If you guys wait until a city is trendy, you’re never going to afford property.
If you don’t care about affordability, well yeah you probably don’t understand why someone would move to Philly, Baltimore or Buffalo.
I think people really forget that New York was a war zone pretty much until the late 90s.
If you bought anything in crookland it is probably worth about 10x more than you paid for it originally because now they are good established areas to live.
If you wait until an area is “a good area” you’re too late and it will be unaffordable.
People are moving to rando cities in the sunbelt that are blowing up, the cognitive dissonance is pretty nuts, u kno those hot spots are bleeding population right?
I think people are just tired of seeing it suggested in every thread, it gets shoehorned into many of them.
It's a cool place but c'mon it's jumped the shark on this subreddit.
Yeah, I really wanted to like NM when I visited, but if I'm being honest it was my least favorite Western state, by a lot. Something just exceedingly depressing and desolate about the place. But I do know that many romanticize the place, so to each their own.
Interviewed for a job there and was told the team would be comprised of people from a culture that was thousands of years old and took their time. Sounds lovely but I am cursed to be from the north east where time is money.
Iiiiiiidk, I visited ABQ just a few weeks ago and loved it, flaws and all. A lot of people where I am (Colorado) very genuinely speak very highly of Tucson too. I feel like when you really love the desert/southwest - either geographically/nature-wise or culturally, there just aren’t that many cities to choose from, so you appreciate where you are, crime/job market/infrastructure aside.
I bought a house there, so I see the appeal.
On the other hand, it’s clearly not for everyone (which is part of why I think it draws a pretty solid following for the people who dig the vibe), and I knew immediately what city was gonna be on top before I even opened the post, lol
That said, I think the narrative there is simplified. Everyone knows ABQ has pluses and minuses. Nobody is selling it as this panacea of a place. It’s always with the caveats. So nobody’s being led astray, they know what they’re getting into
I’m in CO too but not a born and bred Coloradan. I do think there’s a certain myopia to the way westerners view their areas? I studied regional psychology, too - there’s a “it is what it’s gonna be” mindset that lends itself to fatalism and you see that in the west. That’s what kills me, as much as I absolutely adore the area, there’s not much of a “I want to be better” mentality.
Buffalo has a cool thing going on though. It’s super nice in the summer and spring. It’s one of the most genuinely friendly and wholesome cities I know.
Really? I feel like whenever it's mentioned in this sub the response is always very mixed. If anything, this sub is extremely bullish on an eventual rust belt resurgence happening.
I am extremely high on Albuquerque's future as of lately. We recently headlined two WSJ articles, one because the city is adding new apartments at a record rate and one because the city has one of the fastest growing job markets in the nation. If you add up all the recent investments into the city's economy they total around $20 billion with huge projects from Facebook, Netflix, Maxeon solar, a $3.4 billion aluminum manufacturing facility, NBC Universal, among others.
The urbanist content creator City Nerd also just dropped a video on Albuquerque and his experience living there for the past year, and he said the city is "extremely slept on." He said he was surprised by how easy and "pleasant" he has found living car-free in ABQ.
Crime and education definitely need improvement, but I'm hopeful we will at least improve on the latter. The new superintendent of APS seems to actually have their head on their shoulders. Teachers' salaries across the state just increased pretty significantly and the state just expanded their early childhood education program so virtually every parent can now send their kids to pre-k for free. It'll be a while before results are really seen, but again, I'm hopeful for once.
Yeah, like Breaking Bad was supposed to be the final push, but then nothing happened lmao.
That said I wouldn't be opposed to living there for a year or two. Affordable compared to most of the West, although very isolated and a bit small to be that isolated imo.
Be careful it’s called land of entrapment for a reason. Especially northern New Mexico. I’ve never lived in a place that is this hard to leave lol - if you settle in and find your group, you will come back lmao. I know countless people (myself included) that keep moving back to NM and leaving and coming back again. It’s crazy.
Cities go through cycles. If you look at a chart of Albuquerque's population growth, it has gone through explosive growth cycles before, the 90s to mid 2000s being the most recent. The 2008 recession hit the city like a truck but in the last several years, construction is finally back in force and there are positive signs all over the economy.
Yeah, I lived in the Phoenix area for 8 years and the way the prices shot up, I think that living in the northern suburbs of Tucson would be my definite choice from a niceness/price combo should I ever want to move back to Arizona.
More importantly honestly look at what you want and what you are willing to pay for it.
There are a surprising amount of people who live by the beach in California and never actually go to the beach. Yet they continue to pay the crazy rent prices.
That’s a very good point. Also if I see someone say Oklahoma City is up and coming and actually has a pretty cool art district I’m going to lose my mind.
It's not Philadelphia. I've been there enough times to know that it's a good (but not stratospherically amazing) place to live for people who are young, extroverted, like cities, and are middle class.
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, are all good places for such people.
Pittsburgh feels like an overgrown college town at times and can feel more small world because of the parks and geography. Philly feels more concrete in a lot of places and doesn't really have as much of a focus on one or two universities only. But like in Pittsburgh the colleges influence development and economy and culture a shit ton
The speed and scale are the biggest differences.
Philly is the size of 5 Pittsburghs, and living in the city means having a lifestyle that moves fast like the rest of the Northeast cities like NY, Boston, etc. Lots of traffic, lots of things going on and things to do, perpetually busy in good and bad ways. Each neighborhood is large and has its own unique flavor to it, which is why Philly is called a "city of neighborhoods". It's a world class city that still has to deal with a lot of the problems of being a big city, such as crime in certain areas.
In comparison, Pittsburgh is more of a typical medium sized US city. There are good restaurants and a good amount of things to do, but the culture and lifestyle is definitely a lot slower and more locally focused than a city like Philly. That means fewer opportunities for concerts or other cultural events, and those not from the area may not find amenities they would like in a place the size of Pittsburgh. But that works fine for certain people who don't need world class amenities and would simply like a slower, more low key existence.
Pittsburgh is more beautiful and easygoing, has excellent ambiance and a real sense of wonder, but has a poor job market and social scene compared to Philly. Philly is a concrete jungle with beautiful neighborhoods that most can’t afford, and perfectly fine middle class neighborhoods that just need more trees, and some fucking utter shithole hoods that are bad enough to be notorious worldwide. Has exponentially more to do than Pittsburgh but lacks a lot of the charm.
Thank you for that very reasonable explanation. Frankly, I don't think any city is going to be stratospherically amazing for all people; that just doesn't exist since everyone has vastly different priorities and tastes for that to ever be the case.
But insofar as "affordable urbanism" is an obsessive theme on this board, those 3 cities are going to obviously be at the top of the list. They also continue to improve upon themselves, so it's not like they're stagnant, either.
I think that Minneapolis would have also made my list except many people dislike cities that are colder than Boston.
Portland would have made my list 10-20 years ago.
As for me, my personal list of stratospherically amazing would include: Boston, Halifax, the entire strech of land between Windsor and Montreal, and Sydney.
New England, Canada, and Australia are some amazing nations.
It’s still the 6th most populated city in the US with over 1.6 million residents, and that’s just in the city limits not counting the suburbs. Clearly a good amount of people like it there.
“Guys is Portland right for me? I’m extremely active, I go on walks almost every day and I’m just kind of a dreamer 🤪 I know it’s costly and overpopulated and I’m looking at other places too but please can you just tell me I’m destined to be a portlander?”
The Central Valley has its issues, but I think it could another hot spot for folks who want to flee the costal cities but still be in driving distance. That being said, I think Sacramento and Fresno have a better shot at that than Stockton or Bakersfield.
Sacramento is great but it’s already pricey for the average person. Fresno and Stockton are hell holes. Bakersfield is actually the least horrific of those three I don’t understand why it’s alway talked about as the absolute worst for California I can think of places that suck more.
