Well areas like Hoboken are pretty expensive but I was talking about living somewhere like Wayne or Morristown when I said NJ.

What I'm saying is that a major benefit of the more expensive city could be access to higher paying jobs, which is a major factor in higher housing costs there. You might be indifferent between a 50k job in City A and a 60k job in City B, which is otherwise identical to City A but equivalent housing costs 10k more per annum. "Cost of living" is in that case a legitimate gripe to people from City A who want to claim you're "richer" with your 60k income.

Higher paying jobs... with which you can buy less!

Yep and cost of living evidently has no impact on a family's economic status, with the exception of the actual world where people need to pay for things.

Once again, the cost of living doesn't go up because of magic. And yeah, a family in an apartment in Manhattan has substantially higher status than a family in a house in eastern KY. Mind blowing, I know.

also, the vast majority of the country does not live in the NYC metro

I don't feel sorry for people who choose (yes choose) to live in very expensive areas because they like the city. That's an expense, and easily construed as a luxury.

I disagree, many people simply live in a city because that's where they were born, they have family ties there, etc. Relocating and trying to find a new job in a less expensive place is not a risk-free proposition.

I don't think your average NYC sanitation worker chooses NY over Florida because he loves collecting garbage in 20 degree weather during the winter. He was prob. born there, that's where his family is, and that's where his job is.

People, even the very poor, can move to new places that offer better opportunity, even back when transportation was more expensive.

That brings up a rather interesting point.

Income mobility is much higher in certain areas of the US (NYC, LA, SF for examples) than others (Atlanta for example).

But for reasons unknown, geographic mobility is lowest with groups (specifically black to be frank, but the phenomenon is observed with poor whites too) that have the most incentive to move to where the jobs and opportunities are.

In fact, there is a strong correlation between income and willingness to relocate. There is also strong correlation between inter-generational mobility and geography (both mobility and where you're born).

What do you mean? The largest migration in American history was blacks to northern cities in the early 20th century. And in the last few decades, the reverse. Just Google "great migration."

I'm talking about post CRA era.

Blacks are much less geographically mobile (even less than poor non-white Hispanics) than pretty much everyone else, even first gen immigrants.

This is a small, but measurable, contributor to why blacks are more entrenched in poverty than pretty much every other group (non-white Hispanics included).

Unknown reasons? Are you really surprised that poor folks aren't Oregon trailing it out of NYC?

They should be trailing TO NYC.

And I did say even when controlled for income differentials.

And I made that post specifically because someone else pointed out even the poor can move relatively cheaply nowadays.

If only the government would build Japanese style hi-speed rail so one could live in the country and commute to the city.

I think you're sort of ignoring that there are huge costs and risks involved in uprooting from one locale to another that are exacerbated for poor people. A college educated person will have contacts in many cities, the ability to receive job offers before moving, and usually some level of monetary cushion/family support/job alternatives to fall back on if things don't work out.

Some random midwestern waiter usually can't apply for similar jobs in nyc before arriving, is less likely to have contacts in the city, will probably even struggle to find a place to stay, and will face much greater competition in the job market. The risk of failure and the consequences of that failure are perilously high.

There are also more (anti?) pull factors keeping them in their current towns, with higher teen pregnancy rates probably the biggest.

Also, as a consequence of the higher barriers, immigrant populations tend to be smarter, more ambitious, and ultimately more successful than both the populations they are leaving and those they are arriving in, an effect that scales with distance traveled.

Also, do you have a cite for the racial difference? I just did a quick check on the census bureau website, and got a white nonmover (I included moving within the same county) percentage for people up to 150% of poverty at .6% lower than blacks. For hs grads and below, black nonmover was .5% lower.

I would have actually expected to see the effect you stated, due to housing and job discrimination, but it doesn't seem to exist.

Yes they can do it, but that doesn't mean they will. Lots of factors including how bad it is where they currently are, whether there is already a community of similar people where they are going, etc. Also some people are more risk-averse than others and may choose what they know over the unknown someplace else, even with the tradeoff of a potentially lower lifestyle.

My point is that many people who live in high-cost areas are there because they were born there, not because they chose it for all the amenities. And I don't see basic housing as a luxury item in NYC or SF as opposed to a necessity in Kentucky, just because one place is considered more desirable and is therefore more expensive. It doesn't matter when the mortgage/rent bill comes due.

Something like this.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...94119098920812

There are a lot more papers like this floating around. It's small (as I said first time) but detectable effect.

There is also a bit of research (where I first found this) on intergenerational income mobility that had to control for geographic mobility and they found there is some (statistically significant but small) negative correlation between race (after adjusting for income and the zip code one was born in).

Again, it's small. But it's one of many things about the data on African Americans that stand out. Is it because we've segregated by zip code so heavily that they truly have no successful role models to look at and/or the perceived value of education is lower in African American communities?

LOL. Who is looking for pity. I love NYC, but I am not choosing to absorb the cost of living solely (or even mostly) for that reason. The reality is that I probably would make 50-60% less if I moved to Pittsburgh. (That's not true for everyone but it's true for me.)

I concede that I arguably am opting to absorb the increased cost of living in NYC v. the suburbs of NYC. I tend to think of that trade off partly in terms of how much someone would have to pay me to add 2+ hours of train time to my work schedule, but if you want to call that delta a luxury expense, that's fine.

Suggesting poorer immigrants should just pack up and leave NYC to head to cheaper areas is ridiculous. What kind of racism and discrimination do you guys think they will have to deal with in those areas?

Also, I think the correct play for a middle class family in NYC who maybe cannot afford Horace Mann or wherever but have super smart kids is to just send them to Stuy or Bronx Science or Brooklyn Tech or whatever. Those schools do a damn good job for public schools.

I guess the argument is that people can choose to live where they want based on their personal preferences, and therefore a family that makes $120k in NYC is no different in terms of economic status than a family that makes $120k in Kentucky. In essence the proximity to NYC is the luxury good that they are buying, rather than the McMansion, fancy car, private school, etc. that the Kentucky family might buy.

I don't agree with that argument because there are many people who live in expensive cities for lots of other reasons besides the attractions of the city itself. A Pakistani-born dishwasher in NY might live there simply because his parents settled there, he was raised most of his childhood there, and has no financial means to move. Or maybe there is a large community of immigrants from his country already there, and he doesn't want to be the only Pakistani in Kentucky.

I don't think we should pity him for living in a costly area - but treating his crappy apartment as a luxury simply because he could theoretically move to the midwest, and live better on his dishwasher's salary, is not correct. And regardless of the reasons for staying, his overall financial situation is still lower because he is spending a much higher percentage of his income on the basic necessities of food and housing.

Moving across the country, esp. for a poorish guy who lives in small apartment, is a proposition that costs in the neighborhood of a few thousand bucks, an amount that can be recouped in a couple of months living in a less expensive area and which is tax deductible, even if you don't itemize. A Pakistani neighborhood that this guy likes living in is precisely the kind of unique offering that NYC has that people pay a huge premium for. The fact that there's no Little Pakistan in Dubuque, IA is why living in NYC is more akin to beachfront property than a tremendous tax. Our Pakistani guy has chosen to enrich him self by having his favorite neighbors instead of a larger living space and more discretionary income.

Rofl just remember an hour long one way commute is a luxury! Basically like living on the beach IMO

Literally sharing a room with another grown man? LIVING THE DREAM