Posted on 10/22/2007 12:25:03 PM PDT by 2banana
btt
I’m going to have to strongly disagree with you on point 4. I’ll take the weather in Detroit or Buffalo any day over that in South Carolina, and San Francisco has the best weather in the country in my opinion.
Except for Buffalo that gets many feet of lake effect snow, how is the weather bad in any other of the mentioned locations ?
Unlike the other 4 areas, Pittsburgh is a really nice place to live. I think it has bottomed out...with a resurgance of nuclear power, Pittsburgh based Westinghouse is have trouble hiring enough people.
Dont forget high crime rates
None of the places have good bbq either
Cleveland gets lake-effect too...
There was a great, very long and extensive WSJ article recently about the decline (in everything) in Buffalo.
It went into the historical reasons behind, and the historical data of, Buffalo’s decline.
What one can take from the lessons of Buffalo, and see them at work in other cities are:
(1)some reasons for some cities decline were/are unavoidable - the world that created a city changes (business, economics, technology, culture and their positive and negative contributions are neither fixed, assured or possible to maintain in all cases);
(2)local governance can ruin the productive climate for a locale, but even good local governance cannot save a locale from some attributes noted in (1) above;
(3)almost all state and federal “aid to cities” for economic development and redevelopment for America’s worst declining cities has not stemmed either their population loss or their declining economic performance on an aggregate or per-capita basis.
The authors concluded that the best social, moral and economic approach to cities in great decline could be assistance to those who want to leave and get started somewhere else.
One telling evidence of why this may be a better approach is that in-migration to some of our cities in great decline (like Buffalo) has witnessed a greater % of new residents coming from lower income levels. This generates a viscous cycle in the cost of local governance - a declining local tax base and expanding local requirements for assistance to lower income people, generating either a higher local tax burden (with both in-migration of poor and higher taxes making it less attractive to business) on the remaining productive segments of the population, and whereby more of them determine to leave as well, or an increased ratio of state to local funds is needed just for the locale to operate without a hugely increasing local tax burden.
If those with some job skills, but in lower income levels, in our declining cities were encouraged and assisted to get into jobs and job markets in more productive locales, the shrinking local population would remain economically healthier and might even remain more viable or even recoverable, with a smaller but stabilizing locale population.
Some cities, like Camden New Jersey, can never, in my opinion recover from the cycle of decline and high local poverty - which can become self-reinforcing attributes, particularly when the old cause of their once healthy state no longer exists and no new natural dynamic has replaced it. I have used the term natural in this case to mean free-market forces (in ideas, economics, technology and culture), because it seems that government cannot contrive for these forces to come into existence, in a sustainable manner - those efforts fail, if not sooner then later.
Except for a piece of property I literally gave away in east Texas because it had become a liability, I am not too familiar with the tax rates in other Texas counties. The west Texas property I was talking about is actually commercial property although I also have a home in the same small town and it has the same tax rates. My property taxes here have increased in the past six years although my appraisals have not. This makes sense in light of the serious lack of growth in the County for the past forty years. This is very hard to explain although many here believe the County has a secret death wish. The town actually has less people than it did in 1968 when I first came to the area. And we are talking about a town that is the county seat of Bailey County, TX and only 30 miles from a rapidly growing Clovis, NM and 75 miles from Lubbock, TX which also is fast growing. When asked about jobs and growth, the local Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture touts the cattle feedyards and dairies which employ very few people, pay less than a McDonald restaurant and hire few who speak English. It’s most definately a town that time and the U.S. economy has forgotten. Luckily my family’s primary home is in New Mexico which is experiencing growth all over.
A couple of things all these places have in common:
1. High Taxes
2. Democratic Leadership
3. Unions
4. Bad weather.
5.Four year Colleges
1. High Taxes
2. Democratic Leadership
3. Unions
4. Bad weather.
1 - 3, sure, but SF has great weather.
As an aside, the economy is actually quite strong in the SF Bay Area. The job/population loss seen in this survey is just because the starting point of the comparison is right before the dot.com bust.
And despite some knee-jerk reactions people may have, it's not some sort of infested slime pit. In many ways it's a nice place to live, albeit maddeningly liberal in others.
I agree. SF doesn’t really fit the bad weather scenario. I guess despite SF’s insanity, it is one of my favorite places to visit. It is a truly unique place and the weather is a nice break from warmer climates.
It is too bad that it is infested with so many weirdos. I remember my first trip to San Francisco as a teenager truly widened my eyes to how screwed up a place it had become. I was sitting on a trolly when a 6’4” something black guy in a pink tutu sat down beside me. Then i saw a guy eating out of trash can behind a diner on Geary St. From our hotel window, i watched male prostitutes pimp themselves out to the highest bidder in a Sherwin Williams parking lot across the street. Truly an eye opening experience for a young man from the Southeast.
Other than the freaky stuff, I loved the place. The wharf, Alcatraz, the Redwoods, Ghiradelli, the Golden Gate Bridge, China Town and the list goes on and on.
San Francisco is no Cleveland or Rochester. Agreed.
5.Four year Colleges
I don’t see this as a negative. In fact, some may move there for the colleges.
I’d disagree about the number of unions as well, as I didn’t notice much union activity when I lived there. At least not any more than most cities of similar size. For example, there is no strong Teamsters presence, unlike just across the bay with the Port of Oakland.
And the MSA in question includes areas that have high biotech work forces (S. San Francisco), along with other tech startups and businesses. None of those have unions. At least not yet.
I think it the oddball in this top 5 (in more ways than one).
4. San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City Metropolitan Division
Bogus MSA. This is equivalent to something like a “Manhattan MSA” - a built out core area of the metro, completely surrounded by other urbs and burbs, or natural barriers.
Obviously we have different backgrounds, but I personally find the weather in places like Detroit and Buffalo to be far better than in the South. I don’t know how you guys deal with all that heat and humidity. I love a good cold winter. Besides, how do you people go ice fishing, play hockey, snowmobile, sled, or many other fine winter activities? :)
I’m with you.
I live in Massachusetts and despise the summer-——which is taking it’s good old time leaving this year.
Well. I’m from the southeast, but my favorite place would have to be Alaska. Somewhere between Talkeetna and Healy i guess. I can surely appreciate the northern outdoors, but my blood is thin so i prefer warmer temps for my hometown. I do have a friend in Green Bay who has invited me to go snowmobile riding in Feb. She has a cabin in the UP to. So I’ll try some of those things and let you know ;-).
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