According to the scholar Richard Florida, "the great urban revival is 'over.'" Americans are leaving "luxury" cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Joel Kotkin writes at New Geography: Since 2010, urban inner rings, including central business districts, accounted for barely 10 percent of population growth in the nation’s 53 largest metropolitan areas. More revealing still, the country’s three largest metropolitan areas — New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—are now losing population. Since 2012, suburbs and exurbs, which have seven times as many people as the core, are again growing … [Read more...]
Looking for a Better America
You Can Find a Better America in the South
Many Americans are Looking for a Better America in the South. Old stereotypes heap derision on the South, but as my father-in-law, Dick Young explains: At The American Conservative, Casey Chalk defends the South from the, unfortunately, frequent, unoriginal, and incorrect attacks against the region. He writes (abridged): In polite company among the technocratic elite, it’s acceptable to ridicule the South, Southern culture, and Southern politics. The Left has skewered Southern states for.” Historian and foreign policy commentator Robert Kagan in a July opinion piece for The Washington … [Read more...]
You Probably Know Exactly Why People Want to Abandon Big Cities
You probably know exactly why people want to abandon the big cities of America. They look at rural states and towns with low taxes and low cost of living, and they see the freedom they expect America to provide. But in the big cities of America, when the government tries to solve problems of high rents and lack of housing, it actually makes them worse. The Wall Street Journal's editors explain how big-city governments are actually hurting their residents with overregulation of the housing market, writing: In a December 2019 working paper, Harvard and University of Pennsylvania researchers … [Read more...]
Sunbelt States Finding Solutions for a Swarm of Tax Refugees
The biggest problems in low tax southern states are ones high tax states wish they had, too much growth. Low tax states have become so desirable for movers and retirees that they are now looking for places to put all the people seeking an escape from the city where they can live small, cheap and safe in America. In The Wall Street Journal, Valerie Bauerlein profiles one town dealing with a mass influx of newcomers who are looking for a better America. She writes of Lake Wylie, South Carolina: Since 2000, Lake Wylie has tripled in population to 12,000 on the strength of its good schools, … [Read more...]
Escape the City: Live Small, Cheap, and Safe in America
After decades of urbanization, Americans are beginning to rebel against the "bigger is better" mentality of city-living. Seeking a smaller, more affordable, sustainable, and secure lifestyle, some are venturing out from the mega-cities in search of a different life. A number of techniques have become popular in an effort to save, especially scaling down the size of one's home. Living small and saving big is even better when it's coupled with living in a state that treats you more like a human than an ATM machine it can withdraw money from. Carey L. Biron explains this trend at Thompson … [Read more...]
Don’t Let Your Retirement Dream Community Become a Nightmare
When it comes to your living situation in retirement, there are developments (literally) that may turn your idyllic retirement community into an “anywhere in the USA” suburb. As liberal states like California, crush the middle-class, neighboring states such as Idaho, and towns west of Boise like Star, pick up the slack, explains Dan Frosch in the WSJ: Over the past nine years, Star’s population has doubled to more than 10,000. Most of the growth has come from people like the Turnipseeds who uprooted from the West Coast to the greater Boise area—known as the Treasure Valley—drawn by the … [Read more...]
How to Find the Best Place to Retire
If you are like many soon-to-be-retirees in America, you're looking forward to getting away from your cold, northern, probably-high-tax state and settling down in retirement in a southern locale with low taxes and warm winters. But, how can you know where you'll like it best in your Golden Years? I encourage you to do some A/B testing. Live short-term or spend a vacation in some of the places you'd potentially move to during retirement. Without actually staying there for a month or more, it can be hard to judge whether or not you'll be happy. There's another way to get a feel for new … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: What States Did Americans Flee in 2018? Where Did They Go?
Every year the United Van Lines moving study sheds some light on which states are watching citizens leave, and which are receiving them. Last year, like many years, saw Americans fleeing the high tax states of New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut, the top four states for outbound traffic. After leaving those high tax states, Americans are heading for places they can retire with low taxes, or get a job. The top five states for inbound traffic were Vermont, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona. The map below from United Van Lines details Americans' movements in 2018. I've … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: How to Discover Your Small Town
With the foliage about to change colors, Fall is the best time to visit the small towns of New England. Read this post I wrote on September 23, 2016 about how to discover your small town. You're about to read the second installment of my brand new series, Your Retirement Life. We are in this together, trying to live a more prosperous, fulfilling life. It ain’t easy. But we can learn from one another. I’d like to hear your story. I hope you like this one. When I was a kid we used to go camping. Not in a fancy RV but, like the good ‘ole days, in a tent. My favorite place to go with my … [Read more...]
Ranching in Wyoming, Slow Money, and Finding the Key to Your Success
You know, there’s nothing wrong with making money slowly. With all the hype surrounding bitcoin and making money fast, there’s virtue in making it over time—you appreciate what you have when you finally get it. Respect for money was an important lesson I learned, of all places, as an intern at a start-up company while at Babson College. One morning in the conference room the founder told me, “Always remember, most investors don’t respect money. They don’t appreciate the hard-work it takes to earn it. They’re looking for a quick buck. We’re trying to create something. We’re builders. We … [Read more...]