If you look at why things are where they are, it’s mostly due to that location being cheaper to access than competing locations. Historically, the biggest cities developed along waterways. The easier the access, the bigger the city. The overhead of living in New York is huge. Thirty years ago, a NY garbage collector was making more than I was working as an engineer for Honeywell. None of the city’s overhead will ever reduce. It will only grow. This means that competing regions will be easier and cheaper to access.
A friend’s kids moved to NY city. The first night they were mugged, and he had to send them money. Then they lived several to a room and worked jobs that couldn’t support them living by themselves. When one of them got married he immediately moved. He said, “You’d be crazy to raise a kid in the city.” New York will be a long time dying but the knife has been inserted and twisted. It’s only a matter of time.
“New York will be a long time dying but the knife has been inserted and twisted.”
Soon I expect the police will impose huge fines on anyone caught trying to leave the city.
That’s where the money is.
I have two nephews and a niece living in LA. One of the brothers and sister live together because they can’t afford their own places. Other brother just got married and they’re renting a less-than-1000SF house for some ungodly sum.
I remember visiting a vendor in NY about this time. He told be that the garbage collectors were the most important people in the city.
The cab drivers could go on strike and people would get to work on the subways, busses or by walking. The restaurants would go on strike and people would brownbag it or buy from the hot dog carts and overpriced bodegas. Even the cops could strike and people would deal with it by coming to work early and leaving early before the criminals were on the streets.
But if the garbage collectors went on strike, the city had, at best, days to deal with what would accumulate. In some places, only hours.