Which cities or states could you see growing the fastest in a post-COVID world? I see anywhere along the 85 corridor booming, especially through central NC/upstate SC. Particularly places like Greenville/Spartanburg, Gastonia, Lexington, Salisbury, High Point, etc. I think a lot of Urban Corridorians/Atlantans/Floridians will want to leave out and start anew, and the Carolinas would be fertile ground for such moves. I also see western states like Utah and Idaho having a post-COVID population boom over the coming decade or two. St. George, UT, Boise, ID and Reno, NV all spring to mind with this. In terms of shrinking, obviously the megalopoli of America would take a sizeable hit. They won't become ghost towns, but quite a few will see a noticeable decrease. Places like NYC/LA/Chicago/etc
I have been expecting the cities you mentioned to grow quickly even without COVID. The difference is that my expectation has the Phoenix area and Florida becoming much less, while a post-COVID world would have the really dense cities decline in population instead. (Tampa and Orlando would probably grow in a post-COVID world if disregarding climate change.) Denver also wouldn't become a huge city in a post-COVID world, instead staying about where it is now.
Can't imagine Madison, or even Dane County, is an attractive place to move for very many people after all of the restrictions that we've got here compared to the rest of the state and country. Of course Madison still lives and dies with the university, so as long as the university grows the town will grow no matter what.
I anticipate that, in a post-COVID world, the pandemic will end up having very little effect on growth patterns. People will forget and move on with life.
Nominating Illinois for fastest shrinking.
I just realized that the closure of large employment hubs may have a larger impact than I was originally considering.
If Zillow is right my house here in Boise has appreciated 19% since COVID started, so I'd say that's a fair assessment.
Quote from: thspfc on December 03, 2020, 10:04:16 PM
Can't imagine Madison, or even Dane County, is an attractive place to move for very many people after all of the restrictions that we've got here compared to the rest of the state and country. Of course Madison still lives and dies with the university, so as long as the university grows the town will grow no matter what.
I would say though it's a very appealing city for outdoorsy people with the lakes, trails, and at times annoyingly bike-friendly culture. Add in that being in the university city means top-shelf health care and that's a winner for many, though jobs not related to the university or state government might be hard to come by.
There waa some article that said that Syracuse, NY would be the hardest hit city...mainly because the weather is some of the worst in the country and a lot of people just needed a little nudge to look to greener fields.
But, the real estate market right now makes no sense whatsoever as prices have actually gone up in upstate NY. Some say it is due to people fleeing NYC, which is true, but I don't understand why they're fleeing north.
Quote from: Revive 755 on December 03, 2020, 10:33:45 PM
Nominating Illinois for fastest shrinking.
That will have less to do with Covid than with other, pre-existing factors. All Covid did was to exacerbate it.
University towns have been some of the fastest growing places in America for the past 40 years, but now everyone knows universities are a joke, so I don't think those will keep growing.
I think at least a fair amount of the massive shift to telework caused by COVID will stick around once this is over. With people commuting less to offices, people will be less constrained by where their office is when choosing where to live. This could hurt cities and close-in suburbs. If someone only has to go to their office 1-2 days a week, that 3000 square foot house that's an hour commute from the office becomes more attractive than the 1800 square foot townhome that costs the same and is a 20 minute commute.
Also, with people commuting less, being located to public transportation becomes less important so suburbs of big cities that aren't near commuter rail lines might get some growth.
It's the long term effect of remote work and that just isn't clear except it will be much larger.
A lot depends on how long the vaccine works and if we foolishly allow reservoirs link mink farms to exist where it can mutate.
Quote from: Rothman on December 04, 2020, 12:59:36 AM
...
But, the real estate market right now makes no sense whatsoever as prices have actually gone up in upstate NY. Some say it is due to people fleeing NYC, which is true, but I don't understand why they're fleeing north.
That's actually just what I clicked on this thread to mention. It's crazy here in the Rochester area, too; at one point earlier this year it was among the hottest markets in the country. We've also got Kodak and now Amazon ramping up here, so no doubt that plays some role too.
Maybe the people leaving NYC just don't want to move to a different state.
Quote from: webny99 on December 04, 2020, 11:23:13 AM
Quote from: Rothman on December 04, 2020, 12:59:36 AM
...
But, the real estate market right now makes no sense whatsoever as prices have actually gone up in upstate NY. Some say it is due to people fleeing NYC, which is true, but I don't understand why they're fleeing north.
That's actually just what I clicked on this thread to mention. It's crazy here in the Rochester area, too; at one point earlier this year it was among the hottest markets in the country. We've also got Kodak and now Amazon ramping up here, so no doubt that plays some role too.
Maybe the people leaving NYC just don't want to move to a different state.
It might also be partly because the region stretching from Erie PA to all of ME (through upstate NY and all of VT and NH) is one of the two places in the continental US mostly unaffected by COVID. (The other is WA/OR and stretching to the Bay Area.)
Quote from: 1 on December 04, 2020, 11:28:37 AM
Quote from: webny99 on December 04, 2020, 11:23:13 AM
Quote from: Rothman on December 04, 2020, 12:59:36 AM
...
But, the real estate market right now makes no sense whatsoever as prices have actually gone up in upstate NY. Some say it is due to people fleeing NYC, which is true, but I don't understand why they're fleeing north.
That's actually just what I clicked on this thread to mention. It's crazy here in the Rochester area, too; at one point earlier this year it was among the hottest markets in the country. We've also got Kodak and now Amazon ramping up here, so no doubt that plays some role too.
Maybe the people leaving NYC just don't want to move to a different state.
It might also be partly because the region stretching from Erie PA to all of ME (through upstate NY and all of VT and NH) is one of the two places in the continental US mostly unaffected by COVID. (The other is WA/OR and stretching to the Bay Area.)
I realized from the very early stages of the pandemic that it was going to be a major advantage to be in a state that got hit hard, but an area of the state far removed from the worst of the outbreak. That has certainly been borne out so far: most people in this area have taken the pandemic very seriously, and mask-wearing was the norm by April/May, months earlier than other parts of the country.
Quote from: webny99 on December 04, 2020, 11:47:40 AM
Quote from: 1 on December 04, 2020, 11:28:37 AM
Quote from: webny99 on December 04, 2020, 11:23:13 AM
Quote from: Rothman on December 04, 2020, 12:59:36 AM
...
But, the real estate market right now makes no sense whatsoever as prices have actually gone up in upstate NY. Some say it is due to people fleeing NYC, which is true, but I don't understand why they're fleeing north.