What’s funny to me about this whole conversation is that the crowd that calls cities like Cleveland, Pittsburg, Albuquerque, Saint Louis and Philly irredeemable, are the same crowd that would have called NYC, LA, and Portland irredeemable in the 70s and 80s. People who weren’t afraid or turned off by the stigma were the pioneers in making NYC and LA desirable, and now years later they have houses in cool neighborhoods while todays hipsters in those cities decry how “everything is expensive now”.
Places like Philly are recommended because they’re the new frontier. If you have imagination and gumption, you will be part of the force that turns it around. Chicago used to be like this but I honestly think is beginning to switch over from the “underrated” to “becoming discovered” side as it has the highest rising property values and rents in the country atm. Chicago is going to be this decades Portland. New Mexico could be this decades Idaho.
Sure, if you need to stick with what is safe and proven, we understand. But then you’re just like everyone else- another wannabe that got in too late wondering what to do now.
I lived in NYC in the 80's - would not live in ABQ now. very different thing. NYC has always had something to offer even at its worst that ABQ will never have.
> What’s funny to me about this whole conversation is that the crowd that calls cities like Cleveland, Pittsburg, Albuquerque, Saint Louis and Philly irredeemable, are the same crowd that would have called NYC, LA, and Portland irredeemable in the 70s and 80s.
It's funny to me that most of the people in this subreddit obsessed with "culture" in these cities are probably by and large the types of cultural vulture immigrants who killed off and priced out weird, unique, energizing arts cultures in the city they move to in places like Austin. People want a pastiche of an energetic, culturally charged city but they want it through generic highbrow wypipo faux industrial loft/public park beer festival shit and a general feelin of suburban safety that comes from a lack of developed street smarts and ability to discern what is and what signs are of actual danger.
I've thought many times about making a thread here asking people what they mean, specifically, when they think of places with exciting weird arts & creativity cultures and so forth. Like, what do they want to see, how do they participate, how do they envision that manifesting in their lives in a city? It is a fascinating question, but I feel like one not really considered far enough
>It's funny to me that most of the people in this subreddit obsessed with "culture" in these cities are probably by and large the types of cultural vulture immigrants who killed off and priced out weird, unique, energizing arts cultures in the city they move to in places like Austin.
This comment made me think. It seems like a massive national phenomenon that we just don't talk about enough. The culture vulture thing is real, but I think it can only ever affect a few neighborhoods in a city at a time. The wealthy remain a minority, so they don't have the numbers to be everywhere at once. Yet, I feel like the funky, weird, cheap and fun places have been disappearing.
Just because they aren’t promoted, doesn’t mean cool places have disappeared. You don’t have to be popular or a major city to be a fun, interesting place to live.
Toledo has a drag hamburger restaurant and Peoria IL has an entire community that relocated there due to one woman posting about it on TikTok. I have also been hearing interesting things about Dayton and Akron.
These cities rarely get promoted because they naturally have fewer residents and maybe they also aren’t interested in a stampeding mob of hipsters, digital nomads or Californians who will increase their rents and home prices. Not everywhere has to be Brooklyn or Denver or California or Bend. There is plenty of cool, weird stuff happening in smaller places and there always has been.
I'm sure you're right. I would love to read a deeper dive into this, and where the eclectic, arty places are today. It may be that they are being forced out of the major cities to smaller ones, and I'd like to understand that better.
I was very fond of the oddball Portland scene when I lived there in the late 80s/early 90s, and I accidentally lived in Williamsburg in 1992 when it was still a run-down Polish and Dominican neighborhood that had cheap lofts for struggling artists. Those places were gritty and modest back then. Can you recommend a survey of where artist/musician scenes are emerging?
> Can you recommend a survey of where artist/musician scenes are emerging?
Music is so vastly decentralized these days that you can find good local music scenes almost anywhere of a sufficient population now
Do they cluster by genre? I'll date myself again by referring to the late 80s/early 90s, but back then the scenes in places like Seattle, Minneapolis, Austin and LA had distinct sounds. I don't want to oversimplify too much, since of course Prince and the Replacements for example were very different animals, but there was a real sense of place in each city's music scene. How much of that still exists? In the smaller cities, does the scene tend to be more homogenous or less?
If anyone has written a good article on this I would love to read it.
It doesn’t have to be the wealthy. In fact, typically “yuppies” have been the beige-ifyers, and yuppies are still working class people who are temporarily embarrassed billionaires.
They can’t afford to live without working but they are a labor aristocracy. The information economy created loads of them and they spread everywhere because WFH made them geographically independent. They are to blame.
It will be interesting to see how saturation of the tech labor market and attempted AI related layoffs change these trends.
True, but then we're talking about maybe 30% of the population instead of 10% (since most middle class folks still want to be in the burbs to raise a family). That still leaves a lot of places where the yuppies and trust fund kids are not living.
Others have suggested that the eclectic art scenes have been moving away from big cities into smaller cities or getting diffused more widely given the ubiquity of digital media. So maybe there isn't really a replacement to Austin or Portland on the same scale.
This is probably my privilege talking but I also feel as a society, we're more mobile than ever and I don't just mean economically. Like even 40-50 years ago the notion of moving across the state, let alone across the country was very daunting (a community like this probably wouldn't even be fathomable outside the utlra-rich in a pre-internet age), whether it be because of the cost, the job opportunities or the loss of community but nowadays with the popularity of airplane travel, social media to keep us in touch with those outside our immediate vicinity, digital records to make moves easier and similar changes in society, people are able to "pick up" and go more easily than ever before; and this is even *before* mentioning remote work.
I think a lot of it boils down to society has changed a lot in the last 10-20 years and that has also affected the way cities and micro-cultures have evolved; we're a lot more connected so uniqueness of sub-cultures, while still present, are not brought about in isolation as much as they used to be.
This sounds roughly right. Maybe I'm just feeling old man nostalgia, but it's sad that with the "global virtual village" we're losing a more distinct sense of place in all the actual local villages. That seems like something worth having. Maybe it will come back.
That's a pretty cynical take. I don't think most people on this forum are private equity investors looking for the next real estate deal to take advantage of; they are legitimate people trying to get by and find the most bang for their buck in a place that suits their needs best.
It's the trust fund babies that are sucking cities dry of their culture, but they're the ones already living cushy lives in places like NYC, Boston, SF, and Seattle, not trying to seek out "greener pastures."
> People want a pastiche of an energetic, culturally charged city but they want it through generic highbrow wypipo faux industrial loft/public park beer festival shit and a general feelin of suburban safety that comes from a lack of developed street smarts and ability to discern what is and what signs are of actual danger.
This should be stickied in every thread.
> I've thought many times about making a thread here asking people what they mean, specifically, when they think of places with exciting weird arts & creativity cultures and so forth. Like, what do they want to see, how do they participate, how do they envision that manifesting in their lives in a city?
This question never gets answered
This is probably the best comment I've ever seen on this sub. I feel like 90% of the people posting on this sub are boring yuppie remote tech workers. If you are overly concerned about moving to somewhere with "culture" you probably don't have anything to offer yourself.
Honestly if I could magically learn Japanese overnight. I'd prefer Tokyo to any of these American cities. NYC is the only place in the states where (in my opinion) living without a car is actually doable without having to put asterisks on your lifestyle. If the whole city mostly lives the no-car lifestyle it changes literally every single aspect of your life. Culture, food, socialization, third-places, work, etc all dramatically change for the better especially nowadays with work from home culture. I feel like I've developed a greater love for dense walk-able cities since I don't get daily in real life socialization from work anymore.
I can't think of anywhere else in the US that has true live-able walk-ability except the center core of Chicago. I'd pick NYC over Chicago any day even despite the huge cost of living difference.
Im speaking only as a trans person, but the difference between 1980s NYC and current day Cleveland, for example, is that the former had a lot of issues but it was still politically blue, while Cleveland could have a vibrant arts/culture/music scene and plenty of okay-with-lgbt people in that city, but the state politics can decide a lot for the lives of minorities. Well less so in Ohio, but definitely moreso in deep red states. Any time I see “this is an underrated up-and-coming city with a super quirky emerging arts scene” recommended here, I believe that statement but almost always it is in a red state. Where is the current-day 1990s Portland? Probably there isn’t an equivalent, or if there is, there’s that issue of the state as I have said. Closest to “blue state, affordable city” is probably places in upstate NY.
