This article could use a scatter plot of metros by per capita income growth and population growth.
When I moved from one of these top five cities to rural South Carolina for grad school three years ago, my brother pointed out that I went from one of the most expensive to one of the least expensive real estate markets of the country. I never thought of it that way but he has a point. I paid less than 1/5 of my previous rent. When my roommate graduated last year she moved to San Francisco to pay more than six times our rent in sc. its actually pretty fun to see people’s reactions when I tell them how little I pay in rent here.
Additionally, the cost of land is prohibiting the development of new housing in all metro areas, but especially in the top five cited in this article.
Land basis has risen so much that the equity backing any real estate deal will not accept the returns.
1
In Phoenix apartments are being built as fast as they can. Huge apartment complexes all over the place.
"But it’s the Sun Belt, not the Midwest, that typically lures people priced out of California and New York." -- Climate change will reverse that -- the Sun Belt will get too hot and the Midwest may get closer to a Goldilocks climate.
6
They point out that San Francisco has replaced Detroit in rounding out the top five, but how many companies in SFO had factories in the middle of America like Detroit-based GM and Ford did? Levi Strauss and Co. did at one point, but those jobs are now in Mexico and Asia creating local economies and producing tax revenue for locals schools, etc. Henry Ford understood that if workers could afford to buy his cars they would then go out and do just that...and they did. Those that did not were able to either save for a home or sending a child to college. Often times, the first of the family to go to college.
Running America is the same. Sure, things will cost more if we produce here, but we’ll make more if we produce here and have better lives. We are better off to invest in one another as compatriots and everything else will fall into place. Every time there was an expanding middle class with accumulated familial wealth in America, something significant followed whether women’s suffrage or the Civil Rights movement.
2
Making phones and cars is an activity that is increasingly for robots. It’s not like 5000 people in a Chinese or Vietnamese phone factory standing on lines 3 shifts a day 7 days a week would bring good jobs to Toledo if they came “back home” - instead they’d be replaced with robots and 100 robot techs and support people.
Maybe not a bad idea but like a data center it would deliver more jobs in building it that it would in running it so not a major swing in employment. While in China it gets 5000 fellow humans out of rural poverty and into a lower middle class lifestyle with education driven upside for the next generation.
Dang - am sounding like a “globalist” there - sorry to all you America First people
1
Let’s get to the bottom of this: Where does the increasing inequality come from ?
From Piketty, author of Capital in the 20th Century, Feb 11, 2020
"Social-federalism vs national-liberalism"
"Over and above national specificities, (the rise of national liberalism) must be analysed in the first instance for what it is: the consequence of a collective failure in the way in which economic globalisation has been organised since the 1980s. The free circulation of capital, goods and services with no collective regulation or joint fiscal or social policy
functions primarily to the benefit of the richest and the most mobile, and undermines the most disadvantaged and the most vulnerable. "
https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/2020/02/11/social-federalism-vs-national-liberalism/
For three decades the free circulation of capital, goods and services were declared by Stiglitz, Krugman and others as being a benefit to all. It is not.
--
1
"But it’s the Sun Belt, not the Midwest, that typically lures people priced out of California and New York."
Climate change may change that -- we shall see. Milwaukee, Grand Rapids and Indianapolis might start to seem increasingly attractive when Phoenix, Austin and Las Vegas are infernos for much of the year.
8
@Jasper True about climate change. Here in Vermont., we are getting much milder winters than I remember having as a kid. The down side of that is, there is less snow for the ski areas, but they still seem to be doing fine, and they have added warm weather attractions.
Two considerations suggested by the article.
If the current definition of the largest cities is expanded beyond their original 1968 boundaries to encompass their adjacent suburbs (as newer "major metropolitan regions"), I wonder how that would affect the statistics of wealth concentration.
Also, virtually all small midwestern, western, and southern states with large rural populations now have at least one city, generally the capital, often with a university, that is profoundly different socially and economically than the surrounding small town, rural areas. This is true of Las Vegas, Tucson, Salt Lake City, Boise, Charlotte, etc. This exacerbates intra-state political differences and leads some citizens in, e.g., Eastern and Southern Oregon to propose seceding to join Idaho in order to find more congenial political neighbors.
