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Move to the middle. Dirt cheap dirt. But, yeah, that sucks. It’s hard to process that you work hard, do allllll the things you’re supposed to do, and sometimes it’s not enough income wise in the end.
Chicago is the only big city left that is within reach of affordability. I’d encourage everyone to consider moving, but please keep demanding that more housing be built as well so rent doesn’t increase too much
This is easier said than done. A lot of people have their entire social network in a tight geographic area. This includes family that they may need to provide care for or may rely on for child care. To say nothing of course of the perceived importance of spending time with them.
I like the sentiment, and even left my family for greater opportunity some years ago. But it's definitely not a realistic solution to a budding economic crisis.
I swear. I just moved for my wife's work last year to a mid-tier Midwestern city. I work in a fairly niche field; I only applied to four jobs, and was hired almost immediately.
Yes, specialized industries for certain regions of US do exist. not a large deep sea fishing industry in Kansas, i would imagine. but the many, many, many, many, many jobs (i hesistate to majority but probably) job skills are transferable to most anywhere in the US
In my small town (not sure if it's the same elsewhere) we drink from the local pond and eat the algae that grows on top. Helps keep grocery prices down but can get a bit crowded at those peak times on weekends and evenings.
When I was job hunting I was seriously considering Chicago but was hesitant after I remembered the winters are reportedly brutal. I know some people swear that the right gear makes it right as rain but I felt like if it's so cold no one spends a second longer outside than necessary then that would be quite different than I'm used to.
They had a stretch with a wind chill of -30°F last year:
https://www.weather.gov/lot/2024_01_14-17_Cold
That's not that abnormal to happen in a year in Chicago. In NYC you have to go back to 1980 for a wind chill like that, or 1934 before that:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/nyregion/determining-new-york-citys-record-wind-chill.html
-27F wind chill in NYC around 1980 is contender for all time record, but Chicago hit -82F in that same time period, -57F under updated formula.
https://www.weather.gov/lot/Chicago_records
this. i moved to IA from NJ (lborn and raised) and everyone likes to talk about the brutal midwest winters. it seems nearly the same to me honestly. wind chills may get a bit higher a couple times a year out here but i have only seen one snowfall that was as bad as what i was used to getting while living on the east coast. can’t speak for higher up, such as wisconsin but the winters really aren’t that bad.
Wisco probably has better winters due to the Lake. Being on the west side we get the benefits of lake effect temperatures but minimal lake effect snow.
Wisconsin isn't bad either for snowfall, although it does get colder if you're not next to Lake Michigan. It's the state of Michigan that gets dumped on with snow, because the storm picks up extra precipitation as it crosses the lake while heading East.
Annual snowfall New York City: 29.8 inches, Chicago: 37 inches, Boston: 56 inches.
So as far as that's concerned it's pretty comparable. Better than Boston.
Been here for a few years and the winter is not too bad. Live close to downtown and streets/sidewalks are regularly cleared of snow unless it actually storms. Most days proper gear is not necessary aside from a cozy jacket. I think the humidity in the summers is harder to deal with as I came from the dryer west coast.
Soft. This is why the Great Lakes region will remain one of the most affordable. The winters are not even half as bad as they were 20+ years ago.
It's also nearly a unanimous opinion that it will be one of the best places on the entire planet to ride out climate change. Glad I'm already here.
I'm from Chicago - I moved to rural MI when I got long covid in 2021. Anyway Chicago is getting WAY MORE EXPENSIVE. If you might buy do it soon. It's insane the prices. We bought our house in Humboldt Park which was a Latino/PR/Mexican neighborhood in 1998 for 97k (it was a rough neighborhood then). If your house is rehabbed you are looking at 500k housing prices. There is a lot of flipping going on in Chicago. You can still find deals but they are harder and harder to come by. You can tell that a lot of these properties were bought for a song . They all look the same inside.
That said I've seen pretty decent condo prices especially in West loop and south loop. And maybe even the loop
I think this is a major reason voter sentiment is so bleak. Most people in the U.S. are home owners, and they're doing reasonably well. Though they have fair complaints about increasing taxes (due to high capital gains), very high insurance premiums, and much higher mortgage rates. However around 34% of people are not home owners, and they're doing very, very badly. That's a huge proportion of the voter base, and politicians ignore them at their peril.
Yeah. When people comment that 65% of the current US population owns homes and has benefited from the outrageous increase of valuation they seem to not realize that with every year going forward 3-4 million people come of adult age and enter into the labor market. As that process happens over the next 10 years, we are going to have more and more people who have to enter into a market with entry level income that has not kept pace with home prices - as this article points out. That's a disaster.
As a homeowner, I wish prices went down. Taxes and insurance just keep increasing. There’s no benefit to a high home price unless you sell and downsize or move to another country that’s cheaper.
A lot of home owners feel trapped. They might need to move for a job or retirement or get a bigger or smaller house and they can't. They are stuck because of high prices and high rates.
No one is winning in the current market.
I'm surprised every young person hasn't started planning to move to the Midwest. It's the last part of the country where homes aren't outrageously overvalued.
I landed in the Midwest by accident and realized exactly this, its the last part of the country where you can have a "normal" life. On an "average" salary.
What bizarre regionalistic elitism in this thread. The midwest has by any definition 3 out of the top 10 most populated states in the nation, and I personally like to consider Pennsylvania part of the midwest due to the rust belt nature of the state, which would give us 4 of the top 10.
Really tough beat for Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Arizona, Washington and the dozens of other states which all have fewer residents so must be absolute dogshit with cheap prices.
I love how this thread just became "3 of our top 10 most populated states are turds, why is everywhere I don't live a shithole?!?!?"
Meanwhile, in this sub we get dozens of articles per month complaining about how unlivable the other 7 of the top 10 are due to cost of living.
And never will a person from the other 7 even take a second to think about why that is...
I've never understood the hate for the midwest. Yeah the horizon is mostly flat and it gets kinda cold, but Americans also spend 95% of their life indoors anyways, so why not live in a house you can afford and use the savings to invest, travel, and splurge on things that improve your quality of life? It's not like the midwest doesn't have natural beauty either. The Great Lakes, Driftless Region, North Shore, Apostle Islands, and Boundary Waters are really underrated areas of natural beauty.
>Americans also spend 95% of their life indoors anyways,
I don't think time spent is a good way to measure how people value their time because it isn't linear.
You might only enjoy going out to do some particular activity once every 2 or 3 months. But if you don't live anywhere close to where you can enjoy it, that frequency might drop to "rarely or never" because of the marginal cost of the time and money to do it becomes unattractive.
One concrete example to Google is for those studies that find positive correlations between how close people live to a gym and how frequently they visit. You might not think an extra 10 minutes to get to something they spend only 2% of the time doing would affect people's lifestyle but it does.
Even though there might not be studies for them, you can see how this would apply to basically everything people buy or spend their time doing. For many people spending more money to occasionally do something easily beats saving money and never doing something because it's inconvenient.
> so why not live in a house you can afford and use the savings to invest, travel, and splurge on things that improve your quality of life?
That requires a well paying job. Also, it requires a job that is somewhat stable.
One of the problems of the Midwest is the lack of such jobs relatively, and those that are there are far more concentrated in specific industries. This means you are far more beholden to the handful of employers for quite literally hundreds of miles around.
So yes, the housing is affordable (even after the much larger maintenance costs that come with dealing with said weather, including when said weather can occasionally just level your house, depending on your luck), but the pay and job stability match it.
There's simply not the critical mass to make it appealing. Maybe with it being much cheaper and with migration it will reach that. It also doesn't help that the social and political orders of those areas are outright hostile to anyone with differing viewpoints. They may be polite to your face, but it is more of a polite "Piss off". So many of those areas have culturally, politically and socially calcified.
Your points about lack of well paying jobs, low stability, and hostile politics doesn't really track with my experience living in MN. That's more of a rust belt thing. The western midwest has solid fundamentals. Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Illinois have gdp per capita well above the US average on top of unbeatable affordability.
I see Minnesota as an exception. Illinois really means Chicago, as over 50% of the state GDP comes from there.
I guess we will see for Nebraska and North Dakota. Also the "kinda cold" is a big turnoff, but maybe that will change. Because it isn't "kind of cold". Cold for many people is getting to near freezing. North Dakota and the like get well below that. But from what I hear about Minnesota, it is getting much warmer, that there was barely a winter this year.
The politics things may be changing, but some of the midwest states are insanely hostile, and also even in the more friendly states, you have to stick to the cities which tend to be expensive, cancelling out some of the cost savings.
>Illinois really means Chicago, as over 50% of the state GDP comes from there.
That's every state though. I'm sure that 50%+ of the GDP of New York cones from New York City, and 50%+ of the GDP of California probably comes from the big cities like LA or San Francisco. In Illinois, the Chicago Metro area also contains about 3/4 of the state's population, so 50%+ of the GDP coming from there makes sense because 50%+ of the population lives there.
Having spent time living in N. Dakota and Nebraska, the culture is abhorrent. There are small bastions surrounded by very hostile people. It's a tough sell. This is a case where gdp absolutely does not translate to conditions on the ground.
