USA ERE Locations

[jacob]

We have no problem being massive statistical outliers, we are pretty deep in ERE as a philosophy / strategic approach to life design, but somehow we wouldn’t be able to smell trouble and leave a good place turning bad before “the masses”?

Some of the doctrines are also "autobiography" (like the endless diet and investment debates). For example, Ego seems to be very tactical and mobile and actually deliberately mixes things up from time to time in order to stay tactical. I'm very strategic and settled. Gone are the days when I was living out of a suitcase. Reestablishing longbed gardens and moving a workshop and the general pace I incorporate and integrate new things into my systems is something that takes years. Since my systems improve with tenure, it is better to be in the right place already. Cue discussions about antifragility.

With COVID, there were two ERE strategies. The "nomads" were able to pack up and leave. The "homesteaders" just stayed and coasted through. These options depend a lot on preparation and/or privilege.

That must be part of the strategy in case SHTF and the entire world becomes a refugee place

Currently that number is <1%. Expect it to increase about 8% over the next 50 years. In terms of locations, I'd simply prefer to be in a location that people are going to rather than one they're coming from and it's fairly easy to predict where these locations are.

[chenda]

Its been said that cultures which developed in tropical or sub tropical climates plan less for the future than those in cooler climates. A lot of Thai-western marriages for example note this. The suggestion is that as food is abundant throughout the year in the tropics, forward planning is less needed. In contrast cooler climates needed to stockpile food for the harsh winter months and plan ahead. Now climate change might inverse this imperative.

[Ego]

I'd simply prefer to be in a location that people are going to rather than one they're coming from and it's fairly easy to predict where these locations are.

I can see myself believing that I could predict the general area, maybe. But predicting the exact place? This far out?

Known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns would need to play out more before I would feel comfortable picking the exact location to establish my longbeg gardens and by then it would be too late.

Who am I kidding.... I'm never going to establish longbed gardens.

[M]

I can further confirm this in urban NorCal. I would move to a town where I could get an apartment for about $1100 a month. Somewhere in Sonoma county, maybe? You can move to towns where there are no real jobs, and get a small apartment... You won't be able to buy here since the homes tend to be for people who are the traditional definition of early retired -- rich, big, and ostentatious. Your bills will be less than $50 a month (if you choose to use no heating, I can guarantee an apartment with electric-only everything costs far less than $30 a month), the weather is always good for cycling, and you may still be eligible for rent control. Food is not the cheapest in California, but I lived in New York for a year and was astounded at how much more I spent.

That rent does not get you in the 1 JAFI zone, but you could split a 2-br, house hack, or do a work-rent agreement with a landlord. Because this is a tourist destination, I believe there's high opportunity for part-time work to cover the housing costs.

This is definitely what I would do if I was looking for a quiet, luxurious life to retire to. Whenever I'd need urban life back, it's a hop skip and a jump to San Francisco.

If $1,100 per month is for cheapest apartment with no jobs around, I hate to know what you mean by high food costs.

I live in the midwest. Where I live cheapest apartment is still $395 /month for 300 square feet. You can buy 600 square foot livable house for 30k. If a gallon of milk is over 2 dollars that is 'expensive milk' to me. You can pay $1,000 and park your used 5k camper at a campground all year with free water and electric (you have to pay for electric usage though).

Of course - we freeze ever winter. Every winter I think, you know, I would rather be in California.

[sky]

What's the purpose of making posts like this if you're not telling us where you live?
That's the #1 thing people want to know.

80 miles northeast of Chicago

[ffj]

If you are wanting to geo-arbitrage a location in the U.S. then I would recommend that you buy some land or a domicile sooner rather than waiting for your life to catch up to the point where you want to establish permanent roots. The land will be there in twenty years and paid for at a reasonable price waiting on your arrival. I see no reason why anything would become cheaper or more available in the future unless the location is a dead-zone.

If you and a few million other people have the same idea at the same time then good luck even finding something available, much less reasonably priced.

[tdurtsch]

Are there any CityNerd fans here? I really enjoyed this video about undervalued US cities. Particularly the point he makes around 9:20 about just how much cheaper some of these cities are compared to HCOL metros... Cleveland average home value is around $107k vs LA which is around $930k, a difference of over $800k!

