Cities Spend A Lot Of Time Pointing To Other Cities They Don't Want To Become

[M II A II R II K]

Happy New Year! May Your City Never Become San Francisco, New York or Seattle


Dec. 26, 2018

By Emily Badger

Read More: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/u...r-seattle.html

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Our deepest anxieties about the future of where we live are embodied in other cities in Portlandification, Brooklynification, Manhattanization. The comparison is seldom a compliment. You don’t want to become Manhattan (too dense), Portland (too twee), Boston (too expensive), Seattle (too tech-y), Houston (too sprawling), Los Angeles (too congested), Las Vegas (too speculative), Chicago (too indebted).

- San Francisco has come to stand for the most specific set of horrors. It is the place where extreme poverty and tech wealth occupy the same block, while the schoolteachers and firefighters all live two hours away. Consider other nuances: Portlandification can be Brooklynified, as happens when ambitious media-savvy types commercialize twee. Manhattanization has evolved over time. It once meant building up. Now it increasingly refers to building only for the rich. Seattle-ization, meanwhile, is a particularly dire diagnosis: The high housing costs and tech riches there have remade the city with startling speed. — Denver seemed to imply no obvious meaning until The Kansas City Star’s editorial board assigned it one last month. “Stop the Denverization of Kansas City,” its headline said. Befuddled readers in Denver realized their city was now a synonym for gentrification at least, among cities not yet expensive enough to worry about San Francisco-ization.

- In truth, most of these cities have qualities other cities would reasonably desire. Denver has one of the country’s fastest-growing tech labor forces, with minorities and women relatively well represented in those jobs. Seattle and Portland have among the fastest all-around job growth. New York has some of the fastest-growing wages. San Francisco has unemployment well below the national average and household incomes among the highest in the country. — But San Francisco-ization and the other -izations don’t refer to the process of acquiring any of these good things. Rather, those terms capture the deepening suspicion of many communities that the costs of urban prosperity outweigh the benefits. The tech jobs and the high wages aren’t worth having if they come with worsening congestion, more crowded development or soaring housing costs.

- Amazon’s search this year for a new second headquarters made this trade-off explicit for many cities. Despite the tens of thousands of new high-paying jobs in tech and construction on offer, protesters in Chicago and Pittsburgh even some in the winning areas of New York and Washington concluded that they didn’t want to be the next Seattle. Numerous writers in Seattle warned that they were right to oppose that future. — Embedded in these fears is something slippery, seemingly inevitable. Once you let tech giants in the door, you have a homeless crisis. Once you allow more density, you’re surrounded by skyscrapers. Once housing costs begin to rise, the logical conclusion is San Francisco. “Bostonians: Do you worry more about Manhattanization? Or San Francisco-ization?” Tim Logan, a Boston Globe reporter who covers development, asked on Twitter this year. To him, the cities represent different routes to the same end of creating urban playgrounds for the rich.

- Manhattan has built its way there, through the construction of luxury condos seemingly affordable only to oligarchs and venture capitalists. San Francisco has become equally expensive, but it has arrived there by not building much for decades (its present construction boom is too little too late). There are, in other words, multiple models to creating what others see as an urban dystopia. It’s much harder to point to cities that have gotten all of this right the growth without the congestion, the tech jobs without the homeless crisis, the affordable housing without the sprawl. We could use a word for the condition of becoming such a place. Maybe Minneapolisization?

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[kcexpress69]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Happy New Year! May Your City Never Become San Francisco, New York or Seattle


Dec. 26, 2018

By Emily Badger

Read More: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/u...r-seattle.html

We don't want your city to become like Kansas City....we just want you to move here!!

[BrownTown]

Like the article points out the fundamental issue is that these days wage gains seem to go hand in hand with cost of living increases which end up eroding much of those gains. Getting an income boost is easy: just move to an expensive city/state, but REAL income gains are much harder to find.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Like the article points out the fundamental issue is that these days wage gains seem to go hand in hand with cost of living increases which end up eroding much of those gains. Getting an income boost is easy: just move to an expensive city/state, but REAL income gains are much harder to find.

COL is way more naunced than most care to consider, especially over time. Things like the relative cost of food, clothing and electronics have decreased even though wages over decades may "stagnate".

Its also very difficult to quantify increased quality in products compared to older itterations for relatively lower cost, its most apparent in housing. The average house today is 1000 sqft larger, the kitchens have nicer cabinets, flooring adn counters than the formerly standard Lenolium and lamenant etc.

tl;dr its a lot more complicated than wage vs COL

[Crawford]

Wage gains go hand-in-hand with housing gains, which is a good thing for most people (as most are homeowners).

"Cost of living" differences are negligible within same currencies/political systems. A cup of coffee or pair of jeans, apples-to-apples, generally don't cost more in Manhattan than in rural Mississippi.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Wage gains go hand-in-hand with housing gains, which is a good thing for most people (as most are homeowners).

Even for people who own homes it only helps if you plan to sell and move somewhere cheaper. Otherwise it just means higher taxes. But I'd also point out that the companies coming in and paying higher wages aren't hiring older residents who own their own home, they're hiring younger people and people moving from elsewhere. These people only see the downside of higher housing costs.

