[drblast]

I cannot agree with this more.

Come to the Midwest! Make half as much and live in a house that you can sell for half as much profit when you retire! Come for the flat outdoors with nothing to do, stay for the lack of ethnic and cultural diversity!

Half of the people in Seattle are Midwest refugees who came here despite not having a job lined up. It's laughable to think they'd move back for a salary cut despite cheaper housing. The financial incentive would have to be overwhelmingly positive so they could work in the Midwest for a few years then move somewhere better.

[jethro_tell]

LOL, we've had that offer; we turned it down. We could have bought two or three times the house we have now with cash on hand and kept our same jobs with the companies we work for now.

That wouldn't be what we want in life. So we have a little house in a big city with a little garden and the ability to bike with our kids anywhere that's worth going. There are music venues, and museums, and restaurants, and lakes, and ocean, and beaches. With a weekend drive there are mountains and forests. Week nights can get you an $8 dollar show with a good band just around the corner and most nights there is a choice of 6-8 bands within a mile.

Most of the people I know and live around could live in cheaper places as well, either apartments, or cities, but they live here because that's where they want to live.

[non-entity]

> There are music venues

I just moved from what was effectively a state capital/ college town to a largish town without much going on and man having a music venue that plays various local and touring underground artists from all sorts of genres is something I miss. I'm closer to two cities that get large headliner concerts now, but it's still to rare someone I enjoy enough to take the trip is coming.

[mcguire]

"So we have a little house in a big city with a little garden..."

Does that make you one of the NIMBYs?

[jethro_tell]

Nope, I have a social contract with the people around me that I can use that piece of land for a house, but I also don't try to regulate what anyone else can do with their land.

I'd like to see everything in the city rezoned from single family to multifamily with the option for high density. I write/ speak up at every zoning city council meeting in favor of density, I back candidates that support dense zoning, I've supported city lots on my block being turned into low income, subsidized housing instead of a park. My neighborhood specifically is the one in my city with the highest density growth since I've moved here with the population tripping in the last couple years and outpacing the growth of the city by 1/2. I'd like to see more done to continue that trend.

I didn't buy a little house with a garden because I needed a little house with a garden, I bought it because that's what I could afford in the neighborhood that I wanted to live in. I'd have been just has happy in a townhome, or in a multi-family condo, but that wasn't available when we were looking for a place to live.

There's some things that are really fucked up with the way our city's have grown so fast. But I hope that we can make them places for all, to enjoy the same things that I've been privileged enough to enjoy.

[poulsbohemian]

Wanna hear something funny? A couple months ago the New York Times did a vignette of four families around the country. The only family that was actually saving money / financially sound was in friggin’ Iowa City!

The problem isn’t really just housing costs (though that is a huge pain) it’s the cost of everything, the commute, and the near requirement to have two incomes just to pay your bills every month. The benefit of higher coastal salaries only works if you can somehow contain the overall cost of living from eating it all.

[jethro_tell]

I'd love to read this. Is it just an interest piece or is there some statistical data that goes with it? I know there are a lot of people who are not in a great place in cities. I also know, there are a lot of people not in great places in rural areas.

For my situation personally, it's never been an issue, and it's not for the people in our social circles. We were never going to be a single income household, it's not something either of us have ever wanted. The thing with cities, is you can't move to a city and do things the same as you do when you didn't live in a city. You've got to find a way to drop commuting, live in smaller spaces, be closer to thing things that you love. I know a lot of people who have moved to the city but can't live in a small space, so they buy a house out on the edge then spend hundreds of dollars and countless hours commuting into the city and it just breaks them. I can understand how they'd want to live else where but even then, when I talk to them, they are turning down job offers in non-coastal cities.

[aspenmayer]

I think this is the piece mentioned. They have an expense/income breakdown of each family from my quick skim. Google query was "new york times four families iowa" just in case that helps.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/03/your-money/mi...

[boring_twenties]

> The benefit of higher coastal salaries only works if you can somehow contain the overall cost of living from eating it all.

When I worked in NYC, I literally saved more, after taxes and all expenses, than I could make in total before taxes (or any expenses) where I live now.

Even a zero cost of living wouldn't begin to make up for that. People simply refuse to understand this, though. They just keep on repeating "but muh cost of living!" even though it's clearly not relevant.

It's their prerogative I suppose, but the thing that gets me is that these same people are constantly complaining about how they can't hire anyone!

Have you considered paying more, I ask?

We pay more than enough already!

No, you obviously don't.

[jethro_tell]

lol, I've gotten offers or pitches where the pay bracket is 33% what I make now but the cost of living is 17% less. Thanks but no thanks.

[boring_twenties]

God, that's even worse. The thing that comes to mind is "are you sure you actually want to hire someone who would be stupid enough to accept this?"

[lotsofpulp]

You don't need to contain the cost of living, you just have to increase income faster than your costs. And therein lies the rub. There is such a vast difference in probability of potential future income between certain urban areas and the rest, that it makes it worth it for many to gamble on achieving it, especially because of "who you know, not what you know" means rubbing shoulders with the right people can really launch you. If that's what you want.

[freeross]

Each time I think there’s no way trump gets re-elected I have Bay Area/West Coast interactions like these and snap back to reality.

[minikites]

>Make half as much and live in a house that you can sell for half as much profit when you retire!

Housing should not be an investment.

[nullbull]

Tell that to the financial industry, real estate brokers, etc. etc. etc.

We didn't make this reality, we just live in it.