Affordable Cities: 10 US Metro Areas With Underrated Livability, Walkability and Transit

[theanimal]

DW and I both really like Alaska. She would prefer the coast, I would prefer the Arctic and at the moment we live in the middle. COL is very high if you want to live a standard US life. Utilities and heating are expensive and not widely available unless you are in Anchorage (the one city) or in southeast. Part of the reason why the population has declined within the state for the past 10 of 12 years. However, if you live more attuned to the land (think chop wood, carry water variety), COL is very low. @Riparian offers a very good example of the possibilities. Outside of Anchorage, land is not very expensive. The culture at large (with the exception of Anchorage) is much higher on the WL spectrum than normal and as such while we still live differently than many of our neighbors or friends, it is only a level or 2 removed rather than 3 or 4.

Electricity sources vary depending on location. There is no central grid for the state and we are not connected to Canada or anyone else. Some towns around the coast run completely on wind and solar. There are many off grid homes within the state that do the same for the bulk of their power (including our household). Otherwise many of the smaller communities and villages have microgrids that usually consist of diesel generators. There are some communities that have steam engines and use steam to power/heat the school and other buildings. Our town runs on coal sourced from a mine about 80 miles away. Water is abundant, but not always of high quality depending on where you are, due to mining and poor waste removal/lack thereof.

There are some other detractors like mosquitoes, wildfires, permafrost, darkness and extreme cold which keep large scale infrastructure and development minimal and the masses away. All of the top 10 warmest years for the state have occurred within the past couple decades, but that still means at least a few days of -40 F below in winter and climate change doesn't change anything about the abundant darkness. There are also very few rules. Within reason, you can do pretty much whatever you want.

[white belt]

Are there any CityNerd fans here? I really enjoyed this video about undervalued US cities. Particularly the point he makes around 9:20 about just how much cheaper some of these cities are compared to HCOL metros... Cleveland average home value is around $107k vs LA which is around $930k, a difference of over $800k!

Affordable Cities: 10 US Metro Areas With Underrated Livability, Walkability and Transit

I watched the video. I agree that Philadelphia is one of the best kept secrets in the country. It has the amenities of similar large metros like Chicago, New York, and D.C. but with better weather and way more affordability. Also, you are an hour from skiing in the mountains and an hour from ocean beaches. I lived in the area for many years and that's where I plan to return to when I retire.

I used to be really into consuming content about city planning, public transit, etc. However, as I learned more about the actual environmental impact of living in a dense city and taking public transit, I lost some enthusiasm for the "rah rah density" crowd. I'm all for walkability, bikability, and living car free, but just as an example, light rail and bus are both horribly inefficient when you factor in BTU per passenger mile. I also think density is not always a "more is better" sort of thing and we shouldn't be striving for Singapore or Manhattan levels of density. I think there is definitely a sweet spot, which is why I'm a fan of streetcar suburbs. Retrosuburbia is a phenomenal book about how to retrofit areas for a lower energy intensity future and there have been a few threads on the topic if you want to learn more about that route.

Edit: Not to go on too much of a rant, but the push for electric buses is absurd. We figured out how to move masses of people efficiently over a century ago using trolleys/streetcars with no batteries required. We then proceeded to pave over and rip out the infrastructure, although much of the rail is still there because it's cheaper to leave it than to take it out. But the bigger question to ask is, why do we need to move so many people at once to one central downtown location at the same time? Maybe a better model would be something akin to the network of dense town centers surrounded by open outdoor areas/farms that we see in places that have been densely populated for many years like Europe or Japan. I digress.

[chenda]

But the bigger question to ask is, why do we need to move so many people at once to one central downtown location at the same time?

I believe there is an economic phenomena, whose name now escapes me, which suggests that large metropolitan areas like Manhattan create an economic synergistic effect. So having Madison Avenue a few blocks from Wall Street creates an economic benefit greater than the sum of their individual benefits. This model may be becoming outdated with remote working, digitalisation etc. But yes, I do agree. Any town or city where its >15 minute walk to all amenities has a problem.

[zbigi]

Edit: Not to go on too much of a rant, but the push for electric buses is absurd. We figured out how to move masses of people efficiently over a century ago using trolleys/streetcars with no batteries required.