That's actually just what I clicked on this thread to mention. It's crazy here in the Rochester area, too; at one point earlier this year it was among the hottest markets in the country. We've also got Kodak and now Amazon ramping up here, so no doubt that plays some role too.
Maybe the people leaving NYC just don't want to move to a different state.
It might also be partly because the region stretching from Erie PA to all of ME (through upstate NY and all of VT and NH) is one of the two places in the continental US mostly unaffected by COVID. (The other is WA/OR and stretching to the Bay Area.)
I realized from the very early stages of the pandemic that it was going to be a major advantage to be in a state that got hit hard, but an area of the state far removed from the worst of the outbreak. That has certainly been borne out so far: most people in this area have taken the pandemic very seriously, and mask-wearing was the norm by April/May, months earlier than other parts of the country.
I'm not sure that's the reason. It's a continuous region that includes all of NY except downstate, VT, NH (although that may be changing), and ME. Erie PA is on the edge, and it may include some of western MA. (VT is actually doing better than upstate NY.) In addition, remember when it was mainly Seattle? The central and eastern parts of Washington don't seem to have cared about this, while the western part of the state is doing really well.
Quote from: kphoger on December 03, 2020, 10:35:58 PM
I just realized that the closure of large employment hubs may have a larger impact than I was originally considering.
Question as a follow-up to this thought: Can anyone think of a large corporation that's ended up shutting down a large employment center somewhere–one large enough to measurably affect the population of the city due to egress?
You are all making the "accountant's fallacy" which is assuming the item you need exists. There is no COVID 19 cure, and may very well never be. But I will play along.
- Telework. A lot of businesses have figured out that they can work just fine, thank you very much, remotely. If a particular white collar job, or something like 90% of it, can be done just fine from your employees' basements, then renting mega-expensive downtown office space really does not make much sense. Lots of people will spend 90% or more of their time in a home-office.
- Telework, part two. Now, if a business can be done just as well from your employee's suburban sub-division, it can be done, in many cases, from most anywhere with functional internet, and a few other things (functional air connections, business support infrastructure, etc.). So people will leave poorly run high tax places with bad climates for well run low tax places with good climates.
- Tele-education. I think that we can all agree that tele-education of high schoolers and certainly of grade schoolers has failed totally. However, most college subjects can be done quite well. Not much of STEM or of health care, but you can learn most things just fine on-line. Now, certainly, a lot of rich kids will continue to go to traditional college because they want to blow off four years, but a lot of average kids and poor kids will just move to the on line model. Lots of college towns will get smaller.
- The junket. The WSJ predicts that there will be a permanent 30% drop in air travel demand. Part of this is covered above. You do not need to go to HQ if there is no HQ. Your CPA working in the Cincinnati suburbs will just facetime with his boss working in the Chicago suburbs. But also, the big meeting / junket is getting cut back. Now, certainly some companies will keep it up, particularly those who use it more for junket purposes than actual learning, but more serious companies will just zoom everyone.
- NYC. Wall street. It can all be done on the computer.
Quote from: SP Cook on December 04, 2020, 12:13:30 PM
You are all making the "accountant's fallacy" which is assuming the item you need exists. There is no COVID 19 cure, and may very well never be. But I will play along.
- Telework. A lot of businesses have figured out that they can work just fine, thank you very much, remotely. If a particular white collar job, or something like 90% of it, can be done just fine from your employees' basements, then renting mega-expensive downtown office space really does not make much sense. Lots of people will spend 90% or more of their time in a home-office.
- Telework, part two. Now, if a business can be done just as well from your employee's suburban sub-division, it can be done, in many cases, from most anywhere with functional internet, and a few other things (functional air connections, business support infrastructure, etc.). So people will leave poorly run high tax places with bad climates for well run low tax places with good climates.
- Tele-education. I think that we can all agree that tele-education of high schoolers and certainly of grade schoolers has failed totally. However, most college subjects can be done quite well. Not much of STEM or of health care, but you can learn most things just fine on-line. Now, certainly, a lot of rich kids will continue to go to traditional college because they want to blow off four years, but a lot of average kids and poor kids will just move to the on line model. Lots of college towns will get smaller.
- The junket. The WSJ predicts that there will be a permanent 30% drop in air travel demand. Part of this is covered above. You do not need to go to HQ if there is no HQ. Your CPA working in the Cincinnati suburbs will just facetime with his boss working in the Chicago suburbs. But also, the big meeting / junket is getting cut back. Now, certainly some companies will keep it up, particularly those who use it more for junket purposes than actual learning, but more serious companies will just zoom everyone.
- NYC. Wall street. It can all be done on the computer.
Two things:
1. The "permanent 30% drop in air travel demand" will turn into a 30% increase in air travel demand shortly after either a very painful Zoom downtime situation, or Zoom "accidentally" lets private information related to the conference calls get into the hands of Chinese and Russian hackers. This is regardless of what happens with the various COVID vaccines.
2 But let's play along with this notion of the "permanent 30% drop in air travel demand." That only means that any and all attempts at high-speed rail will end (Brightline West, I'm looking at you LOL) because the airline tickets will be...too competitively priced. Even with that, "permanent 30% drop in air travel demand" won't last long.
Quote from: SP Cook on December 04, 2020, 12:13:30 PM
You are all making the "accountant's fallacy" which is assuming the item you need exists. There is no COVID 19 cure, and may very well never be. But I will play along.
- Telework. A lot of businesses have figured out that they can work just fine, thank you very much, remotely. If a particular white collar job, or something like 90% of it, can be done just fine from your employees' basements, then renting mega-expensive downtown office space really does not make much sense. Lots of people will spend 90% or more of their time in a home-office.
- Telework, part two. Now, if a business can be done just as well from your employee's suburban sub-division, it can be done, in many cases, from most anywhere with functional internet, and a few other things (functional air connections, business support infrastructure, etc.). So people will leave poorly run high tax places with bad climates for well run low tax places with good climates.
- Tele-education. I think that we can all agree that tele-education of high schoolers and certainly of grade schoolers has failed totally. However, most college subjects can be done quite well. Not much of STEM or of health care, but you can learn most things just fine on-line. Now, certainly, a lot of rich kids will continue to go to traditional college because they want to blow off four years, but a lot of average kids and poor kids will just move to the on line model. Lots of college towns will get smaller.