3
Those leaving the richer states en masse are doing so as a result of the cap on deducting state and local taxes to $10k and estate taxes. People are flocking to those no-State income tax jurisdictions, putting their kids in private schools and are still coming out ahead.
It’s not just the retirees.
4
We are not creating most of the new wealth in our country so it's not getting into the hands of most people. It's concentrating in the hands of those who already have more money than they need and it will continue to do so. While we sell a lot of high tech services and products it's not affecting the ability of most people to improve their share of all the productivity. So wealth is becoming concentrated with those who can afford to buy in and take a share from the proceeds. The rich cities are going to remain so while the rest of the country struggles to get by.
You can thank the Republicans attacks upon our democratic governance and eagerness to scratch back every cent from the public sector to spend on themselves. It takes an intelligent mind to appreciate that what generates economic growth is participation not dollars languishing in safe havens.
5
Growth in the Sun Belt may produce very few jobs because so many of the newcomers are retirees. Service jobs will increase, but these pay very little.
11
@akamai Should help the medical industry.
3
Geographic inequality in the U.S. reflects the global concentration of wealth in urban areas, and domestic concentration of wealth in the one-percenters and 15% urban professional managerial classes. San Francisco and New York, Austin and Raleigh in largely rural states, Dubai and Mumbai in developing nations, are all centers of the global high tech and financial economy. Domestically, the one-percenters are the main beneficiaries of the booming stock market, the professional managerial class is thriving, while two thirds of Americans can’t afford to replace their refrigerator or take three days off with the flu. Globalized and financialized metros out-compete and dominate small city and rural economies. Growing geographic inequality has transformed the age-old town and country cultural division into a wealth, power, and political division.
11
"The metropolitan areas with the most rapid per-person income growth since 1980 have had only modest population increases. Think of the Bay Area, Boston and Fairfield County in Connecticut. Conversely, most places with huge population gains have had only modest income growth. They’re not getting much richer. Think of places like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Orlando."
The first group of places needs fewer highly skilled people for high paying jobs in SW development and finance. The second cohort requires lots of workers in low paying service industries like hotels, restaurants, theme parks, etc. Duh!
Also, is this average or median income? Measuring average per person income is as useful as measuring average temperature per hospital.
15
@VK
Boston, San Francisco, LA, NY and DC all have large tourism sectors. It's mostly about housing costs, not the fundamentals of economic activity.
1
I clicked on the link in the article to Go Midwest, Young Hipster, and was greeted by this opening line:
"Even as Hillary Clinton appears poised to win easily against a highly erratic candidate with a campaign in meltdown, a sobering reality awaits Democrats on Nov. 9. It seems likely that they will eke out at most a narrow majority in the Senate, but fail to pick up the 30 seats they need to reclaim the House."
1) that's what we worried about 4 years ago; 2) so much for forecasts like this?
17
Show me how this is a mostly bright economy when the inequality between the top 1% and especially the bottom 30% keeps growing. This means millions and millions of people with low incomes struggling to meet basic needs for housing, decent food, transportation and medical treatment. Since being poor is regarded as sign of moral deficit, many if not most people are very closed -mouth when it comes to publicly acknowledging their circumstances. The fact that multi-millionaires and billionaires are piling up ever bigger mountains of personal assets only means a bright economy for Wall Street and Silicon Valley investors.
12
I think the best thing that can happen to a metropolitan area if it is not in the top rung is to have a large top notch research oriented state university in it. Minneapolis, Minnesota and Columbus, Ohio are examples of this; perhaps Buffalo, New York is another.
Affordable, high quality, broad based education creates a great foundation for growth. We don't know what future technologies will be driving growth, but they require an educated population.
Like wise 2nd tier state schools can help bolster and provide hope to more rural areas.
Old industrial cities without these core, though they have other good, say premier private and secondary state institutions, seem to struggle: Cleveland, Louisville, Detroit, St. Louis are some examples. There are some exceptions, of course, such as Pittsburgh.
Nobody ups and moves to Minneapolis because of its brutal winters, but of the 3 cities in the Mississippi valley, 50 years ago St. Louis was the largest metro area, and Minneapolis 2nd, New Orleans 3rd, Memphis 4th. 50 years ago metro-St Louis had about a half million more people than Minneapolis. Today the situation is reversed and Minneapolis is closer to a million people more than St. Louis.
