moving advice Houston or Chicago? (Howe: condos, job market, buy)

[brucerby]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Also, the unemployment thing here is a little more complex than looking at unemployment numbers from the BLS. There are actually many professional jobs open here if you look at a job site right now. The problem with it is there are a number of people in Chicago who are not skilled enough to have those jobs. So you have a group of people who cannot work, and if they can't find other "less professional" jobs, then they stay unemployed.. There is unemployment everywhere, but IMO it's a little more complex than a single percentage.

QWI Online [NAICS]

I'd agree unemployment isn't measured well anyway. However, I'd argue unemployment rate is greater than published data, due to large numbers of 'discouraged workers'. The mismatch of skills, as you point out, is also a problem everywhere. And yes, big cities do better overall, but the performance between them can vary a lot.

So, after each recession most big cities like Chicago bounce back economically, and job-wise. BUT, they usually don't return to their old peak levels, and the floor for unemployment gets higher each time.

It's great you are being pursued by head hunters so often, but that may be substantially due to whatever industry you're in, and your own unique credentials, I'll assume.

I know many lawyers with excellent work history, well-trained, who once laid off, have had no luck finding similar employment in Chicago. One just took a staff legal job in Atlanta. Engineers as well, find less opportunity in Chicago than ever.

"Thousands of jobs" is too vague to consider. Some advertising venues for jobs are filled with "false jobs" and if added to the supposed jobs total, produce deceptive totals.

Chicago is never likely to get any more Fortune 500 headquarters. In fact, some giants headquartered here are likely to fail (Sears)...or move (United Air). It's not an attractive place for a well-capitalized start-ups and it's weather will always be a disadvantage to many, imo. Btw, I doubt we see 75% sunny days in summer, maybe 50%, if we're lucky.

My larger point was where the trends are headed.

There is no doubt, a migration from cities like Chicago to cities like Houston Dallas, Austin etc. is occurring. That seems irreversible.

If I were young and ambitious, I'd like to be where they are going TO, not where they are leaving FROM. I will note Chicago has way better pizza.

[Chicago3rd]

Originally Posted by brucerby

The big downside to Chicago imo, is the relentlessly depressing gray skys through much of the year. Sunshine is not a common occurrence. As I write this we've had 3 days in a row of beautiful clear sunny skies! Unreal! and not to be missed, because it's so rare.

Some facts....they are great to use when discussing topics:

Cloudiness - Mean Number of Days
Chicago (CL)84 (PC)105 (CD)176
Houston (CL)90 (PC)114 (CD)161

NOT that much difference.

[55degrees]

Originally Posted by Chicago3rd

Some facts....they are great to use when discussing topics:

Cloudiness - Mean Number of Days
Chicago (CL)84 (PC)105 (CD)176
Houston (CL)90 (PC)114 (CD)161

NOT that much difference.

As someone who's from Chicago and now lives in Houston, I surprised by those numbers. Houston absolutely feels much sunnier. I'm used to the amount of sun in Chicago, so the sun here is quite oppressive to me. The OP would likely find Chicago's skies to be different from what he's used to.

[Johnhw2]

Originally Posted by marothisu

It might depend on what industry you're in. There are thousands and thousands of jobs available in Chicago right now, and the same for many other large metro areas in the US. Anybody who just looks at an unemployment percentage and goes off of that doesn't know enough about economics to be contributing in a discussion about employment. There's more to employment than just # unemployed / total workforce size.

I get contacted CONSTANTLY by companies trying to lure me away, in Chicago, to their company. My coworkers do too. Even my coworkers and friends who have gotten laid off have found professional jobs in the city usually within a week of getting word they have to go. To be honest too, whenever i meet anybody out, very rarely have they been unemployed. This metro area, especially the city is not as cut and dry with unemployment as you would think. In other metro areas, I have friends in similar situations as me and my coworkers.

I wouldn't paint such a dire picture for professional jobs. It's just not true. Tons of companies are hiring all over the US in major metro areas. Hell, I even got my current job a month after our country's economy went down the tubes, and nobody was fired to make room for me. Funny thing? I remember going to training with 200 other people who were hired around the same time as me when the economy was bad.

Bottom line is that if you live in an area with a strong industry in what you're doing and you are qualified to do the job, you shouldn't have immense trouble finding a job. A lot of the people you hear complaining about this are ones in metro areas of under 150,000 with no major industry, and if they do have "established" industry, it's because of one or two major companies existing there.

