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In LA it costs $300 to $400 per square foot to buy in Compton. 1,500 square feet costs about $500,000 in Compton. Let that sink in.
Exactly! Atlanta is not even remotely similar to LA in terms of cost of living. In fact net negative domestic migration for the entire state of California is nothing new and has been happening since 2000 at least although it may have slowed recently.
What really struck me is all the problems cited in the article seem to be true here as well. $1160 for a one bedroom apartment? Check. 90 minute to 2 hour commutes to live in a more affordable area...check.
Yet the narrative here seems to be people are moving TO Atlanta, not AWAY from it. That strikes me as odd given the situations are similar.
What do you think?
Personally, I think this article is wrong. I know a lot of people who live in LA. They know they overpay, but they're just not willing to leave. They've got it good and they know it....in fact, all they have said to me for 20 years is, "When are you moving out here???"
Good thread.
The situations in Los Angeles/Southern California and Atlanta are not quite necessarily all that similar. There are some very significant differences between Los Angeles/Southern California and Atlanta.
First, Atlanta is a landlocked metro region of about 6.5 million people without the natural physical barriers to continued development or "sprawl" (like mountains and the Pacific Ocean) that Los Angeles (a coastal metro region of about 19 million) has. Those mountains and the Pacific Ocean in Southern California have made building new housing a challenge since the Los Angeles Basin became completely built-out with development back sometime around the year 2000.
The natural shortage of housing that has been created by the natural barriers of the mountains and the Pacific Ocean have helped to contribute to the relocation of many Southern Californians to other places around the country (including Atlanta) in search of a lower cost-of-living.
Atlanta may be seeing rising housing prices in and around parts of the core of its metro area, but L.A. has high housing prices over a much larger section of its metro region.
Second, L.A. and Southern California is an metro region of 19 million that is the dominant large major metro region of international importance for the entire part of the U.S. that is west of the Rocky Mountains.
L.A. is such a dominant large major metro area that it heavily influences not just everything west of the Rockies but much of everything west of the Mississippi River (see how much economic success a South-Central state like Texas has enjoyed from businesses moving their operations there from California) and even east across the Sunbelt to Atlanta (which has enjoyed a massive amount of success from the entertainment industry moving much of its infrastructure and operations here from California).
Atlanta (while it may be a dominant large metro region for the Southeastern U.S.) is a secondary dominant large major metro for the Eastern U.S. when compared to New York... Which New York is a city/metro region of over 23.6 million residents that anchors the entire Northeastern megalopolis and directly heavily affects and fuels growth in every state south of Pennsylvania down the entire South Atlantic coast from Delaware down to Florida (including Georgia).
Very large major metro regions of international importance like L.A. (19 million) and N.Y. (23.6 million) are so dominant and influential that they feed and fuel heavy growth throughout many other parts of the country while a secondary large major metro region like Atlanta (6.5 million) gets fed much heavy growth directly from internationally dominant large major metro regions like L.A. and N.Y.
And people are moving away from Atlanta (particularly long-time metro Atlantans who lived in the area before it became a heavily populated that is prone to overcrowding throughout many areas... those long-time metro Atlantans will often move away to more sparsely-populated areas of the South)... It's just that right now so many more people are moving into the Atlanta metro area/region than are moving away from it that the migration of people out of the metro area is not necessarily very noticeable.
Atlanta is also different than a region like L.A. in that Atlanta is a smaller region that gets fed a massive amount of its growth from two higher-cost regions in the New York-anchored Northeastern U.S. and the L.A.-anchored Southern California region of the West Coast. Atlanta also gets a massive amount of population growth from economically-stagnant parts of the Midwest like Michigan and Illinois (and slower-growing Midwestern states like Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin).
Even with the increasing traffic congestion and rising housing costs in and around Atlanta's metro core, Atlanta still seems much less congested when compared to monstrously-larger and more expensive metro regions like the Northeast and California.
