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Ive been to san Francisco. It is more urban and dense than Chicago.
Look up density maps.
I'm talking about the feel of a city how would you know if you've never lived in the bay area. I can go to the vegas strip on any given night, just because it's packed with ppl doesnt mean vegas is more urban than chicago or sf. my experience there is also going to be different than someone who actually works and lives in vegas
You do realize there is more to taxes than property taxes. New York City's effective property tax rate is about 0.75%, versus Chicago's average of around 1.5%. But the average home prices in New York City are well over double that of Chicago so it doesn't really matter from a practical standpoint if your *rate* is half as much if you have to pay more than double to get a similar property anyway. 1.5% of $200,000 is $3,000 in property taxes. 0.75% of $500,000 is $3,750.
How about sales taxes? Yep, you'd pay more sales taxes in New York City. The median family income in New York City is $68,743 and their sales tax is 8.875%. If the median family spend half of their income on items that are taxed under sales taxes (which seems like an extremely high proportion, but I'm just doing comparisons), then 8.875% of half of $68,743 is $3,050.47. The median family income in Chicago is $63,150, with a sales tax of 10.25%. Running those numbers through the same formula as New York City's, we get $3,236.44.
So comparing that, the median New York City family might save $185.97 per year in sales tax compared to Chicago's median families. $15.50 per month. I can hear the stampede already to rush for those savings ...
Then there's New York City income tax - according to one tax calculator I found, a married household earning the median family income would pay $3,050 a year in City income tax to New York City. That covers a lot of ground in making New York City residents have a much higher tax burden than most people in Chicago. i'm not going to dissect Boston for you, but you get the idea that you're whining about Chicago taxes is poorly-informed drivel.
Better weather is subjective. I'll take a few cold days over a cockroach-friendly climate any day. Traffic is bad both places, how bad you find it will depend a lot on your commute patterns. Chicago has far more options for getting around, though, which helps mitigate that impact. The City of CHicago has always had a budget - it's the State that ran without one for several years.
I don't think the Skyline is a decision point for Amazon, and while Chicago's food scene is better, Atlanta's has improved a lot in recent history.
But the counter point is that you are still paying twice the property tax. In terms of someone with a monthly mortgage, the city/state is gobbling up 2x that of New York. At the end of the day that means less money in equity and more money to a system that is widely seen as corrupt at worst and fiscally incompetent at best. You can afford a higher value home if the taxes are lower. IMO this is part of the reason Chicago’s housing market is undervalued. Downward tax pressure. Particularly acute in the suburbs.
You do realize there is more to taxes than property taxes. New York City's effective property tax rate is about 0.75%, versus Chicago's average of around 1.5%. But the average home prices in New York City are well over double that of Chicago so it doesn't really matter from a practical standpoint if your *rate* is half as much if you have to pay more than double to get a similar property anyway. 1.5% of $200,000 is $3,000 in property taxes. 0.75% of $500,000 is $3,750.
How about sales taxes? Yep, you'd pay more sales taxes in New York City. The median family income in New York City is $68,743 and their sales tax is 8.875%. If the median family spend half of their income on items that are taxed under sales taxes (which seems like an extremely high proportion, but I'm just doing comparisons), then 8.875% of half of $68,743 is $3,050.47. The median family income in Chicago is $63,150, with a sales tax of 10.25%. Running those numbers through the same formula as New York City's, we get $3,236.44.
So comparing that, the median New York City family might save $185.97 per year in sales tax compared to Chicago's median families. $15.50 per month. I can hear the stampede already to rush for those savings ...
Then there's New York City income tax - according to one tax calculator I found, a married household earning the median family income would pay $3,050 a year in City income tax to New York City. That covers a lot of ground in making New York City residents have a much higher tax burden than most people in Chicago. i'm not going to dissect Boston for you, but you get the idea that you're whining about Chicago taxes is poorly-informed drivel.
A couple of points. As other person mentioned, you cannot compare property taxes like that, since home equity matters. You are getting double the equity in NYC for an equivalent $ property tax.
Sure, New York has income tax, but Chicago nickel-and-dimes you with all these extra taxes and fees (restaurant tax anyone?). NYC sales taxes do not apply to any food items and do not apply to clothing and footwear below $110 per item. Most of the sales tax revenue in NYC is generated by tourists, not the actual residents of the city (tourists do not buy raw eggs, meat, vegetables, or gallons of milk - just some examples of things that are exempt from sales tax). I doubt average NYC household spends $35,000 per year on toilet paper and shampoo...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluefox
But the counter point is that you are still paying twice the property tax. In terms of someone with a monthly mortgage, the city/state is gobbling up 2x that of New York. At the end of the day that means less money in equity and more money to a system that is widely seen as corrupt at worst and fiscally incompetent at best. You can afford a higher value home if the taxes are lower. IMO this is part of the reason Chicago’s housing market is undervalued. Downward tax pressure. Particularly acute in the suburbs.
I think what also adds to depressed home prices in Chicago is the future uncertainty over tax increases. Are the pension funds even solvent past 2022? 2024? All the local taxes will be going up in the future, and current home prices reflect this uncertainty.
Depends on your budget. Plenty of reasonably priced single family homes in stable areas like Portage Park, Old Irving Park and Albany Park. And though a bit grittier, the Belmont neighborhoods - Gardens, Central, and Central - have some steals too.