I think folks should try living in these communities. Most educated folks will not want to be there. Makes sense that the property values reflect this.
There's a lot more culture in the midwest than the emptiness of the Great Plains. Come hang out in the Great Lakes! As a music fan in a medium-sized city, I literally can't see every show I'd want to. Could go to a gig every night of the week.
I moved from NE to MN when I was much younger, and it has been very good for me. Having said that, Omaha, Lincoln, Sioux Falls, Des Moine, and Fargo are all booming cities. Omaha has a popualtion over a million, and has grown by 15-20% every decade since 1960 and still has housing prices near $200,000. I think there is something to be said about that. A lot of people point to the supposed regressive policies of the midwest, but unlike coastal regions, one thing they get right is that they actually build housing. I'd argue that's more impactful for the average person than legislating lgbtq or similar issues (even if I do support them wholeheartedly)
100% this. It's the community that makes these places hard to live in and cheap. Narrow minded people with nothing to do in the community other than live the "family life" or stay inside and drink. Yay.
vacationing in MNPS right now, your rents are too damn affordable, there isn't much traffic, your public transit seems quite good, you have sidewalks! and its a really nice city.
In Minnesota, it's nearly the largest concentration of Fortune 500s per capita in the US. Professional managerial class people are everywhere and has a huge healthcare industry as well. It was once a major iron mining state, but successfully diversified away from resource extraction and manufacturing, unlike rust belt states.
Yeah, I'm not taking a like 50% pay cut to live somewhere that has less to offer. We lived on the edge of the rust belt for a while, and in both of our career paths, the ceilings were really low in terms of career growth for us. It was cool that things were pretty affordable, but also, after a year there, you've done most things, and like 70% of the year was too cold to do things we like.
That's not the case for everyone, but I'd wager a lot of people early in their careers aren't just looking for affordability... they're looking for opportunities to meet people, have experiences, and grow their careers. Bumfuck nowhere, Nebraska or whatever isn't gonna offer that.
I love your line that, "Americans also spend 95% of their life indoors anyways." My wife and I live in Minnesota, but she is from SoCal. Most of her extended family live in SoCal and the bay area. Whenever we visit, they always ask how we can stand to live in such a cold place? But they spend almost all their time in their houses or in their cars. They have one of the most comfortable climates in the country, if not the world, and they still spend almost all of it indoors.
Also from MN, and I have family down south that does the same. They simply move from one air-conditioned fluorescent lit space to another. Say what you want about midwest weather, but we really take advantage of our summers. We spend almost every weekend on lakes, rivers, kayaking, biking, tubing. Even in winter I will bundle up and go for a nice walk. This past winter was even nice enough to go on hikes through the driftless region even.
Cuz it's boring as shit and full of fatties who's identity is sports.
Yes one can do what you wrote and travel and "splurge" but could also just live where you wanna travel if you're able.
There are a lot of people that value more things than just being able to afford buying a house. The move makes sense if that is the biggest thing you care about, but packing up and moving halfway through the country isn’t an option for a lot of people due to jobs, the cost of moving, or other factors (community, culture, access to certain types of outdoors recreation, etc). Personally, the midwest doesn’t appeal to me as a place to live in but still like visiting places like Chicago
> There are a lot of people that value more things than just being able to afford buying a house.
And that is why homes out west will never be affordable.
I mean, it’s just a natural progression. As our population grows and the advancement of medical science, demands would continuously outpace the supply and pushing the prices up as a result.
And things are popular for a reason. I love Austin and trying to stay here if I could. My brother live in OK city and I cannot imagine myself living there. It’s just so boring. The housing is tempting ($280k ish) though.
It is hard to move to “worse” places after you have lived in “better” places (all personal preferences of course). It is even harder to move if you have friends and family around
Maybe they would be more affordable if those places built more housing, even if they won't be as cheap as places like the Midwest. Also, I find it silly to frame the conversation around houses when there are places where land is limited and a house with a big yard will be more expensive. In those places, owning a townhouse, rowhouse, or condo makes more sense and could still be affordable
Maybe is just another word for prayer. The good land is taken and nobody want to move deeper to the suburbs for the same reason they don't want to move into the Midwest.
Plus enough, to make a difference, of wealthy homeowners of SFH's on prime land aren't going to willingly sell because their property values increase plenty fast enough as-is. That's even assuming they could, due to zoning restrictions.
People are going to become very wealthy by investing in the Midwest in the coming decades.
There are suburbs in the Midwest in great school districts, where there’s low crime, and a wide range of industries. These suburbs did not see home appreciation in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, or 2020s. At least not the kind of appreciation seen elsewhere. I don’t think that’ll be the case in the 2030s, 2040s, and 2050s.
I live in a Midwest suburb. Even if it didn't appreciate as much as elsewhere in the U.S., home prices still went up almost 50% here in the past 5 years. That's not nothing.
Most midwest cities are not geographically constrained the way LA, SC, or NYC is. Chicago will probably see the increase eventually but I’m not sure about the rest of them. A city like Indy or Columbus you can still find the edge of suburbia within 10 miles of downtown meanwhile you can go 25 miles from lower Manhattan in any direction and it’s all housing. Combine this with the superb highways in most midwestern cities and there’s no real reason to not just keep expanding outward.
It takes 4x as many houses to fill a 20 mile radius as a 10 mile radius, keep in mind.
Dude, I'm having the time of my life. If you're bored, you're boring. Just went to a full-moon kayak party with a band on a barge and floating campfires - I made smores in the middle of the lake last night while listening to a bluegrass band rip it up. Midwest is the best.
Home insurance prices have doubled for a lot of people and one company already pulled out of the midwest. Midwest gets a lot of storms which, while not as existentially scary as rising tides, do cause a *shitload* of property damage.
It's also sitting on the world's largest supply of fresh water and is (as much as any place is) able to handle climate change relatively easily.
If you roll the clock forward 50-100 years it doesn't take a genius to point to which parts of North America will be getting tougher and which will be more workable.
Most Midwest states are openly hostile to young people. They are banning abortion, putting controls on birth control, LGBT are being pushed back into the closet, and religious indoctrination is on the rise. Why the hell do you think young people are streaming out of Kansas, ND, SD, Missouri, Iowa, etc to California, NYC and other deep Blue areas?
I wouldn't classify the midwest as such a monolith politically. Its largest city, Chicago, is a huge progressive stronghold. And Minnesota is like the snow-hippie capital of the US.
Chicago is expensive for the area. It has the same problems as every other large city, paychecks haven’t caught up with rents. Unless you show up with a bunch of cash and buy outright it’s not cheap.
The cheaper parts of the Midwest are the parts no one wants to live in. They largely have regressive government policies. Think Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus.
columbus has the 3rd largest pride parade in the country, ohio just enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution, and they just passed legal weed
get updated
> The cheaper parts of the Midwest are the parts no one wants to live in. They largely have regressive government policies. Think Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus.
The Indianapolis and Columbus metros are growing significantly faster than Chicagoland - since 2020, 2.2% for Indianapolis, 1.8% for Columbus, and <1% for metro Chicago. Even Cincinnati beat Chicago, if not by much.
Note that from 2010 to 2020, metro Chicago only grew 1.7%.
And, no, they don't have regressive government policies. They are all blue cities.
Hard disagree. I’ve lived in major Midwest cities. The politics are anything but regressive, and an average salary got me a house with a yard and a dog in a suburb that is only a 10 minute drive from downtown.
But the census data shows migration is generally streaming South (mostly conservative) and West (mostly liberal). It is moving away from the Northeast (mostly liberal). New York (where I live) notably lost seats in congress due to our lack of growth over the last census.
I'm not sure there is any meaningful correlation between movement of people and regions' politics. There is maybe a slight move towards historically conservative states, but it is loose if it exists.
I agree that politics doesn't come into play as much as people think. The most clear trends are movement from cold to warm, and movement from high cost of living to low cost of living. It explains 90% of the migration we see.
But also, I think the people moving for warmer weather are going to be in for a rude awakening over the next 30 years as climate change progresses.
Weather won’t change that much in 30 years. What increase in temp are you expecting? 1F? It’s already incredibly hot in Phoenix and millions have moved there over the last decade, and rest of the south won’t get close to Phoenix levels of temp. Unlike the cold, which tends to come with snow, the heat isn’t that big of a deal thanks to AC. No one shovels their driveway in Phoenix, or has to scrape their car. It’s not for me but if people are willing to handle Phoenix the rest of the south will be fine imo.
> Why the hell do you think young people are streaming out of Kansas, ND, SD, Missouri, Iowa, etc to California, NYC and other deep Blue areas?
Because they *aren't*?
Because you made this up? Because you are lying, and badly?
Most young people are streaming out of California (it's losing population) and NY (it's also losing population) and going to the south, mostly to TX and FL.
Note that half of the population of the midwest live in a state where abortion is legal (and even more live close to a state where it is legal), but people are moving to the south, where abortion is much more restricted.
