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Then it's a stupid metric, because cost of living is strictly based on desirability.
The survey is basically saying an area is more desirable because people find it less desirable, which makes no sense.
Just because other people find Detroit undesirable, so the real estate is dirt cheap, why would it make Detroit more desirable for me? Why would I want a home with plummeting property values? Just so I could brag that I bought my house cheap?
You know better than this, it's based on MSA. SE Michigan does not have plummeting property values and you know it. Why you are taking the city of Detroit to make you're point when you know it's based on the region is beyond me. Even with your snark I can usually agree on your points of view, but you're being intellectually dishonest here.
It's always worth noting that you're are former metro Detroiter so that may have something to do with your attitude toward it.
Pittsburgh, for example, has the worst population loss of any metro in the U.S., and pretty mediocre wages and limited white collar job market, yet is ranked first in the Northeast. NYC, which probably has more high wage jobs than any metro on the planet, and has very robust high wage jobs growth, is ranked last in the Northeast. Huh?
This is pretty easy to explain. They are measuring percentage of job growth in the major fields for that metro. NYC will have VERY low percentages, because the number of jobs that already exists is huge. You'd probably have to move all bank back office workers from the rest of the US and Canada into NYC to see large % growth in employment...A relatively tiny metro like Pittsburgh can create 5-10k jobs a year that pay 70k and they are good.
Same thing with population growth, once you reach a certain size, you can't grow that fast % wise.
Then it's a stupid metric, because cost of living is strictly based on desirability.
The survey is basically saying an area is more desirable because people find it less desirable, which makes no sense.
Just because other people find Detroit undesirable, so the real estate is dirt cheap, why would it make Detroit more desirable for me? Why would I want a home with plummeting property values? Just so I could brag that I bought my house cheap?
It all depends on where the city was starting from as well. Detroit has been doing very well in job creation lately, and good jobs, but obviously it had fallen further than others. So even though it's shining, it has a lot further to go to get to the levels of other cities.
Chicago is kinda in the same boat to a degree as far as jobs.
Jobs gained since hitting bottom in 2009-2011 (states had the smoothed numbers, but most of the jobs in the state are in the two largest metros, Detroit and Chicago, althogh Chicago's % is higher than Detroits for overall jobs in the metro):
Michigan: +310,144
Illinois: +264,202
Adult population change during that period:
Michigan: +78,400
Illinois: -71,855
There was a net increase of 231,744 in Michigan and 336,057 in Illinois. That would explain how the unemployment rate is dropping, especially in Michigan.
You know better than this, it's based on MSA. SE Michigan does not have plummeting property values and you know it. Why you are taking the city of Detroit to make you're point when you know it's based on the region is beyond me. Even with your snark I can usually agree on your points of view, but you're being intellectually dishonest here.
I know it's based on MSA. Metro Detroit, as a whole, is dirt-cheap, and has lower property values than 10 years ago. It's an undesirable metro by almost any relative measure.
Any study that claims that Detroit has the best job market in the Midwest is, on its face, ridiculous.
Then it's a stupid metric, because cost of living is strictly based on desirability.
Costs of living aren't strictly based on desirability. Governmental policy & regulation, supply vs. demand, geographic constraints and other factors influence costs of living as well.
Desirability is a much come subjective concept that, while certainly a contributor to costs of living, isn't strictly the only thing.
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