generation limbo: 20-somethings today, debt, unemployment, the questionable value of a college education

yeah the ny mag article had a few paragraphs I liked but I wish someone better had written that article...there's no way it could survive the intro

the zoning policy for greater NYC isn't the only reason why living in NYC is a luxury good, & I'm dubious that it's the main reason. Housing prices went super high not simply because zoning was bad but because people made such big cash that they could bid the prices of housing & other normal goods of life---good schools, e.g.---way up, out of non-luxurious living levels.

you are are skeptical that 'supply' has an fairly important effect on the price of a good

er 'a fairly important'

not skeptical, but also not ignoring the massive influx of cash that NYC got due to financial deregulation.

even if you know that there are jobs in north dakota i think were underrating the real costs of relocation. there was a good article about economic migration in canada (where depressed atlantic regions lose large #s of young workers to the west/praries) that talked about the fact that these workers ended up paying more for things like housing and transportation, in addition to the fact that migration drives up the costs of these things for everyone.

i mean there are all sorts of cultural/personal reasons why say a recent college grad w/ no real economic ties doesnt just move to nebraska like i dont know how comfortable id be living somewhere im afraid to touch my bf in public but you do have to consider that ppl arent making decision entirely in a vacuum, i guess?

One note that I'm not hearing here is that if there were more OTHER places with the same urban advantages of dense housing and pretty good public transit and stuff, that more other cities would be more similar to NYC and therefore desirable to some of the people who currently live in/want to live in NYC?

Like right now NY has the punk mystique or the art scene or East Village mystique or the luxury shopping thing or w/e, you can take it or leave it, but there's a narrative to it, right? Maybe if we hadn't killed off all our other major cities, more of them would have compelling stories, too?

I don't think it's a non-issue cause the top of the market does affect everyone - nevertheless there have been enormous wealth disparities in nyc since forever - during some eras there was enough construction in urban housing and investment in transit that there were no shortage of opportunities for an urban middle class (jews in the bronx etc.)

xp

And also over history maybe some/more industries would have relocated to those places, so maybe book publishing would be centered in...Detroit or something, instead of being like 95% in NY (outside of university presses) and I'd be able to live somewhere else.

I'm kind of talking out of my ass here but isn't a large part of why NYC survived and thrived down to the money generated by the success of Wall Street? Like, basically all of the capital was there and that was what drove all of the other industries that sprang up there and provided either a nurturing environment or a backdrop to react against for the subcultures in the city?

Lamp don't you live in Toronto? that's still the only place I've ever seen homosexual couples being physically intimate in public; & I lived in the Bay Area (albeit the peninsula) for a couple of years. & this was just walking down Bloor Street, which I gather isn't some countercultural center like the Castro.

this stuff is hard & the fact that I came out here for work & that my father immigrated to the USA from Latin America for work (& moved us around the country looking for work when I was a kid) colors how I look at these things. I don't really "get" being attached to a place & I tend to think most places are pretty interchangeable provided that there's work: after that it's just a luxury of finding a place you like (a luxury I've really yet to have, given my choice of careers, research academia).

I'm kind of talking out of my ass here but isn't a large part of why NYC survived and thrived down to the money generated by the success of Wall Street? Like, basically all of the capital was there and that was what drove all of the other industries that sprang up there and provided either a nurturing environment or a backdrop to react against for the subcultures in the city?

― do not wake the dragon (DJP), Friday, October 21, 2011 1:23 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the erie canal is really the reason that new york city is new york city, but the finance industry has a lot to do with it too. but as iatee points out, the finance industry isnt the reason that rent is really high.

rich foreigners buying/renting pied-a-terres seems like more of a reason for high rents than wall street bros

lol swedish haute bourgeois film students

i think the study of why certain cities become lodestones for capital/culture/ppl is really interesting & complex - trade is a big part of it & certainly 'shipping' is probably the most impt industry in nyc's development but its also obv a much bigger argument than just that. i do kinda agree that 'living in nyc' is its own kind of luxury in a way

I'm kind of talking out of my ass here but isn't a large part of why NYC survived and thrived down to the money generated by the success of Wall Street? Like, basically all of the capital was there and that was what drove all of the other industries that sprang up there and provided either a nurturing environment or a backdrop to react against for the subcultures in the city?

