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Posted on 03/18/2006 6:20:48 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
SAN FRANCISCO -- Monica Burton did not want to leave San Francisco. Born and raised in the city and a train driver for the Muni transit system for the past 16 years, she loves her home town, volunteers in its women's jail and prays weekly at her church in the Hunter's Point section along the San Francisco Bay.
But as the main breadwinner for her family, which includes a 22-year-old daughter and two granddaughters, she faced some hard choices. Stay in San Francisco and abandon the dream of owning her own home because of skyrocketing housing prices, or leave. In 2004, Burton left with her grandchildren, buying a three-bedroom house in what she calls a "Leave It to Beaver" neighborhood in Sacramento, a 158-mile round-trip commute from her job in the city of her birth.
People like Burton have been leaving U.S. cities because of high-priced housing for some time. But according to researchers and urban leaders, the trend has accelerated in recent years and is threatening to reshape many of the nation's major cities. Between 2000 and 2004, all eight metropolitan regions from Seattle to San Diego lost middle-class families.
On the East Coast, a similar trend is underway, with middle-class families fleeing the New York region and Boston for the South. The District has been in the buffer zone, losing middle-class families with children to the Sun Belt but gaining some from the Northeast, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.
"There's a middle-class flight on both sides of the country," said Frey, who has analyzed county-level census data on both coasts. He has found that real estate costs more than schools are what is driving the migration.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Without regard to all the social problems in the big cities, I have to wonder how young families can afford to live in them. You can't get a starter home in SF for much less than $750K. Not many young folks can do this.
People move though, and politics aren't genetic (ask my parents). South Dakota, for example, has a high birthrate but a low population because they lose many of their young people to Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois.
Boston is not quite as bad as San Fran. You can still get a starter home for about 300,000, if you're willing to live outside the city, within commuter range.
Massachussetts will actually lose population in the next census. They will lose congressional representation.
Just my point.
Sending you child to Public School in Seattle amounts to child abuse.
We live in the bay area. We'll stay here probably until we retire. However, we will have made a lot of money and will be able to use that money during retirement.
My brothers' bought houses in Texas and have never made any money off of their houses.
We sold our first California home for $850K. We bought it for $325K around 10 years before. We bought our new house for 1.1 million about 2 years ago, and we could probably sell it for 1.3 million today.
Wow! Not one mention of rent control.
SINK= Single Income, No Kids
>Nope.
Sorry, I don't believe you for a minute.
You know exactly what he meant. And you know it.
Hmm. Bought my first home in 84 for 29K. sold it for 185K
Bought numerous empty lots for 2K+. All worth over 100K. Florida. So?
I think the point is that home ownership is a good investment in some places but not others. I look at two bedrooms for $400K in San Diego and my brain wants to implode.
i actually thought it might have been a racial remark.
I anticipate moving back to California in about 5 or 6 years, I am hoping the real estate market busts really, really hard before then.
I am however starting to wonder if my new house might end up the same way. This town is filling up with other Americans who made a fortune selling their home in the US and are buying in a much less expensive market. A house nearby just went for about $600,000 US (very rough exchange rate estimate) and bidding wars are breaking out. I could be sitting pretty in a few years when I return to the states and its time to sell.
Not sure I could ever get into making houses a deliberate investment though or planning for retirement on one. In the early 80's my brother in law got hosed when he got transfered and sold his hould for $69,000 after building it for $110,000 a few years earlier.
The real estate market will crater again.
Oh. I apologize for any misunderstanding.
I've seen the term 'breeders' applied to any number of people who squeeze out baby after baby that they can't possibly afford, and have no family structure for, as well.
The kids end up being supported by the state.
I don't see how it applies in this case.
>Massachussetts will actually lose population in the next census. They will lose congressional representation
I don't see any downside to that!
Florida is set to surpass NY in the next census.
Unoffical figures here show that it has already happened.
That makes sense.
I still believe that ownership in Florida makes tremendous sense, especially if you buy some raw land for the kids.
The dirt isn't going to get much cheaper, if it ever does.
I live in SW Wisconsin. My son, a country kid, and his wife, who is from Baraboo, WI, (to out-of-staters, that is also rural) lived in Minneapolis for 15 years. Four years ago, they sold out and moved to SoDak. Their reasons were high city taxes and a nanny attitude from city government.
We have many kids who were anxious to move to the *happenin'* Big City who return after they find out what it is really like, there, or after they complete their education and work in the Cities for awhile.
Unfortunately, we also have drug dealers, gang-bangers and assorted welfare slugs who move here for what they think will be less visibilty to the LEO and space in which to manufacture drugs, plus higher welfare in a low cost area. They become more visible when the weather warms.
Not sure any of this specific movement changes voting patterns.
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