Now if you want a single family home in Lincoln Park, Old Town, Lakeview, etc, then yeah, forget it unless you settle for a condo or have 7 figures to spend.
San Fran is nearly a thousand miles from Seattle, hardly "right next to" Seattle.
San Francisco is about 79% smaller than Chicago. The 21% of Chicago that is most central and most urban and therefore most comparable to San Francisco is a) more dense, b) has better, more frequent transit service, c) is, on average, more urban than San Francisco. And then the 79% of Chicago that is more comparable to the suburbs of San Francisco, blow the suburbs of San Francisco out of the water when it comes to urbanity. Even comparing the next 10% most central and dense portion of Chicago with Oakland, it absolutely destroys Oakland in useable urbanity. The the remaining 69% of CHicago not comparable to San Francisco or Oakland destroys their suburbs when it comes to Urbanity.
So, sure, compare th 49 square miles of SF with the 234 square miles of CHicago and CHicago looks much less urban on average. But take a SF-sized bite of Chicago and compare it to SF and Chicago easily bests SF. Why would we want to do that? Because comparing metro areas is the only useful way to compare cities, and i you're doing that you're comparing centers to centers to see which metro area produces the more urban center. Chicago does, in an SF v. CHicago comparison. But we're not supposed to be doing city-v-city comparisons anyway so I'm signing off.
No it doesn't. Chicago's densest bite mark does not compare to San Fran.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
From posts with a plot of number of people living in census tracts of different densities, San Francisco (well, the Bay Area, but most of the highest density census tracts will be in SF) has a small number of people living in significantly denser census tracts, a somewhat larger number of people in slightly denser census tracts, and then it starts petering out for SF pretty quickly in comparison to Chicago.
Maybe someone has that plot on hand.
You can say San Francisco is more urban and dense than Chicago overall, but that's an artifact of different city sizes. Small parts of San Francisco's northeastern quadrant are actually much denser than the densest parts of Chicago, but that's a pretty area running several blocks before Chicago starts catching up and overtaking SF in terms of a much larger area of high, though not extreme, densities. I remember someone ran a comparison with 2010 numbers trying to make a contiguous blob of 47 square miles (city limits of San Francisco) for various cities and both Chicago and Los Angeles came out with higher densities and Philadelphia was either higher or about the same.
If you wanted to keep it square-ish for comparison, then a rhomboid that has an anchor point going around Rogers Beach Park and then with one edge extending along the angle of Rogers Ave and the other roughly going with the slope of the lakefront going south should get you a neat 47 square mile.
Right. As you said. Densest parts of SF>Densest parts of Chicago.
It's stats. Not assumption.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mc4497
I'm talking about the feel of a city how would you know if you've never lived in the bay area. I can go to the vegas strip on any given night, just because it's packed with ppl doesnt mean vegas is more urban than chicago or sf. my experience there is also going to be different than someone who actually works and lives in vegas
Bay area? We're speaking of San Fran. Let's compare Lombard to Hayward then.
I can go from The Mission up to the wharf and it stays dense.Activity stays buzzing. So no. The strip analogy doesn't make sense.
Bay area? We're speaking of San Fran. Let's compare Lombard to Hayward then.
I can go from The Mission up to the wharf and it stays dense.Activity stays buzzing. So no. The strip analogy doesn't make sense.
well I said the bay area bc unlike chicago, one city doesnt dominate the region like chicago does. a lot of those people who pack into sf will be commuting to other places like silicon valley, oakland, berkeley, etc in the bay area, you probably wont see too many people living in streeterville commute to lombard for work. sf is great if you like the outdoors or work in tech but youre not going to get the sheer size and energy of a chicago or ny
No it doesn't. Chicago's densest bite mark does not compare to San Fran.
Right. As you said. Densest parts of SF>Densest parts of Chicago.
It's stats. Not assumption.
Bay area? We're speaking of San Fran. Let's compare Lombard to Hayward then.
I can go from The Mission up to the wharf and it stays dense.Activity stays buzzing. So no. The strip analogy doesn't make sense.
I did not say the bolded part of your statement - I, in fact, stated the exact opposite.
And you are simply wrong with your stats. I've done the census tract tallys for a 49 square mile portion of Chicago that is completely contiguous and in a rational rectangle shape. That resulted in an area that had over a million people in it (about 21,000 ppsm), which is more dense than San Francisco. Additionally, the transit available within that part of Chicago was better - longer hours, higher frequency of service, serving more parts of that part of Chicago. Chicago is just plain more urban over a greater area than San Francisco is, yes, with statistics.
No it doesn't. Chicago's densest bite mark does not compare to San Fran.
Right. As you said. Densest parts of SF>Densest parts of Chicago.
It's stats. Not assumption.
Bay area? We're speaking of San Fran. Let's compare Lombard to Hayward then.
I can go from The Mission up to the wharf and it stays dense.Activity stays buzzing. So no. The strip analogy doesn't make sense.
The tiny, tiny densest part of San Francisco is denser than the tiny, tiny densest part of Chicago. They even out quickly and then Chicago becomes denser than SF. While your statement is true, it's also not the most useful way to consider how dense the two are in terms of their walkable, urban parts.
I'm guessing this is supposed to be funny though. I mean, you started off with San Francisco right next to Seattle which I guess is true if you consider NYC to be right next to Chicago.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 11-13-2017 at 06:48 PM..
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