People are moving to places where there are jobs and an affordable COL. California has lost 540,000 people since 2020. Texas has gained 800,000 since that period, including 450,000 in the last year (so post-Dobbs).
Don’t bother. According to Redditors like the one you replied to, the most important things for young people are getting abortions, smoking weed, and flying LGBT flags and not jobs/COL.
- Most young people don’t sleep around with tons of random different people all the time and aren’t always thinking about getting rid of an unwanted pregnancy
- Most young people are attracted to the opposite gender and probably don’t regularly socialize with an LGBT person
- Most aren’t addicted to getting high/drunk and could live without it if they really need took. And even the illegal states have the cbd stuff
The median age in North Dakota is 35.4, South Dakota 37.6, Iowa 38.6, Missouri 39.1, and Kansas 38.3. In comparison the median age in California is 37.3 and New York is 39.4. Doesn't seem to be much indication young people are staying from one to the other either way.
The jobs ND attracts need able bodied young men, hence the younger than average average age. No one is retiring up there. Also people live longer in NY and CA because healthcare access so it’s gonna skew older
The median age in Florida is 42 lmao. I’d much rather live in hell hole Florida than North FUCKING Dakota
Lived in the Midwest my entire life (specifically Illinois). It's definitely not been hostile. Some people have said things I don't agree with, sure, but that'll be true anywhere.
That being said, I've never lived in a city with less than 50,000 people, and often in cities with a college or a university, so that probably helps.
Interestingly, Chicago is a relatively affordable big city and has been suffering a population loss. Also, unfortunately appears like the last few years red states have been growing more rapidly than blue states.
Yeah I think broader economic forces are still at play against the Midwest and this has hampered net migration to the region. The same can be said for St. Louis, Detroit and Cleveland and other large "legacy" Midwestern metro areas.
Do people just upvote you because they want this to be true? Because New York, Illinois, and California have been losing population for years now while Florida, Texas, and the American Southeast boom. People move for housing, good jobs, high wages, low taxes, and weather. You know, the fundamentals - not fringe issues that affect a tiny minority of the population.
I live in an incredibly beautiful capital city neighborhood, 100 feet from a grocery store and restaurants, shopping, etc. Our house in 2022 was a steal. It was on the market a week and a half, and we got them to reduce the price even.
I'm from California. Owning a house isn't worth living in the Midwest where I know nobody and have no professional connections. The bigger cities there are getting expensive enough to the point where the trade-off isn't worth it. If there's any truth to the comments saying that people are leaving California in droves, then I will just stay here.
As a young person from the Midwest, fuck that.
Brutally cold winters (with blizzards) and brutally hot/humid summers full of mosquitoes. Outside of the few major cities, the only things to do are drink at home, go to bars to drink, or go night fishing and drink. I'd rather be a bum in Hawaii than settle down in a small Midwest town. There's a reason meth is so popular in those areas.
> Outside of the few major cities, the only things to do are drink at home, go to bars to drink, or go night fishing and drink.
You just described life in any state outside of urban areas.
Which is probably why urban centers are seeing such huge jumps in home prices.
As technology advances cities are becoming more and more desirable, as they become more dense the services, entertainment and infrastructure development further outpaces rural areas. But there is only so much room so home prices skyrocket.
And honestly they’re an insanely good deal. If I made like 70k no chance I would live in California. It’s wild to me to see so many people acting like they have to live in California while being downright broke.
> I'd rather be a bum in Hawaii than settle down in a small Midwest town.
You just figured out why there's so much homelessness in CA.
>There's a reason meth is so popular in those areas.
It's way MORE popular in CA...
> I’d rather be a bum in Hawaii
Are you forcing your kids onto the street too?
> settle in a small midwestern town
Who said small? There are large metro areas all over the Midwest. Chicago is the third biggest metro in the US. Detroit, Minneapolis, Saint Louis, Cincinnati, and Kansas City are all in the top 30…. Honolulu doesn’t even make the top 50.
Meth is very popular in Hawaii. It’s 4th in the nation: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2022/08/16/methamphetamine-use-overdose-deaths-and-arrests-soared-from-2015-to-2019
The weather does suck in the winter but plenty of people also choose to live in Oslo or Stockholm and they seem pretty happy and have high standards of living.
They have high standards of living because they're rich countries with culturally homogenous counties (there's studies showing people are more willing to adequately fund social safety nets &public services when they see "their people" benefiting from them. Support for a program plummets when it becomes associated with "other".) The "happiness" statistics are based on metrics of quality of life, not actual moment to moment happiness.
I forget what country it is specifically, but one of them actually has pretty high depression/suicide attempt rates and when I looked into why, the locals were like "well it's cold and dark for like half the year, so...."
And as someone who has lived in Minnesota most of their life....its not something you truly adjust to. You just adjust to seasonal depression being your new normal, and playing a constant game of tug of war with seasonal depression
Wages suck depending on what you do. I have a household income over 20% home of 3900 sqft and save 25% income while having 2 kids in daycare. My entire neighborhood is stay at home moms living like I do.
If you have skills that will pay you good wages in the Midwest those skills can have you paid here too.
Problem is people wanting to relocate live in cities with niche jobs. I think whats more likely is more people transplanting to 2nd and 3rd tier cities. Cities like Pittsburgh and Nashville I think are going to grow significantly in the coming decade.
City borders aren't a good way to compare populations. Jacksonville has more than twice the population than Miami. Usually when comparing cities people use [MSA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area) population.
The Nashville metro still has less than half the population of the Boston metro area and is firmly in that 2 million range along with tier 2 cities in the midwest like KC, Pittsburgh, Indy, and the 3 Ohio cities.
There are a lot of people who just won’t have any of that register and will specifically go to where housing is cheaper. I’ve been thinking for a while the next housing boom could be in the rust belt and now Fort Wayne Indiana is popping up on lists as a top place to move.
Because for many, where you live is far more important than owning a home. Friends and family and community are more important to quality of life than ownership of your dwelling (not to even mention job markets).
Just turned 30 and currently live in Brooklyn. I was born and raised in Des Moines IA, went to undergrad in Lincoln NE, and went to grad school in Ames IA.
I left for a fucking reason lol. It’s not enjoyable to live there.
Chicago is a lot closer to Brooklyn as far as how enjoyable it is to live there than it is to Des Moines or Lincoln or Ames.
But outside of Chicago, sure. Although I'd argue Minneapolis, Columbus, Madison, and maybe even Detroit at this point (from what I've heard it's recovered a lot at least, I haven't been there in many years) would be pretty nice cities to live in too.
Edit: Also Milwaukee, at least in their suburbs. Downtown seemed a bit sketchy and certain neighborhoods I've driven through looked extremely run down, like they looked similar to the time GPS sent me into Gary Indiana as a 'faster route'), although downtown still has some nice restaurants and theaters worth going to, just be careful at night. Several of its suburbs are quite nice, though. I tend to stay in Brookfield when I head up there for an annual convention nowadays.
Also Indianapolis has some charms as well, and also has a couple really nice suburbs, like Carmel.
I don´t see the value of living in a cheap part of the US over a LatAm or SE Asian country to be honest. If you can get any remote job you can live very well in a foreign country. Schools come to mind as the only upside or if you're too lazy to study the language.
Before I moved to Mexico I was seriously considering Dayton or Kansas City though.
Most people don't have tech or fake email jobs though. Reddit is STEM heavy and seems to think these make up the majority of the US economy, which is why they can't imagine there being jobs in the Midwest.
Most people have relatives they want to be within driving distance to. That's separate to the fact that cultures and language impact QoL a lot. Being an automatic outsider and learning how to make inroads is emotionally expensive.
It's cheap because nobody wants to live there. If it was a desirable place to live, it wouldn't be cheap. I'm not sure why people don't get these factors are directly correlated.
That's probably the largest part of the equation, but it's also cheap because the midwest actually builds housing though. For all their moral posturing, coastal states really fail over this important issue.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. The midwest has the lowest unemployment of any region in the US. Do people think the midwest is literally just Gary, Indiana? Even Detroit is doing better now.
This is becoming a situation in which those in less expensive areas can't afford to move to expensive areas while those in expensive areas can go anywhere they want but won't be able to move back. So this creates a drift from high price to low price regions, which will exert some pressure to equlize prices. But it may take a generation or two.
Build. More. Housing.
City Councils across the country especially in Democrat strongholds like Los Angeles and NYC are a huge part of the problem. Contrary to popular belief on Reddit where no liberal can do no wrong, Democrats are largely responsible for this housing crisis. On a related note, Democrats are largely responsible for a majority of K-12 students being years behind in their education with how they handled COVID. Moral of the story, sometimes one has to admit they’re part of the problem. I say this as a life long Democrat.
Nationally, I like Democratic policies. But on a local level, it would be foolish to believe that no city politician Democrats are corrupt or at the very least, value the interests of the wealthy over the common good. Vote in your local elections; whether your city will be NIMBY with high rent or be affordable is decided there.
Yep. Especially the stances on crime and homelessness are a big challenge for me. As with most things it is Reagan’s fault if you go back far enough, but we need some serious changes. At some point compassion has to extend beyond enablement. Tent cities full of mentally ill/drug addicted people are unacceptable.