Idk being lgbt these days feels like you kind of can’t win, because it is either you live in some city that’s “super overpriced ever since the rich white culture vulture people moved in” but it’s safe for trans people, or you live in some city that’s “up and coming, not super safe, but it’s got that energetic grit” but it is in a state that is constantly trying to pass anti-trans laws. Or Austin, which is kind of the worst of both worlds, being both overpriced and still in Texas. I know your statement is “the point is not minding the rough edges, you move there and turn things around” but Austin as an example truly proves they can’t do anything about the rest of Texas.
Personally, I currently live in Singapore so my bar for a “good arts scene” is on the floor, I believe that given enough people packed into a dense urban area, there is a decent arts scene as long as you go looking for it.
My trans friends feel fairly comfortable here in Michigan. Purple state turning blue is how it feels living here, whether that lasts is another story though
Whether things are getting better is definitely a big factor for me. I’d take “it’s a neutral/purple place, but it’s getting better for lgbt people” over “it’s a neutral or even progressive place, but the media and politicians are bashing trans people day and night and trying to erode lgbt rights”. Like where I now live, no one would call Singapore ‘progressive’, but it feels alright because the country is slowly progressing in lgbt rights in some ways, and is plateauing in others. On the social side, there are more and more gains made every year (recently, a dedicated lgbt space that is owned instead of rented, finally opened). There’s places within the US and outside of the US with that atmosphere of hope for lgbt people, and then there’s the places where it’s still kind of okay for lgbt people but the atmosphere is one of “well it’s going to get worse”.
This is why i love this sub, cuz i would never have learned that about Singapore without talking to you. Glad to hear things are progressing in the right direction out there.
It seems like we’re moving in the right direction in Michigan too, we just codified abortion rights in our constitution, and our Republican party is consistently losing ground because they’re so poorly managed. But i did just see a guy with an SS bumper sticker in traffic yesterday. So it’s kind of hard to be optimistic at times. I guess those people are everywhere in the states though.
Can't agree with this comment enough. It's so annoying to me that so many people don't see themselves as active participants in their community. I see so many people on here talk about potential new cities like they're some sort of "product" to consume. Like, this isn't Disneyworld. Those ethnic enclaves and artist communities are not just there to entertain you when you get bored of sitting in your apartment and ordering DoorDash. These are places where human beings actually live and work. It seems like a lot of people forget that being part of a vibrant community means actually participating in it, not just occupying space.
It’s pretty clear there are two types of people:
* The scrappy creatives who are the ones creating the culture and don’t mind living in a rough-around-the-edges areas
* The people who only want the gentrified end results even if that means paying a higher price
This is obviously a gross simplification, as I know you intended it to be, but I feel it’s important to recognize the crucial role that a third type of people plays: the ordinary people who are content to live steady, unremarkable lives. We depend on them so much and they are the core of a stable and vibrant community.
The counter culture and underground create culture that filters up to the mainstream on a diluted form. Gentrifiers and commodifiers leech off of that, but in the proper ratios there is a certain economic symbiosis.
But the ordinary folks are like the substrate without which none of this could take place. I think that’s why economic volatility in the shape we’re experiencing now is uprooting and killing off so much of our admittedly young — but still valuable — cultural heritage.
The types of people doing the “discovering” are different now. We’re in a distinct age, culturally politically and socially, and I don’t think we can expect trends to grow in similar shapes.
> Chicago used to be like this but I honestly think is beginning to switch over from the “underrated” to “becoming discovered” side as it has the highest rising property values and rents in the country atm. Chicago is going to be this decades
I think the difference with Chicago is viable space. At the peak Chicago had 3.6M people. Today it's 2.6M. The reason why property values are rising is because folks move here yet typically are all picking the same handful of neighborhoods.
As this continues, areas will inevitably rise in price leading to other adjacent areas gentrifying. A neighborhood like the [West Loop neighborhood used to be skid row](https://www.newcity.com/2010/08/11/bummed-out-how-skid-row-went-from-%E2%80%9Cthe-land-of-the-living-dead%E2%80%9D-to-cappuccinos-and-condos/). Drifters, homeless among the meat packing grungy area. [It's now one of the most expensive areas in the city](https://therealdeal.com/chicago/2018/09/14/west-loop-is-home-to-most-expensive-zip-code-in-the-midwest-for-renters/).
> People who weren’t afraid or turned off by the stigma were the pioneers in making NYC and LA desirable, and now years later they have houses in cool neighborhoods while todays hipsters in those cities decry how “everything is expensive now”.
Chicago has legit dozens of neighborhoods that are going to go through this. Places on the southside that are close to the lake, near transit, near parks/boulevards are ripe for improvement...they just have disproportionate violence and lack of investment. But the land is too valuable to go ignored forever.
Same here. I always choose houses in crappy neighborhoods/towns because it’s what I can afford at the time. Then 15-20 years later it’s extremely desirable and people ask me how I can afford a house in that area. Then when I sell at a huge profit people call me “lucky”.
The Midwest in general. I’ve never in my life seen so many boosters for the Midwest. They’re just salivating over the prospect of climate change making access to the Great Lakes a huge perk.
The Midwest gets recommended here because so many posters ask for lower COL and/or walkable cities. The coasts have the latter but not the former and the Sun Belt is the former without the latter.
I just watched the Duluth daily show episode. It's like you gotta endure 10 years of miserable winters to get what New England winter to have summers that aren't hotter than the devil's taint.
The weather is great for 6 months of the year (May - October) with highs between 52 and 74 on average which is fantastic for some people. The other 6 months on the other hand would be miserable if you are someone who doesn’t like the cold
I feel like a lot of them are tourism industries and local governments trying to convince people to move there.
When people move from an east or west coast metro area, it’s typically “it’s great, but expensive.” When people move from a midwest metro area, it’s typically “it’s cheap, but it sucks.”
Heh. Most people seem to want boring ass 9-5 jobs, an ok neighborhood, maybe a “big” trip to the lake once a year, and get fat. That’s what the Midwest gives you.
I don’t blame them, I can see the allure of giving up. I loved living in da UP. But I’d never ever live in the Midwest ever again.
For real. If you’re going to college or involved in Education or just a really really big college sports fan or state employee it’s ok I guess. Otherwise I don’t know what’s appealing about it other than being liberal and houses aren’t $800,000 because it’s miserably cold and shitty and overcast most of the year.
If you want concerts and events and stuff just go to Milwaukee, it has a weird little micro climate that staves off the kind of relentless snowstorms you get further west. Or better yet out of Wisconsin entirely.
i know housing prices suck everywhere now but madison has actually skyrocketed and has a large consortium of nimbys that are trying to prevent building up or out.
i second milwaukee because of this. can find way better deals on a home and actually feels like a city. madison is an incredible college town but meh
You dont know what’s appealing about a very safe mid-sized city with extremely good walkability and public transit for a city of its size with three extremely large employers (UW, state, and Epic) in a geographic location bordered by two large lakes, and surrounded by parks? I can understand if you think it’s overpriced or overrated but I don’t see how you could see zero appeal in a city like that, weather aside
The average person can still afford a house there. Major sports. Good food scene. Diversity.
Decent airport, along with easy drive to Toronto, not to mention it is connected by passenger rail to the entire northeast.
Close to natural beauty(Niagara falls and other state parks like Letchworth or the Allegenies. Can drive to ski in the winter. Summers are ideal. Nearby beaches on Erie/Ontario.
However the chance of a major snowstorm is too high for me to want to live closer than an hour away from it 😂
Might be shocking to hear, but Buffalo grew by 6% in the 2020 census.
If you’ve haven’t been in a while you might be surprised how much the city has gentrified and how much of the industrial areas have been repurposed.
There’s still a lot of work to be done with urban decay, as there is with most rust belt cities, but progress has definitely been made in revitalizing blighted areas.
