but slowly (and it also trends up at times). The vast majority of people become parents.

[api]

If little new housing is built, density remains the same, and transportation is not upgraded, then this applies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent

When it comes to what's squeezing the middle class and imposing a glass ceiling, housing prices are the #1 problem. Student loans and healthcare costs might tie for #2. I think we're getting to the point that we need a "war on housing prices" in the developed world. That's going to mean going to war politically against NIMBYs, property speculators, and others who profit from restricting supply.

Here's a few of the major things we need:

* Huge (to the level of punitive) taxes on excessive property speculation especially when the speculators are from elsewhere. I was chatting with a friend about it a while back and coined the term "financial pollution" for when foreign capital does socially destructive things to communities like hyper-inflate house prices. In California a start would be to abolish proposition 13 for properties that are not owner-occupied. Housing can't simultaneously be affordable and a good investment. It exists to be lived in, not to act as a financial instrument.

* Apply full KYC/AML and other anti-dirty-money regulations to all real estate transactions to chase the money launderers and flight capital away from real estate. This one is rarely brought up but it would go a long way toward limiting runaway property speculation in certain "hot" markets. A lot of this money buying houses sight-unseen is dirty money.

* Restrict the power of NIMBYs to limit density by enacting laws at the city, county, or state level. Go as high as necessary.

* Greatly expand transit to enable cities to physically expand. This includes light rail, commuter rail, highways, EV infrastructure, etc.

A lot of this boils down to fighting NIMBYs since existing property owners have a financial vested interest in opposing all of the above.

[ThrustVectoring]

What is increasing, though, is the retiree-to-worker ratio. This is intractably linked to the housing price-to-income ratio, too.

Retirees pay for goods and services in one of two ways - they either receive tax receipts through government programs, or sell off assets they have accumulated in their working career. Every asset seller has a matching buyer, so this implies that workers provide for retirees through a combination of taxes and buying assets with their savings.

Housing and mortgage debt is an absolutely enormous pool of assets, and one that large numbers of retirees naturally accumulate over their working career.

[dexen]

>Yet living standards aren't improving >There's a housing bubble in virtually every major city of Europe

The former stems from the later, and from the lags inherent to markets.

Wage adjustments lag behind employment numbers. Right now while the employment numbers are increasing, there is still quite a bit of 'slack' (unemployed and underemployed people) that can be, and indeed is getting, picked up. Thus we still don't have significant wage increases.

Living standard change lag behind wages changes. Once the wages start significantly increasing, people will go ahead and spend on that one or three things they always wanted to, but couldn't previously afford. And the list is way longer than just the usual consumer goods: investment, savings, healthcare, vacations&leisure, shopping around for better job. Housing market is a great example: there's major imbalance between supply and demand, and it will take a few decades to significantly improve[1], due to both changing populations and building out. The prices will go up even higher before the correction comes.

[1] it will significantly improve in a few decades, barring some heavy-handed governmental interventions.

[umeshunni]

I'm curious about your comment about the migration from smaller towns - this isn't something I've heard about in the US where the recent domestic migration trend is for people to move from midwest/central states to coastal states.

Are smaller towns in UK shrinking? Are there stats I can look at on internal migration in the UK? Is this trend true for other western EU countries as well?

[iak8god]

> I'm curious about your comment about the migration from smaller towns - this isn't something I've heard about in the US

The percentage of Americans living in rural counties has been shrinking. Gains are mostly in the suburbs:

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/05/22/demographic-and-e...

[arethuza]

It probably depends on a lot on the region within the UK - towns in ex-industrial areas might be shrinking but those within commuting distance of a city or in areas with particularly high quality of life and good communication links seem to be thriving - Inverness and Aviemore being in the latter category.

I live near a small town on the Fife coast directly across from Edinburgh and all of the neighbouring coastal towns seem to be doing well - the ex-mining towns 10km away not so much. Main constraint on development being local planning authorities rather than demand.

This article mentions the growth of Aviemore (very much a centre for outdoor activities) but also the decline of some other more out of the way towns:

https://www.strathspey-herald.co.uk/news/aviemore-hailed-as-...

[AnimalMuppet]

> I live near a small town on the Fife coast directly across from Edinburgh and all of the neighbouring coastal towns seem to be doing well - the ex-mining towns 10km away not so much. Main constraint on development being local planning authorities rather than demand.

