I still have my job, but I was thinking of not renewing my lease in NYC and just going back home to the parents to work remote in the fall/winter and save a TON of money. Kinda lame because I'm 28 but who cares, since a lockdown will stop most of the "fun" stuff anyway. Would rather run and bike every day.
Anybody else doing the same?
With that said, there has also been an enormous cost to this: living somewhere besides a major city. Yes, it's true that SF/NY have horrific governance, regulatory policies, taxes, and so forth (which cause high rents). The groupthink there is also unbearable. Other than these issues, however, these cities are indisputably better in every way than anywhere else in the country. People work much harder (and on cooler projects) in these cities. There's an extravagance to them that you simply can't find anywhere else, and if you're not careful, living elsewhere can eat at you subconsciously. Reading (or listening) to books of people doing great things is a good way to combat this: your brain can't ever think that things are easy now that you're living in an easy city. You're still competing against the same odds (and in some cases: the same people) who are grinding 100 hours/week back in NYC/SF.
As long as you account for this, moving elsewhere can be a great tool to save an enormous amount of money.
Saving money, and having "time" are great, but at least for me the people in small towns live very different lives. The pace is slow and it's easy to become complacent. Compounding that is by not following the pace of life there, you're going against the grain and it will cause friction in your life.
Also, if you grew up in small towns, but haven't really been back in a while a lot of them are pretty depressing these days because of things like Amazon... Where I was most, if not all independent retailers/bookstores/etc had gone out of business. In fact, there wasn't a single book store for 90 miles despite roughly 200,000+ people living in the area. Want a tech talk? Probably not unless you're a real estate agent setting up a Wordpress ;P
If anyone is thinking about taking the jump and moving back home, or somewhere cheaper, my one suggestion is put a hard time-limit on it "1 year." It helped keep me sane having a deadline. Glad I took the time away, but even more glad I came the fuck back.
You can talk all you want about free market cheaper prices raising all boats, but it doesn't jive with profits circulating within a community vs being shipped back to shareholders.
Here but for the missed middle ground where profits were retained locally while leveraging an efficient, free market supply chain.
I was thinking of something along the same lines and was fearing pretty much the points you have raised.
However, I'm currently living in Paris, France. So in this particular situation, instead of moving to some small town in the middle of nowhere, I could move to some town in the suburbs. That would be far enough for it to be much quieter and calmer than Paris, also much cheaper, especially since I ride a motorcycle so I wouldn't have to be close to public transportation. But it would still be close enough to Paris for it to be practical to attend conferences / cultural events / whatever without spending a day on the road.
Don't arrangements like this exist in the US? Say some town 100 km or so from NY / SF that would make a terribly daily commute but would be bearable once in a while when you need to meet people / go to events?
If you can, AirBnB at least a month before actually making the move.
Far cheaper to do that and realize your mistake early than actually move and realize you screwed up. As an additional benefit, if it turns out that it is a place you actually want to move to, you will have a better idea of the sort of neighborhood you might like.
I would love to move to a smaller town, but would need at least a couple of other intellectual companions there to make it work.
I'm curious - do you mean groupthink in the governance/policy sphere, or in the groups of technically minded people working on the hard/interesting problems? Or little bit of both?
[G] https://twitter.com/yayalexisgay/status/1249057146051821568
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No, it's true that SF and NY have lots of people willing to spend lots of money in order to live there instead of elsewhere, largely because they expect to be able to make more money there, which causes high rents.
They might find this back in the small town they came from, or it might be just in another neighborhood of the same city that has more of a sense of community. It's not unusual for large impact events like this to cause people to consider switching to different style of life - and matching setting - that involves getting more connected with the people who live around them, or moving to a place more amenable to that.
I've already seen several examples of this happening on a local level, so I figure it's a real sub-trend among the many sudden human movement patterns initiated by the pandemic.
That said, we live downtown Toronto and it's been on my mind for some time to try and move out of the city. I love the city, but I grew up in a small rural town. I miss the green space. I miss the autonomy. And while I'm not much of a socialite, I do miss knowing my neighbours.
The churn in my building and the amount I see any familiar faces makes forming any relationships rare.
I'd been looking for a remote work option for a while, but since my current workplace has moved remote for the time being it's been rejuvenating the idea of moving away again.
Sadly, I've virtually been priced out of my home town. You get more bang for your buck than in the city, but the base pricing is about the same.