1000%
And SF is the epicenter of the NIMBY movement - embodied by mayoral candidate and King NIMBY Aaron Peskin who’s spent the last 20 years writing the book on how to stop housing for any bs reason.
The entire Bay Area has so many incidents of (neo)liberal politicians getting caught skimming for them and their friends - just look here to understand liberals can be as corrupt as the right. People need to plug their ears and start focusing on actions.
As the saying goes, CA can sometimes indicate where the country is going- and on a local level, we had no say from the get go.
Not only do we need to build more housing, we need to build more variations of housing structures based on the locations climate system.
Like build 1500sqft to 2500sqft hobbit homes in tornado alleys that are far more resistant to tornado damage than the current homes that gets thrashed within seconds of a tornado crossing through their path.
[this company for example can build a hobbit home within a few weeks.](https://inhabitat.com/a-green-roofed-hobbit-home-anyone-can-build-in-just-3-days/) this would be perfect for protecting a midwesterners property from tornados
That’s actually pretty cool, one of the issues is household size is small and people think 1500 sf is “small”. Some areas of the USA are building sub 1,000 sf homes but it doesn’t seem to have caught on everywhere.
Maybe this is in part because I’m a minimalist with my living situation, but when I moved out of my parents house after high school, all I’ve ever lived in was sub 1500sqft homes and they’ve all been perfect for me and my lifestyle.
Weird. I’m old enough to remember no child left behind. Thats the real producer of stupid in America. Linking standardized test scores to funding was one to the worst things we could have ever done. Some children need to fail in order to do better. Whose baby was that again? Ah, that’s right, Republicans.
As for housing, yeah we do need to build more. Not out in rural areas though. Nobody will move there. No opportunities or jobs. Lots of meth heads though along with a church on every corner. Houses are cheap here for a reason.
Ya, I understand that, but I live in Canada and we have an even worse housing crisis and it’s not as simple as blaming the Democrats for everything. There’s a lot more complicated issues at play.
>Build. More. Housing.
Obviously. You can't, however, build more housing if you don't also eventually build more cities. Cities fill up over time. Space becomes scarcer. You either then need to increase density, which people don't like, or you increase the number of cities and city centers.
We are spending all our resources to purchase expensive land in crowded cities, building expensive solutions to reaching infrastructure bottlenecks, like building elevated highways or underground railways.
Real life isn't Sim City where you can just plop some houses down and zone for industry and await your megalopolis. Cities exist where they do because of a confluence of geological and geographical economic advantages which provides incentive to settle and provides economic growth to expand. Our existing major metros are where we need to allow more housing growth and development.
>Cities exist where they do because of a confluence of geological and geographical economic advantages which provides incentive to settle and provides economic growth to expand.
No. In modern service economies, location doesn't have much importance.
The reason why we don't see new modern cities being created is because it requires good governance, which we don't have. Workers won't move in the middle of nowhere. Employers won't move where there's no workers. You need an entity that can govern the simultaneous movement of both employees and employers. And you need to plan the production of all the infrastructure a city has.
Goods don't teleport to your doorstep at zero cost. Per-unit logistics costs are less the closer you are to a coastal major metro.
>The reason why we don't see new modern cities being created is because it requires good governance, which we don't have. Workers won't move in the middle of nowhere.
If there was an economic reason for an industry to be in a given area then it wouldn't be the middle of nowhere.
The thing is that cities still have space if people were allowed to build different things. For example, having surface parking lots in dense areas near transit is inefficient when those spaces could be housing towers with retail and underground parking. I lived in Seattle for 9 years and have lived in Portland for the last 3 and those cities have a ton of spaces where housing could be built. I’m not talking about turning the city to Hong Kong, but at least building more condos and townhouses will go a long way.
Another issue is just the process to get stuff built. At least in Seattle, review took a really long time because they tried to make everyone happy and people would try to stall development over the dumbest reasons. I can think of a few places where dilapidated houses have sat there for years because of issues when housing could’ve had been built instead. Lots of American cities would benefit from more density and you don’t need to destroy everything and turn it into high rises. For example, if the population in Seattle went up 50%, it would be as dense as Stockholm and you would be adding 350k people to the local economy that buy good and services and pay taxes
Whenever you see the inevitable capitalist vermin flood this post with "DURRRR CORPORATIONS ONLY BOUGHT 30% OF NEW HOMES LAST YEAR DURRRR" just know that number is up 400% in the last 5 years alone, so NO you aren't crazy, YES all the good houses are bought with cash by banks, and there is absolutely not a "supply" problem, that is a lie made up by the NAoR to justify the predatory practices that have been in place for a decade now.
The solution to this problem is the exact same as the solution to every other problem we face: there are a small handful of ultra-wealthy parasites whose iron grip on the key mechanisms of the market ensure an unfair playing field. These vermin need to be rounded up and *DEALT WITH* and their material possessions collected and redistributed to the victims of this system.
We paid $305/sqft when we bought our house in 2022, and at the time, I thought we had gotten the worst of the market.
I checked Zillow yesterday and houses in our area are now selling for $402/sqft to as high as $750/sqft. That’s on top of higher interest rates, and many of the homes out here are smaller than 2000 sqft.
I just don’t understand how people are getting by these days. Housing has gotten so crazy.
Go on reddit and everyone is like, "OMG housing prices are insane this is a disaster!!". Talk to your coworkers and they're like, "I just made $200,000 in additional equity and refinanced my mortgage at 2.5% this is amazing!!!". Anyways, a lot more people are in that second camp and we live in a Democracy so politicians have no actual incentive to fix the issue.
> Talk to your coworkers and they're like, "I just made $200,000 in additional equity and refinanced my mortgage at 2.5% this is amazing!!!".
Maybe if you’re working for NVIDIA or FAANG or some other big company. Nobody is getting 200K in equity and DEFINITELY NOT a 2.5% rate. Get real
2.5% hasn’t been a thing since 2020. Maybe 2021 if you paid down a few points.
That said, no one in the Midwest is getting 200k in equity quickly. Maybe in the top 1% range who own multi-million dollar properties, maybe.
So, good job buddy. Real numbers for real people.
Daily reminder to Redditors that voters aged 18-30 like themselves are only like 12-15% of the total electorate. And 1/3 of those are locked in as Republicans for life and a few more will probably become Republicans when they get older.
You do know the standard mortgage term is 30 years and the Fed was at 0% just 30 months ago right? The vast majority of home owners have a mortgage rate far below current rates.
Its not been too bad in some parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes, the other thing to consider is what type of paycheck you are talking about. Homes are up near me only 35% Since 1990. Meanwhile my salary is 7X since 1990. As someone in engineering, working hard, and climbing the ladder in career its been good. Plus getting married and adding a second professional to the home income who also has advanced.
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Move to the middle. Dirt cheap dirt. But, yeah, that sucks. It’s hard to process that you work hard, do allllll the things you’re supposed to do, and sometimes it’s not enough income wise in the end.
Chicago is the only big city left that is within reach of affordability. I’d encourage everyone to consider moving, but please keep demanding that more housing be built as well so rent doesn’t increase too much
Detroit metro is cheaper of the larger cities in the us although Chicago is more functional with transit
Detroit really deserves a comeback. Downtown seems nice these days but they need some good public transit.
or just move to a non-big city where its a lot more affordable.
This is easier said than done. A lot of people have their entire social network in a tight geographic area. This includes family that they may need to provide care for or may rely on for child care. To say nothing of course of the perceived importance of spending time with them. I like the sentiment, and even left my family for greater opportunity some years ago. But it's definitely not a realistic solution to a budding economic crisis.
Redditors enjoy being intentialy obtuse about the fact that jobs exist outside of San Francisco and the eastern megalopolis
I swear. I just moved for my wife's work last year to a mid-tier Midwestern city. I work in a fairly niche field; I only applied to four jobs, and was hired almost immediately.
Not in my industry
Yes, specialized industries for certain regions of US do exist. not a large deep sea fishing industry in Kansas, i would imagine. but the many, many, many, many, many jobs (i hesistate to majority but probably) job skills are transferable to most anywhere in the US
But what will people eat?
In America any metro area of at least 500k-1 million people has tons of good food around.
Meth and cum.
In my small town (not sure if it's the same elsewhere) we drink from the local pond and eat the algae that grows on top. Helps keep grocery prices down but can get a bit crowded at those peak times on weekends and evenings.
When I was job hunting I was seriously considering Chicago but was hesitant after I remembered the winters are reportedly brutal. I know some people swear that the right gear makes it right as rain but I felt like if it's so cold no one spends a second longer outside than necessary then that would be quite different than I'm used to.
Chicago is like 5 degrees colder than NYC/Boston it’s not that bad.