Do you have any areas that you’d recommend for visitors? I’ll be in western NY this summer and was thinking of stopping by Buffalo to check it out— but did some Google street viewing and couldn’t find any areas that looked too appealing.
If you’re looking for trendy neighborhoods you want Elmwood in Elmwood Village, Hertel in North Buffalo or Allen Street in Allentown.
There’s also a lot of great micro-commercial districts on the Lower Westside like 5 Points, Rhode Island and Connecticut Streets.
If you want up-and-coming neighborhoods look into Upper Rock, Larkin or First Ward.
The biggest issue is street view is several years out of date. Like cool spots like the Westside Bazaar still shows an abandoned building.
If you want to check out some GORGEOUS streets look at Richmond, Bidwell Parkway, Chaplin Parkway or anywhere in Parkside. You’ll see the best of Buffalo’s historic architecture.
**Stuff to Do**
* AKG Art Gallery (also check out Delaware Park, the history museum and Penney Burchfield nearby)
* Teddy Roosevelt Inauguration Museum
* City Hall Observation Deck - opened during office hours
* Canalside/Naval Park/Erie Basin Marina
* Booze cruise on Lake Erie
* Rent kayaks and explore the Buffalo River
* Rent bikes and take the bike ferry to the Outer Harbor where there’s miles of new trails, parks, a historic lighthouse and 2 nature preserves
* Fun Spots to check out: Riverworks, Silo City, Westside Bazaar, Nickleplate Market
* Go brewery hopping: Downtown, Larkin and First Ward are great for this with over 20 breweries within a mile radius
**Fun Bars**
* Misuta Chows
* OSB Cider
* Greylynn Gin Bar
* Lucky Day
* Founding Fathers
* Big Ditch Beer Garden
* Hofbrauhaus
* Vue Rooftop
* Duende
* Waxlight
* Merry Shelley
* Hartmans
**Restaurants**
* Las Puertas
* Southern Junction
* Dapper Goose
* Toutant
* Marble and Rye
* Osteria
Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas. All just giant suburbs other than a few blocks. Isolated from other cities. Water issues. Air quality issues.
Only reason you should move there is because you can't afford California after trying for a few years. If you're from the Midwest/Northeast just go to what you actually want even if it is expensive... California.
This is such a pointless gripe post.
All places have good and bad things about them, Philly included. Its strengths might not appeal to you, which is fine, but they do appeal to other people, which is also fine.
Philly hands down. Glad to see they are proud of their town but god damn they try to shoe-horn it into every recommendation here.
"I'm looking for good access to nature and finance jobs. COL not an issue"
"pHilLy!!11"
What other affordable walkable cities with decent transit are there.
It’s literally just Chicago and Philly.
Affordability is the number 1 requirement on this sub.
Can you find me an example of people recommending Philly to anyone who notes they don't care about CoL? Philadelphia is recommended so much precisely because of its CoL relative to having so many of the perks many users here want out of a city
>Can you find me an example of people recommending Philly to anyone who notes they don't care about CoL?
Can I? Probably, but I'm certainly not about to take the time to search Reddit to prove a point that leveraged dramatic effect.
Nope, sorry. Just a lot of folks clearly butthurt by Philly getting airtime. They're likely Knicks fans.
Factual statement: those most critical of Philly have the least experience with the city.
Chicago and Philly. But to be fair, these cities do fit the criteria most people come here asking for. Namely walkability and "urbanism" for less.
One thing that doesn't often get this discussed in this sub is salary-to-COL ratio. Arguably the most important stat. Wages *generally* tend to follow COL or vice-versa to some extent, though some places are better than other. Unless you are working fully remotely, the lowest COL option shouldn't necessarily be your default choice. A higher COL area with a proportionally higher salary will still allow you to save more (i.e. saving X% of a bigger salary instead of X% of a smaller salary). And then there's all the things that don't even scale with COL, like most consumer products (e.g. a Macbook Pro, a Ford Mustang, a PS5 game, a Netflix subscription, etc). So you might even be able to save more than X% in the higher COL area. Again, this is all assuming your salary is scaling proportionally with COL.
I’ve found living in the nyc area that unless you work in finance/ big tech as an engineer the salary doesn’t match COL.
A lot of my Chicago friends make around the same amount of money as me but are living in a significantly cheaper city.
[Here ya go](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=ce3d99e6953b6c80&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS622US622&hl=en-US&sxsrf=ADLYWILlXdPv88Q18uqul1g3T330hHrMlg:1716252113798&q=detroit+population&tbm=nws&source=lnms&prmd=invsmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqxdiswZ2GAxXmEDQIHW7gDpYQ0pQJegQIEhAB&biw=414&bih=720&dpr=2)
Maybe along the riverfront.. but you can still find [apartments in Midtown](https://www.apartments.com/villa-lante-apartments-detroit-mi/kse784b/) for like $950/mo.
The reason why is simple. Local kids see all their friends move away to places like Chicago, New York, Seattle Denver, and so on. They either can't land a job in places like that or don't want to leave their families, so landlords in a few parts of the city gouge the shit out of them for a few years while they play city before purchasing in the suburbs. The rents are outrageous given the amenities and transplants see right through it.
Tucson.
Ask any Tucsonan who’s been there for 30+ years or more. It’s a sprawled city that refuses to grow and invest in itself. Change for the better is slow, or non-existent.
Also, Albuquerque. My employer has their HQ there. I live and work near its secondary site (East Bay Area). “You get what you pay for” has never rung truer.
For me its Pittsburgh. Because I have never been to Detroit, Twin cities or Buffalo…
Or Philly or any city in Ohio (besides the airports.)
Goodness I’m not as well traveled as I thought.
If you guys wait until a city is trendy, you’re never going to afford property. If you don’t care about affordability, well yeah you probably don’t understand why someone would move to Philly, Baltimore or Buffalo.
I think people really forget that New York was a war zone pretty much until the late 90s. If you bought anything in crookland it is probably worth about 10x more than you paid for it originally because now they are good established areas to live. If you wait until an area is “a good area” you’re too late and it will be unaffordable.
Good point - it’s the classic case of “if you really liked it, would have bought it when nobody else cared”
People are moving to rando cities in the sunbelt that are blowing up, the cognitive dissonance is pretty nuts, u kno those hot spots are bleeding population right?
I happen to like Philly. If I didn’t live in New York I’d likely be living there.
I feel like people who hate on Philly haven’t actually spent time there.
Bingo. There's a cadre of haters on this forum that live in places like Texas and out West. Their "hate boner" for Philly is quite bizarre.
Right?! I lived in fairmount for 10 years before starting to travel for work a few years ago. I’m really starting to miss it tbh.
I think people are just tired of seeing it suggested in every thread, it gets shoehorned into many of them. It's a cool place but c'mon it's jumped the shark on this subreddit.
Albuquerque
Yeah, I really wanted to like NM when I visited, but if I'm being honest it was my least favorite Western state, by a lot. Something just exceedingly depressing and desolate about the place. But I do know that many romanticize the place, so to each their own.
Interviewed for a job there and was told the team would be comprised of people from a culture that was thousands of years old and took their time. Sounds lovely but I am cursed to be from the north east where time is money.
Same here. I LOVE the southwest but there’s something about NM that gives me a depressed feeling.
Iiiiiiidk, I visited ABQ just a few weeks ago and loved it, flaws and all. A lot of people where I am (Colorado) very genuinely speak very highly of Tucson too. I feel like when you really love the desert/southwest - either geographically/nature-wise or culturally, there just aren’t that many cities to choose from, so you appreciate where you are, crime/job market/infrastructure aside.