I think this is a very complicated question to answer because you really have to go into counterfactual zone but:

pros of wall street
a. lotsa local tax $
b. enormous service economy dependent on rich people and their absurdist ny status signaling
c. strong real estate market and the 'good things' that come w/ it

cons
a. expansive local govt dependent on a taxbase that might not always exist
b. 'strong real estate market' also = 'rent sucks up most peoples' income
c. office space rent in manhattan = hurts basically every other industry, start-ups, etc.

I tend to think most places are pretty interchangeable provided that there's work: after that it's just a luxury of finding a place you like

euler i am a little intrigued by this idea and i think i might do a thread on it

I'm intrigued by it but I have this funny feeling it's going to end up like this: everywhere is p much fine when you're not from anywhere in particular AND you have secure employment there at a reasonable living wage.

ALSO WHEN YOU ARE A ROBOT

haha I'm prepared to play the bad guy but I think being somewhere w/ a sense of place is prob more important to me than most people?

I have said this in other threads but over the last few decades a lot of small towns or whatever have been drained of the sense of place they did have - if you're moving somewhere and choosing between walmart and subway or walmart and subway, well...(that's isolating city planning and local businesses as the only factor, and they aren't, but that sorta the raw material)

that's sorta*

lincoln, NE is actually quite nice

http://www.alternet.org/story/152809/the_http://www.alternet.org/story/152809/the__trillion_student_loan_rip-off%3A_how_an_entire_generation_was_tricked_into_taking_on_crushing_debt_that_just_enriches_banks_trillion_student_loan_rip-off%3A_how_an_entire_generation_was_tricked_into_taking_on_crushing_debt_that_just_enriches_banks

okay weird looking link but it works

lincoln, NE is actually quite nice

― homosexual II, Friday, October 21, 2011 4:03 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm!

guys... we have the internet now

it doesn't matter where we are... as long as we're jacked in... to the INTERNET

it doesn't matter where we are... as long as we're jackin... to the INTERNET

http://images.wikia.com/puppet/images/0/0e/Trekkiemonster.jpg

my jackin' just went up 200%

I wld like to read that book about the fragmentation of civil society, bowling alone or something like that. has anybody read it? any good?

time was your neighbour would lend it to you

when I think of people living in their big houses in America I just think of wemmick from great expectations

I would build a moat around my house if I could

I've taught using excerpts of Bowling Alone! I like thinking about this issue of "place", because I don't have any place I'm from, & so I'm prone to imagining or fantasizing about it. I think this is a common plight of children of immigrants, anyway.

I am also a child of immigrants and yeah there's something to that. I think that's one reason why I like big cities - it offers people a sense of place without requiring any connection from the person in return

I'm a child of the countryside and I like cities for exactly the same reason

yeah I can get with that; actually the place I live now, in the great plains, is pretty much a "nowhere" place & I confess that suits me also: I never feel like an outsider here, because there's nothing to be inside.

xp

I live out in the middle of the sticks and I hate the isolation.

I am also a child of immigrants and yeah there's something to that. I think that's one reason why I like big cities - it offers people a sense of place without requiring any connection from the person in return

that's an interesting idea, I've never heard it phrased like that

I've never felt like more of an outsider than when I've lived in small cities. The history of people is generally impenetrable; nothing worse than sitting at a social gathering listening to nothing but "remember when" conversations. In big cities I can get lost in everything going on around me.

My dream has always been to live in an apartment in a city. Sadly, I'm married to a man who is dead set against it (he actually suggested living in an RV in a city trailer park as an alternative!).

what's his reason? just a cultural thing?

every thread I start turns into the suburbs thread

totally euler's fault tho

It's because his dream is to live in the middle of nowhere.

But a city trailer park does seem like a compromise, unless you're thinking any place that would have a trailer park does not qualify as a city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/will-dropouts-save-america.html

all college students should just drop out and start multi-billion dollar computer companies - y/n

Well, one thing that colleges can teach is critical thinking, which might have been of some help to the author of that strange piece. I think I expect too much out of the New York Times these days.

Not a shock, the author is one of those bizarro "business gurus". http://www.powerofeyecontact.com/

http://media.linkedin.com/mpr/pub/image-GB_zBD8gFRyhjJpHA4PTB-FqwUGaioiHIOAhB7KqSkkl9Y6c/michael-ellsberg.jpg