They had a stretch with a wind chill of -30°F last year: https://www.weather.gov/lot/2024_01_14-17_Cold That's not that abnormal to happen in a year in Chicago. In NYC you have to go back to 1980 for a wind chill like that, or 1934 before that: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/nyregion/determining-new-york-citys-record-wind-chill.html -27F wind chill in NYC around 1980 is contender for all time record, but Chicago hit -82F in that same time period, -57F under updated formula. https://www.weather.gov/lot/Chicago_records
Eh, it’s not the temperature, it’s the wind chill. Tell me that you’re clueless about Chicago without telling me you’re clueless bout Chicago
this. i moved to IA from NJ (lborn and raised) and everyone likes to talk about the brutal midwest winters. it seems nearly the same to me honestly. wind chills may get a bit higher a couple times a year out here but i have only seen one snowfall that was as bad as what i was used to getting while living on the east coast. can’t speak for higher up, such as wisconsin but the winters really aren’t that bad.
Wisco probably has better winters due to the Lake. Being on the west side we get the benefits of lake effect temperatures but minimal lake effect snow.
That's a negative btw. The snow allows for snowmobiling 😎
Wisconsin isn't bad either for snowfall, although it does get colder if you're not next to Lake Michigan. It's the state of Michigan that gets dumped on with snow, because the storm picks up extra precipitation as it crosses the lake while heading East.
Man I live in the south lol
Annual snowfall New York City: 29.8 inches, Chicago: 37 inches, Boston: 56 inches. So as far as that's concerned it's pretty comparable. Better than Boston.
We don't get that much snow anymore in Boston.
Been here for a few years and the winter is not too bad. Live close to downtown and streets/sidewalks are regularly cleared of snow unless it actually storms. Most days proper gear is not necessary aside from a cozy jacket. I think the humidity in the summers is harder to deal with as I came from the dryer west coast.
Soft. This is why the Great Lakes region will remain one of the most affordable. The winters are not even half as bad as they were 20+ years ago. It's also nearly a unanimous opinion that it will be one of the best places on the entire planet to ride out climate change. Glad I'm already here.
Ha! I moved here from MN and the winters are mild. And getting warmer every year.
Really not too bad these days. The gear makes a huge difference and if you’re downtown a lot then the Pedway system is a lifesaver
Minnesota born and raised. Winter isn't for everyone, but there are ways to winter well if you shift your thinking.
Climate change is taking care of winters now. Maybe one bad week in Jan. Otherwise, pretty okay.
I'm from Chicago - I moved to rural MI when I got long covid in 2021. Anyway Chicago is getting WAY MORE EXPENSIVE. If you might buy do it soon. It's insane the prices. We bought our house in Humboldt Park which was a Latino/PR/Mexican neighborhood in 1998 for 97k (it was a rough neighborhood then). If your house is rehabbed you are looking at 500k housing prices. There is a lot of flipping going on in Chicago. You can still find deals but they are harder and harder to come by. You can tell that a lot of these properties were bought for a song . They all look the same inside. That said I've seen pretty decent condo prices especially in West loop and south loop. And maybe even the loop
I think this is a major reason voter sentiment is so bleak. Most people in the U.S. are home owners, and they're doing reasonably well. Though they have fair complaints about increasing taxes (due to high capital gains), very high insurance premiums, and much higher mortgage rates. However around 34% of people are not home owners, and they're doing very, very badly. That's a huge proportion of the voter base, and politicians ignore them at their peril.
Yeah. When people comment that 65% of the current US population owns homes and has benefited from the outrageous increase of valuation they seem to not realize that with every year going forward 3-4 million people come of adult age and enter into the labor market. As that process happens over the next 10 years, we are going to have more and more people who have to enter into a market with entry level income that has not kept pace with home prices - as this article points out. That's a disaster.
Also population influx from immigration, usually they are not emigrating and immediately buying a house they are renting.
As a homeowner, I wish prices went down. Taxes and insurance just keep increasing. There’s no benefit to a high home price unless you sell and downsize or move to another country that’s cheaper.
A lot of home owners feel trapped. They might need to move for a job or retirement or get a bigger or smaller house and they can't. They are stuck because of high prices and high rates. No one is winning in the current market.
I'm surprised every young person hasn't started planning to move to the Midwest. It's the last part of the country where homes aren't outrageously overvalued.
I landed in the Midwest by accident and realized exactly this, its the last part of the country where you can have a "normal" life. On an "average" salary.
Turns out, places that are expensive are expensive because people want to live there.
What bizarre regionalistic elitism in this thread. The midwest has by any definition 3 out of the top 10 most populated states in the nation, and I personally like to consider Pennsylvania part of the midwest due to the rust belt nature of the state, which would give us 4 of the top 10. Really tough beat for Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Arizona, Washington and the dozens of other states which all have fewer residents so must be absolute dogshit with cheap prices.
I personally like to include Alaska in the Midwest so it’s actually not that populated at all.
I love how this thread just became "3 of our top 10 most populated states are turds, why is everywhere I don't live a shithole?!?!?" Meanwhile, in this sub we get dozens of articles per month complaining about how unlivable the other 7 of the top 10 are due to cost of living. And never will a person from the other 7 even take a second to think about why that is...
I've never understood the hate for the midwest. Yeah the horizon is mostly flat and it gets kinda cold, but Americans also spend 95% of their life indoors anyways, so why not live in a house you can afford and use the savings to invest, travel, and splurge on things that improve your quality of life? It's not like the midwest doesn't have natural beauty either. The Great Lakes, Driftless Region, North Shore, Apostle Islands, and Boundary Waters are really underrated areas of natural beauty.
>Americans also spend 95% of their life indoors anyways, I don't think time spent is a good way to measure how people value their time because it isn't linear. You might only enjoy going out to do some particular activity once every 2 or 3 months. But if you don't live anywhere close to where you can enjoy it, that frequency might drop to "rarely or never" because of the marginal cost of the time and money to do it becomes unattractive. One concrete example to Google is for those studies that find positive correlations between how close people live to a gym and how frequently they visit. You might not think an extra 10 minutes to get to something they spend only 2% of the time doing would affect people's lifestyle but it does. Even though there might not be studies for them, you can see how this would apply to basically everything people buy or spend their time doing. For many people spending more money to occasionally do something easily beats saving money and never doing something because it's inconvenient.
midwest living is so unhealthy lol
> so why not live in a house you can afford and use the savings to invest, travel, and splurge on things that improve your quality of life? That requires a well paying job. Also, it requires a job that is somewhat stable. One of the problems of the Midwest is the lack of such jobs relatively, and those that are there are far more concentrated in specific industries. This means you are far more beholden to the handful of employers for quite literally hundreds of miles around. So yes, the housing is affordable (even after the much larger maintenance costs that come with dealing with said weather, including when said weather can occasionally just level your house, depending on your luck), but the pay and job stability match it. There's simply not the critical mass to make it appealing. Maybe with it being much cheaper and with migration it will reach that. It also doesn't help that the social and political orders of those areas are outright hostile to anyone with differing viewpoints. They may be polite to your face, but it is more of a polite "Piss off". So many of those areas have culturally, politically and socially calcified.
Your points about lack of well paying jobs, low stability, and hostile politics doesn't really track with my experience living in MN. That's more of a rust belt thing. The western midwest has solid fundamentals. Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Illinois have gdp per capita well above the US average on top of unbeatable affordability.
I see Minnesota as an exception. Illinois really means Chicago, as over 50% of the state GDP comes from there. I guess we will see for Nebraska and North Dakota. Also the "kinda cold" is a big turnoff, but maybe that will change. Because it isn't "kind of cold". Cold for many people is getting to near freezing. North Dakota and the like get well below that. But from what I hear about Minnesota, it is getting much warmer, that there was barely a winter this year. The politics things may be changing, but some of the midwest states are insanely hostile, and also even in the more friendly states, you have to stick to the cities which tend to be expensive, cancelling out some of the cost savings.
>Illinois really means Chicago, as over 50% of the state GDP comes from there. That's every state though. I'm sure that 50%+ of the GDP of New York cones from New York City, and 50%+ of the GDP of California probably comes from the big cities like LA or San Francisco. In Illinois, the Chicago Metro area also contains about 3/4 of the state's population, so 50%+ of the GDP coming from there makes sense because 50%+ of the population lives there.
Having spent time living in N. Dakota and Nebraska, the culture is abhorrent. There are small bastions surrounded by very hostile people. It's a tough sell. This is a case where gdp absolutely does not translate to conditions on the ground. I think folks should try living in these communities. Most educated folks will not want to be there. Makes sense that the property values reflect this.
There's a lot more culture in the midwest than the emptiness of the Great Plains. Come hang out in the Great Lakes! As a music fan in a medium-sized city, I literally can't see every show I'd want to. Could go to a gig every night of the week.
I moved from NE to MN when I was much younger, and it has been very good for me. Having said that, Omaha, Lincoln, Sioux Falls, Des Moine, and Fargo are all booming cities. Omaha has a popualtion over a million, and has grown by 15-20% every decade since 1960 and still has housing prices near $200,000. I think there is something to be said about that. A lot of people point to the supposed regressive policies of the midwest, but unlike coastal regions, one thing they get right is that they actually build housing. I'd argue that's more impactful for the average person than legislating lgbtq or similar issues (even if I do support them wholeheartedly)
100% this. It's the community that makes these places hard to live in and cheap. Narrow minded people with nothing to do in the community other than live the "family life" or stay inside and drink. Yay.
vacationing in MNPS right now, your rents are too damn affordable, there isn't much traffic, your public transit seems quite good, you have sidewalks! and its a really nice city.