Hah, the trolleys are one of my pet peeves. I live in a city with lots of trolleys and there are plans to build more tracks - the pro-trolley people are definitely winning here. All I see from trolleys though, are mostly massive drawbacks, compared to electric busses (or trolley-busses, if you worry about cost and env. impact of batteries):
1. It's literally technology which predates tires. So, when rolling, it's steel on steel, with the only attenuating factor being the suspention. When the track are new, it's not a problem and rides are smooth, but when tracks are old and crooked, the ride starts to resemble something out of a theme park.
2. Another consequence of not using tires is the noise level. When the tram comes, you can hear the rumbling from far away. Also, on turns, there can be the high-pitch squeal that's particularly nasty. This is not a technology that should be used in dense cities - particularly in streets that are just dense canyons of buildings, as the noise really amplifies there. Compared to trolleys, electric buses at typical speeds are practically silent.
3. The failures. For a longer ride, you can't really trust the tram that much, because it takes just one tram to fail to block entire line in one directions. So, the odds of a tram being late are many multiples the odds of a bus being late. And, it doesn't take that much for a failure to happen - for example, in my city, a couple times per month, someone parks their car in a way that it obstructs the track - and all the trams wait for the car to be towed, while busses pass them without a care in the world.
4. The cost. Building and maintaing tracks isn't free. In areas where the trams go on regular streets (as opposed to a designated trackage), none of that speding would be required if we just used electric buses instead.
5. Separate stops. If a given street is serviced by both buses and trams, in practice their stops can rarely be located in the same place. This creates a situation when you have to "bet" on either the bus or the tram coming in first, selecting the stop based on your prediction, and then vigiliantly watching if the other stop didn't win out in the end. If it does, a lot of people run from the one stop to the other one in a dangerous manner. This is all complete nonsense that wouldn't exist if we got rid of the trams.

[white belt]

@Zbigi

Yeah, there are downsides for sure. Like you said, a trolleybus might be a better solution in a lot of cases. I'm a big fan of retrofitting what we already have whenever possible, rather than pulling more materials out from the ground to make a brand new solution. In Philadelphia, there are 8 trolley lines that are still operational over 33 miles of tracks, with 106 additional miles of unused tracks that are still on the road (mostly they just serve to injure cyclists), often with overhead wires that are still intact. The city has a large fleet of diesel buses, which are as noisy as the trolleys due to loud engines and screeching brakes. They drive around with only a handful of passengers for the entire time outside of peak hours. The city is now trying to dump a ton of money into a new fleet of electric buses, but as far as I can tell they can't seem to get usable range out of the expensive batteries when testing prototypes.

I'm not a transit planning expert, but my understanding is that design is critically important for getting functional transit systems. The reason everyone likes streetcar suburbs in the USA is because the neighborhoods were designed intelligently at a time when everyone didn't have their own personal automobile.

[sky]

Bicycles are the answer.

[chenda]

The reason everyone likes streetcar suburbs in the USA is because the neighborhoods were designed intelligently at a time when everyone didn't have their own personal automobile.

White belt could you tell me some good examples of these? I'd like to explore them on Google Street view.

[white belt]

White belt could you tell me some good examples of these? I'd like to explore them on Google Street view.

Here's a video that goes in depth on the design pattern. It shows an example town in Canada, but the overall concept is the same in US streetcar suburbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0

Wikipedia lists streetcar suburbs that are in large US metro areas (note that in many cases the streetcar suburbs are now within city limits): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb

[Ego]

I am old enough to remember the old SEPTA electric trolley buses that used the overhead lines but had tires. Best of both worlds?

[white belt]

I am old enough to remember the old SEPTA electric trolley buses that used the overhead lines but had tires. Best of both worlds?

In an unfortunate move, SEPTA discontinued most of those many years ago in favor of diesel buses but still retained many of the old-style (loud) track trolleys. Trolley buses only operate on 3 routes nowadays. And now they want to replace diesel buses with electric buses that require giant batteries because "green". Unfortunately, the $1 million a pop electric buses have a cracking problem: https://whyy.org/articles/septas-cracki ... c-transit/

Edit: A google search revealed that SEPTA actually purchased new trolley buses as recently as 2006! So maybe they will actually see a resurgence? I wouldn't be surprised if there is bureaucratic red tape that categorizes battery-powered electric buses as eligible for green funding while trolleybuses are not eligible.

[chenda]

@white belt Thanks for the links.

I'm actually familiar with Somerville Boston as there's a unique circular house there, which I've been monitoring for years as it was delapidated (I have a thing for round houses) I'm pleased to say it appears to have been restored.

[zbigi]

Edit: A google search revealed that SEPTA actually commissioned new trolley buses as recently as 2006! So maybe they will actually see a resurgence? I wouldn't be surprised if there is bureaucratic red tape that categorizes battery-powered electric buses as eligible for green funding while trolleybuses are not eligible.

Modern trolley buses have batteries as well, just with much lesser capacity. This allows them to reach streets that don't have the overhead wires, and the battery starts recharging immediately when the trolleybus gets back onto a street with the wires (hence, much lesser capacity is needed) - Polish cities that have trolley buses use this pattern a lot.

[white belt]

It seems the ones in Philadelphia use a 4.5L diesel generator that can act as emergency power. For the transit nerds out there, here is the model (except the buses do have AC): https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/New_Fly ... ies_E40LFR