If I had the choice between living on the coast, and living in an ex-mining town, I'm probably going to pick the coast (other things being approximately equal). The coast is scenic; ex-mining areas are usually not scenic. That is, I think that demand is exactly what's making the coast do better. The local planning authorities may be an effect rather than a cause - the ex-mining areas may know that they don't have as much to work with, and therefore may have less that they can realistically do.

[arethuza]

Yes - you can see the differences between the coastal towns and the ex mining towns in this map of social deprivation in Scotland:

http://simd.scot

[DeonPenny]

Wages are growing but housing is increasing but eventually, I think wages will outpace.

[lostmymind66]

Housing price increases, at least in the US, are due to regulations..plain and simple. If you make it easier for houses to be built, the supply will out pace demand and the market will force these prices down.

[yourapostasy]

We should be pushing from two directions. Make it easier to build as you say from the new supply direction. Make it easier to price these more along the lines as consumption goods instead of financial assets from the pricing direction. Otherwise, new supply is soaked up by those with access to sufficient credit to run the new supply as rentals.

In the US, this partially means cracking down and reforming the federal guaranteed mortgage purchase programs. Make federal purchases only for one owner-occupied, primary residence, linked to a 1040 filing. Carve out an exception for married couples filing jointly to be able to run two primary residences through federal programs. Enforce through link of federal loan guarantee programs into the IRS datasets holding the declared primary residence.

There are a lot of people who could never qualify for privately-held and privately-administered mortgage loans taking full advantage of the backstop provided by the taxpayers in the federally-guaranteed programs, and renting out the units. They're welcome to work as real estate investors, just not on the back of taxpayers' liability. Many of these people are in the NAR, and they will scream very loudly and donate very generously if this ox is in danger of goring.

But deflating the asset inflation of real estate is a necessary evil to counter the now-obvious impacts of inflating these with over-generous credit and credit terms. Real estate is not an ailing industry with national security interest that needs any form of propping up.

Do away with the expensive marketing subsidy to the mortgage loan industry, and eliminate the mortgage interest deduction. It only kicks in if you itemize (and even then, you have to qualify under the new personal+standard higher deduction rule, so only an estimated 5% of filers will take advantage of it), and it is only a big benefit in the first few years of the amortization schedule.

[beat]

Nonsense. Land is a scarce resource. Neighborhoods aren't getting any bigger - they can't get any bigger. So the only way for a city to increase its housing supply is to increase its density, and that runs into a buzzsaw of local politics.

In theory, supply is infinite because you just build somewhere else. But people don't want to live somewhere else. They don't want to commute an hour and a half each way because that's where the cheap land was. The price I pay for my 1800sf 1/10 acre in south Minneapolis would buy me three times that in the burbs, but I don't wanna live in the burbs. I want to live in Minneapolis.

[0xffff2]

>...and that runs into a buzzsaw of local politics.

That's exactly what needs to change in "make it easier for houses to be built". Make it easier means don't let NIMBYs block housing.

[beat]

What does "NIMBY" mean in these contexts, though? I think this is more handwaving.

I live in a city that is taking active steps to increase its density and affordability (https://minneapolis2040.com/). This directly affects my neighborhood. There are two kinds of construction going on around us. First is higher-density apartments/condos in the 3-5 story range, often with first level retail. These aren't replacing homes, though - they're replacing light industrial like warehouses.

Second, and this is an interesting rebuttal - some of the 100 year old houses are being torn down and replaced with new, larger (and much more expensive) houses on the same lots. So a worn-out 1200sf bungalow on 1/10 acre gets turned into a 3200sf quasi-mcmansion on the same lot. These new houses cost 50-100% more than the old houses in the neighborhood do (more like 100% for the run-down homes they replace). But they are contributing zero to the overall density - they're still single-family dwellings. Even the old two-flats in the neighborhood contribute more density.

So rather than increasing density, they're increasing cost of living. That is your #invisiblehand in play, without NIMBYism stopping anything.

[pchristensen]

I don't know about MN specifically, but the teardown+upsizing is usually a direct result of zoning restricting multifamily development. A 4500sf lot could hold 3-4 townhomes that probably cost similar to the sale price of that 1200sf bungalow, and together sell for more than your quasi-mcmansion. If you need a variance to build the townhomes but can build the McMansion by right, that changes the economics of time and certainty, so you end up with the McMansion. I just moved out of Bellevue, WA and that city is full of run down houses from the 50s getting town down for 4500sf $1.5M+ mansions. In general, the #invisiblehand has his thumb on the scales against legal, by-right development of denser housing.

