1647

Yeah, I heard Gavin Newsom talk about that on the radio a few months ago. How they encourage building housing, which is the only long term way to bring down housing prices. But each city doesn’t want to build housing in their city because it hurts home values. So he was saying they were considering legislation on a state level to override local cities so they had to allow new housing.

1648

Here’s the counter-argument that basically says, if you allow new housing to be built, but the builders just build high-end luxury towers, it attracts more rich people and the cost never goes down.

While research shows that new housing lowers home prices on a macro level, when it comes to individual buildings, streets, or neighborhoods, certain new development can have a gentrifying effect.

As urban design consultant Rick Jacobus noted in 2016, this is the result of “the same mechanism working at different geographic scales.” New development in SoMa did help depress price inflation in the city overall, he says, but it also made the neighborhood a competitive destination for wealthier renters and condo buyers.

It’s sort of like dental work: In the long run, it’s critical for your overall health, but at the site of the drilling it’s probably going to hurt like hell.

1649

I’m old enough to remember when Boulder was Austin. When Phoenix was Austin. When Key West was Austin. When Chapel Hill was Austin. When Ann Arbor was Austin. Before the influx. Before the people looking for the perfect city ruined the city they moved to because it was perfect.

That is what always happens: the very thing that attracts the crowd crowds out what was attractive.

Personally, my best bet is maybe Flagstaff? If it isn’t already ruined? Maybe Las Vegas, New Mexico?
Maybe Missoula, Montana?

1650

Same issue here in the Salt Lake City area. I had a friend who put her house on the market recently and had to sift through 47 (!!) offers by the end of the day. The previous townhouse I lived at I ended up selling for 30% more than I paid for just two years earlier. It’s insane right now and I just don’t see how anyone not already in the market can possibly crack into it at this point.

1651

It’s quite hard to understand the appeal of living in Flagstaff. Yeah, okay, rugged outdoors. Beyond that?

I don’t know the other places.

1652

You live in PA like me. You need to look at how much rent costs in this state. The area I live in has a lot of poorer areas. It’s about $800 a month unless you’re going to get a roommate and split a one bedroom like that.

You really need to research before you make some statements you’re making here.

1653

Flagstaff actually has a lot of good restaurants these days. I agree it is an ugly town, but hey. College towns typically have excellent restaurants, good cultural stuff going on, lots of young people keeping the town vital and active. They just tend to get overcrowded over time, and the prices get driven up.

1654

Incredibly beautiful like most of western Montana. And, oh boy, don’t tell anyone you moved there from California :)

1655

I’d move there in a heartbeat upon retirement, but my wife would divorce me. Hell, I was offered a job in Marquette, Michigan soon after I got married, and if I had still been single I’d have taken it. And she’d probably have divorced me :)

1656

I feel like this is how it is in much of the Mountain West. There’s nothing Utahns won’t blame on “Californians”. I find it provincial and annoying.

1657

But not completely undeserved.

1658

I find it accurate having lived in California for 20 years.

1659

Tulsa OK has the mini Austin vibe, including river down the middle. I mean, it’s OK though.

The problem for Tulsa is the lack of a state university, and while Norman OK is “nice” it’s never going to be Austin.

1660

My brother lives in Tulsa. We mostly grew up in Shawnee, and I did my undergrad in Norman.

Yeah, Norman just does not have a good college town cultural scene. It says a ton that when the students want a good night on the town (not just drinking) they drive to Dallas. Honestly, sad though it is to say, Stillwater is a better college town than Norman.

Tulsa, on the other hand, I consider an armpit of a town. Not quite Lawton level, but you could not pay me enough to live there. The only thing it has going for it is that it is not OKC.

1661

I mean there are some OK neighborhoods in Tulsa (i’m never getting old of that pun). But the private only university is going to be a real killer for it’s long term demographics.

I just drove back from Norman on business and through the Wichita Mnts and saw some Bison. Lawton is just a strip mall army town but at least it has some hills behind it. I’ve been through worse in Texas.

1662

Oregonians do the same thing. It’s non-stop. It’s especially hilarious coming from someone who hearing it from someone who moved here from CA like ten years ago as somehow there is a magic number of years that makes it okay.

What is frustrating about the residential density thing is how often plans to do condos and apartments either fall through or are chased way, but every time I see a big ole place for people to live being built up, looks nice, good location… always yet another freaking retirement place for people to move into the area and live, but nothing for those who are already here.

1663

That area through the mountains is quite nice, I used to go camping down that way a lot. Sulphur has a nice little state park with bison and a small river you can swim in. Davis is not a bad little town. Ardmore is kindof a rathole though.

Lawton is Lawton. An army town like any other. But yes, it beats the hell out of anything in the Texas panhandle, or out in the Permian Basin.

1664

I’m half-seriously considering retiring in the Portland area. I can’t decide whether it would be better to tell people I’m from AZ (I grew up there) or CA (where I’ve been for the last 13 years). It’s like a devil’s bargain of the worst sort.

1665

If your rent is $800, and you are getting paid more than $1600 in unemployment, what’s the problem?

That’s the thing, folks keep missing a bunch of things about this.

The total federal taxes on that is going to be very little, a few hundred bucks tops over the entire year, nice there’s no payroll tax.

Then there’s the fact that you are also going to collect state unemployment. For PA, that would top out at around $600 a week on its own.

So for someone who was living comfortably beforehand, they wouldn’t be dropping down to $400 a week. They’d be going down to $1000 a week (was $1200 last year). And that’s for a single earner. For a couple who works, they’d both be pulling in $1000 a week.

Now, for folks who earn less normally, the state component of their unemployment would be lower potentially (you get half of your normal wages) but in those cases then the $400 from the feds added to it would likely actually be putting you up to around your normal wages.

1666

Maybe, but it doesn’t jibe with the averages. Housing alone almost eats that up.

https://bettermoneyhabits.bankofamerica.com/en/saving-budgeting/average-household-monthly-expenses

Louisville is probably in the middle, an apartment plus utilities is going to be a minimum of $800 a month or so. That leaves $1,600 to play with, but I haven’t broken down the rest. I recently paid off my house and with taxes and utilities, I’m still on the hook for around $400 a month in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom small house.