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Having other city amenities other than a huge music festival or comedy show seem to be enticing also.
I currently live in Portland...love the progressiveness, public transport, parks in the city, good/mild weather, good restaurants, and a good airport.
Would you have these in Des Moines?
I've lived in Portland for short stretches. Haven't lived in Des Moines.
I figure that since Des Moines has a tremendous wage to cost of living ratio, a few good restauarants have sprung up. I'm guessing that Des Moines isn't overly dense. That means that it probably has a few good parks. The weather is colder in the winter but sunnier.
I've researched public transportation and Des Moines seems to be lacking. Portland probably beats Des Moines at progressiveness.
Don't take my post as a slap against Portland. Living in a town that's more cost-effective and using some of the saved money to vacation in a dream city is a viable option. You can enjoy a costly city more if you're not trying to live there.
Well, like anything else, you need to ask yourself what your endgame is. You're drawing a false dichotomy between being a barista in Portland or having a middle management job in Des Moines. I would never recommend the former unless there's another reason you think you would benefit from being in the center of a city with a large creative class.
But let's say you're in advertising and you're choosing between a small agency in Minneapolis or a much larger one in New York. Even though things will be tighter in NY, go to NY! The connections you make will be invaluable and you can always trade down but it's often much harder to trade up. The same holds true for tech jobs in Austin or the West Coast vs. the Midwest. Go to where the jobs are in your field.
That said, there's nothing wrong with spending a couple of years as a ski bum in Aspen or a beach bum in Santa Monica ... bartending by night, playing by day. Life is long and as someone said above, you're only young once.
Yet another believer in where the grass is supposed to be cooler because everyone says so. You could do a lot worse than Des Moines in the so-called "cool" cities which are more hyped than real. Des Moines doesn't have the hip reputation of some of the overly touted cities but it looks pretty interesting to me. And it has jobs.
I've lived in both Chicago and Portland, OR and I think Des Moines is a good place to live too. Oh, and don't discount my new city of Cleveland. There's a heckofa lot going on here too.
It's generally easier to maximize wealth in high-cost markets because homeownership is the primary means of maximizing wealth and those markets generally have better real estate returns. Someone who invested 200k in SF or NYC real estate 20 years ago is a lot wealthier than someone who invested 200k in a cheap market like Des Moines or St. Louis.
Of course, low cost markets allow one to buy much more house, so if one is concerned with living space, rather than wealth-building, then they're a much better option.
a place like des moines is quite good for middle class families. it has good jobs, reasonable cost of living, plenty of land, some amenities, an okay airport. the most important is that you can purchase your dream house, a yard, even with a pool, and enjoy high quality of life.
des monies has good restaurants, perhaps one or two really good ones of each major cuisine. it probably has adequate shopping and cultural venues, within a half-day drive to the twin cities to access more shopping and water parks. again, for most working busy middle class families, they don't eat out much. shopping is about convenience more than others. and you can do it online. life is busy enough even without all this outside fun activities. it's all about convenience and enough time to concentrate on developing career and cultivating family and relationship. one downside is that its airport isn't a major one.
but des moines is just one example. there are plenty of cities like that. minneapolis/st.paul is a better choice, with a bit colder weather. but other than that, you really get everything. it's that much more money to travel.
by contrast, if you live in san fran, you spend all that money there, supporting the wonderful and excessive venues, and not enough money to travel elsewhere. it's too stressful for an ordinary middle class person.
let's imagine you live in dallas or minneapolis, and enjoy good quality of life. if you like san fran, take two trips there a year. you get the best of it all, without putting up with all the costs, taxes, and traffic. it's about options. you can go in and out, at your will. after you have fun, you come home to a great house and yard in the burbs of dallas or minneapolis. you then plan your next getaway! since you have these varities, you don't really feel deprived living in dallas. see where i'm going with this.
Well, like anything else, you need to ask yourself what your endgame is. You're drawing a false dichotomy between being a barista in Portland or having a middle management job in Des Moines. I would never recommend the former unless there's another reason you think you would benefit from being in the center of a city with a large creative class.
But let's say you're in advertising and you're choosing between a small agency in Minneapolis or a much larger one in New York. Even though things will be tighter in NY, go to NY! The connections you make will be invaluable and you can always trade down but it's often much harder to trade up. The same holds true for tech jobs in Austin or the West Coast vs. the Midwest. Go to where the jobs are in your field.