[digitallagasse]

What I find more interesting is the link in the at the end about Minneapolis. Sounds like Minneapolis is getting a few things right. Sounds like cities should spend a lot less time not trying to become another city they fear but look what is working across a wide range of cities and try those ideas.

[skyscraperpage17]

If you get right down to it, I'd rather be Seattle than Detroit.

Growing pains and prosperity are *ALWAYS* better than depression and shrinking pains.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by digitallagasse

What I find more interesting is the link in the at the end about Minneapolis. Sounds like Minneapolis is getting a few things right. Sounds like cities should spend a lot less time not trying to become another city they fear but look what is working across a wide range of cities and try those ideas.

Minneapolis is a good example of a city doing things right. Steady but moderate growth (so infrastructure isn't overwhelmed), fairly diverse economy via. organically grown (and not as recession-prone) companies and it doesn't have pervasive NIMBY issues or geographical constraints that many coastal cities deal with, which helps to keep COL relatively affordable.

[Sun Belt]

Can we get another shit on city X thread going?! Alright!

San Francisco - check
Nashville - check

[JManc]

I saw some homeless guy pinch a loaf on the street a while back, for a moment I felt like I was in San Francisco.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

Can we get another shit on city X thread going?! Alright!

San Francisco - check
Nashville - check

Umm, let's not forget every single thread also comes with a nice side of Detroit shitting (no matter how removed the city is from the topic) with all the usual trolls bringing up the usual false narratives and cliches.

Already started - check.

Now the Urban Politician just needs to bring up Chicago and we're done here boys.

[maru2501]

I hope chicago never becomes another ulaabaatar

[10023]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Wage gains go hand-in-hand with housing gains, which is a good thing for most people (as most are homeowners).

"Cost of living" differences are negligible within same currencies/political systems. A cup of coffee or pair of jeans, apples-to-apples, generally don't cost more in Manhattan than in rural Mississippi.

For like for like goods, this true. An iPhone costs the same in Manhattan and Mississippi. A cup of coffee isn’t a cup of coffee - a pour over from Blue Bottle is not the same as a diner coffee in rural Mississippi.

But real estate costs do affect the prices of everything. I’m not sure that if Blue Bottle opened a location in Mississippi, it wouldn’t be cheaper than in San Francisco simply because the rent (and labor) would be so much cheaper.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by 10023

But real estate costs do affect the prices of everything. I’m not sure that if Blue Bottle opened a location in Mississippi, it wouldn’t be cheaper than in San Francisco simply because the rent (and labor) would be so much cheaper.

There's definitely an increase in price of food items but it's only maybe 10% at most. The bigger issues are services like daycare, a plumber, etc. These can be drastically higher in high cost of living areas. Plus a lot of other things you might not think about; like my car insurance nearly TRIPLED moving from Tennessee to New Jersey.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Tlike my car insurance nearly TRIPLED moving from Tennessee to New Jersey.

Your auto insurance rates aren't related to cost of living, but state regulatory environment (as well as some lesser hyperlocal factors like auto damage/theft rates). Michigan, a very cheap state overall, has the highest auto insurance rates in the U.S. largely because the tort laws are so ridiculous.

I don't find that licensed professionals like plumbers cost more in NYC than in Michigan. Nor does in-home child care cost more.

Of course, commercial day care costs more, but that's a real estate issue. If you're paying $100 psf for RE in one location and $5 psf elsewhere, there's gonna be a big difference. And you can't make it up though higher volume like, say, a CVS (obviously can't stuff more babies into same space).

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Your auto insurance rates aren't related to cost of living, but state regulatory environment (as well as some lesser hyperlocal factors like auto damage/theft rates). Michigan, a very cheap state overall, has the highest auto insurance rates in the U.S. largely because the tort laws are so ridiculous.

Yes, I'm aware that's not the best example, but overall there are higher costs for all sorts of things in expensive metros (including higher taxes), not just for housing. But for renters the housing increase alone is a huge factor. My first apartment out of college was $450 a month and was newly renovated and pretty nice. In an expensive metro it would have cost several times that which is a significant increase.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by 10023

For like for like goods, this true. An iPhone costs the same in Manhattan and Mississippi. A cup of coffee isn’t a cup of coffee - a pour over from Blue Bottle is not the same as a diner coffee in rural Mississippi.

But real estate costs do affect the prices of everything. I’m not sure that if Blue Bottle opened a location in Mississippi, it wouldn’t be cheaper than in San Francisco simply because the rent (and labor) would be so much cheaper.

it used to be that craft beer say at the toronado in san francisco was about the same as craft beer at a blues bar in clarksdale, mississippi, but its diverging. (although the prices weren't as bad at the toronado as i expected when i just checked as it's been 8 years or so since i was there).

[kcexpress69]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

Can we get another shit on city X thread going?! Alright!

San Francisco - check
Nashville - check

Well, we're not on the City Discussions forum for nothing. We're SSPers, this is what we do!! Bring it!!

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by kcexpress69

We don't want your city to become like Kansas City....we just want you to move here!!

We don't want your city to become like San Francisco. We just want you to buy stuff designed and/or coded here. And if you are so inclined, we''ll buy the bus tickets for a few homeless folks looking for cheap housing and cheap drugs to come to you.