And even with the quality-of-life challenges that a fast-growing large major metro region like Atlanta may face from overcrowding, increasing traffic congestion and increasing competition for jobs and employment, a major Southeastern metro like Atlanta still seems like a boomtown with an extremely robust economy compared to economically-stagnant Midwestern/Great Lakes states like Michigan (which has seen much shrinkage in recent decades) and Illinois (whose economy and population appears to be shrinking currently due to poor political leadership).
You may personally know a lot of people who live in L.A. (and Southern California) and are not willing to leave despite overpaying in an area with a sky-high cost-of-living. But the article is not wrong about people leaving California in droves to desperately getaway from said high cost-of-living.
Atlanta has the exploding Television and Film Production industry (an industry that has migrated massive parts of its operations to Georgia largely to getaway from the higher production and business costs in California) and the restaurants with Chicken and Waffles dishes (a dish brought to Georgia by transplants from Southern California) to show how people have left California in large numbers to seek a lower cost-of-living and/or a higher quality-of-life in less-expensive other parts of the country.
It's just that California's population numbers have not shrunk and even have continued to grow because the state is such a massive gateway and destination for immigrants from other parts of the world.
That's not to say that a large major metro area like Atlanta would never experience that type of effect of people leaving the metro area in large numbers like is the case in Los Angeles and Southern California. The Atlanta area is clearly experiencing some trends (like overcrowding, increasingly severe traffic congestion, lengthening commutes, rising housing prices, more competition for jobs, etc) that if left unchecked and not addressed in a meaningful way potentially could drive a noticeably larger number of people out of the metro area in search of lower-cost smaller metro areas with higher qualities-of-life.
If Atlanta were ever to become big enough and expensive enough (like as in a metro region with a population of about 10 million residents or more with even worse traffic and even higher housing/living costs), it would be plausible that we could experience an 'L.A. effect' of sorts and see noticeable numbers of metro Atlantans moving to smaller metro areas around the South like Greenville, SC; Asheville, NC; Chattanooga, TN; Knoxville, TN; Columbia, SC; and even places in states like Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, etc. to seek lower living costs and a higher quality-of-life.
Some if y'all either been in Atlanta too long or haven't lived in a "real city" to understand what really expensive is. If you think Atlanta is expensive then you need to travel and live in other places
California has a host of issues that are factors in all of this. Namely illegal immigrants, soaring pension liabilities, businesses leaving, and the top marginal income tax rate in the nation of 13.3%.
All of these things are self inflicted and could be corrected but they don't seem to want to.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ant131531
Atlanta is still a lot cheaper than LA, like a lot cheaper. The only places that are truly expensive are neighborhoods in and around Midtown and Buckhead. You guys really overstate how expensive Atlanta is. Go live in LA or SF or Seattle and it's not even just the city that's expensive. Literally much of the entire metro area is expensive.
Yes, when reading that escalating costs were driving people to consider relocating to another metro, my first thought was, "Like where?"
What really struck me is all the problems cited in the article seem to be true here as well. $1160 for a one bedroom apartment? Check. 90 minute to 2 hour commutes to live in a more affordable area...check.
Yet the narrative here seems to be people are moving TO Atlanta, not AWAY from it. That strikes me as odd given the situations are similar.
What do you think?
Personally, I think this article is wrong. I know a lot of people who live in LA. They know they overpay, but they're just not willing to leave. They've got it good and they know it....in fact, all they have said to me for 20 years is, "When are you moving out here???"
Facts are that California would have lost a lot of population since the turn of the century if not for foreign immigrants. Crime is up. Schools are declining as California is rapidly falling to the bottom of the lists of states. Costs are outrageous. Taxes are up. Traffic is getting unbearable. Lots of people are leaving and have been for about 25 years. Part of the reason for the boom in Seattle and Phoenix is people fleeing California.