That said, there's nothing wrong with spending a couple of years as a ski bum in Aspen or a beach bum in Santa Monica ... bartending by night, playing by day. Life is long and as someone said above, you're only young once.
go where the job is. go where you will make more money. if working in nyc brings you career opportunities, then consider going there. it's a trade-off, and it all depends on what you want.
i wasn't talking about spending "a couple of years" here and there. i was talking about longer-term residence. if you just want to take a few gap years, then anywhere.
my main point is that people need to consider financial prospects, not just which place is fun and cool.
a place like des moines is quite good for middle class families. it has good jobs, reasonable cost of living, plenty of land, some amenities, an okay airport. the most important is that you can purchase your dream house, a yard, even with a pool, and enjoy high quality of life.
des monies has good restaurants, perhaps one or two really good ones of each major cuisine. it probably has adequate shopping and cultural venues, within a half-day drive to the twin cities to access more shopping and water parks. again, for most working busy middle class families, they don't eat out much. shopping is about convenience more than others. and you can do it online. life is busy enough even without all this outside fun activities. it's all about convenience and enough time to concentrate on developing career and cultivating family and relationship. one downside is that its airport isn't a major one.
but des moines is just one example. there are plenty of cities like that. minneapolis/st.paul is a better choice, with a bit colder weather. but other than that, you really get everything. it's that much more money to travel.
by contrast, if you live in san fran, you spend all that money there, supporting the wonderful and excessive venues, and not enough money to travel elsewhere. it's too stressful for an ordinary middle class person.
let's imagine you live in dallas or minneapolis, and enjoy good quality of life. if you like san fran, take two trips there a year. you get the best of it all, without putting up with all the costs, taxes, and traffic. it's about options. you can go in and out, at your will. after you have fun, you come home to a great house and yard in the burbs of dallas or minneapolis. you then plan your next getaway! since you have these varities, you don't really feel deprived living in dallas. see where i'm going with this.
Keep in mind that there was recently a thread regarding living vs. visiting a city:
When one just visits San Fran 2-3 times in a year, you miss out on the soul of the place as you don't really live there - just spending cash/tourist cash in the city until heading back to Des Moines where you will spend the majority of your time. I don't think the "great house and yard in the burbs" will balance out the underlying want to travel 2-3 times a year to take advantage of the amenities - you will also miss out on cultural events, participate in the economy (as above), etc.
I think the halfway point between SF and Des Moines might be the best answer - such as Portland, Seattle, Denver, or a "tier lower" at Boise, Sacramento, Tucson, etc.
I've heard claims that no matter where you live, 95% of your daily activities will be roughly the same.
I would believe this. Well think about it, you work a full-time job... For most, it's 9-5 (or some similar variation) M-F. If not that it's at least similar amount of hours spent or maybe even more. Then you have grocery shopping, watching TV/reading, going to the gym maybe, commenting on this forum/surfing the Internet, cooking meals, cleaning, sleeping, going out to eat, calling/texting/socializing, driving/public transportation, and maybe kids if you have those... I think that's what most people do these days and reality is is that can be done anywhere you live.
That 5% apparently matters the most to people however. For an example, if I lived in Boston I would have to shovel snow in the winter, and rake leaves in the fall. Here in Phoenix I don't have to do any of that because of climate. But the other part of that 5% would involve events that happen every once a while, such as sports, weekend vacations, the hot air balloon event in ABQ, etc. These ones can vary greatly. If one really likes football well there's a lot of metros that provide that, but not all of them. But if I also liked high-end fashion and seeing runway shows, NYC, Miami, and soon-to-be Los Angeles would be my only three options for both of those (and NYC leads by far). But considering these events only happen every once in a while like home games are only an x amount per year, and runway shows are an even smaller number I'm assuming, it would be nice to be located near these events for sort of the "once in a blue moon" time when you can go and the timing is right, since people do things other than participate in their hobbies for free time like travel and spend time with family and friends. They have to eat, work, sleep, and do the laundry list of chores as well that really take up most of the time.
However, lots of people are greatly affected by their surroundings. Some people don't mind paying more to be in a "better" environment if it provides better access to the 5% of hobbies they want to partake in. For an example Portland is close to the mountains AND to the ocean, and this appeals to a lot of people. For some, they don't mind paying the premium for Portland if it means being able to spend a couple hours driving in either direction to do these for one day so they can do it more frequently, rather than taking PTO from work and doing a vacation just to be able to ski because they live in Des Moines. Unless you got a really good job, PTO is small and some would rather be able to spend that time traveling the holidays to see family, or traveling out of the country or whatever.
On the flip side of this, some people prioritize stress, or a lack thereof, and would find Portland stressful because of the COL and would rather be in Texas and occasionally travel because maybe they'd rather have a bigger house than be able to go to the mountains whenever they please since they don't see them much anyway. It's all due to preferences.
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