- The junket. The WSJ predicts that there will be a permanent 30% drop in air travel demand. Part of this is covered above. You do not need to go to HQ if there is no HQ. Your CPA working in the Cincinnati suburbs will just facetime with his boss working in the Chicago suburbs. But also, the big meeting / junket is getting cut back. Now, certainly some companies will keep it up, particularly those who use it more for junket purposes than actual learning, but more serious companies will just zoom everyone.
- NYC. Wall street. It can all be done on the computer.
Alternative scenario: Things basically go back to normal within a few years, regardless of the status of the pandemic.
Quote from: 1 on December 04, 2020, 11:56:13 AM
Quote from: webny99 on December 04, 2020, 11:47:40 AM
I realized from the very early stages of the pandemic that it was going to be a major advantage to be in a state that got hit hard, but an area of the state far removed from the worst of the outbreak. That has certainly been borne out so far: most people in this area have taken the pandemic very seriously, and mask-wearing was the norm by April/May, months earlier than other parts of the country.
I'm not sure that's the reason. It's a continuous region that includes all of NY except downstate, VT, NH (although that may be changing), and ME. Erie PA is on the edge, and it may include some of western MA. (VT is actually doing better than upstate NY.) In addition, remember when it was mainly Seattle? The central and eastern parts of Washington don't seem to have cared about this, while the western part of the state is doing really well.
I'm not saying it's the
only reason, but it is one of the reasons. Our state government took it very seriously because of the severity of the NYC outbreak, and while the focus was on the NYC area, the leadership (including things like messages on VMS signs, etc.) was good for the entire state, not just NYC. Also, keep in mind that Vermont and much of New Hampshire and Maine are very rural. The only major cities in the region you outlined are in Upstate New York; that's not just coincidence.
With regards to the Seattle comparison, their outbreak was not as bad as NYC's, and it was also earlier, when fewer people overall took it seriously. New York also made things like self-quarantining, quarantining after travel, mask-wearing, and their VMS campaigns statewide issues, while I doubt that was the case in central/eastern WA.
In addition, the phenomenon of people in rural areas dismissing COVID as a "big city problem" didn't affect Upstate NY in the same way as rural WA, because of the statewide campaigns and the general understanding that, because we share a state with the biggest city in the county, we're going to be directly affected by what happens there. There's never been a sense of COVID being far away and unable to ever reach us, and that's certainly thanks to NYC, as well as higher population density and the fact that there are smaller cities scattered throughout the state through which the virus could spread. This is also in contrast to Midwestern and other rural areas that have had/are now having bad outbreaks.
My wife works the NYSDOH hotline. This rosy-colored view of NY is false. State-run testing sites are now overwhelmed in Albany and Buffalo. Upstate NY has not been immune to the second wave. NY may not be the Dakotas, but things are getting worse here.
Quote from: Rothman on December 04, 2020, 12:59:44 PM
NY may not be the Dakotas, but things are getting worse here.
Right, I was never expecting to get all the way to full vaccine distribution without things getting bad here, but the fact that we've gone this long without things getting out of hand is a testament to the factors I outlined.
Hopefully, the Dakota's don't shrink that much.
Speaking as someone from the Albany area, there are differences in how seriously different areas of NY have taken the pandemic. They just aren't as stark as between different areas of the country. Wegmans downstate? The entrance/exit are both one-way and the premium baked goods are gone (or, in the case of the Harrison store, never existed at all, since it just opened in August). Wegmans upsate? Aside from people wearing masks, hand sanitizer and things to clean the cart at the entrance, and plexiglass at the registers, there's noting to indicate there's even a pandemic (or at least there wasn't back in September). Meanwhile, all the grocery stores here have one-way aisles. Over in Buffalo, people only wear masks indoors, regardless of distancing. That's not the case here in Albany.
FYI, it looks like Rochester just overtook Buffalo for worst outbreak in the state. That trendline on the NY Times map is just scary. And the number of cases per day is basically double what it was last week (the issue with cases is true for Albany County too... they're staying we might skip the yellow zone and go straight to orange, though for overall infection rate we seem to lag Monroe County by a couple weeks for some reason).
As for housing, Rochester was booming even last year, so it's not just the pandemic. In Albany, there has been a noticeable amount of people moving here from NYC. If one wants to leave NYC but stay in the state, upstate is a good option. If you want to stay in the Wegmans area, you'd need Rochester/Buffalo/Syracuse over the Capital District.
Quote from: vdeane on December 04, 2020, 02:27:42 PM
Speaking as someone from the Albany area, there are differences in how seriously different areas of NY have taken the pandemic. They just aren't as stark as between different areas of the country.
Right, I didn't mean to imply we were NYC without the COVID cases. It's certainly another level in NYC itself, but we're a lot more comparable than other places just by virtue of being in the same state.
Quote from: vdeane on December 04, 2020, 02:27:42 PM
As for housing, Rochester was booming even last year, so it's not just the pandemic. In Albany, there has been a noticeable amount of people moving here from NYC.
Sure, prices were on the rise last year in what's normally one of the flattest markets in the country... but this year has been next level: https://13wham.com/news/local/rochesters-housing-market-hotter-than-ever-median-sales-prices-soar
Quote from: vdeane on December 04, 2020, 02:27:42 PM
If one wants to leave NYC but stay in the state, upstate is a good option.
... the only option, in fact (unless you count Montauk)! :)
A trend is already being seen in Spain, in which people are fleeing the cities and going back to rural areas. Many towns and villages have seen their permanent populations increased. The deployment of broadband Internet connection to these areas has helped (even though it is still far from reaching everywhere). I hope this trend doesn't reverse once the coronavirus is gone.
Quote from: webny99 on December 04, 2020, 02:48:28 PM
Quote from: vdeane on December 04, 2020, 02:27:42 PM
If one wants to leave NYC but stay in the state, upstate is a good option.
... the only option, in fact (unless you count Montauk)! :)
But
kalvado says Albany is
somewhere in between (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18122.msg2501823;topicseen#msg2501823).
And some bloke who calls himself
webny99 says Kingston should count as downstate, according to the map
he advocates using (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18122.msg2318361#msg2318361) (shown below).
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaIoqZ6WsAAuctu.png)
Quote from: kphoger on December 04, 2020, 03:58:13 PM
Quote from: webny99 on December 04, 2020, 02:48:28 PM
Quote from: vdeane on December 04, 2020, 02:27:42 PM
If one wants to leave NYC but stay in the state, upstate is a good option.
... the only option, in fact (unless you count Montauk)! :)
But kalvado says Albany is somewhere in between (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18122.msg2501823;topicseen#msg2501823).