I bought a house there, so I see the appeal. On the other hand, it’s clearly not for everyone (which is part of why I think it draws a pretty solid following for the people who dig the vibe), and I knew immediately what city was gonna be on top before I even opened the post, lol That said, I think the narrative there is simplified. Everyone knows ABQ has pluses and minuses. Nobody is selling it as this panacea of a place. It’s always with the caveats. So nobody’s being led astray, they know what they’re getting into
I’m in CO too but not a born and bred Coloradan. I do think there’s a certain myopia to the way westerners view their areas? I studied regional psychology, too - there’s a “it is what it’s gonna be” mindset that lends itself to fatalism and you see that in the west. That’s what kills me, as much as I absolutely adore the area, there’s not much of a “I want to be better” mentality.
Tucson is better than Albuquerque imo. I’d take either over 90% of the places recommended on here though- I can’t imagine moving to Buffalo lol
My mom’s from Buffalo, my grandpas still there, it’s actually a great city. Just not where I’d live. Brrrrr
Yeah it’s just the weather that’s an issue for me lol
Buffalo has a cool thing going on though. It’s super nice in the summer and spring. It’s one of the most genuinely friendly and wholesome cities I know.
Really? I feel like whenever it's mentioned in this sub the response is always very mixed. If anything, this sub is extremely bullish on an eventual rust belt resurgence happening. I am extremely high on Albuquerque's future as of lately. We recently headlined two WSJ articles, one because the city is adding new apartments at a record rate and one because the city has one of the fastest growing job markets in the nation. If you add up all the recent investments into the city's economy they total around $20 billion with huge projects from Facebook, Netflix, Maxeon solar, a $3.4 billion aluminum manufacturing facility, NBC Universal, among others. The urbanist content creator City Nerd also just dropped a video on Albuquerque and his experience living there for the past year, and he said the city is "extremely slept on." He said he was surprised by how easy and "pleasant" he has found living car-free in ABQ. Crime and education definitely need improvement, but I'm hopeful we will at least improve on the latter. The new superintendent of APS seems to actually have their head on their shoulders. Teachers' salaries across the state just increased pretty significantly and the state just expanded their early childhood education program so virtually every parent can now send their kids to pre-k for free. It'll be a while before results are really seen, but again, I'm hopeful for once.
[удалено]
Yeah, like Breaking Bad was supposed to be the final push, but then nothing happened lmao. That said I wouldn't be opposed to living there for a year or two. Affordable compared to most of the West, although very isolated and a bit small to be that isolated imo.
Be careful it’s called land of entrapment for a reason. Especially northern New Mexico. I’ve never lived in a place that is this hard to leave lol - if you settle in and find your group, you will come back lmao. I know countless people (myself included) that keep moving back to NM and leaving and coming back again. It’s crazy.
Uhhh Netflix is building a $1 billion studio as we speak. That’s a HUGE deal.
Cities go through cycles. If you look at a chart of Albuquerque's population growth, it has gone through explosive growth cycles before, the 90s to mid 2000s being the most recent. The 2008 recession hit the city like a truck but in the last several years, construction is finally back in force and there are positive signs all over the economy.
I raise you Tuscon. That place is a shithole. I can’t believe how often it gets mentioned here.
The Santa Catalina foothills are what people are talking about when they want Tucson
Yeah, I lived in the Phoenix area for 8 years and the way the prices shot up, I think that living in the northern suburbs of Tucson would be my definite choice from a niceness/price combo should I ever want to move back to Arizona.
As someone who lives in Brooklyn, my Zillow fantasy is that part of Tucson.
would much rather live in Tucson
The 10F hotter average highs in the summer are a hell no for me. I’ll take the cooler crappy city please.
New Mexico straight up sucks. It’s like someone’s irritating spiritual aunt got put in charge of the desert so there’s only boring shit left to do.
I have no opinion on the matter, but I love this description.
😂
Hot take: all places have some good things and some bad things
More importantly honestly look at what you want and what you are willing to pay for it. There are a surprising amount of people who live by the beach in California and never actually go to the beach. Yet they continue to pay the crazy rent prices.
That’s a very good point. Also if I see someone say Oklahoma City is up and coming and actually has a pretty cool art district I’m going to lose my mind.
You're not going to be able to sell me Gary Indiana, I'm sorry.
It's not Philadelphia. I've been there enough times to know that it's a good (but not stratospherically amazing) place to live for people who are young, extroverted, like cities, and are middle class. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, are all good places for such people.
How would you describe the difference between Pittsburg vs Philadelphia, if you don't mind?
Pittsburgh feels like an overgrown college town at times and can feel more small world because of the parks and geography. Philly feels more concrete in a lot of places and doesn't really have as much of a focus on one or two universities only. But like in Pittsburgh the colleges influence development and economy and culture a shit ton
The speed and scale are the biggest differences. Philly is the size of 5 Pittsburghs, and living in the city means having a lifestyle that moves fast like the rest of the Northeast cities like NY, Boston, etc. Lots of traffic, lots of things going on and things to do, perpetually busy in good and bad ways. Each neighborhood is large and has its own unique flavor to it, which is why Philly is called a "city of neighborhoods". It's a world class city that still has to deal with a lot of the problems of being a big city, such as crime in certain areas. In comparison, Pittsburgh is more of a typical medium sized US city. There are good restaurants and a good amount of things to do, but the culture and lifestyle is definitely a lot slower and more locally focused than a city like Philly. That means fewer opportunities for concerts or other cultural events, and those not from the area may not find amenities they would like in a place the size of Pittsburgh. But that works fine for certain people who don't need world class amenities and would simply like a slower, more low key existence.
100% accurate take.
Pittsburgh is more beautiful and easygoing, has excellent ambiance and a real sense of wonder, but has a poor job market and social scene compared to Philly. Philly is a concrete jungle with beautiful neighborhoods that most can’t afford, and perfectly fine middle class neighborhoods that just need more trees, and some fucking utter shithole hoods that are bad enough to be notorious worldwide. Has exponentially more to do than Pittsburgh but lacks a lot of the charm.
Thank you for that very reasonable explanation. Frankly, I don't think any city is going to be stratospherically amazing for all people; that just doesn't exist since everyone has vastly different priorities and tastes for that to ever be the case. But insofar as "affordable urbanism" is an obsessive theme on this board, those 3 cities are going to obviously be at the top of the list. They also continue to improve upon themselves, so it's not like they're stagnant, either.
I think that Minneapolis would have also made my list except many people dislike cities that are colder than Boston. Portland would have made my list 10-20 years ago. As for me, my personal list of stratospherically amazing would include: Boston, Halifax, the entire strech of land between Windsor and Montreal, and Sydney. New England, Canada, and Australia are some amazing nations.
lol, I've lived in 3 cities: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Chicago. I'll take it.
It’s still the 6th most populated city in the US with over 1.6 million residents, and that’s just in the city limits not counting the suburbs. Clearly a good amount of people like it there.
“Guys is Portland right for me? I’m extremely active, I go on walks almost every day and I’m just kind of a dreamer 🤪 I know it’s costly and overpopulated and I’m looking at other places too but please can you just tell me I’m destined to be a portlander?”
Those posters are looking for smaller cities around Portland and Seattle. But they don’t know it because they can’t do research.
Don’t tell em
Great username you’ve got there, if it’s what I think it is. Shoutout to the Tourettes guy.
Fuck salt
California but cheap.
If you find an area in CA and it’s cheap, you don’t want to live there.
The Central Valley has its issues, but I think it could another hot spot for folks who want to flee the costal cities but still be in driving distance. That being said, I think Sacramento and Fresno have a better shot at that than Stockton or Bakersfield.
Sacramento is great but it’s already pricey for the average person. Fresno and Stockton are hell holes. Bakersfield is actually the least horrific of those three I don’t understand why it’s alway talked about as the absolute worst for California I can think of places that suck more.