11
The big 5 have a different culture, therefor they attract almost all the talented tenth of the population, slowly but surely. Why?
50% of the talented are women and the big five have less misogyny. 12% are black — less racism. See the pattern. Less hispanophobia, less religious intolerance, less anti-intellectualism.
Talent and intelligence go to live where they're wanted and treated well. Once there they create wealth. They might move away after years of striving but they make their contribution there.
The media has made the hate that is so common place in american towns somewhat of a taboo — except for the Murdoch Properties which promote it. But outside the big 5, in the career world, it's still the old boy's network and haters rule.
35
@Arthur Don't forget more LGBT tolerance. Where would NY or SF or LA be without them?
4
@Arthur
How about Atlanta, Dallas and Seattle? All check off your boxes.
The fabulous 8
NY
LA
Chicago
Bay Area
DC
Dallas
Atlanta
Seattle
If we stop being sentimental or whatever you want to call it large areas of many cities including Manhattan should be razed and redeveloped with all kinds of decent housing... parks, recreation centers, decent schools.... hummmmm. Of course people would be displaced and that would have to figure into the formula... but think of all the varied types of jobs... and the happiness from having a nicer neighborhood. I am not sure Columbia was permitted to do enough in Manhatanville...Union Theological Seminary interestingly is now becoming -- they will be gorgeous condos..
So far as rich powerful and who pays. IMO $$ is fungible and maybe Gates Foundation can provided seed $$
So far as jobs -- maintaining parks, rec centers for after school programs.. Yes I don't know whose ingers are in the public housing pots... but it might be interesting to look -- just like in the MTA.
What is being done in the Midwest to attract younger people? Sometimes places are cheap for a reason. Why would a young family want to send their kids to the Kansas school system when it’s basically been destroyed by tax cuts?
Not to mention gun laws, car dependency or rampant racism when Americans under 30 essentially are a 50/50 nation.
As problematic and expensive as coastal cities may be, they still provide better opportunities and living standard for most younger families.
29
@Sanjay I moved to Minneapolis from Los Angeles with two young kids and am so happy we made the move. The public schools are better, the housing is cheaper, the parks are incredible, civic engagement/community involvement is out the roof and there is a lot of economic opportunity. We can actually live a middle class lifestyle here. There are major challenges in Minneapolis like other cities, however, while I miss the LA weather I think the quality of life for my family has vastly improved. Not all places in the heartland are the same- there are major political, cultural and economic differences (just like the coastal cities). We happened to settle in a place that meets our needs and have been pleasantly surprised.
25
@Nel I'm very glad for your situation--ref. Tim Kane's comment above, the Twin Cities do have advantages with the universities and overall educational level there, innovative companies such as 3M, not to mention some echo of the civic pride the area has stemming from its Scandinavian heritage, even with present increasing diversity. I've lived in both the Twin Cities and Columbus OH which is also thriving due to higher than average educational levels in the population. That to me is the metric that can really raise up a city's income and prosperity in a world that is increasingly competitive outside of the US.
9
Here's a new way to look at this story:
1. Think of the metro as a "sovereign firm" (SVs). Literally that's what they are legally classified as - "Metropolitan Corporations."
2. These SVs are in the business of producing public goods and services - a particular class of products.
3. The economic performance of these cities and metros (i.e. wealth creation via personal economics (jobs) not through investments - can be viewed as the sovereign's "Workability Asset" performance.
4. We envision a future where the polis - the public as individual investors can literally buy cites as stocks and generate capital gains rather than just utility outcomes that our tax investment currently gives. Such articles as this one by Jed would be read to determine which cities or metro I buy or sell in my metro portfolio. This will get the politician and policy design wonks shaking. We're working on it with PEV Protocol at pevtoken.com - cheers-Phil
Very few people want to move to Midwestern towns and cities without significant family connections. The sun belt is warm, and mostly full of fellow transplants.
No one just up and moves to say, Cleveland or Detroit, on a whim to build their life after college, absent some amazing job offer. Imagine navigating the professional scene when it's full of people who have been there since birth, or the dating scene when you are one of the few outsiders.