And some bloke who calls himself webny99 says Kingston should count as downstate, according to the map he advocates using (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18122.msg2318361#msg2318361) (shown below).
[img snipped]
From the perspective of said NYC natives, however,
everything is upstate, yes, even including Rockland and Westchester counties. :rolleyes:
On a more serious note, I've slightly updated my official position since we last hashed this over:
Instead of using the 42nd parallel as a hard line, I now prefer to use the nearest county lines, meaning Sullivan, Ulster, and Dutchess counties are entirely Downstate, while Delaware and Columbia counties are entirely Upstate. It's just too complicated to start splitting counties.
I hear a whole lot of people from my state saying they wished it didn't get so cold in South Dakota in the winter.
I also hear a lot of people say they're looking into relocating to Tennessee or Florida.
Quote from: SP Cook on December 04, 2020, 12:13:30 PM
You are all making the "accountant's fallacy" which is assuming the item you need exists. There is no COVID 19 cure, and may very well never be. But I will play along.
I mean, Pfizer and Moderna seem to think differently, but they've spent a billion dollars working on it and you haven't, so you're probably right.
Quote- Telework. A lot of businesses have figured out that they can work just fine, thank you very much, remotely. If a particular white collar job, or something like 90% of it, can be done just fine from your employees' basements, then renting mega-expensive downtown office space really does not make much sense. Lots of people will spend 90% or more of their time in a home-office.
It does make sense by the numbers. At the same time, though, don't underestimate the power of management to find a way to shoot profits in the foot by insisting that in-person collaboration is somehow worth the money. That is, "that's the way we've always done it".
Quote- Telework, part two. Now, if a business can be done just as well from your employee's suburban sub-division, it can be done, in many cases, from most anywhere with functional internet, and a few other things (functional air connections, business support infrastructure, etc.). So people will leave poorly run high tax places with bad climates for well run low tax places with good climates.
Don't overestimate the amount tax policy matters. If tax policy mattered, Alaska, Wyoming, and Nevada, all states with zero state income tax, would be teeming with new residents. But they're all pretty poor places to live for other reasons.
In fact, the opposite is often true–low tax policies mean that the state cannot provide services at the level that would-be residents from higher-tax states are accustomed to. Oklahoma has trouble obtaining new residents and businesses despite its low taxes, because they have led to chronically underfunded education systems statewide, making parents unwilling to relocate here. And see also the reputation Oklahoma DOT has on this board, which to a lesser extent is shared by the general populace.
Quote- Tele-education. I think that we can all agree that tele-education of high schoolers and certainly of grade schoolers has failed totally. However, most college subjects can be done quite well. Not much of STEM or of health care, but you can learn most things just fine on-line. Now, certainly, a lot of rich kids will continue to go to traditional college because they want to blow off four years, but a lot of average kids and poor kids will just move to the on line model. Lots of college towns will get smaller.
I don't think the struggles experienced by students during the pandemic is necessarily 100% due to virtual education. Rather, I think it's the result of trying to stretch already-failing 20th century education models far beyond their breaking point. I've heard stories of software that monitors children's faces and logs every time their eyes stop looking at the screen, and parents getting angry emails because their kid got up to use the bathroom. This is horseshit. Education needs to get over their obsession with controlling the student and needless labor exercises for the sake of recording more grades, and more toward
actually educating the students.
Also, virtual learning has been causing
more problems for students from lower-income families. Not everyone can afford a computer and internet connection capable of running streaming video. This is exacerbated when schools choose to conduct their education over proprietary software like Zoom instead of open protocols that allow users to choose the software that works best with their existing hardware.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2020, 09:35:08 PM
This is exacerbated when schools choose to conduct their education over proprietary software like Zoom instead of open protocols that allow users to choose the software that works best with their existing hardware.
Zoom works perfectly fine on a Mac with no issues. Does it not work on Linux?
As for my prediction, it's dependent on whether the managers that want to micromanage and oversee everyone's work in person win out, or the managers that want to cut overhead and just get stuff done win out.
If the micromanagers win, nothing much changes. If things do change, I imagine the states will stay roughly the same relative to one another no matter what. Some states where people have relocated solely for the job market might lose some people, for example, Texas. But for the most part I think people have self-sorted into the state that fits their cultural and climate wants and the pandemic is not going to change the rate of this sorting too meaningfully. For example, if I had a job based in Oklahoma I could do remotely, it doesn't mean I would necessarily move to California even though I might like it better, because that is still a big expense and I don't know a whole lot of people out there.
I think the main changes are going to be people moving from larger cities to smaller regional centers. So Oklahoma City might lose residents to, say, Weatherford, Woodward, Chickasha, and Pauls Valley. Real estate there is cheaper, but they're still big enough to provide some level of services that a city dweller would be accustomed to, like pizza delivery, city water, and trash pickup.
I don't think most people would want to live in an actual small town where you have to deal with things like unpaved roads, getting your water from a well, or bringing your own garbage to the dump, if they hadn't grown up that way. So I don't think towns that small are likely to see much growth. Maybe a few new residents who have always wanted to move back to the town they grew up in, or people who have always wanted that lifestyle but have never been able to make it work economically, but that kind of person isn't common.
How about a county? Not sure about now, but back in the Summer there was national news about the massive influx of new residents to -of all places- Montgomery County, North Carolina. Seems as though the proximity to the virtually unknown Uwharrie Mountains and its National Forest was very appealing to displaced Nawtherners. Being from West Virginia, it all still seems rather flat to me (I shouldn't say much, since I currently live on what might be the flattest ridge on the entire planet).
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2020, 09:35:08 PM
I don't think the struggles experienced by students during the pandemic is necessarily 100% due to virtual education. Rather, I think it's the result of trying to stretch already-failing 20th century education models far beyond their breaking point. I've heard stories of software that monitors children's faces and logs every time their eyes stop looking at the screen, and parents getting angry emails because their kid got up to use the bathroom. This is horseshit. Education needs to get over their obsession with controlling the student and needless labor exercises for the sake of recording more grades, and more toward actually educating the students.
I think making the kids adhere to these stupid rules has no effect on their education, and schools need to realize that. What affects their education the most is how they get it and what settings they do the best in.
For example, I know of a kid who was a straight-A student but then had to transition to virtual learning once COVID hit. Not used to doing the work himself, he ended up flunking classes because he needed a hands-on approach to learning. He actually got so stressed about it he almost committed suicide.
