Companies(up till the pandemic) seemed to cluster in all the same spots due to network effect, SF bay area, NY, Chi, Boston, Austin etc, with little to no jobs (that pay well) in midsize or small cities.
People now are extremely knowledgeable about great towns and what areas are good, thank instagram/facebook, zillow/redfin, and a multitude of blogs and sites that report on this, there is really no longer the idea of a "secret town" that is perfect, if one is found, people flock to it and drive up housing prices.
States/Cities stifling development in favor of incumbent owners. This is a real problem in California, and even when I lived near Boulder it was shocking to see how much they tried to have people stop building in that town.
>there is really no longer the idea of a "secret town" that is perfect, if one is found, people flock to it and drive up housing prices.
The place I live aggressively builds dense highrise apartments. People are flocking here and it's still awesome. My rent didn't go up this year and if I were willing to move across the street I could have saved money.
Before outsourcing picked up steam under Ronald Regan, Bush 41 and Clinton, more jobs were high paying industrial and had to be done in remote places where the natural resources are. Now that Finance, Real Estate and Investment (FIRE) are 1/5 of GDP more jobs are servant jobs catering to wealthy people in big cities.
The pandemic, remote work the and return of urban unrest have slowed or possibly reversed this trend as you've pointed out.
What if this goes international? Montréal always seemed like a secret hidden in plain sight, second biggest city in Canada but with a much cheaper housing market than both Toronto and Vancouver.
Jobs. During the separation crisis of the 70’s a lot of companies left. It’s kept Montreal quite affordable as population growth has be 1%/yr or less for the past few decades.
Companies(up till the pandemic) seemed to cluster in all the same spots due to network effect, SF bay area, NY, Chi, Boston, Austin etc, with little to no jobs (that pay well) in midsize or small cities.
People now are extremely knowledgeable about great towns and what areas are good, thank instagram/facebook, zillow/redfin, and a multitude of blogs and sites that report on this, there is really no longer the idea of a "secret town" that is perfect, if one is found, people flock to it and drive up housing prices.
States/Cities stifling development in favor of incumbent owners. This is a real problem in California, and even when I lived near Boulder it was shocking to see how much they tried to have people stop building in that town.