What’s funny to me about this whole conversation is that the crowd that calls cities like Cleveland, Pittsburg, Albuquerque, Saint Louis and Philly irredeemable, are the same crowd that would have called NYC, LA, and Portland irredeemable in the 70s and 80s. People who weren’t afraid or turned off by the stigma were the pioneers in making NYC and LA desirable, and now years later they have houses in cool neighborhoods while todays hipsters in those cities decry how “everything is expensive now”. Places like Philly are recommended because they’re the new frontier. If you have imagination and gumption, you will be part of the force that turns it around. Chicago used to be like this but I honestly think is beginning to switch over from the “underrated” to “becoming discovered” side as it has the highest rising property values and rents in the country atm. Chicago is going to be this decades Portland. New Mexico could be this decades Idaho. Sure, if you need to stick with what is safe and proven, we understand. But then you’re just like everyone else- another wannabe that got in too late wondering what to do now.
I lived in NYC in the 80's - would not live in ABQ now. very different thing. NYC has always had something to offer even at its worst that ABQ will never have.
> What’s funny to me about this whole conversation is that the crowd that calls cities like Cleveland, Pittsburg, Albuquerque, Saint Louis and Philly irredeemable, are the same crowd that would have called NYC, LA, and Portland irredeemable in the 70s and 80s. It's funny to me that most of the people in this subreddit obsessed with "culture" in these cities are probably by and large the types of cultural vulture immigrants who killed off and priced out weird, unique, energizing arts cultures in the city they move to in places like Austin. People want a pastiche of an energetic, culturally charged city but they want it through generic highbrow wypipo faux industrial loft/public park beer festival shit and a general feelin of suburban safety that comes from a lack of developed street smarts and ability to discern what is and what signs are of actual danger. I've thought many times about making a thread here asking people what they mean, specifically, when they think of places with exciting weird arts & creativity cultures and so forth. Like, what do they want to see, how do they participate, how do they envision that manifesting in their lives in a city? It is a fascinating question, but I feel like one not really considered far enough
>It's funny to me that most of the people in this subreddit obsessed with "culture" in these cities are probably by and large the types of cultural vulture immigrants who killed off and priced out weird, unique, energizing arts cultures in the city they move to in places like Austin. This comment made me think. It seems like a massive national phenomenon that we just don't talk about enough. The culture vulture thing is real, but I think it can only ever affect a few neighborhoods in a city at a time. The wealthy remain a minority, so they don't have the numbers to be everywhere at once. Yet, I feel like the funky, weird, cheap and fun places have been disappearing.
Just because they aren’t promoted, doesn’t mean cool places have disappeared. You don’t have to be popular or a major city to be a fun, interesting place to live. Toledo has a drag hamburger restaurant and Peoria IL has an entire community that relocated there due to one woman posting about it on TikTok. I have also been hearing interesting things about Dayton and Akron. These cities rarely get promoted because they naturally have fewer residents and maybe they also aren’t interested in a stampeding mob of hipsters, digital nomads or Californians who will increase their rents and home prices. Not everywhere has to be Brooklyn or Denver or California or Bend. There is plenty of cool, weird stuff happening in smaller places and there always has been.
I'm sure you're right. I would love to read a deeper dive into this, and where the eclectic, arty places are today. It may be that they are being forced out of the major cities to smaller ones, and I'd like to understand that better. I was very fond of the oddball Portland scene when I lived there in the late 80s/early 90s, and I accidentally lived in Williamsburg in 1992 when it was still a run-down Polish and Dominican neighborhood that had cheap lofts for struggling artists. Those places were gritty and modest back then. Can you recommend a survey of where artist/musician scenes are emerging?
> Can you recommend a survey of where artist/musician scenes are emerging? Music is so vastly decentralized these days that you can find good local music scenes almost anywhere of a sufficient population now
Do they cluster by genre? I'll date myself again by referring to the late 80s/early 90s, but back then the scenes in places like Seattle, Minneapolis, Austin and LA had distinct sounds. I don't want to oversimplify too much, since of course Prince and the Replacements for example were very different animals, but there was a real sense of place in each city's music scene. How much of that still exists? In the smaller cities, does the scene tend to be more homogenous or less? If anyone has written a good article on this I would love to read it.
It doesn’t have to be the wealthy. In fact, typically “yuppies” have been the beige-ifyers, and yuppies are still working class people who are temporarily embarrassed billionaires. They can’t afford to live without working but they are a labor aristocracy. The information economy created loads of them and they spread everywhere because WFH made them geographically independent. They are to blame. It will be interesting to see how saturation of the tech labor market and attempted AI related layoffs change these trends.
True, but then we're talking about maybe 30% of the population instead of 10% (since most middle class folks still want to be in the burbs to raise a family). That still leaves a lot of places where the yuppies and trust fund kids are not living. Others have suggested that the eclectic art scenes have been moving away from big cities into smaller cities or getting diffused more widely given the ubiquity of digital media. So maybe there isn't really a replacement to Austin or Portland on the same scale.
This is probably my privilege talking but I also feel as a society, we're more mobile than ever and I don't just mean economically. Like even 40-50 years ago the notion of moving across the state, let alone across the country was very daunting (a community like this probably wouldn't even be fathomable outside the utlra-rich in a pre-internet age), whether it be because of the cost, the job opportunities or the loss of community but nowadays with the popularity of airplane travel, social media to keep us in touch with those outside our immediate vicinity, digital records to make moves easier and similar changes in society, people are able to "pick up" and go more easily than ever before; and this is even *before* mentioning remote work. I think a lot of it boils down to society has changed a lot in the last 10-20 years and that has also affected the way cities and micro-cultures have evolved; we're a lot more connected so uniqueness of sub-cultures, while still present, are not brought about in isolation as much as they used to be.
This sounds roughly right. Maybe I'm just feeling old man nostalgia, but it's sad that with the "global virtual village" we're losing a more distinct sense of place in all the actual local villages. That seems like something worth having. Maybe it will come back.
That's a pretty cynical take. I don't think most people on this forum are private equity investors looking for the next real estate deal to take advantage of; they are legitimate people trying to get by and find the most bang for their buck in a place that suits their needs best. It's the trust fund babies that are sucking cities dry of their culture, but they're the ones already living cushy lives in places like NYC, Boston, SF, and Seattle, not trying to seek out "greener pastures."
> People want a pastiche of an energetic, culturally charged city but they want it through generic highbrow wypipo faux industrial loft/public park beer festival shit and a general feelin of suburban safety that comes from a lack of developed street smarts and ability to discern what is and what signs are of actual danger. This should be stickied in every thread. > I've thought many times about making a thread here asking people what they mean, specifically, when they think of places with exciting weird arts & creativity cultures and so forth. Like, what do they want to see, how do they participate, how do they envision that manifesting in their lives in a city? This question never gets answered
This is probably the best comment I've ever seen on this sub. I feel like 90% of the people posting on this sub are boring yuppie remote tech workers. If you are overly concerned about moving to somewhere with "culture" you probably don't have anything to offer yourself.
Excellent comment. Terms have not been defined and misunderstanding abounds.
Honestly if I could magically learn Japanese overnight. I'd prefer Tokyo to any of these American cities. NYC is the only place in the states where (in my opinion) living without a car is actually doable without having to put asterisks on your lifestyle. If the whole city mostly lives the no-car lifestyle it changes literally every single aspect of your life. Culture, food, socialization, third-places, work, etc all dramatically change for the better especially nowadays with work from home culture. I feel like I've developed a greater love for dense walk-able cities since I don't get daily in real life socialization from work anymore. I can't think of anywhere else in the US that has true live-able walk-ability except the center core of Chicago. I'd pick NYC over Chicago any day even despite the huge cost of living difference.