On the other hand, you have me, a homeschooler, who works best with a hands-off approach to learning. I go to the bathroom whenever I need to, I eat whenever I need to, I get up whenever I need to, I do my subjects in whatever order I want to, and I work at whatever pace I want to. Yet I scored a 1400 or so on my SAT a couple of months ago, even though I was on little sleep that day because I was worrying about a brain-eating amoeba that was reported in the water supply all night; plus I've always done well at standardized tests, so I'm not dumb as a result of how I learn.
The point I'm trying to make is that every kid has a certain learning method that lets them learn better. Parents should decide what works best for their child, not the schools and their stupid rules.
Quote from: 1 on December 04, 2020, 09:48:12 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2020, 09:35:08 PM
This is exacerbated when schools choose to conduct their education over proprietary software like Zoom instead of open protocols that allow users to choose the software that works best with their existing hardware.
Zoom works perfectly fine on a Mac with no issues. Does it not work on Linux?
I haven't tried it myself (all of my friends run Discord instead, and I'm quarantining from anyone that wears a tie for the rest of the pandemic) but Wikipedia says it is available for Linux.
The problem is that Zoom is a proprietary protocol, meaning that if you don't like the Zoom client, or can't run it on your hardware, or the company changes something about it that interferes with your usage, you don't have any recourse. This isn't true with older chat protocols like AOL Instant Messenger or IRC, where a number of third-party clients are available that provide access to the service. If you prefer the interface of one of them better, or it runs better on your system, you don't have to use the "official" client.
Skype and Discord have the same problem, although Discord somewhat mitigates it by providing a stripped-down version of their client that can run in a Web browser window. My experience with Skype is kind of indicative of the pitfalls of using closed protocols. I started using it in 2010 to collaborate with a group of friends I had made online, as that was their preferred chat client. At the time, the Skype Linux client was fairly usable, if imperfect, and in fact I preferred their Linux client over that of the more polished Windows one.
However, in 2011, Skype was bought out by Microsoft, who began making a number of changes meant to "integrate" it more with Windows. This involved the total redesign of the client, on both Linux and Windows, which was a problem because the new client did not have the option to log chats on the client side. Without ready access to logs, I had no way of referring to conversations that had taken place months or years in the past, which was important to my use case. The only way to view old Skype messages is to scroll upward in the client and force it to load them from the server, and if you go back by too many messages, it will eventually run out of memory and freeze up. Obviously, this also meant that searching logs with Unix tools like
grep(1) was impossible, and there was no built-in search facility. Had Microsoft published the Skype protocol as an open protocol, I could have switched to a third-party client that logged messages client-side, but instead I was forced to abandon the service entirely.
Quote from: 1 on December 04, 2020, 09:48:12 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2020, 09:35:08 PM
This is exacerbated when schools choose to conduct their education over proprietary software like Zoom instead of open protocols that allow users to choose the software that works best with their existing hardware.
Zoom works perfectly fine on a Mac with no issues. Does it not work on Linux?
It works fine on my school Chromebook, which uses the linux-based ChromeOS. Granted, the Chromebook is so low-spec that ZOOM warns me of high-CPU usage when all I'm doing is just that: using zoom, with the possible exception of a tab for school open. When a school has to buy 25k of them, and when the district blocks just about every site not related to school, that is what they most do.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2020, 09:35:08 PM
Quote from: SP Cook on December 04, 2020, 12:13:30 PM
You are all making the "accountant's fallacy" which is assuming the item you need exists. There is no COVID 19 cure, and may very well never be. But I will play along.
I mean, Pfizer and Moderna seem to think differently, but they've spent a billion dollars working on it and you haven't, so you're probably right.
It's a vaccine, not a therapeutic.
Quote from: hbelkins on December 04, 2020, 07:40:28 PMI also hear a lot of people say they're looking into relocating to Tennessee or Florida.
I live in the Nashville area and I can attest that people are continuing to move here in droves. I am renting two rooms right now to people who moved here from California this year.
Post-pandemic, I believe the Nashville/Middle Tennessee area in particular will experience an even bigger boom than what we saw in the 2010s. It wouldn't surprise me if we added another 1,000,000 residents in the metro area in the next 15-20 years.
Quote from: hbelkins on December 05, 2020, 07:58:15 PM
It's a vaccine, not a therapeutic.
Which is irrelevant, because the purpose of the thread is focusing on what will happen after the pandemic is over, and vaccinations to stop the spread of the disease are a tool that will bring about that end.
I've been saying that Louisiana will suffer after this pandemic. When the state continually ranks 50th in things like education, health, and poverty, it takes us longer to bounce back economically. With a pandemic and a couple of major hurricanes this year, I could see businesses closing or leaving LA and our population decrease even more.
iPhone
The Charleston area here in SC has continued to grow like crazy even in the middle of the pandemic. Our housing market only has 2,000 homes to sell when there are normally 20,000. I don't know how much our population has grown this year, but our metro was at 802,000 on July 1, 2019 and it is probably 820 or so now.
There are people moving from NY and the northeast in droves because of the lower taxes. Most of the Charleston area has also handled the pandemic well compared to most of the rest of the south. Mask wearing is pretty much universal here in stores, and a lot of people wear them outside. It was bad here in June and July, but while Greenville and other parts of SC have gotten worse, it has moderated a little here.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2020, 09:35:08 PM
I mean, Pfizer and Moderna seem to think differently, but they've spent a billion dollars working on it and you haven't, so you're probably right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Withdrawn_drugs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Abandoned_drugs
Quote
Don't overestimate the amount tax policy matters. If tax policy mattered, Alaska, Wyoming, and Nevada, all states with zero state income tax, would be teeming with new residents. But they're all pretty poor places to live for other reasons.
You mean the Nevada that had 488K people in the 1970 census, and 3M in the 2020 census? That Nevada?
Quote
In fact, the opposite is often true–low tax policies mean that the state cannot provide services at the level that would-be residents from higher-tax states are accustomed to.
The idea that high state and local taxes equals "services" is nonsense.
Quote
Also, virtual learning has been causing more problems for students from lower-income families. Not everyone can afford a computer and internet connection capable of running streaming video. This is exacerbated when schools choose to conduct their education over proprietary software like Zoom instead of open protocols that allow users to choose the software that works best with their existing hardware.
The teachers I know (every child was GIVEN a computer, although internet access is another issue) say that about half the kids simply do not work. Last year the state just gave up and said everybody passed. The kids, despite being told over and over that this time they are serious, are calling the bluff. The kids are almost certainly right.
Quote from: planxtymcgillicuddy on December 03, 2020, 08:29:45 PM
St. George, UT, Boise, ID and Reno, NV all spring to mind with this.