[beat]

I don't think a 4 unit townhome is practical on these small lots with alley garages. Townhome construction around here is a burbs thing, and done in large clumps of 2-10 city blocks or so of area (and which tend to be singularly unattractive and gross).

I don't think it's just zoning here. There have been some small multi-family units built. But they don't sell all that well or seem economically attractive to builders.

And back to my point... I think there's a lot of sort of theoretical macroeconomic handwaving going on when it comes to housing density that flatly rejects engaging with real world conditions in any way. It sounds smart, but it's dumb.

[0xffff2]

That's a very different situation from what's going on in the bay area. Out here we're building tons of new office space, a handful of luxury apartment complexes (that often replace older complexes that had more units than the new one), and virtually nothing else. This is a direct result of residents (AKA NIMBYs) voting for city councils that refuse to allow denser housing.

[lostmymind66]

"Nonsense. Land is a scarce resource. Neighborhoods aren't getting any bigger - they can't get any bigger. So the only way for a city to increase its housing supply is to increase its density, and that runs into a buzzsaw of local politics."

Of course it's a scarce resource, but regulations don't make it any less scarce. The city where I grew up can't build any apartments past 5 stories because the local government feels like it's an eye sore. The result is housing/apartment prices that are 3X the price of other surrounding cities.

San Francisco is a good example of this. It can take a builder 10 years to actually get the permits to build a new house, because of regulations.

"The price I pay for my 1800sf 1/10 acre in south Minneapolis would buy me three times that in the burbs, but I don't wanna live in the burbs. I want to live in Minneapolis."

When you put it this way, I don't really feel bad for the high housing costs, because it seems like it's mostly about being inconvenienced.

[pchristensen]

Neighborhoods aren't getting bigger, but it is solely legal restrictions that prevent them from getting denser.

[debatem1]

Which regulations would you suggest caused my parents' rural South Carolina home to gain 50% in value over the last ten years? There's plenty of land, all of it zoned for agriculture or residential.

[pchristensen]

10 years? A strong recovery from a terrible housing-related economic crash. Also, 20% of that 50% is inflation.

[debatem1]

So, are you blaming regulation for the crash, the recovery, or the inflation?

The claim I'm disputing is that regulation is to blame for recent housing price increases.

[pchristensen]

I was claiming that a 50% from 2009-2019 is a modest, explainable increase (and probably from a more reasonable base), that is probably not the result of regulation.

For contrast, Seattle's median home price was already expensive at ~$400K in 2009, dropped to ~$350K in 2012, and has doubled to ~$700K since then. In the short term, it's more due to the crazy hiring growth by tech companies here. But even though Seattle is building much more than San Francisco, the majority of the land is zoned for single family homes, so there's no way for building to catch up.

The rural home in SC sounds much more healthy and like what people want - steady increases in price, a few points above inflation.

[debatem1]

Disclaimer: I live in Seattle.

Since I was curious about the numbers, I went back and looked it up. Since June of 2009 (ie, the same time period) median housing price in Seattle has gone from $365,000 to $655,000. Numerically that's huge, but it's actually only about 7% faster growth than my parents' property-- a growth rate that most people here, including yourself, seem to view as unexceptional. This in a city that by all accounts is exploding in population and in the midst of a dire housing crunch which demands deregulation.

Don't get me wrong-- 7% is a lot of money. But it's an effect size that could easily be explained by simple profiteering, FOMO, construction cost increases, or any number of other local factors that have little to do with the regulatory environment. Paradoxically, it could even be caused by new construction, since new homes and condos typically cost more than the homes they're replacing.

None of this is to say that I'm 100% certain regulation doesn't play a role in Seattle's housing woes. But the difference in how these two situations are perceived should, I think, represent a warning about conventional wisdom in both places.

[treis]

> 50% in value over the last ten years

That's only slightly ahead of the general inflation rate and might simply match the price increase in construction.

[debatem1]

Three points:

1/ inflation over ten years is roughly 19%. So 50% is not "slightly ahead" by any means.

2/ Residential construction cost per square foot seems like a stronger candidate, with a roughly 35% jump nationwide over that time period (remembering that this does not account for inflation). Accounting for inflation that's essentially half the price increase.

3/ Neither of these factors, if they fully explained the value increase, would support the claim that regulation is to blame.

