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I guess I grew up in an area that was more impoverished than I thought because where I grew up the ones driving BMW's and Mercedes-Benzes were the upper-middle-class/professional class---the ones who had "made it" in life. Back in Northern Virginia people treated those like typical/normal "middle-class" cars, as they were ubiquitous when I lived there. I agree that Northern Virginia is in its own little bubble where $20 for a cocktail or taking an annual vacation to Maui or driving a Mercedes-Benz GLC is "normal/middle-class" vs. being considered "upper-middle-class" in most other areas of the country.
It's like that with Teslas here on the west coast. Evewryone has one.
I guess I grew up in an area that was more impoverished than I thought because where I grew up the ones driving BMW's and Mercedes-Benzes were the upper-middle-class/professional class---the ones who had "made it" in life. Back in Northern Virginia people treated those like typical/normal "middle-class" cars, as they were ubiquitous when I lived there. I agree that Northern Virginia is in its own little bubble where $20 for a cocktail or taking an annual vacation to Maui or driving a Mercedes-Benz GLC is "normal/middle-class" vs. being considered "upper-middle-class" in most other areas of the country.
TBH they are indeed "professional class" - but that doesn't mean they're crazily wealthy. I mean, when they take a vacation to Maui it's more likely that they'll be in economy class also.
And you can find similar lifestyle in most "nicer" suburban county anyway - i.e. Collin County in DFW, Hamilton County in Indy, part of the collar counties in Chicagoland, etc.
One final note? It's funny that you look at BMW and Mercedes and think they're "nice" but then people buy F150s etc. for similar price and nobody bet an eye...
The industry in Southern California is a shell of what it was. I don't know how old you are it's nothing like what it was and Southern California has never really recovered from the loss of thousands of jobs in the aerospace/defense contracting industry. LA was a completely different place.
And I think it was more than just the loss of this industry per se, but a real brain drain out of LA that coincided with a massive brain trust gain up north as Silicon Valley soared and soared and soared, causing the much smaller Bay Area to become the undisputed corporate hub of the entire west coast-just bizarre if you think about how large LA is, but part of that was due to LA's inability to keep up as far as human capital and investment capital.
I mean, this makes no sense. LA should be 2nd or 3rd, not SF:
Ivy League Schools, Top 3 Alumni Concentrations:
Harvard
1 Boston
2 New York
3 San Francisco
Yale
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Boston
Princeton
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Washington DC
Brown
1 New York
2 Boston
3 Providence
Columbia
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Washington DC
Penn
1 Philadelphia
2 New York
3 Washington DC
Dartmouth
1 Boston
2 New York
3 Washington DC
Cornell
1 New York
2 Ithaca
3 San Francisco
This is data from a very interesting article that is actually about LA, but reveals extremely valuable insight on the geography of where the alumni of our most prestigious schools live.
LA and the Bay Area were on different trajectories for around 40 years, but over the past 6 years, LA's tech scene has really began to blossom so I'm happy for them in that regard, and we are seeing an increase in VC capital down there, which is good.
Quote:
Now, corporate side of the big defense contractors is a different story
I think this^ is part of what I meant
After 9/11, the Bush administration went on a defense spending shopping spree that redirected tens of billions in defense spending from CA directly to the DMV, and that's what fueled the DMV's economic boom from the turn of the century all the way to 2013ish when GDP growth in the area leveled off. That, and recession spending measures meant to boost the economy also stopped and DC being the biggest recipient of that spending, also lost the most when the spending stopped, and this is reflected in metro GDP growth rates.
SoCal at the end of the day is way too diverse economically for one industry to fully make a huge effect. If you look at county level it's just unfair as SoCal's county just have a lot more people which pulls the median more towards national median. I mean, there are more people in LA County alone than the entire state of Maryland or the entire state of Virginia.
It's not that simple because New York is far larger than DC as well and also has a higher median income level than the DC Metro. LA started falling behind the early 1980s.