Now, there are some exceptions to this. Buffalo apparently is drawing in a fair amount of young people, but the avenue for this seems to be downstate students going upstate for school at a place like SUNY Buffalo, and deciding to stay.
17
Plenty of rich places with plenty of poor, and just above poor, workers, and those workers vastly out number those with well paying jobs in such areas. New York City, LA, and San Francisco be 3.
Good analysis. /s
5
"The main explanation for the lagging population growth in big, rich places is that they build relatively little new housing, for reasons of topography and regulation." Couldn't have anything to do with race- or class-ism?
4
@Mack My guess is that money in real estate affects minorities and the poorer, not social attitudes.
3
@Mack Take a look at a map of the San Francisco and/or Boston and/or New York and/or Seattle areasf. They are on peninsulas, islands or both. Even Houston is very close to the gulf and prone to flooding. That means that it is very expensive to build on them because of the topography, the need to drain swampy areas and increasingly to protect against rising sea levels and more turbulent storms. And add in that most of the easily developed land already has buildings on it, including homes, businesses and even small manufacturing plants. Redevelopment would be very expensive. Social problems are not negligible contributors to the problem, but no matter how egalitarian the society might be, the environmental constraints remain.
12
You don't need a PhD in economics to see that there is simply way too much money in concentrated at the top.
The glitzy cities are the symptom, not the cause.
Example- Bezos is worth 110 billion ( that's ten zeros).
Huh?
My friend is in subsidized housing (one of a select few units in my affluent town ) and she works two low wage jobs (cook at high school cafeteria; retail), neither of which has any benefits. None. (Thank god for Romneycare)
I am sure she pays more pro rated tax than Bezos.
Something has to change.
It's not right. And it's not working for as a nation.
We can start by repealing that immoral plutocrat tax cut.
87
The main explanation for not building enough housing in Northern California is not about limited land, although those already here might debate that point. It’s about money and very ugly, very selfish politics.
Boomers in California (and around the country) fiercely fight against high density housing in their neighborhoods, whether SF or Lafayette or ____ . See this recent illuminating NYT analysis. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/economy/housing-crisis-conor-dougherty-golden-gates.html?referringSource=articleShare
Boomers are protecting real estate investments. Limit housing availability and prices rise stratospherically. Bills in the California state legislature to build high density housing near public transportation keep failing - never “quite right “ - because heaven forbid property values decrease over something so trivial as affordable housing (sarcasm).
I’m a Boomer and had to sell my home to fund retirement somewhere more affordable than San Francisco or California. I don’t want to leave California but it is too expensive to stay and have a good quality life. Friends don’t believe me but after much searching, I know it’s true. Over my 30 years here, I’ve watched SF fail to build affordable housing for decades.
I’m grateful for what I have. But as a fellow Boomer, I am constantly disappointed by how Boomers have left so many big problems, including affordable housing, for future generations to solve.
45
My household saves every penny we can because we don’t know how much longer our luck will last. With layoffs every year and one percent raises - my time will come. So we save save save to prepare for the day I am laid off and can only get a new job at half the salary - we will be ok - maybe not
Able to save - but we will get by
A public option is what we really need to ensure stability for those over 45. The internet algorithms make me unemployable but I am too young to retire - so we save and stress- it really is a terrible way to live.
72
"But it’s the Sun Belt, not the Midwest, that typically lures people priced out of California and New York. "
Guess what, people like nice weather. And they're much more willing to put up with boiling summers than freezing winters.
I can't stand the winter in New York. And it comes around every year without fail.
13
@Sparky
New Englanders really like winter.
10
The problem with this article is that conflates income with wealth, which the writer doesn't have statistics for because they don't exist. So he makes larger arguments about the decrease in income in the top 5 without having the proper evidence. Wealth is what matters, not income. For instance, I could own a $3 million dollar house or condo but technically only have an income of $30,000. Many middle class people don't realize this common big metro reality. So while the share of the top 5 income is indeed going done those 5 metropolitan areas could indeed be getting far "richer" as defined by wealth rather than income
I wish more people stopped confusing income with "rich" because it creates envy for those who earn a lot by working for it instead of the true wealthy who live by unearned income, such as real estate sales, stocks, bonds and other investments. Perhaps in the future we can actually get wealth statistics instead of trying to make arguments from the wrong misleading data(regardless of whether it is the best available) of income.