[treis]

>3/ Neither of these factors, if they fully explained the value increase, would support the claim that regulation is to blame.

The point is that the 50% increase is the baseline appreciation or in other words the increase due to everything but regulation. Things like natural inflation, construction costs, etc. A rate above that is likely due to supply being constrained by regulation (or at least that's what the GP argues).

[khuey]

Gee I wonder what was going on in 2009 that would cause depressed real estate valuations.

[debatem1]

Somehow you seem to think this proves OP's point that regulation is to blame.

[lostmymind66]

Regulation is to blame. Look at cities like San Francisco and tell me it's not regulation..

[debatem1]

As it turns out, extrapolating the experiences of a geographically small and economically unique metro area to the entire US is not a sound start. Regulation may very well be to blame in San Francisco, but South Carolina is about as far from San Francisco as you can get-- in more ways than miles. Your problems are just not the same as their problems.

[EGreg]

This is because automation and outsourcing has created a race to the bottom. We work longer hours for less pay. Similar to how farmers before the Great Depression were disrupted by combines and the govt stepped in to pay them to not plant. They created the dust bowl by dessicating the land.

[EGreg]

What’s even worse is that today, worldwide ONE THIRD OF ARABLE LAND has been spoiled by farmers in a race to the bottom, it is a huge negative externality. Natural ecosystem can’t sustain the Red Queen spirals of capitalism.

https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/arable-l...

[jahewson]

Combine harvesters were not widely used on the Great Plains before or during the depression. It was the Homestead Act which opened up the native grassland to mom and pop farmers which resulted in the dustbowl when drought conditions occurred. These were good old fashioned horse and plough farmers.

[EGreg]

Wikipedia disagrees with you.

However, agriculture became increasingly mechanized with widespread use of the tractor, other heavy equipment, and superior techniques disseminated through County Agents, who were employed by state agricultural colleges and funded by the Federal government. The early 1920s saw a rapid expansion in the American agricultural economy largely due to new technologies and especially mechanization. Competition from Europe and Russia had disappeared due to the war and American agricultural goods were being shipped around the world.[47]

The new technologies, such as the combine harvester, meant that the most efficient farms were larger in size and, gradually, the small family farm that had long been the model were replaced by larger and more business-oriented firms. Despite this increase in farm size and capital intensity, the great majority of agricultural production continued to be undertaken by family-owned enterprises.

World War I had created an atmosphere of high prices for agricultural products as European nations demand for exports surged. Farmers had enjoyed a period of prosperity as U.S. farm production expanded rapidly to fill the gap left as European belligerents found themselves unable to produce enough food. When the war ended, supply increased rapidly as Europe's agricultural market rebounded. Overproduction led to plummeting prices which led to stagnant market conditions and living standards for farmers in the 1920s. Worse, hundreds of thousands of farmers had taken out mortgages and loans to buy out their neighbors' property, and now are unable to meet the financial burden. The cause was the collapse of land prices after the wartime bubble when farmers used high prices to buy up neighboring farms at high prices, saddling them with heavy debts. Farmers, however, blamed the decline of foreign markets, and the effects of the protective tariff.[48]

Farmers demanded relief as the agricultural depression grew steadily worse in the middle 1920s, while the rest of the economy flourished. Farmers had a powerful voice in Congress, and demanded federal subsidies, most notably the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill. It was passed but vetoed by President Coolidge.[49] Coolidge instead supported the alternative program of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover and Agriculture Secretary William M. Jardine to modernize farming, by bringing in more electricity, more efficient equipment, better seeds and breeds, more rural education, and better business practices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture_in_the_...

The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester contributed to farmers' decisions to convert arid grassland (much of which received no more than 10 inches (~250 mm) of precipitation per year) to cultivated cropland.[4]

During the drought of the 1930s, the unanchored soil turned to dust, which the prevailing winds blew away in huge clouds that sometimes blackened the sky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

[ars]

You are saying contradictory things. "Yet living standards aren't improving an inch.", yet people are moving into the city in record numbers, and are willing to pay for it.

Why would they do that, if not to improve their living standards?

You are complaining that house prices are high, yet simultaneously saying people are moving into the city? Which is it? If the prices were high, people wouldn't move, but since they are moving, clearly there's a reason for it.

Are you trying to say you don't want people to move? You want to keep them in rural locations? But wouldn't the only way to do that, would be to make sure they don't have enough income to live in the city?