I didnt mention unemployment or workforce size, I mentioned how many jobs have been added since end of 2007. Houston has added jobs since then no other major city has in the US. I agree with you about the industry but to assume Houston is only about Oil and Gas shows a big misunderstanding of Houston. Headhunters are always going to try to pick off the top people for another company or the company may do it themselves. The good people are going to be employed of course. So I am not surprised you and your associates get called about jobs all the time.. congrats it says you are good and well respected in your field.

If I was looking to move to an area, one adding jobs is more promising than one where the top people in a field are getting jobs and playing musical chairs. You and your friends can all move from job to job and if there is no net new employment, its harder for someone looking from another city to break in.

[savanite]

ChIcago has more restaurants, clubs, and cultural facilities than Houston. Of course it also has more supermarkets and gas stations.

This doesn't matter, however. Houston has more restaurants, clubs and cultural facilities than someone could reasonably consume.

Let me provide an analogy. Imagine you're staggering across a desert, and you're very thirsty. A genie pops up out of a magic lamp and offers to sell you 1000 bottles of water for $10. Or, he'll make it 1500 bottles for $15. Is an extra 500 bottles worth the extra $5? Probably not. So you take the 100 bottles, on the theory that the value of each additional bottle declines. After you drink the first bottle, you're not so thirsty as before, and after the second bottle, you're even less thirsty.

Now, instead of water bottles, consider restaurants. Assume Houston has 1,000 restaurants, and Chicago has 1,500. You can only eat so much food in a day, so three restaurants within a 24 hour period would be your limit. It would take you almost a year to try every Houston restaurant just once. Under those conditions, you have no real benefit from any more restaurants. So the greater supply in Chicago has no real advantage to you.

[savanite]

Chicago does have a dense, walk able inner city with extensive public transportation, and shops and restaurants within walking distance. Houston, by and large, does not, at least not on the scale of Chicago.

Is this complimentary for Chicago?

Let's consider why the ultra wealthy own and use limousines.

Chicago's inner city is very unfriendly for driving. Trying to get around by car is a world of hurt by frustration. This forces the area to be more pedestrian friendly and mass transit friendly merely so the location can physically function. But is this an advantage, or does it merely lessen the disadvantage of not being able to drive?

Ok, assume that a pedestrian friendly neighborhood is a source of fun. Then, the ultra wealthy would certainly want to enjoy it. They would gladly abandon their limos, hop on a train or a bus, and walk the last 5 blocks to their destination.

Fine. Now assume the pedestrian friendly neighborhood sucks, is a hassle, just not as much of a pain as if it were pedestrian unfriendly. Then, everybody that could afford it would take their limo, a cab, or pay $50 or whatever else it costs to park their car.

I'll let you, the reader, decide which is the most likely scenario.

The point is that auto oriented Houston is closer to what people want than pedestrian oriented Chicago.

[MIBS98]

Very poetic. Total rubbish, but poetic.

[savanite]

Actually, my restaurant analogy in the previous post is too conservative. Houston does not have just 1,000 restaurants, it has an infinite number of restaurants.

How do I figure that?

Assume once again that you are spending your trust fund money on eating out 3 times a day. Now consider that a major metro such as Houston is constantly opening new restaurants, replacing the ones that have closed, and adding new ones to keep up with population growth.

Under those conditions, you will never run out of new restaurants to try. Houston will have added new restaurants (or new replacements for old restaurants) faster than you can eat your way through them. Since you can never finish trying out new Houston restaurants, the supply is, for all practical purposes, infinite.

[savanite]

Originally Posted by MIBS98

Very poetic. Total rubbish, but poetic.

That's what you say when you can't think of what to say.

Or perhaps I miss the point? Is "total rubbish, but poetic" a reference to chicago's inner city?

I recall my Carl Sandburg poem about Chicago... "hog butcher to the world".

[savanite]

To describe, or identify, the nature of Chicago and Houston, let's consider science fiction.

Actually a sub genre of science fiction called "Steampunk".

The Steampunk genre is all about 19th century technology, or a sci if version of it... Computers and airplanes powered by steam, and working with technology that was at least remotely possible in the late 19th century.

Chicago is a typical Steampunk city. It's inner city is a 19th century relic, a throwback to a period when the mass of the population had few transportation choices, mostly foot, a horse or a horse drawn carriage, if lucky. No telephones, and telegraph only went from town to town, so data communication was face to face. In that era, everything has to be close together.

Chicago today does have the modern bells and whistles, but at its heart is still the 19th century city, with the gross inconveniences that jamming people into close proximity guarantees.

And what about Houston? It's the 21st century version, built to the convenience of people much wealthier, living with more space and energy than the Chicago proletariat of the 1880s left us with.