39
@Geoff Cunningham - Well stated. Thanks!
4
@Geoff Cunningham
Unearned income is still counted as income so it is a proxy of wealth, especially wealth that excludes the home you live in.
1
@Alex
It’s not counted as income unless you sell an asset. If my Tesla stock increased by $50k this year but I don’t sell it, then I will be $50k richer but it will not be counted as income anywhere.
12
Cities can't be rich or poor. Residents of a city can be rich or poor.
This article uses total pre-tax income of a metro area for it's measure of wealth. That is a very flawed measure.
A resident of Austin, TX, where there is no state/city income taxes, and housing and energy are super affordable, has a much greater percentage of their income as disposable income.
If you use the relevant - data median disposable income - NYC, SF, LA, etc are some of the poorest places in America.
P.S. median disposable income = median income after taxes, transfers, housing, food, transportation.
29
@Baron95 I9
"housing and energy are SUPER affordable"!?!?
Is there another Austin Texas just outside of Cleveland Ohio that I am not aware of?
Austonians may not have to contend with income taxes but they do suffer under the weight of CRAZY property taxes which coupled with out sized demand, translates into a substantial cost of housing whether owned or rented.
15
Taxes pay for infrastructure and schools. There is a reason why schools in Massachusetts and New Jersey ran 1&2’nd where as Texas is 34. Low taxes and more disposable income means little if the quality of service isn’t there.
43
@Baron95 :
Right, averaging smooths over that lack of disposable income for 70 percent of workers, even in "rich cities" like New York.
3
The SALT deduction limits will steadily but surely drain all wealth out of metro areas in states with high/very high income and/or property taxes (NY, CA, CT, NJ. IL, MA, RI). For example, someone who is 'middle class rich' (ordinary income of $5 million/yr) in NYC now pays $394,000 extra - each and every year - to maintain residence in NYC, relative to before enactment of the SALT deduction limit in late 2017. All those $3/$5 million empty condos in NY, will never sell, for precisely this reason. All or nearly all of the NYC/NYS tax base derives from those earning $500K and up. All those people will leave - they will have no choice if they want to be able to afford tuition and retirement. In 20 years or so, Boston, NYC, SF, LA, Chicago, will wind up like Detroit - empty and broke.
14
@Richard
Oh, Richard - I think you need to get out a bit more! $5 million/year is not "middle class rich" anywhere - not NYC, not LA, not Paris or Tokyo or Singapore or Zurich.
And if the change in the SALT deduction limits actually costs someone with a $5 million/year income $400K extra in federal taxes, I think I'm okay with that. I'm not sure why the rest of us should be subsidizing "middle class rich" New Yorkers to the tune of $400K per year.
If those "middle class rich" are really that bent out of shape, they can move someplace where state and local taxes are lower - but of course, that $5 million/yr might be a little lower, too.
14
@Richard
Wishful thinking!
2
@Richard What a ridiculously bad faith argument. $5M/year 'middle class rich?'
A household earning 500k/yr could get a 2M home for roughly 1/3 of their net income including estimated taxes and even assuming no down payment. So, even assuming a 50% income tax rate you'd net roughly 90k in disposable income. Zillow currently lists 39 3+ bed/2+ bath places with 2k+ sqft between 1.5M and 2M.
2
The predators like to concentrate in a few cities. That's nothing new.
When we say wealth, we mean the top few, because no one else is getting wealthy.
9
To correct this geographic inequality the GOP will propose adjusting our electoral system to "one acre, one vote". Sounds fair, right?
(By the way, notice how the graphics in this story are not viewable unless a half-dozen browser scripts, none of which appear to be directly controlled by the NYT, are allowed to run in the background.)
11
I follow these issues closely because I live in a region that's caught in a downward spiral. It used to be that the dairy industry supported families and the small cities, towns and villages where they lived.
My own family lived in the same general area since before the Civil War. They were not rich, but enjoyed a comfortable middle class life style.
All that has changed. Young people leave. I don't know if they go to the very expensive biggest cities or the thriving places in the next tier described in this piece.