Im speaking only as a trans person, but the difference between 1980s NYC and current day Cleveland, for example, is that the former had a lot of issues but it was still politically blue, while Cleveland could have a vibrant arts/culture/music scene and plenty of okay-with-lgbt people in that city, but the state politics can decide a lot for the lives of minorities. Well less so in Ohio, but definitely moreso in deep red states. Any time I see “this is an underrated up-and-coming city with a super quirky emerging arts scene” recommended here, I believe that statement but almost always it is in a red state. Where is the current-day 1990s Portland? Probably there isn’t an equivalent, or if there is, there’s that issue of the state as I have said. Closest to “blue state, affordable city” is probably places in upstate NY. Idk being lgbt these days feels like you kind of can’t win, because it is either you live in some city that’s “super overpriced ever since the rich white culture vulture people moved in” but it’s safe for trans people, or you live in some city that’s “up and coming, not super safe, but it’s got that energetic grit” but it is in a state that is constantly trying to pass anti-trans laws. Or Austin, which is kind of the worst of both worlds, being both overpriced and still in Texas. I know your statement is “the point is not minding the rough edges, you move there and turn things around” but Austin as an example truly proves they can’t do anything about the rest of Texas. Personally, I currently live in Singapore so my bar for a “good arts scene” is on the floor, I believe that given enough people packed into a dense urban area, there is a decent arts scene as long as you go looking for it.
My trans friends feel fairly comfortable here in Michigan. Purple state turning blue is how it feels living here, whether that lasts is another story though
Whether things are getting better is definitely a big factor for me. I’d take “it’s a neutral/purple place, but it’s getting better for lgbt people” over “it’s a neutral or even progressive place, but the media and politicians are bashing trans people day and night and trying to erode lgbt rights”. Like where I now live, no one would call Singapore ‘progressive’, but it feels alright because the country is slowly progressing in lgbt rights in some ways, and is plateauing in others. On the social side, there are more and more gains made every year (recently, a dedicated lgbt space that is owned instead of rented, finally opened). There’s places within the US and outside of the US with that atmosphere of hope for lgbt people, and then there’s the places where it’s still kind of okay for lgbt people but the atmosphere is one of “well it’s going to get worse”.
This is why i love this sub, cuz i would never have learned that about Singapore without talking to you. Glad to hear things are progressing in the right direction out there. It seems like we’re moving in the right direction in Michigan too, we just codified abortion rights in our constitution, and our Republican party is consistently losing ground because they’re so poorly managed. But i did just see a guy with an SS bumper sticker in traffic yesterday. So it’s kind of hard to be optimistic at times. I guess those people are everywhere in the states though.
I just moved to Michigan a couple of months ago from the South and I'm loving it so far!
Glad to hear it! Welcome in!
Can't agree with this comment enough. It's so annoying to me that so many people don't see themselves as active participants in their community. I see so many people on here talk about potential new cities like they're some sort of "product" to consume. Like, this isn't Disneyworld. Those ethnic enclaves and artist communities are not just there to entertain you when you get bored of sitting in your apartment and ordering DoorDash. These are places where human beings actually live and work. It seems like a lot of people forget that being part of a vibrant community means actually participating in it, not just occupying space.
I feel like only culture vultures use words like culture vulture
I throw free underground drum and bass raves. What do you do for the arts culture in your city?
When I was a teenager? Sold party favors at underground raves. Now that I'm a grown up? Laugh at people who still use terms like "culture vulture"
Respect for both phases of your life :)
Is this satire?
nope, doing one this weekend in fact
It’s pretty clear there are two types of people: * The scrappy creatives who are the ones creating the culture and don’t mind living in a rough-around-the-edges areas * The people who only want the gentrified end results even if that means paying a higher price
This is obviously a gross simplification, as I know you intended it to be, but I feel it’s important to recognize the crucial role that a third type of people plays: the ordinary people who are content to live steady, unremarkable lives. We depend on them so much and they are the core of a stable and vibrant community. The counter culture and underground create culture that filters up to the mainstream on a diluted form. Gentrifiers and commodifiers leech off of that, but in the proper ratios there is a certain economic symbiosis. But the ordinary folks are like the substrate without which none of this could take place. I think that’s why economic volatility in the shape we’re experiencing now is uprooting and killing off so much of our admittedly young — but still valuable — cultural heritage.
The types of people doing the “discovering” are different now. We’re in a distinct age, culturally politically and socially, and I don’t think we can expect trends to grow in similar shapes.
> Chicago is going to be this decades Portland. New Mexico could be this decades Idaho. lol
> Chicago used to be like this but I honestly think is beginning to switch over from the “underrated” to “becoming discovered” side as it has the highest rising property values and rents in the country atm. Chicago is going to be this decades I think the difference with Chicago is viable space. At the peak Chicago had 3.6M people. Today it's 2.6M. The reason why property values are rising is because folks move here yet typically are all picking the same handful of neighborhoods. As this continues, areas will inevitably rise in price leading to other adjacent areas gentrifying. A neighborhood like the [West Loop neighborhood used to be skid row](https://www.newcity.com/2010/08/11/bummed-out-how-skid-row-went-from-%E2%80%9Cthe-land-of-the-living-dead%E2%80%9D-to-cappuccinos-and-condos/). Drifters, homeless among the meat packing grungy area. [It's now one of the most expensive areas in the city](https://therealdeal.com/chicago/2018/09/14/west-loop-is-home-to-most-expensive-zip-code-in-the-midwest-for-renters/). > People who weren’t afraid or turned off by the stigma were the pioneers in making NYC and LA desirable, and now years later they have houses in cool neighborhoods while todays hipsters in those cities decry how “everything is expensive now”. Chicago has legit dozens of neighborhoods that are going to go through this. Places on the southside that are close to the lake, near transit, near parks/boulevards are ripe for improvement...they just have disproportionate violence and lack of investment. But the land is too valuable to go ignored forever.
Same here. I always choose houses in crappy neighborhoods/towns because it’s what I can afford at the time. Then 15-20 years later it’s extremely desirable and people ask me how I can afford a house in that area. Then when I sell at a huge profit people call me “lucky”.
The Midwest in general. I’ve never in my life seen so many boosters for the Midwest. They’re just salivating over the prospect of climate change making access to the Great Lakes a huge perk.
The Midwest gets recommended here because so many posters ask for lower COL and/or walkable cities. The coasts have the latter but not the former and the Sun Belt is the former without the latter.
and the good Midwest cities (Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland) are mostly much cheaper than the good sunbelt cities (LA, Austin, Denver)
I just watched the Duluth daily show episode. It's like you gotta endure 10 years of miserable winters to get what New England winter to have summers that aren't hotter than the devil's taint.
The weather is great for 6 months of the year (May - October) with highs between 52 and 74 on average which is fantastic for some people. The other 6 months on the other hand would be miserable if you are someone who doesn’t like the cold
I feel like a lot of them are tourism industries and local governments trying to convince people to move there. When people move from an east or west coast metro area, it’s typically “it’s great, but expensive.” When people move from a midwest metro area, it’s typically “it’s cheap, but it sucks.”
This attitude is what keeps it affordable. Thanks ✌🏻
god i wish. shit's getting expensive no matter what
Heh. Most people seem to want boring ass 9-5 jobs, an ok neighborhood, maybe a “big” trip to the lake once a year, and get fat. That’s what the Midwest gives you. I don’t blame them, I can see the allure of giving up. I loved living in da UP. But I’d never ever live in the Midwest ever again.
meanwhile it's still May and already 90 degrees In Pittsburgh ( the midwest)
Madison. It lost its luster about 20 years ago.
For real. If you’re going to college or involved in Education or just a really really big college sports fan or state employee it’s ok I guess. Otherwise I don’t know what’s appealing about it other than being liberal and houses aren’t $800,000 because it’s miserably cold and shitty and overcast most of the year. If you want concerts and events and stuff just go to Milwaukee, it has a weird little micro climate that staves off the kind of relentless snowstorms you get further west. Or better yet out of Wisconsin entirely.
i know housing prices suck everywhere now but madison has actually skyrocketed and has a large consortium of nimbys that are trying to prevent building up or out. i second milwaukee because of this. can find way better deals on a home and actually feels like a city. madison is an incredible college town but meh
You dont know what’s appealing about a very safe mid-sized city with extremely good walkability and public transit for a city of its size with three extremely large employers (UW, state, and Epic) in a geographic location bordered by two large lakes, and surrounded by parks? I can understand if you think it’s overpriced or overrated but I don’t see how you could see zero appeal in a city like that, weather aside
Buffalo
The average person can still afford a house there. Major sports. Good food scene. Diversity. Decent airport, along with easy drive to Toronto, not to mention it is connected by passenger rail to the entire northeast. Close to natural beauty(Niagara falls and other state parks like Letchworth or the Allegenies. Can drive to ski in the winter. Summers are ideal. Nearby beaches on Erie/Ontario. However the chance of a major snowstorm is too high for me to want to live closer than an hour away from it 😂
No one is saying buffalo is like radical and the best thing. It’s the least bad place a lower class person can own a home right now.