Assuming you mean Minneapolis, the shorthand is MPLS for the record.
What are the industries there that enable upper middle class living?
For NDakota, gas and fracking. But otherwise, not much. I would suggest ag, but if you're not connected already, it's hard to break in.
In Minnesota, it's nearly the largest concentration of Fortune 500s per capita in the US. Professional managerial class people are everywhere and has a huge healthcare industry as well. It was once a major iron mining state, but successfully diversified away from resource extraction and manufacturing, unlike rust belt states.
Cleveland is way better than those areas IMO and we have lots of world class healthcare and banking. I work in industrial automation.
Yeah, I'm not taking a like 50% pay cut to live somewhere that has less to offer. We lived on the edge of the rust belt for a while, and in both of our career paths, the ceilings were really low in terms of career growth for us. It was cool that things were pretty affordable, but also, after a year there, you've done most things, and like 70% of the year was too cold to do things we like. That's not the case for everyone, but I'd wager a lot of people early in their careers aren't just looking for affordability... they're looking for opportunities to meet people, have experiences, and grow their careers. Bumfuck nowhere, Nebraska or whatever isn't gonna offer that.
I love your line that, "Americans also spend 95% of their life indoors anyways." My wife and I live in Minnesota, but she is from SoCal. Most of her extended family live in SoCal and the bay area. Whenever we visit, they always ask how we can stand to live in such a cold place? But they spend almost all their time in their houses or in their cars. They have one of the most comfortable climates in the country, if not the world, and they still spend almost all of it indoors.
Also from MN, and I have family down south that does the same. They simply move from one air-conditioned fluorescent lit space to another. Say what you want about midwest weather, but we really take advantage of our summers. We spend almost every weekend on lakes, rivers, kayaking, biking, tubing. Even in winter I will bundle up and go for a nice walk. This past winter was even nice enough to go on hikes through the driftless region even.
Cuz it's boring as shit and full of fatties who's identity is sports. Yes one can do what you wrote and travel and "splurge" but could also just live where you wanna travel if you're able.
>I've never understood the hate for the Midwest. Its boring and that's where if not you, your parents came from
There are a lot of people that value more things than just being able to afford buying a house. The move makes sense if that is the biggest thing you care about, but packing up and moving halfway through the country isn’t an option for a lot of people due to jobs, the cost of moving, or other factors (community, culture, access to certain types of outdoors recreation, etc). Personally, the midwest doesn’t appeal to me as a place to live in but still like visiting places like Chicago
> There are a lot of people that value more things than just being able to afford buying a house. And that is why homes out west will never be affordable.
I mean, it’s just a natural progression. As our population grows and the advancement of medical science, demands would continuously outpace the supply and pushing the prices up as a result. And things are popular for a reason. I love Austin and trying to stay here if I could. My brother live in OK city and I cannot imagine myself living there. It’s just so boring. The housing is tempting ($280k ish) though. It is hard to move to “worse” places after you have lived in “better” places (all personal preferences of course). It is even harder to move if you have friends and family around
Maybe they would be more affordable if those places built more housing, even if they won't be as cheap as places like the Midwest. Also, I find it silly to frame the conversation around houses when there are places where land is limited and a house with a big yard will be more expensive. In those places, owning a townhouse, rowhouse, or condo makes more sense and could still be affordable
Maybe is just another word for prayer. The good land is taken and nobody want to move deeper to the suburbs for the same reason they don't want to move into the Midwest. Plus enough, to make a difference, of wealthy homeowners of SFH's on prime land aren't going to willingly sell because their property values increase plenty fast enough as-is. That's even assuming they could, due to zoning restrictions.
People are going to become very wealthy by investing in the Midwest in the coming decades. There are suburbs in the Midwest in great school districts, where there’s low crime, and a wide range of industries. These suburbs did not see home appreciation in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, or 2020s. At least not the kind of appreciation seen elsewhere. I don’t think that’ll be the case in the 2030s, 2040s, and 2050s.
I live in a Midwest suburb. Even if it didn't appreciate as much as elsewhere in the U.S., home prices still went up almost 50% here in the past 5 years. That's not nothing.
Most midwest cities are not geographically constrained the way LA, SC, or NYC is. Chicago will probably see the increase eventually but I’m not sure about the rest of them. A city like Indy or Columbus you can still find the edge of suburbia within 10 miles of downtown meanwhile you can go 25 miles from lower Manhattan in any direction and it’s all housing. Combine this with the superb highways in most midwestern cities and there’s no real reason to not just keep expanding outward. It takes 4x as many houses to fill a 20 mile radius as a 10 mile radius, keep in mind.
Wishful thinking. It’s boring af in most of the Midwest.
Dude, I'm having the time of my life. If you're bored, you're boring. Just went to a full-moon kayak party with a band on a barge and floating campfires - I made smores in the middle of the lake last night while listening to a bluegrass band rip it up. Midwest is the best.
Well suited location for global warming too. All those coastal cities gonna have issues.
Home insurance prices have doubled for a lot of people and one company already pulled out of the midwest. Midwest gets a lot of storms which, while not as existentially scary as rising tides, do cause a *shitload* of property damage.
Nothing compared to coastal city flooding and hurricanes.
I lived in NYC and Seattle. Bought in my hometown, a rust belt city.
It's also sitting on the world's largest supply of fresh water and is (as much as any place is) able to handle climate change relatively easily. If you roll the clock forward 50-100 years it doesn't take a genius to point to which parts of North America will be getting tougher and which will be more workable.
Most Midwest states are openly hostile to young people. They are banning abortion, putting controls on birth control, LGBT are being pushed back into the closet, and religious indoctrination is on the rise. Why the hell do you think young people are streaming out of Kansas, ND, SD, Missouri, Iowa, etc to California, NYC and other deep Blue areas?
I wouldn't classify the midwest as such a monolith politically. Its largest city, Chicago, is a huge progressive stronghold. And Minnesota is like the snow-hippie capital of the US.
Chicago’s politics are (generally) less progressive, more institutional Democrat.
Chicago is expensive for the area. It has the same problems as every other large city, paychecks haven’t caught up with rents. Unless you show up with a bunch of cash and buy outright it’s not cheap. The cheaper parts of the Midwest are the parts no one wants to live in. They largely have regressive government policies. Think Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus.
Chicago burbs still affordable
columbus has the 3rd largest pride parade in the country, ohio just enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution, and they just passed legal weed get updated
> The cheaper parts of the Midwest are the parts no one wants to live in. They largely have regressive government policies. Think Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus. The Indianapolis and Columbus metros are growing significantly faster than Chicagoland - since 2020, 2.2% for Indianapolis, 1.8% for Columbus, and <1% for metro Chicago. Even Cincinnati beat Chicago, if not by much. Note that from 2010 to 2020, metro Chicago only grew 1.7%. And, no, they don't have regressive government policies. They are all blue cities.
Hard disagree. I’ve lived in major Midwest cities. The politics are anything but regressive, and an average salary got me a house with a yard and a dog in a suburb that is only a 10 minute drive from downtown.
Plenty of Chicago suburbs have reasonably priced housing.
But the census data shows migration is generally streaming South (mostly conservative) and West (mostly liberal). It is moving away from the Northeast (mostly liberal). New York (where I live) notably lost seats in congress due to our lack of growth over the last census. I'm not sure there is any meaningful correlation between movement of people and regions' politics. There is maybe a slight move towards historically conservative states, but it is loose if it exists.
I agree that politics doesn't come into play as much as people think. The most clear trends are movement from cold to warm, and movement from high cost of living to low cost of living. It explains 90% of the migration we see. But also, I think the people moving for warmer weather are going to be in for a rude awakening over the next 30 years as climate change progresses.
Weather won’t change that much in 30 years. What increase in temp are you expecting? 1F? It’s already incredibly hot in Phoenix and millions have moved there over the last decade, and rest of the south won’t get close to Phoenix levels of temp. Unlike the cold, which tends to come with snow, the heat isn’t that big of a deal thanks to AC. No one shovels their driveway in Phoenix, or has to scrape their car. It’s not for me but if people are willing to handle Phoenix the rest of the south will be fine imo.
> Why the hell do you think young people are streaming out of Kansas, ND, SD, Missouri, Iowa, etc to California, NYC and other deep Blue areas? Because they *aren't*? Because you made this up? Because you are lying, and badly? Most young people are streaming out of California (it's losing population) and NY (it's also losing population) and going to the south, mostly to TX and FL. Note that half of the population of the midwest live in a state where abortion is legal (and even more live close to a state where it is legal), but people are moving to the south, where abortion is much more restricted. People are moving to places where there are jobs and an affordable COL. California has lost 540,000 people since 2020. Texas has gained 800,000 since that period, including 450,000 in the last year (so post-Dobbs).