The industry in Southern California is a shell of what it was. I don't know how old you are it's nothing like what it was and Southern California has never really recovered from the loss of thousands of jobs in the aerospace/defense contracting industry. LA was a completely different place.
And I think it was more than just the loss of this industry per se, but a real brain drain out of LA that coincided with a massive brain trust gain up north as Silicon Valley soared and soared and soared, causing the much smaller Bay Area to become the undisputed corporate hub of the entire west coast-just bizarre if you think about how large LA is, but part of that was due to LA's inability to keep up as far as human capital and investment capital.
I mean, this makes no sense. LA should be 2nd or 3rd, not SF:
Ivy League Schools, Top 3 Alumni Concentrations:
Harvard
1 Boston
2 New York
3 San Francisco
Yale
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Boston
Princeton
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Washington DC
Brown
1 New York
2 Boston
3 Providence
Columbia
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Washington DC
Penn
1 Philadelphia
2 New York
3 Washington DC
Dartmouth
1 Boston
2 New York
3 Washington DC
Cornell
1 New York
2 Ithaca
3 San Francisco
This is data from a very interesting article that is actually about LA, but reveals extremely valuable insight on the geography of where the alumni of our most prestigious schools live.
LA and the Bay Area were on different trajectories for around 40 years, but over the past 6 years, LA's tech scene has really began to blossom so I'm happy for them in that regard, and we are seeing an increase in VC capital down there, which is good.
I think this^ is part of what I meant
After 9/11, the Bush administration went on a defense spending shopping spree that redirected tens of billions in defense spending from CA directly to the DMV, and that's what fueled the DMV's economic boom from the turn of the century all the way to 2013ish when GDP growth in the area leveled off. That, and recession spending measures meant to boost the economy also stopped and DC being the biggest recipient of that spending, also lost the most when the spending stopped, and this is reflected in metro GDP growth rates.
It's not that simple because New York is far larger than DC as well and also has a higher median income level than the DC Metro. LA started falling behind the early 1980s.
But I digress. I always appreciate your take.
Ivy leaguers tend to be VC focused and there's no place like the Bay Area for that. We're doing ok down here though.
I mean those Ivy League schools are all in the East, so naturally the concentration is going to be highest in the big East Coast hubs. But I think it's fair to say that the Bay Area thanks to the explosion of tech as the driving force of the private sector in the economy has become the West Coast "counter" of those Eastern hubs.
L.A. of course still is one of the if not the entertainment industry hub of the world and has ties to New York through that. But of course it's not an industry saturated with Ivy League grads.
Princeton
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Washington DC
Brown
1 New York
2 Boston
3 Providence
Columbia
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Washington DC
Penn
1 Philadelphia
2 New York
3 Washington DC
Dartmouth
1 Boston
2 New York
3 Washington DC
Cornell
1 New York
2 Ithaca
3 San Francisco
It's not surprising to me to see that graduates of these schools tend to stick close to where they went to school.
Harvard is in Boston (OK, Cambridge, but close enough) and is in the Northeast Corridor along with New York.
Yale sits between Boston and New York.
Princeton isn't far from New York, and if you skip Philadelphia (and ignore Baltimore), Washington is the next-closest major city.
Brown is in Providence and sits between Boston and New York.
Columbia is in New York and is in the Northeast Corridor along with Washington.
Penn is in Philadelphia, and as for New York and Washington, it basically depends on which side of the train platform you stand on after you graduate and leave the city.
Dartmouth is in the same region as Boston, and then you've got New York and Washington down the line.
Cornell is in Ithaca and in the same state as New York.
So really, San Francisco is the outlier in all these cases. But I do find it interesting that it's always San Francisco (really, the Bay Area as a whole, including Silicon Valley) and nowhere else apart from the Northeast for any of these schools' top three.
The industry in Southern California is a shell of what it was. I don't know how old you are it's nothing like what it was and Southern California has never really recovered from the loss of thousands of jobs in the aerospace/defense contracting industry. LA was a completely different place.