I've been taking time scouring for a viable option that wouldn't end up costing more necessarily. It's fun to dream, but it would definitely be nice to find some more concrete options.
It definitely seems more talked about around here than it used to be. We know people who've already made the move—even people I never would have expected to leave city life behind. Their whole personalities seemed built around it, and next I hear they've moved several hours away to a rural area—not even just the 'burbs.
This is a common sentiment that I personally share. I am lucky to live in a dense city neighborhood with an amazing sense of community - stoop gatherings for drinks 5 evenings a week and kids doing chalk art and bicycling around, local teenagers to help out with babysitting, but also neighbors helping me move appliances, and me helping them with repairs and upgrades on their homes. It's like Amish barn-raising in the city.
But I have to say, that if I didn't have this, and my choice were suburbia or a mountain town ... the mountains win hands down.
The big exception is when you're moving as part of a large cohort, as in university or grad school, where everyone is on the same boat, with shared interests and few friends.
Shared housing also helps a lot. If you become best friends with a housemate, you probably get their friends for free.
But all of this is likely much harder under the pandemic...
It's true, but some communities are more naturally configured to integrate new people. A major forcing function for this is having children. Children do not have the same set of guards up as adults, so they will often force new parents to go outside of their existing circles.
Examples of this are communities that grow out of schools, childrens sports teams, or other community-based functions. The most basic community fostering venue is the sidewalk in front of your house where children may play.
Yeah idk I just don't see the draw to the city now... and instead of half-assing it, maybe just moving home and getting a good bike etc is wortwhile.
Basically zero dating options though, so that's the big downside.
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Also, I have 3x as much living space, tons of open green space to run in, and people to talk to (all while saving > $2k/month). Many have suffered tremendously during this pandemic so I'm very blessed to be so lucky.
One son just graduated HS & will enter his final year of trade school this fall. His twin is entering his senior year of HS.
During most of the post-2008 recovery (that news orgs endlessly crowed about, especially after 2012) we ate rice, being unable to afford beans or anything else. Some days we ran our of rice.
From my perspective, most of the recovery was limited largely to shareholders & wealthy metro areas.
I don't fault or credit any PotUS for terrible years or less terrible years. I do, however, hold some lingering resentment for news orgs that stayed resolutely out of touch with all but select sq mi of the US. It's hard to not feel they earned whatever oblivion they may find themselves staring into.
Most people in my country don't move out of their parents homes until their mid twenties (usually after university/military duty).
Also, it might be my ignorance of american culture. But to me it seems america lacks a certain sense of regional culture that exists in most other places around the world. a sense of belogin to a very localized culture.
Kind of hard to explain, "heimat" is a term which sort of covers it, but is not entirely what i mean.
As far as local culture, there are regions (and stereotypes for them) in the USA; the West Coast, the South, New England, among many others. There's a large amount of homogeneity (eg the same supermarket chains; the same 3 choices for ISP) but also smaller regional chains that haven't yet been "bought out".
That is largely your ignorance (not in a bad sense - it's just that you aren't aware of it). Some cities in the US are like that - no regional culture - because they have so many people moving in and out from different places, and they are so physically massive (Los Angeles for example sprawls like few cities do).
Between the coasts though, there are tons of places with good sized cities, great community, and a strong regional culture.
if people return back to parents after university it's not really their choice, but financial decision, although I don't see many people returning even after graduation, rather take mortgage or share apartment once you enjoy freedom away from parents
personally my parents (mother) moved away from me when I was like 19 :-) then when she moved back I moved out, although I think the apartment in hometown was even for some time empty, nobody interested to keep living there
I'd like to boast that it was very careful and farsighted financial planning on my part, but it really wasn't. I'm just good enough at appreciating the living moment that I didn't feel the same urge to move out that my peers felt.
I feel like it is almost more of a growth-phase than if I stayed in the city.
In the city there are so many stimuli to distract you perpetually... food, raves, dates, "networking" etc.
Now at home I can channel past experiences in solitude and learn, create, etc.
Of course the downside is there's no dating at all. So essentially will go celibate this fall/winter.
If you get along with your family well enough, where they live makes sense for your job (internet/timezone), and they have the space to house you for then why not do it.
I won't be doing it for multiple reasons but I feel like I'm the minority. Most of my peers get along with their parents. (would be hard for them to break into the SF Bay Area with no parental support) I don't get along with mine - so I'll continue to pay out my ass to rent a substandard living space.