So yes, the same thing could happen to Atlanta. The costs and traffic aren't yet near the Los Angeles level of pain. But traffic is rapidly getting there (maybe not as fast as LA keeps getting worse-but its gaining on where LA was). If costs continue to escalate, it could drive people and businesses to cities like Nashville, Charlotte and Raleigh.
Some if y'all either been in Atlanta too long or haven't lived in a "real city" to understand what really expensive is. If you think Atlanta is expensive then you need to travel and live in other places
Atlanta isn't like the east and west coasts, but it is vastly more expensive than rural Georgia. Its also more expensive than anyplace other than Chicago between the coasts.
Its probably already at the level to drive a few people to the Nashvilles and Charlottes.
Atlanta is still a lot cheaper than LA, like a lot cheaper. The only places that are truly expensive are neighborhoods in and around Midtown and Buckhead. You guys really overstate how expensive Atlanta is. Go live in LA or SF or Seattle and it's not even just the city that's expensive. Literally much of the entire metro area is expensive.
My types of jobs (financial/IT) are primarily Midtown, Buckhead, or Sandy Springs. My commute from Doraville (240k new construction) is a bummer to my current job in Buckhead (20-30 in the morning, a dreadful 50 in the afternoon, unless school's out, in which case it's about 30 in the afternoon). I know lots of people still work in the city, but live even further (Lawrenceville, Covington, etc).
I've looked at areas slightly closer, but it gets exponentially more expensive. I don't want double a mortgage to have half the commute.
Granted, I know if I were in the medical field or my own person, I could choose to live in a further out suburb, but for people like me where jobs are concentrated in Atlanta, I think it's pretty expensive.
Some if y'all either been in Atlanta too long or haven't lived in a "real city" to understand what really expensive is. If you think Atlanta is expensive then you need to travel and live in other places
Thank you, alot of these people seem like they live under a rock. The cost of living in Atlanta is childsplay compared to most major cities in this country.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
Atlanta isn't like the east and west coasts, but it is vastly more expensive than rural Georgia. Its also more expensive than anyplace other than Chicago between the coasts.
Its probably already at the level to drive a few people to the Nashvilles and Charlottes.
Yeah Atlanta would be more expensive than rural Georgia but why wouldn't it be? There's jobs, entertainment, ect - all that stuff pushes land value up because people want / need to be closer to these entities. As for Atlanta being much more expensive than the rest of the country besides Chicago? No...sorry but no its not... Salt Lake City Utah it costs $400 - 450k for a 2br 1 ba house, although apartment and renting is alot cheaper, Denver CO is the same... Don't forget Vegas either, Atlanta although the prices are rising is about the cheapest place you can live for a city this size. The only other cities that I know of that are comparable to Atlanta in affordability is DFW, Houston, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City.
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Now for the OP, Atlanta and Los Angeles, while both are massacres of Suburban Sprawl, are still two entirely different environments. The same goes for San Francisco. There's alot of things that need to be considered for example both L.A. and San Fran offer extensive mass transit systems, both L.A. and San Fran have highly saught after Geographic features, (The Ocean, Mountains), Both San Fran and L.A. are VASTLY larger than Atlanta, and if it werent for the extreme cost of living (which is about the main factor why so many people leave those cities) offers so much more than Atlanta that people would be flocking to those regions in groves. This isn't to say Atlanta isn't nice, but...it is to say...its not on tier with either of those cities.
In summary, yes...Atlanta WILL get more expensive... will it cost $900,000 to $1.5 million own a 2 or 3 bedroom home like it (truly and seriously) does in both L.A. and San Francisco and all of their suburbs .... no.
Last edited by Need4Camaro; 12-04-2017 at 09:12 AM..
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
8,485 posts, read 14,994,819 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Easy
In LA it costs $300 to $400 per square foot to buy in Compton. 1,500 square feet costs about $500,000 in Compton. Let that sink in.
Yup. For context, that's like someone trying to sell you a $500k 50 year old ranch house in East Point. Uh, naw shawty.
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