St. George is continuing to boom -- Washington County population rose by 4.06% in 2020 alone, the most of any county in Utah -- traffic continues to get worse, new subdivisions spring into life seemingly overnight, and rents continue to soar.
Without delving
too far into politics, I strongly suspect the pandemic isn't the only reason there are so many more California plates here these days. The 2020 election results confirmed that, rather than making southern Utah slightly more "purple," the influx of new residents only strengthened the stranglehold that one political party has on the region.
And since Washington County now also leads the state in the highest per-capita rate of new infections (roughly 5x to 6x worse than in the SF Bay Area), it's not like people are moving here to escape the virus. There are ... and we'll put this as delicately as possible ...
other reasons.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on December 04, 2020, 02:17:02 PM
Hopefully, the Dakota's don't shrink that much.
By 2030, both North and South Dakota will each have 1 million residents. And COVID will have nothing to do with it (BTW, both states, even with the latest spurt, still are below national rates when it comes to deaths per positive cases ratio). North Dakota will still have the 1 million people due to continued oil exploration/production (the geopolitics of fracking is too obvious to stop), and South Dakota's scenery and libertarian(ish) fiscal policies will give that state it's 1 million people.
Quote from: Sctvhound on December 06, 2020, 08:52:09 AM
The Charleston area here in SC has continued to grow like crazy even in the middle of the pandemic. Our housing market only has 2,000 homes to sell when there are normally 20,000. I don't know how much our population has grown this year, but our metro was at 802,000 on July 1, 2019 and it is probably 820 or so now.
There are people moving from NY and the northeast in droves because of the lower taxes. Most of the Charleston area has also handled the pandemic well compared to most of the rest of the south. Mask wearing is pretty much universal here in stores, and a lot of people wear them outside. It was bad here in June and July, but while Greenville and other parts of SC have gotten worse, it has moderated a little here.
That's surprising, considering how many people I've heard call Charleston "San Francisco East" on account of taxes and overall cost of living
Quote from: kphoger on December 04, 2020, 12:11:36 PM
Quote from: kphoger on December 03, 2020, 10:35:58 PM
I just realized that the closure of large employment hubs may have a larger impact than I was originally considering.
Question as a follow-up to this thought: Can anyone think of a large corporation that's ended up shutting down a large employment center somewhere–one large enough to measurably affect the population of the city due to egress?
Maybe not large enough for the area, but Boeing is shutting down 787 assembly line in WA. There are other reasons for that, notably union tensions, but the other 787 assembly line in SC will trickle out planes in forceeable future as demand dropped to almost nothing.
Quote from: planxtymcgillicuddy on December 06, 2020, 02:13:22 PM
Quote from: Sctvhound on December 06, 2020, 08:52:09 AM
The Charleston area here in SC has continued to grow like crazy even in the middle of the pandemic. Our housing market only has 2,000 homes to sell when there are normally 20,000. I don't know how much our population has grown this year, but our metro was at 802,000 on July 1, 2019 and it is probably 820 or so now.
There are people moving from NY and the northeast in droves because of the lower taxes. Most of the Charleston area has also handled the pandemic well compared to most of the rest of the south. Mask wearing is pretty much universal here in stores, and a lot of people wear them outside. It was bad here in June and July, but while Greenville and other parts of SC have gotten worse, it has moderated a little here.
That's surprising, considering how many people I've heard call Charleston "San Francisco East" on account of taxes and overall cost of living
It still is. In the highly populated areas like West Ashley, James Island and Mt. Pleasant you pretty much have to spend at least $400K for a house. Often more. People are moving further and further out in Berkeley and Dorchester Counties because that is where the cheaper housing is.
We also have Volvo and Mercedes-Benz in our area as well with a lot of high-paying jobs.
Just to respond to the original topic question: I don't think we're far enough along in this SARS-CoV-2 pandemic to know how things are going to shake out once this nightmare is finally behind us. There are more consequences coming that haven't been made real yet. Vaccines should be widely available by Summer 2021, but more than 40% of Americans are saying they won't get vaccinated. If that holds true we'll be dealing with SARS-CoV-2 well into 2022.
Some things I do feel comfortable predicting: most small towns across the US will continue to wither, especially rural towns not reasonably close to a major urban center. They're stuck in a negative feedback loop. Very few small towns have any capability to attract new residents that are young, working-age adults. Very few of these small towns do well at retaining young people who grow up there. It takes good paying jobs to retain working age adults of child-bearing age. Public schools are vital to working families. A small town can lose its police and fire departments, but if its local school closes that pretty much means death to that town. Quality of Internet access (speed and bandwidth) is vital. Too many small towns lack the data pipes needed for good broadband use, either for work or entertainment. Many of these rural towns are in areas where it may be difficult to pick up off-air broadcast TV channels. Satellite TV has turned into a joke for all the carrier disputes cutting out national networks and local channels.
SARS-CoV-2 exposed one of the biggest disadvantages of small towns: lack of quality health care. Combine that with a small town's generally very old population and it works out as a terrible combination. We have COVID-19 patients from rural towns dying in hospitals here in Lawton or up in Oklahoma City. Those small towns had no capacity to treat such patients. There are many elderly people dying isolated in their homes due to lack of treatment. I think this will affect future population migration patterns for elderly people. But that has to be tempered against the other fact that housing costs are monumentally cheaper in small towns versus medium to large cities. Elderly people who can afford to move will probably do so.
***
Side note about New York: I lived in New York City for 5 years (went to college there) and lived in Syracuse for a couple years when I was a kid. Upstate New York seems as different from New York City as the difference between Boston or El Paso. Summer time is absolutely beautiful in the Finger Lakes region. But you pay for it with the brutal winters. I would not want to move back to Syracuse. All that lake effect snow kind of ruined my enthusiasm for snow for life. If real estate prices are suddenly shooting up there and in Rochester or other cities up there I don't understand it.
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Telework - this will probably grow more popular, but with an added side-effect. I think more employees are going to be classified as salary/exempt from OT. Their jobs will be following them everywhere, be it at the home office or on their mobile devices. I still prefer working at an office; I think it's more efficient and there are certain advantages to being able to speak to team members in person.