TBH, I'm definitely not old enough . I also never lived in Greater LA.
But yes, I'm definitely aware of how much larger the aerospace industry used to be especially in South Bay. The stark change is almost as crazy as the decline of automotive industry in Detroit area TBH.
At least LA is diversified enough for the aerospace downfall to not completely kill the economy. Plus the space science part is looking up led by SpaceX .
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair
And I think it was more than just the loss of this industry per se, but a real brain drain out of LA that coincided with a massive brain trust gain up north as Silicon Valley soared and soared and soared, causing the much smaller Bay Area to become the undisputed corporate hub of the entire west coast-just bizarre if you think about how large LA is, but part of that was due to LA's inability to keep up as far as human capital and investment capital.
I mean, this makes no sense. LA should be 2nd or 3rd, not SF:
Ivy League Schools, Top 3 Alumni Concentrations:
Harvard
1 Boston
2 New York
3 San Francisco
Yale
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Boston
Princeton
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Washington DC
Brown
1 New York
2 Boston
3 Providence
Columbia
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Washington DC
Penn
1 Philadelphia
2 New York
3 Washington DC
Dartmouth
1 Boston
2 New York
3 Washington DC
Cornell
1 New York
2 Ithaca
3 San Francisco
This is data from a very interesting article that is actually about LA, but reveals extremely valuable insight on the geography of where the alumni of our most prestigious schools live.
LA and the Bay Area were on different trajectories for around 40 years, but over the past 6 years, LA's tech scene has really began to blossom so I'm happy for them in that regard, and we are seeing an increase in VC capital down there, which is good.
SF also has the banking in addition to tech...actually tech didn't even reach SF MSA until this decade or so anyway as most of them are more centered around San Jose/Silicon Valley instead of that far north up the peninsula.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair
I think this^ is part of what I meant
After 9/11, the Bush administration went on a defense spending shopping spree that redirected tens of billions in defense spending from CA directly to the DMV, and that's what fueled the DMV's economic boom from the turn of the century all the way to 2013ish when GDP growth in the area leveled off. That, and recession spending measures meant to boost the economy also stopped and DC being the biggest recipient of that spending, also lost the most when the spending stopped, and this is reflected in metro GDP growth rates.
TBH, yes, the defense money is definitely insane and driven lots of growth in NoVA. It's also uneven in DMV anyway - NoVA gets all the funding while central Maryland had been somewhat left behind. MoCo is a shadow of its former self with areas that are now rundown sitting next to half-empty business parks.
These lists need to be adjusted for COL to make any meaning sense.
I don't think that's necessarily the case because the two are in a mutually dependent relationship anyway. High incomes will naturally lead to high COL and high COL will stabilize high incomes or if incomes fail to measure up send people packing (in which case COL will drop again to match the incomes in the area).
High COL is primarily driven by high real estate costs i.e. high rents and high house prices. Naturally it's very rare to find high income earners in areas with very low rents and very low house prices. Why? Because if there's an area with such low prices that high earners want to live in, the real estate prices will begin a dramatic climb to reflect the growing demand and the growing pool of available money that wants to buy into the area. In other words, soon it's a high COL area. High income, low COL is at best a very temporary imbalance in the market.
TBH they are indeed "professional class" - but that doesn't mean they're crazily wealthy. I mean, when they take a vacation to Maui it's more likely that they'll be in economy class also.
And you can find similar lifestyle in most "nicer" suburban county anyway - i.e. Collin County in DFW, Hamilton County in Indy, part of the collar counties in Chicagoland, etc.
One final note? It's funny that you look at BMW and Mercedes and think they're "nice" but then people buy F150s etc. for similar price and nobody bet an eye...
Yes, it's all about branding, regardless of pricing on different model types.
I think ownership of any European-produced car used to have a lot more cache, especially in white-collar circles, but they've become so commonplace now that I don't think they carry the same cache as they used to in the era of Tesla and a growing number of McLaren, Ferarri and Lambo owners.
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. I also never lived in Greater LA.