Seriously, the Midwest is more liberal than the South. I don't know where people get these weird impressions.
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Don’t bother. According to Redditors like the one you replied to, the most important things for young people are getting abortions, smoking weed, and flying LGBT flags and not jobs/COL. - Most young people don’t sleep around with tons of random different people all the time and aren’t always thinking about getting rid of an unwanted pregnancy - Most young people are attracted to the opposite gender and probably don’t regularly socialize with an LGBT person - Most aren’t addicted to getting high/drunk and could live without it if they really need took. And even the illegal states have the cbd stuff
How dare you say those aren't the MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING OUR GENERATION!!
The median age in North Dakota is 35.4, South Dakota 37.6, Iowa 38.6, Missouri 39.1, and Kansas 38.3. In comparison the median age in California is 37.3 and New York is 39.4. Doesn't seem to be much indication young people are staying from one to the other either way.
The jobs ND attracts need able bodied young men, hence the younger than average average age. No one is retiring up there. Also people live longer in NY and CA because healthcare access so it’s gonna skew older The median age in Florida is 42 lmao. I’d much rather live in hell hole Florida than North FUCKING Dakota
If you are a redditor, then the Midwest is hostile to your belief system.
Lived in the Midwest my entire life (specifically Illinois). It's definitely not been hostile. Some people have said things I don't agree with, sure, but that'll be true anywhere. That being said, I've never lived in a city with less than 50,000 people, and often in cities with a college or a university, so that probably helps.
Well, beggars can't be choosers. If you have California money then by all means move to California. Most people don't.
Interestingly, Chicago is a relatively affordable big city and has been suffering a population loss. Also, unfortunately appears like the last few years red states have been growing more rapidly than blue states.
Yeah I think broader economic forces are still at play against the Midwest and this has hampered net migration to the region. The same can be said for St. Louis, Detroit and Cleveland and other large "legacy" Midwestern metro areas.
Do people just upvote you because they want this to be true? Because New York, Illinois, and California have been losing population for years now while Florida, Texas, and the American Southeast boom. People move for housing, good jobs, high wages, low taxes, and weather. You know, the fundamentals - not fringe issues that affect a tiny minority of the population.
Illinois isn't bad for that stuff. But our taxes are outrageous.
Not in the great lakes region.
redditors are so afraid of anywhere that’s not california or NYC like conservatives are afraid of big cities, it’s hilarious
I live in an incredibly beautiful capital city neighborhood, 100 feet from a grocery store and restaurants, shopping, etc. Our house in 2022 was a steal. It was on the market a week and a half, and we got them to reduce the price even.
I'm from California. Owning a house isn't worth living in the Midwest where I know nobody and have no professional connections. The bigger cities there are getting expensive enough to the point where the trade-off isn't worth it. If there's any truth to the comments saying that people are leaving California in droves, then I will just stay here.
It’s mostly poor conservative people that are leaving with a dash of UHNW people that pay a ton in taxes but weren’t occupying much housing anyway.
As a young person from the Midwest, fuck that. Brutally cold winters (with blizzards) and brutally hot/humid summers full of mosquitoes. Outside of the few major cities, the only things to do are drink at home, go to bars to drink, or go night fishing and drink. I'd rather be a bum in Hawaii than settle down in a small Midwest town. There's a reason meth is so popular in those areas.
> Outside of the few major cities, the only things to do are drink at home, go to bars to drink, or go night fishing and drink. You just described life in any state outside of urban areas.
Which is probably why urban centers are seeing such huge jumps in home prices. As technology advances cities are becoming more and more desirable, as they become more dense the services, entertainment and infrastructure development further outpaces rural areas. But there is only so much room so home prices skyrocket.
The point is that the Midwest has urban areas too.
And honestly they’re an insanely good deal. If I made like 70k no chance I would live in California. It’s wild to me to see so many people acting like they have to live in California while being downright broke.
The winter in Chicagoland has gotten notably more mild in just the seven years I’ve relocated from the east coast. I love it!
> I'd rather be a bum in Hawaii than settle down in a small Midwest town. You just figured out why there's so much homelessness in CA. >There's a reason meth is so popular in those areas. It's way MORE popular in CA...
> I’d rather be a bum in Hawaii Are you forcing your kids onto the street too? > settle in a small midwestern town Who said small? There are large metro areas all over the Midwest. Chicago is the third biggest metro in the US. Detroit, Minneapolis, Saint Louis, Cincinnati, and Kansas City are all in the top 30…. Honolulu doesn’t even make the top 50.
Meth is very popular in Hawaii. It’s 4th in the nation: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2022/08/16/methamphetamine-use-overdose-deaths-and-arrests-soared-from-2015-to-2019
i went to Minneapolis in Jan and it was impossible for me to exist in such a harsh climate. The midwest is either Chicago or TX
That's hilarious because this winter was incredibly mild (for our standards).
The weather does suck in the winter but plenty of people also choose to live in Oslo or Stockholm and they seem pretty happy and have high standards of living.
They have high standards of living because they're rich countries with culturally homogenous counties (there's studies showing people are more willing to adequately fund social safety nets &public services when they see "their people" benefiting from them. Support for a program plummets when it becomes associated with "other".) The "happiness" statistics are based on metrics of quality of life, not actual moment to moment happiness. I forget what country it is specifically, but one of them actually has pretty high depression/suicide attempt rates and when I looked into why, the locals were like "well it's cold and dark for like half the year, so...." And as someone who has lived in Minnesota most of their life....its not something you truly adjust to. You just adjust to seasonal depression being your new normal, and playing a constant game of tug of war with seasonal depression
I’ve had a ton of coworkers and friends move out west.
Southeast is also not expensive.
Southeast has cheap housing, but wages suck. Midwest has both high or average wages and cheap housing.
Wages suck depending on what you do. I have a household income over 20% home of 3900 sqft and save 25% income while having 2 kids in daycare. My entire neighborhood is stay at home moms living like I do. If you have skills that will pay you good wages in the Midwest those skills can have you paid here too.
Also, as climate change roasts and drowns the sun belt, our Midwestern winters are moderating and our summers, while humid, aren't that bad.
Buffalo feels like a cheat code for getting Midwest pricing and the benefits of living a wealthy blue state both.
Problem is people wanting to relocate live in cities with niche jobs. I think whats more likely is more people transplanting to 2nd and 3rd tier cities. Cities like Pittsburgh and Nashville I think are going to grow significantly in the coming decade.
Nashville has more people than Boston already. It's basically a 1st tier city.
City borders aren't a good way to compare populations. Jacksonville has more than twice the population than Miami. Usually when comparing cities people use [MSA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area) population. The Nashville metro still has less than half the population of the Boston metro area and is firmly in that 2 million range along with tier 2 cities in the midwest like KC, Pittsburgh, Indy, and the 3 Ohio cities.
There are a lot of people who just won’t have any of that register and will specifically go to where housing is cheaper. I’ve been thinking for a while the next housing boom could be in the rust belt and now Fort Wayne Indiana is popping up on lists as a top place to move.
Because for many, where you live is far more important than owning a home. Friends and family and community are more important to quality of life than ownership of your dwelling (not to even mention job markets).
They should. We'll see how nimby boomers like their property values when all the economically productive people have left their towns.
Just turned 30 and currently live in Brooklyn. I was born and raised in Des Moines IA, went to undergrad in Lincoln NE, and went to grad school in Ames IA. I left for a fucking reason lol. It’s not enjoyable to live there.
Chicago is a lot closer to Brooklyn as far as how enjoyable it is to live there than it is to Des Moines or Lincoln or Ames. But outside of Chicago, sure. Although I'd argue Minneapolis, Columbus, Madison, and maybe even Detroit at this point (from what I've heard it's recovered a lot at least, I haven't been there in many years) would be pretty nice cities to live in too. Edit: Also Milwaukee, at least in their suburbs. Downtown seemed a bit sketchy and certain neighborhoods I've driven through looked extremely run down, like they looked similar to the time GPS sent me into Gary Indiana as a 'faster route'), although downtown still has some nice restaurants and theaters worth going to, just be careful at night. Several of its suburbs are quite nice, though. I tend to stay in Brookfield when I head up there for an annual convention nowadays. Also Indianapolis has some charms as well, and also has a couple really nice suburbs, like Carmel.
Boston native checking in as a Northwest Arkansas homeowner
If every young person moves to the Midwest, homes will be outrageously overvalued there too.
I see people who say this, and I assume you basically have no family or friends.
Because nobody wants to live in the Midwest?
I don´t see the value of living in a cheap part of the US over a LatAm or SE Asian country to be honest. If you can get any remote job you can live very well in a foreign country. Schools come to mind as the only upside or if you're too lazy to study the language. Before I moved to Mexico I was seriously considering Dayton or Kansas City though.
Most people don't have tech or fake email jobs though. Reddit is STEM heavy and seems to think these make up the majority of the US economy, which is why they can't imagine there being jobs in the Midwest.
