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I don't want to quibble about what constitutes cheap, but to middle earners; say a teacher and a nurse, can afford to live in just about any Chicago neighborhood.
I don't think so. Have you lived there? They can live in a lot of neighborhoods, but not just "any." How sad, if a teacher and a nurse can't live in a nice neighborhood in other cities. Is that considered to be a good thing?
I don't think so. Have you lived there? They can live in a lot of neighborhoods, but not just "any." How sad, if a teacher and a nurse can't live in a nice neighborhood in other cities. Is that considered to be a good thing?
I lived there for several years and may be moving back next year. I look at Chicago real estate listings almost daily. I'm not saying you should be impressed that middle class people can live in "a nice neighborhood", but it is impressive that middle-class people can live in THE NICEST neighborhoods in a world-class city.
I lived there for several years and may be moving back next year. I look at Chicago real estate listings almost daily. I'm not saying you should be impressed that middle class people can live in "a nice neighborhood", but it is impressive that middle-class people can live in THE NICEST neighborhoods in a world-class city.
I lived there, and they definitely can't live in the NICEST neighborhoods. They can live nicely, though.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gladhands
The Acela is the busiest because it's in the most populated corridor, and it's the only high-speed rail in the country. Amtrak might as well not exist outside of the Northeast Corridor.
All total, I spent about 25 years living in NYC, in various stages of my life. I visited Philadelphia and Boston once each, during that time period. No when I noticed that those cities frequently. Proximity to those cities was not one of New York's selling points. Proximity to New York is a selling point for those cities.
You're down playing it, Bajan already posted the bus transportation numbers along the corridor. I understand you and your personal friends didn't frequent other NE corridor cities, but that is just from your interactions. NYC may be and added selling point for the other cities, but for whatever reasons may be NY'ers travel the corridor too, and much more than a Chicagoan will travel to Detroit or Indianapolis.
The salaries for nurse and teacher can vary widely so it depends on where you work. Like the teachers in the public school districts in the decently nice and up suburbs of Chicago make a lot of money actually relatively. There are numerous tenured teachers working in nice school districts outside of the city who have been teaching for 20+ years making over $200K per year in the Chicago area at public schools. My friend's wife is a teacher in a decently nice suburb and has been making 6 figures as a teacher for years. Most of the teachers in these schools have at least a Masters degree.
You can see public school teacher salaries here. Top listed ones which are well over $300K per year are more administrative positions (i.e. superintendants, principals, etc). https://www.openthebooks.com/search/?PensionCode=1802
However, this is probably more than most of the areas if you are a public school teacher inside the city. I know people in that camp who don't make 6 figures for sure and those people are not affording anywhere in the city, BUT they could afford many areas still. A lot better off than some more expensive cities in that regard for sure.
It doesn't really matter when you live in the Alpla city. When you live in New York City, being within driving distance of Boston and DC in Philly isn't a selling point. People in New York don't care about the Northeast Corredor. When I left New York it was almost never to visit one of those cities. When you live in Philly, proximity to those other cities matters.
The same goes for Chicago. Proximity to Milwaukee, Detroit, Indianapolis and St. Louis isn't necessarily a selling point. You don't need those cities, but they're there. To be honest, I don't think Chicago is any less isolated than Boston. Regardless of what anyone tells you, Boston to New York is a 4+ hour drive. No other city of note (sorry, Providence) is less than six hours away.
People in NYC visit Philly, Boston and DC all the time.
Chicago has a lower cost of living than NYC for one simple reason: there is plenty of available housing here.
Why isn't all of the housing full?
Chicago is far from most other big cities (NYC is relatively close to Philly, DC, Boston), it's really cold in the winter, the job market isn't as good here, it isn't as internationally connected as NYC, and there are large swaths of the city that are vacant/empty and have crime problems.
Part of that is because Chicago encourages construction and development and has the room to do so with fewer restrictions in place. Chicago has had an astounding amount of construction for a city that's not booming and I think that's been a strong driver in keeping housing costs down.
I don't think we would expect it to be 14 times higher.
To be fair though, he was talking about one city pairing, but Northeast and Acela cover a much longer route with multiple metros and many more city pairing combinations.
Check out these figures on inter-city bus travel in 2014. These are stats for weekly ridership by route.
The highest ridership routes that year were (Table 26):
New York to Philadelphia - 44,269
New York to DC - 38,016
Boston to New York - 23,804
Baltimore to New York - 20,237
Boston to Portland - 11,236
Of the Top 20 routes, only 8 were outside of the Bos-Wash corridor, and none were in the Midwest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gladhands
It doesn't really matter when you live in the Alpla city. When you live in New York City, being within driving distance of Boston and DC in Philly isn't a selling point. People in New York don't care about the Northeast Corredor. When I left New York it was almost never to visit one of those cities. When you live in Philly, proximity to those other cities matters.
The same goes for Chicago. Proximity to Milwaukee, Detroit, Indianapolis and St. Louis isn't necessarily a selling point. You don't need those cities, but they're there. To be honest, I don't think Chicago is any less isolated than Boston. Regardless of what anyone tells you, Boston to New York is a 4+ hour drive. No other city of note (sorry, Providence) is less than six hours away.
Love it when stats make posters look like idiots. Yes, New yorkers visit other cities.
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