Tele-education = I think the growth there will be in vocational-technology training. Traditional 4-year universities kind of depend on in-person classes and other amenities to justify the really high tuition prices. Virtual learning isn't so popular in grade K-12 education. It's just not practical on so many fronts. The biggest problem is so many working families have both parents working full time to make ends meet. And then single parents face even worse problems. One of the functions of public school is serving as a baby sitter for the kids of working age adults. Now, one change would could start seeing soon is enrollment levels at schools dropping due to more and more young adults choosing not to have children. The total fertility rate in the US is dropping farther due to all kinds of factors (extreme health care costs, extreme costs of day care, high housing costs, etc). It's a hell of a lot cheaper to stay single with no kids or if you do get married just don't have any kids.
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I feel like Oklahoma's cities could see population booms in the future. The cost of living is much lower relatively speaking compared to urban centers in Texas or the high cost zones on the East and West coasts. Utilities costs are not outrageous and most areas have decent supplies of water. But the powers that be in this state seem to be doing their best to prevent real growth from happening. The crisis in public education, with teachers leaving the state in droves, is just one of multiple factors that will keep us under-performing.
Quote from: I-39 on December 05, 2020, 09:37:08 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 04, 2020, 07:40:28 PMI also hear a lot of people say they're looking into relocating to Tennessee or Florida.
I live in the Nashville area and I can attest that people are continuing to move here in droves. I am renting two rooms right now to people who moved here from California this year.
Post-pandemic, I believe the Nashville/Middle Tennessee area in particular will experience an even bigger boom than what we saw in the 2010s. It wouldn't surprise me if we added another 1,000,000 residents in the metro area in the next 15-20 years.
There's a lot of envy among some Kentucky residents and officials because Tennessee has no income tax. But I detest the sales taxes there, and have no idea what property taxes or other excise taxes (utilities, etc.) are in the Volunteer State. I much prefer a flat income tax to sales taxes or property taxes. Unfortunately, Kentucky has all three.
There's also a lot of envy among Kentuckians right now because the level of business restrictions in Tennessee has been consistently lower since the spring. You can't eat in a restaurant in Kentucky right now, so a whole lot of people are traveling across the state line now.
Quote from: I-39 on December 05, 2020, 09:37:08 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 04, 2020, 07:40:28 PMI also hear a lot of people say they're looking into relocating to Tennessee or Florida.
I live in the Nashville area and I can attest that people are continuing to move here in droves. I am renting two rooms right now to people who moved here from California this year.
Post-pandemic, I believe the Nashville/Middle Tennessee area in particular will experience an even bigger boom than what we saw in the 2010s. It wouldn't surprise me if we added another 1,000,000 residents in the metro area in the next 15-20 years.
I ask this out of genuine curiosity and not disrespect:
But what is it about Nashville that is drawing people right now? It seems to frequently get mentioned as a millennial hotspot and people are flocking there. What happened that suddenly made Nashville hip? I've been there, it's a fun city and I enjoyed my time there but it doesn't strike me as a "I must move there" destination.
Quote from: Kniwt on December 06, 2020, 12:50:29 PM
Quote from: planxtymcgillicuddy on December 03, 2020, 08:29:45 PM
St. George, UT, Boise, ID and Reno, NV all spring to mind with this.
St. George is continuing to boom -- Washington County population rose by 4.06% in 2020 alone, the most of any county in Utah -- traffic continues to get worse, new subdivisions spring into life seemingly overnight, and rents continue to soar.
Without delving too far into politics, I strongly suspect the pandemic isn't the only reason there are so many more California plates here these days. The 2020 election results confirmed that, rather than making southern Utah slightly more "purple," the influx of new residents only strengthened the stranglehold that one political party has on the region.
And since Washington County now also leads the state in the highest per-capita rate of new infections (roughly 5x to 6x worse than in the SF Bay Area), it's not like people are moving here to escape the virus. There are ... and we'll put this as delicately as possible ... other reasons.
Oddly, the opposite political result has happened in the Salt Lake City area, where the city proper is now "solid blue" and the county as a whole has shifted to purple-light blue territory. I can see something similar happening to Boise in the near future as well - it seems just like a 20-years-behind version of Salt Lake.
I also did not realize Washington County was worse covid-wise than Utah County (where most Wasatch Front residents assume the worst of it is). Assuming nobody wears masks down there - I know the sheriff of neighboring Iron County refuses to enforce the statewide mask mandate, and based on what I saw over the summer that seems to be the common sentiment in that part of the state.
But back on topic: it amazes me how fast St George grows. I find myself there once every few years or so, and every single time I'm there I am shocked at how much bigger it is. Hell, it's going to have three freeways in the relatively near future (I-15, SR 7, SR 9). Metro population of 175k is not small. At this point it deserves Interstate control city status as far as I'm concerned...and a fully six-laned I-15 all the way from SR 7 to 9.
Quote from: US 89 on December 07, 2020, 01:10:32 AM
Quote from: Kniwt on December 06, 2020, 12:50:29 PM
Without delving too far into politics, I strongly suspect the pandemic isn't the only reason there are so many more California plates here these days. The 2020 election results confirmed that, rather than making southern Utah slightly more "purple," the influx of new residents only strengthened the stranglehold that one political party has on the region.
...
Oddly, the opposite political result has happened in the Salt Lake City area, where the city proper is now "solid blue" and the county as a whole has shifted to purple-light blue territory. I can see something similar happening to Boise in the near future as well - it seems just like a 20-years-behind version of Salt Lake.
Again treading carefully here, but when you look at what's happening in the surrounding states, it's only reasonable to expect Utah as a whole to become more competitive. If you throw out the 2016 data point as an aberration because of McMullin, Utah's shift from R+48 in 2012 to R+20.5 this year is by far the largest shift of any state.
2016 and 2020 are now the only elections since the 1970's in which Utah hasn't been among the three reddest states in the nation, and it's been
the reddest state for the majority of those cycles. It ended up 11th this year, between Nebraska and Tennessee.
Quote from: 1 on December 04, 2020, 09:48:12 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2020, 09:35:08 PM
This is exacerbated when schools choose to conduct their education over proprietary software like Zoom instead of open protocols that allow users to choose the software that works best with their existing hardware.
Zoom works perfectly fine on a Mac with no issues. Does it not work on Linux?
Zoom works well on Linux IE Ubuntu OS / Mint OS does well too and Chrome OS.
Quote from: webny99 on December 07, 2020, 09:31:46 AM
Quote from: US 89 on December 07, 2020, 01:10:32 AM
Quote from: Kniwt on December 06, 2020, 12:50:29 PM
Without delving too far into politics, I strongly suspect the pandemic isn't the only reason there are so many more California plates here these days. The 2020 election results confirmed that, rather than making southern Utah slightly more "purple," the influx of new residents only strengthened the stranglehold that one political party has on the region.