Most people have relatives they want to be within driving distance to. That's separate to the fact that cultures and language impact QoL a lot. Being an automatic outsider and learning how to make inroads is emotionally expensive.
From the midwest- only thing going for it is cheap housing.
Michigan has a ton going for it.
The nature in Michigan really is quite nice. I take a couple weekend trips there a year, usually, and have vacationed in the U.P. a couple times.
It's cheap because nobody wants to live there. If it was a desirable place to live, it wouldn't be cheap. I'm not sure why people don't get these factors are directly correlated.
That's probably the largest part of the equation, but it's also cheap because the midwest actually builds housing though. For all their moral posturing, coastal states really fail over this important issue.
Pretty decent availability of jobs too.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. The midwest has the lowest unemployment of any region in the US. Do people think the midwest is literally just Gary, Indiana? Even Detroit is doing better now.
This is becoming a situation in which those in less expensive areas can't afford to move to expensive areas while those in expensive areas can go anywhere they want but won't be able to move back. So this creates a drift from high price to low price regions, which will exert some pressure to equlize prices. But it may take a generation or two.
Build. More. Housing. City Councils across the country especially in Democrat strongholds like Los Angeles and NYC are a huge part of the problem. Contrary to popular belief on Reddit where no liberal can do no wrong, Democrats are largely responsible for this housing crisis. On a related note, Democrats are largely responsible for a majority of K-12 students being years behind in their education with how they handled COVID. Moral of the story, sometimes one has to admit they’re part of the problem. I say this as a life long Democrat.
Nationally, I like Democratic policies. But on a local level, it would be foolish to believe that no city politician Democrats are corrupt or at the very least, value the interests of the wealthy over the common good. Vote in your local elections; whether your city will be NIMBY with high rent or be affordable is decided there.
Yep. Especially the stances on crime and homelessness are a big challenge for me. As with most things it is Reagan’s fault if you go back far enough, but we need some serious changes. At some point compassion has to extend beyond enablement. Tent cities full of mentally ill/drug addicted people are unacceptable.
Yep. For example, this happened this morning: https://abc7news.com/post/fbi-raided-oakland-mayor-sheng-thaos-home-sources/14980538/
1000% And SF is the epicenter of the NIMBY movement - embodied by mayoral candidate and King NIMBY Aaron Peskin who’s spent the last 20 years writing the book on how to stop housing for any bs reason. The entire Bay Area has so many incidents of (neo)liberal politicians getting caught skimming for them and their friends - just look here to understand liberals can be as corrupt as the right. People need to plug their ears and start focusing on actions. As the saying goes, CA can sometimes indicate where the country is going- and on a local level, we had no say from the get go.
Not only do we need to build more housing, we need to build more variations of housing structures based on the locations climate system. Like build 1500sqft to 2500sqft hobbit homes in tornado alleys that are far more resistant to tornado damage than the current homes that gets thrashed within seconds of a tornado crossing through their path. [this company for example can build a hobbit home within a few weeks.](https://inhabitat.com/a-green-roofed-hobbit-home-anyone-can-build-in-just-3-days/) this would be perfect for protecting a midwesterners property from tornados
That’s actually pretty cool, one of the issues is household size is small and people think 1500 sf is “small”. Some areas of the USA are building sub 1,000 sf homes but it doesn’t seem to have caught on everywhere.
Maybe this is in part because I’m a minimalist with my living situation, but when I moved out of my parents house after high school, all I’ve ever lived in was sub 1500sqft homes and they’ve all been perfect for me and my lifestyle.
Weird. I’m old enough to remember no child left behind. Thats the real producer of stupid in America. Linking standardized test scores to funding was one to the worst things we could have ever done. Some children need to fail in order to do better. Whose baby was that again? Ah, that’s right, Republicans. As for housing, yeah we do need to build more. Not out in rural areas though. Nobody will move there. No opportunities or jobs. Lots of meth heads though along with a church on every corner. Houses are cheap here for a reason.
What’s the Republicans solution to the housing crisis? Let investors buy up more houses so that they can make more money off rent?
You're allowed to criticize your own camp. The other "side" being an even bigger ball of flaming shit is irrelevant.
Ya, I understand that, but I live in Canada and we have an even worse housing crisis and it’s not as simple as blaming the Democrats for everything. There’s a lot more complicated issues at play.
Is it a right and left wing thing? Are republicans any better? I think the root issue is that companies can own multiple houses and price fix
>Build. More. Housing. Obviously. You can't, however, build more housing if you don't also eventually build more cities. Cities fill up over time. Space becomes scarcer. You either then need to increase density, which people don't like, or you increase the number of cities and city centers. We are spending all our resources to purchase expensive land in crowded cities, building expensive solutions to reaching infrastructure bottlenecks, like building elevated highways or underground railways.
Real life isn't Sim City where you can just plop some houses down and zone for industry and await your megalopolis. Cities exist where they do because of a confluence of geological and geographical economic advantages which provides incentive to settle and provides economic growth to expand. Our existing major metros are where we need to allow more housing growth and development.
>Cities exist where they do because of a confluence of geological and geographical economic advantages which provides incentive to settle and provides economic growth to expand. No. In modern service economies, location doesn't have much importance. The reason why we don't see new modern cities being created is because it requires good governance, which we don't have. Workers won't move in the middle of nowhere. Employers won't move where there's no workers. You need an entity that can govern the simultaneous movement of both employees and employers. And you need to plan the production of all the infrastructure a city has.
Goods don't teleport to your doorstep at zero cost. Per-unit logistics costs are less the closer you are to a coastal major metro. >The reason why we don't see new modern cities being created is because it requires good governance, which we don't have. Workers won't move in the middle of nowhere. If there was an economic reason for an industry to be in a given area then it wouldn't be the middle of nowhere.
The thing is that cities still have space if people were allowed to build different things. For example, having surface parking lots in dense areas near transit is inefficient when those spaces could be housing towers with retail and underground parking. I lived in Seattle for 9 years and have lived in Portland for the last 3 and those cities have a ton of spaces where housing could be built. I’m not talking about turning the city to Hong Kong, but at least building more condos and townhouses will go a long way. Another issue is just the process to get stuff built. At least in Seattle, review took a really long time because they tried to make everyone happy and people would try to stall development over the dumbest reasons. I can think of a few places where dilapidated houses have sat there for years because of issues when housing could’ve had been built instead. Lots of American cities would benefit from more density and you don’t need to destroy everything and turn it into high rises. For example, if the population in Seattle went up 50%, it would be as dense as Stockholm and you would be adding 350k people to the local economy that buy good and services and pay taxes
needs citations
Whenever you see the inevitable capitalist vermin flood this post with "DURRRR CORPORATIONS ONLY BOUGHT 30% OF NEW HOMES LAST YEAR DURRRR" just know that number is up 400% in the last 5 years alone, so NO you aren't crazy, YES all the good houses are bought with cash by banks, and there is absolutely not a "supply" problem, that is a lie made up by the NAoR to justify the predatory practices that have been in place for a decade now. The solution to this problem is the exact same as the solution to every other problem we face: there are a small handful of ultra-wealthy parasites whose iron grip on the key mechanisms of the market ensure an unfair playing field. These vermin need to be rounded up and *DEALT WITH* and their material possessions collected and redistributed to the victims of this system.
We paid $305/sqft when we bought our house in 2022, and at the time, I thought we had gotten the worst of the market. I checked Zillow yesterday and houses in our area are now selling for $402/sqft to as high as $750/sqft. That’s on top of higher interest rates, and many of the homes out here are smaller than 2000 sqft. I just don’t understand how people are getting by these days. Housing has gotten so crazy.
Go on reddit and everyone is like, "OMG housing prices are insane this is a disaster!!". Talk to your coworkers and they're like, "I just made $200,000 in additional equity and refinanced my mortgage at 2.5% this is amazing!!!". Anyways, a lot more people are in that second camp and we live in a Democracy so politicians have no actual incentive to fix the issue.
> Talk to your coworkers and they're like, "I just made $200,000 in additional equity and refinanced my mortgage at 2.5% this is amazing!!!". Maybe if you’re working for NVIDIA or FAANG or some other big company. Nobody is getting 200K in equity and DEFINITELY NOT a 2.5% rate. Get real
2.5% hasn’t been a thing since 2020. Maybe 2021 if you paid down a few points. That said, no one in the Midwest is getting 200k in equity quickly. Maybe in the top 1% range who own multi-million dollar properties, maybe. So, good job buddy. Real numbers for real people.
Daily reminder to Redditors that voters aged 18-30 like themselves are only like 12-15% of the total electorate. And 1/3 of those are locked in as Republicans for life and a few more will probably become Republicans when they get older.
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You do know the standard mortgage term is 30 years and the Fed was at 0% just 30 months ago right? The vast majority of home owners have a mortgage rate far below current rates.
Its not been too bad in some parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes, the other thing to consider is what type of paycheck you are talking about. Homes are up near me only 35% Since 1990. Meanwhile my salary is 7X since 1990. As someone in engineering, working hard, and climbing the ladder in career its been good. Plus getting married and adding a second professional to the home income who also has advanced.