Property values are declining and housing stock is deteriorating. I don't know if there is any hope of attracting industry. I can't imagine why anyone would want to live in my village. It is better than some other places in that it still has a grocery store, but most other services are gone.
People around me resent the city folks who they believe take our money and give it to the undeserving. The truth is that urban money comes back to rural areas because that is where poor people live.
Some communities in our region will disappear as the population of retirees dies off. That makes me sad, but I don't know what could or should be done to change that trajectory.
62
@Betsy S
This problem is universal in both rural Europe and USA. One answer is for these rural populations to accept more immigrants who can revive the economy and, more importantly, carry on the tradition of rural life. Imagine, for example, Syrian refugees, who were farmers and herders before they were displaced, re-invigorating and perhaps enhancing rural life in these areas. Alas, rural folks tend to succumb to the anti-immigrant rhetoric and are the most supportive of "building a wall". Pity!
18
@Betsy S I share your background and general place of origin. My hometown in Upstate, NY has shrunk by about a third since the time I was born.
If I looked through my yearbook, I'd struggle to identify folks from my high school graduating class that live in that same town now. I joke that we're all 'living in the diaspora'. What's most striking is there wasn't some single traumatic event that led to this, sure dairy farms have struggled lately. But the plant in town didn't shut down, there never was a plant.
We've mostly gone to Virginia, the Carolinas, Florida, with some folks in Colorado. A few ventured to California. Though plenty settled in the upstate cities (Syracuse, Albany Metro).
I did not go to college with intent of never going back, it just kind of happened. A few times I thought about it, but the question arose "but what would I do there?". I don't miss it though, because "it" really no longer exists.
11
@Betsy S The world has changed. 100 years ago, over 30% of the US population lived on farms. Today, it's about 2%. In the 1950s, over half of jobs were in manufacturing. Today, it's less than half that. Tech jobs, finance and service jobs have filled the gaps and not many of these jobs are in rural America. Consequently, more and more people are moving to cities. And the more people move to cities, the more jobs and people are attracted to them.
This isn't anyone's fault. It's just the way our economy has evolved. We don't need any more farmers. The few we have produce more than enough food. Likewise, modern, automated factories only need a fraction of the workers they used to employ. There is no way to reverse this trend. Our best hope is to build up our 2nd and 3rd tier cities across the country to provide affordable living along with good jobs.
But small towns in the middle of nowhere? Unless they have some tourist potential or are supported by agriculture or manufacturing, I'm afraid they're going to increasingly fade away.
8
The article states that the main reason larger cities are losing population is because 'they build relatively little new housing, for reasons of topography and regulation.'
New York City has been on a housing boom for the last decade. Unfortunately, said housing is affordable only to the top .1% of global humanity. Thus, those building stand largely vacant and affordable housing is non-existent. Way to destroy a city, rich developers and clueless politicians.
47
@Regina Vakde San Francisco is a special case in point: it is a peninsula, bounded by water on three sides, no where to build more housing, infill is the only answer, and with the constant threat of earthquake, building too high is dangerous.
It is nice that, at least, Philadelphia got mentioned in this article.
For those who don't know, Philadelphia is an amazing city, ideally located between New York, and Washington. It boasts world class universities, museums, cultural attractions, and dining, as well as "only found here" historic places.
Top that off with reasonable cost of living, walk-able streets, manageable density, good public transportation, and top-notch medical facilities.
Add in nearby recreational opportunities, the wonderful agricultural output of the farms of central Pennsylvania, and a climate milder then you might expect.
I short Philadelphia should be the city of this decade, offering much more than newer cities of the South and Southwest.
71
@KenS I'm considering Philly as a potential new home. Could use an insider's perspective on a few topics of interest. If this isn't too weird, please respond if you are willing to offer more insight to someone who is interested. Thx!
@KenS
I applaud your defense of your home city. My visits to Philadelphia have been rich.
1
@KenS
If you approach Philadelphia from I-95, you don’t get a rosy picture of the city.
4
As a rural dweller I am not sure where this leaves us. Will this spreading out of wealth eventually reach rural regions surrounding these cities. Do we deregulate housing? Should our young continue to migrate to the cities? Surely there is work that looks at rural areas and what seems to be building prosperity there--this is a piece I, and lots of other people, would like to see.