...
Oddly, the opposite political result has happened in the Salt Lake City area, where the city proper is now "solid blue" and the county as a whole has shifted to purple-light blue territory. I can see something similar happening to Boise in the near future as well - it seems just like a 20-years-behind version of Salt Lake.
Again treading carefully here, but when you look at what's happening in the surrounding states, it's only reasonable to expect Utah as a whole to become more competitive. If you throw out the 2016 data point as an aberration because of McMullin, Utah's shift from R+48 in 2012 to R+20.5 this year is by far the largest shift of any state.
2016 and 2020 are now the only elections since the 1970's in which Utah hasn't been among the three reddest states in the nation, and it's been the reddest state for the majority of those cycles. It ended up 11th this year, between Nebraska and Tennessee.
Utah was redder than usual in 2012 because Mitt Romney was a Mormon, basically the equivalent of a home state effect.
Quote from: 1 on December 07, 2020, 09:37:57 AM
Utah was redder than usual in 2012 because Mitt Romney was a Mormon, basically the equivalent of a home state effect.
That's a good point. Maybe a a better way to look at it is the average of 2000, '04, '08, and '12, which is R+40.5.
Quote from: kalvado on December 06, 2020, 03:00:31 PM
Quote from: kphoger on December 04, 2020, 12:11:36 PM
Quote from: kphoger on December 03, 2020, 10:35:58 PM
I just realized that the closure of large employment hubs may have a larger impact than I was originally considering.
Question as a follow-up to this thought: Can anyone think of a large corporation that's ended up shutting down a large employment center somewhere–one large enough to measurably affect the population of the city due to egress?
Maybe not large enough for the area, but Boeing is shutting down 787 assembly line in WA. There are other reasons for that, notably union tensions, but the other 787 assembly line in SC will trickle out planes in forceeable future as demand dropped to almost nothing.
(And also airlines specifically do not want 787s from the Charleston plant because they aren't at the same quality and often need to be sent back to Everett anyway to be fixed)
Quote from: Bruce on December 07, 2020, 01:25:13 PM
Quote from: kalvado on December 06, 2020, 03:00:31 PM
Quote from: kphoger on December 04, 2020, 12:11:36 PM
Quote from: kphoger on December 03, 2020, 10:35:58 PM
I just realized that the closure of large employment hubs may have a larger impact than I was originally considering.
Question as a follow-up to this thought: Can anyone think of a large corporation that's ended up shutting down a large employment center somewhere–one large enough to measurably affect the population of the city due to egress?
Maybe not large enough for the area, but Boeing is shutting down 787 assembly line in WA. There are other reasons for that, notably union tensions, but the other 787 assembly line in SC will trickle out planes in forceeable future as demand dropped to almost nothing.
(And also airlines specifically do not want 787s from the Charleston plant because they aren't at the same quality and often need to be sent back to Everett anyway to be fixed)
That was one specific airline making a story of it. While we're at it, quality is declining for Boeing across the board, to the point USAF refused acceptance of some Everett-built 767 shortly before COVID.
Quote from: The Nature Boy on December 06, 2020, 10:00:06 PM
Quote from: I-39 on December 05, 2020, 09:37:08 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 04, 2020, 07:40:28 PMI also hear a lot of people say they're looking into relocating to Tennessee or Florida.
I live in the Nashville area and I can attest that people are continuing to move here in droves. I am renting two rooms right now to people who moved here from California this year.
Post-pandemic, I believe the Nashville/Middle Tennessee area in particular will experience an even bigger boom than what we saw in the 2010s. It wouldn't surprise me if we added another 1,000,000 residents in the metro area in the next 15-20 years.
I ask this out of genuine curiosity and not disrespect:
But what is it about Nashville that is drawing people right now? It seems to frequently get mentioned as a millennial hotspot and people are flocking there. What happened that suddenly made Nashville hip? I've been there, it's a fun city and I enjoyed my time there but it doesn't strike me as a "I must move there" destination.
Mainly, the music and business scene, along with no state income tax and a relative low cost of living compared to elsewhere.
Mind you, I'm not talking about just the city itself, it's the surrounding suburbs as well. In addition to downtown, the I-65 corridor between Brentwood and Spring Hill is becoming an attractive edge city in of itself. Hidden gem if you ask me.
I have a theory that the worst impacted cities from Covid are San Francisco and New York. A lot of these companies have decided to go full-time from home, and I've noticed a handful of my Big Tech/Wall St friends moving out to states like CO, WY, and MT to work remotely. I believe that it might be cheaper for these companies to continue this model of remoteness even once things go back to normal, which begs the question...why would they move back to these expensive cities then? These cities definitely take the loss when they lose consistent taxpayers like these.
I'm not sure if my theory makes sense or is just inane. I feel like it depends on whether or not these companies decide being remote is worth it in the long run.
Quote from: bandit957 on December 04, 2020, 07:50:17 AM
University towns have been some of the fastest growing places in America for the past 40 years, but now everyone knows universities are a joke, so I don't think those will keep growing.
I could see places like Berkeley, and Stanford become alternate financial, and Venture capitalist centers for San Jose and San Francisco. For Davis, CA I could see alternate west coast branches of lobbying and superpac offices to Downtown Sacramento in a post pandemic era.
Quote from: vsaharanI have a theory that the worst impacted cities from Covid are San Francisco and New York. A lot of these companies have decided to go full-time from home, and I've noticed a handful of my Big Tech/Wall St friends moving out to states like CO, WY, and MT to work remotely.
The SF Bay Area and Greater NYC markets have been walking out onto thin ice for years. Prior to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak they were already shedding lots of American-born residents due to the absolutely absurd living costs. Many young adults in these metros face a tough choice: keep living with mom and dad or move completely out of those regions in order to move out of the parents' house. Immigration has made up for some of that imbalance, but it's not a sustainable situation. How does someone doing service jobs like flipping burgers or stocking grocery store shelves afford surviving there? Selling drugs as side job?
Earlier today I read that Oracle is officially relocating its headquarters from California to the Austin, TX area. Elon Musk says he is leaving California for Texas due to California's taxes and other regulations. IIRC, Musk is building Tesla's next "Gigafactory" near Austin. Tesla's HQ operations may move there.
NYC and the Bay Area are not the only cities where living costs have grown insane. Housing costs in Austin are getting pretty ridiculous,
thanks in part to so many people from California moving there. There aren't many housing bargains in cities along the Front Range in Colorado.