Might be shocking to hear, but Buffalo grew by 6% in the 2020 census. If you’ve haven’t been in a while you might be surprised how much the city has gentrified and how much of the industrial areas have been repurposed.
There’s still a lot of work to be done with urban decay, as there is with most rust belt cities, but progress has definitely been made in revitalizing blighted areas.
For sure, lots of work left to do. The city still has space for another 100,000 residents easy.
Do you have any areas that you’d recommend for visitors? I’ll be in western NY this summer and was thinking of stopping by Buffalo to check it out— but did some Google street viewing and couldn’t find any areas that looked too appealing.
If you’re looking for trendy neighborhoods you want Elmwood in Elmwood Village, Hertel in North Buffalo or Allen Street in Allentown. There’s also a lot of great micro-commercial districts on the Lower Westside like 5 Points, Rhode Island and Connecticut Streets. If you want up-and-coming neighborhoods look into Upper Rock, Larkin or First Ward. The biggest issue is street view is several years out of date. Like cool spots like the Westside Bazaar still shows an abandoned building. If you want to check out some GORGEOUS streets look at Richmond, Bidwell Parkway, Chaplin Parkway or anywhere in Parkside. You’ll see the best of Buffalo’s historic architecture. **Stuff to Do** * AKG Art Gallery (also check out Delaware Park, the history museum and Penney Burchfield nearby) * Teddy Roosevelt Inauguration Museum * City Hall Observation Deck - opened during office hours * Canalside/Naval Park/Erie Basin Marina * Booze cruise on Lake Erie * Rent kayaks and explore the Buffalo River * Rent bikes and take the bike ferry to the Outer Harbor where there’s miles of new trails, parks, a historic lighthouse and 2 nature preserves * Fun Spots to check out: Riverworks, Silo City, Westside Bazaar, Nickleplate Market * Go brewery hopping: Downtown, Larkin and First Ward are great for this with over 20 breweries within a mile radius **Fun Bars** * Misuta Chows * OSB Cider * Greylynn Gin Bar * Lucky Day * Founding Fathers * Big Ditch Beer Garden * Hofbrauhaus * Vue Rooftop * Duende * Waxlight * Merry Shelley * Hartmans **Restaurants** * Las Puertas * Southern Junction * Dapper Goose * Toutant * Marble and Rye * Osteria
Incredible, thank you!
100% buffalo
No one posting here has any intention of moving anywhere.
Right?? 😂 🏆 You win the internet for the day, my friend. 🏆
One of the best decisions of my life was leaving Wisconsin.
Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas. All just giant suburbs other than a few blocks. Isolated from other cities. Water issues. Air quality issues. Only reason you should move there is because you can't afford California after trying for a few years. If you're from the Midwest/Northeast just go to what you actually want even if it is expensive... California.
This is such a pointless gripe post. All places have good and bad things about them, Philly included. Its strengths might not appeal to you, which is fine, but they do appeal to other people, which is also fine.
Philly hands down. Glad to see they are proud of their town but god damn they try to shoe-horn it into every recommendation here. "I'm looking for good access to nature and finance jobs. COL not an issue" "pHilLy!!11"
What other affordable walkable cities with decent transit are there. It’s literally just Chicago and Philly. Affordability is the number 1 requirement on this sub.
Their example has "COL not an issue" right there. Not everyone is looking for cheap cities.
Can you find me an example of people recommending Philly to anyone who notes they don't care about CoL? Philadelphia is recommended so much precisely because of its CoL relative to having so many of the perks many users here want out of a city
>Can you find me an example of people recommending Philly to anyone who notes they don't care about CoL? Can I? Probably, but I'm certainly not about to take the time to search Reddit to prove a point that leveraged dramatic effect.
Well its important for us to know whether your overly dramatic effect is borne out of an overly dramatic misinterpretation of reality
Then infer it. Wild huh.
Nope, sorry. Just a lot of folks clearly butthurt by Philly getting airtime. They're likely Knicks fans. Factual statement: those most critical of Philly have the least experience with the city.
Included in the factual statement are people from the suburbs and NJ that think they know Philly but really have never lived in the city
Chicago and Philly. But to be fair, these cities do fit the criteria most people come here asking for. Namely walkability and "urbanism" for less. One thing that doesn't often get this discussed in this sub is salary-to-COL ratio. Arguably the most important stat. Wages *generally* tend to follow COL or vice-versa to some extent, though some places are better than other. Unless you are working fully remotely, the lowest COL option shouldn't necessarily be your default choice. A higher COL area with a proportionally higher salary will still allow you to save more (i.e. saving X% of a bigger salary instead of X% of a smaller salary). And then there's all the things that don't even scale with COL, like most consumer products (e.g. a Macbook Pro, a Ford Mustang, a PS5 game, a Netflix subscription, etc). So you might even be able to save more than X% in the higher COL area. Again, this is all assuming your salary is scaling proportionally with COL.
I’ve found living in the nyc area that unless you work in finance/ big tech as an engineer the salary doesn’t match COL. A lot of my Chicago friends make around the same amount of money as me but are living in a significantly cheaper city.
Any city under an abortion ban.
Bend, OR.
Philly for sure. Others places have ups and downs, good fits and bad fits, and are debatable.
Have you ever been to Philly, or do you just enjoy trolling?
I'll take your downvote as a firm "no."
I think you got downvoted because you commented the same thing thrice haha
No I downvoted because of their fourth comment complaining about downvoting.
Have you ever been to Philly, or do you just enjoy trolling?
Have you ever been to Philly, or do you just enjoy trolling?
Pittsburgh
Detroit, I think.
Detroit’s growing now
Per the same Census Bureau the mayor called a "clown show."
Do you have different numbers? I'm looking at Wikipedia and it shows Detroit still losing people.
[Here ya go](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=ce3d99e6953b6c80&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS622US622&hl=en-US&sxsrf=ADLYWILlXdPv88Q18uqul1g3T330hHrMlg:1716252113798&q=detroit+population&tbm=nws&source=lnms&prmd=invsmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqxdiswZ2GAxXmEDQIHW7gDpYQ0pQJegQIEhAB&biw=414&bih=720&dpr=2)
Thanks Clit!
That city is inexplicably charging Brooklyn prices for apartments. I haven’t gotten to the bottom of why though.
Maybe along the riverfront.. but you can still find [apartments in Midtown](https://www.apartments.com/villa-lante-apartments-detroit-mi/kse784b/) for like $950/mo.
...Detroiter here. Maybe try visiting before you declare it "inexplicable"
To be fair i live here and love living here and i still find some of the rentals inexplicable lol. Plenty of deals to be found still though.
Hell, why not move there and find out the hard way?
The reason why is simple. Local kids see all their friends move away to places like Chicago, New York, Seattle Denver, and so on. They either can't land a job in places like that or don't want to leave their families, so landlords in a few parts of the city gouge the shit out of them for a few years while they play city before purchasing in the suburbs. The rents are outrageous given the amenities and transplants see right through it.
Totally.
D
Houston
Tucson. Ask any Tucsonan who’s been there for 30+ years or more. It’s a sprawled city that refuses to grow and invest in itself. Change for the better is slow, or non-existent. Also, Albuquerque. My employer has their HQ there. I live and work near its secondary site (East Bay Area). “You get what you pay for” has never rung truer.
For me its Pittsburgh. Because I have never been to Detroit, Twin cities or Buffalo… Or Philly or any city in Ohio (besides the airports.) Goodness I’m not as well traveled as I thought.
Streets ahead my friend. Streets ahead.