5
@PJM To be honest, my belief is we need planning leaders, transportation leaders, business leaders, and politicians to come together and discuss these issues and find solutions to problems that currently exist. It could be mandated by the Fed Gov through a task force in order to deal with housing, income, environmental, and transportation issues. Although this would require someone in the WH who leads people of this country and not leads himself to a richer wallet.
10
@PJM
Wealth has to have a reason to move.
I moved to Brookings, OR (Curry CO, last town on the Pacific coast before CA...) 20 years ago. Two memories still stand out:
1. Voters for the 3rd time refused to raise property taxes that would fund an under performing public school.
2. A highly hyped fast internet connection to the rest of the world has yet to materialize.
The young who can compete with those of Portland, Eugene, etc. continue to migrate away. Those who cannot stay. The mill seems to be hiring and Kroger's (formerly Fred Myers) is always hiring...
5
@PJM Sadly, I suspect no one is looking at these issues and you're right, we need to because this is the defining fracture in our country. Much of rural America has been largely left behind and hollowed out.
There are a couple of things that might help. Spreading out the good jobs and growth to 2nd and 3rd tier cities that are close to rural areas would allow people to work in the cities and live in the small towns. Also, if small towns can reinvent themselves as vacation destinations that advertise fishing, hiking, etc, that would bring in visitors and boost their economies.
Unfortunately, these aren't quick fixes. Our small towns have been fading for decades and it will probably take decades to turn things around. And realistically, a lot of small towns will never come back. The world has changed.
Should your young people continue to move to the cities? That depends. Ask yourself what future they have in your town? What job prospects? You'll have your answer.
1
This doesn't make sense. First, "The main explanation for the lagging population growth in big, rich places is that they build relatively little new housing, for reasons of topography and regulation."
Ummm. Because there is little land to build on? Already sky-high population density? By contrast, those communities in Texas, for example, or Florida, have lots of open land to build on, so housing costs are lots cheaper?
But let's get back to this one: "The gap between rich and poor places is one of the dark spots in an otherwise mostly bright American economy"?
So the fact that America, uniquely among the world's developed countries, has seen a major drop in the proportion of the economy going to wages, that's not a big deal? The fact that for 99% of American workers, they're no better off than they were half a century ago is no problem? The fact that nearly 30 million Americans have no health insurance, and more than 40 million are under-insured is not a problem?
The American economy is "mostly bright"?
Couldn't be more wrong.
133
@Sean Most of the problems and issues you point to are correct (though one could easily pick apart your assertion that 99% are worse off than 50 years ago), but I think the author was referring to the low unimployment rate and long stretch since the last recession. How the gains in the economy have been distributed is what you are referring to; and yes that has been a problem.
10
@Sean I don't understand the objection to the author's point about lack of new housing - aren't you saying essentially the same thing, i.e. what the author meant by "topography" and "regulation"? Or are you questioning whether that's the case?
As for the second point - that's fair, but also related to the geographic disparity. For example, in cities and states that have set higher minimum wages, the wage stagnation is not the same as when accounting for the country as a whole - further increasing the disparity between some areas and others. Also, after falling during the 1980s, real wages have been growing (starting in the 1990s but recently accelerating since 2008) - not enough yet to make up for the previous lack of growth, but that is another "bright spot" in terms of current trends.
3
@Sean,
Thank you. And it's heartening that your comment on this piece currently sits atop the Reader Picks. It will be even more heartening if it remains here as more readers examine this article, parsing it carefully, just as you did.
Indeed, its title is almost a dead giveaway to what's coming in the piece. But then we're immediately given "TheUpshot," just as you extracted it here.
That is, "the upshot," coming out of a private multinational corporation sponsored by larger private multinational corporations, is also loaded with the usual corporate propaganda.
Take for instance the pitch that "in almost all cases, economically successful places in America have gotten bigger or richer but not both," which we're to take as a curious problem (or merely an abstract conundrum for the hoi polloi).
But it's certainly plain here in Los Angeles that the rich do not want "bigger"; in fact, they build that which displaces the hoi polloi in order create the city they want to live in: an exclusive enclave for the rich.
And the "main explanation for lagging population growth in big, rich places"? We're told it's "topography and regulation."
"Topography and regulation" is surely not the main explanation for lagging population growth in big, rich places. Rather, the main explanation is that the rich desire big, rich places that are not also crowded with the hoi polloi. And that's precisely what the rich are building here in Los Angeles.
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The places that are booming financially with no population growth have seen the middle class replaced by the poor.
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@Talbot Can't say I agree with that. Poor people here in Boston seem to be being replaced with affluent young people.
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@Talbot
I see no proof of that in Boston or NY. Are there homeless in both cities? Of course.
The price of housing Really means that the middle class is replaced by the wealthy class. The teachers and firemen who previously could afford a house now can't. And those houses are now occupied by wealthier people.
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Gentrification kind of says the opposite. Poorer blue collar neighborhoods around New York have replaced their population with an affluent middle class. Look at neighborhood in Brooklyn, Jersey City and increasingly Queens.
Unfortunately New York hasn’t expanded the infrastructure in 50 years, save a pointless subway stop in Hudson Yards.
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Population booming in western cities. Gazillions more peeps in Vegas, Phoenix, SLC, Denver… cities that, get this, have insufficient water. It won't end well.
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@Miss Anne Thrope Denver has plenty of water. The problem is that we're forced to send a lot of it to Phoenix and Vegas and LA.
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@ Miss Anne Thorpe - Denver has plenty of water. If push comes to shove we just will not share it.
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@Andrew Well to be technical, Denver gets its water from Front Range sources, while the water from the Colorado River, on the other side of the Divide, is allocated far downstream to those cities you mentioned.
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Water is life.
Big cities have secured the easy large sources of water. Rural areas can't stick a straw in. That means restricted building, because the fire code can't be met with the wells that a small number of people can afford to bring in to production. Add in lack of high speed internet. What's left as a business possibility?
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@ARL
Perhaps high speed internet should be nationally subsidized just as the highway system was once upon a time.
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The source of your data for saying that the top five metro areas have such a large share of income is nominal income data. That fails to take into Cost of living differences. All of those cities have had large housing price increases in the past decade. So in real terms, their share of real income has declined quicker than shown.
For instance, CA has the highest real poverty rate in the US, and NY is in the top 10. NYC, LA, and SF all have very high homeless rates and high income inequality. So perhaps they are not as rich as one might think.
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That income, lowered by housing, transportation and taxes, would be interesting data. Maybe it might moderate younger persons’ behaviors that immediately leap towards the huge city, high income opportunities. In some cases, those opportunities might lead to greater opportunities elsewhere after you punch your ticket. Those first opportunities in large cities might correspond to what military service, outside of service to nation, serves for some people: doing interesting, worthwhile work in interesting places that gives lifelong skills, but short term financial impact is a negative. At least young grads would understand the trade offs and why they seem to be treading water after a decade. For too many, the numbers seem a surprise.
I do know middle aged employees, when looking at transfer opportunities, immediately go to the local cost of living calculators. A somewhat higher salary, in a much, much higher cost of living is not a winner per se.
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I’ve been a proponent for years of relocating federal government departments throughout the US, as Matthew Yglesias writes in a referenced article. It would share the Federal wealth, rather than continuing to concentrate it in DC. DC has been for too long the sole beneficiary of high-paying government, consulting and lobbying jobs. The Internet has made dispersing these departments abundantly possible.
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In an era of high speed networks, why do we have these huge concentrations of clerical and middle management staff in the highest cost centers of the nation? Almost none of these people have anything to do with the legislators or senior judiciary. Why have the Pentagon, Agriculture, SSA, Energy, Interior or FBI in DC area? If the banks, insurance and auto firms can reap huge savings by moving support staff to cheaper locations with no loss in efficiency, why should not the taxpayers do the same thing and reap those benefits?
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When DJT moved a few hundred Dept of Agriculture jobs to the Kansas City, he was excoriated. Pretty unlikely he (or anyone else) would undertake that x1000. Give someone or some place a special privilege, and they won’t give it up without a fight.
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@Biggs There’s a very large Defense Finance office in Cleveland, for example. Another one in Indianapolis.
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