US: The Geography of Good Jobs

[rcjordan]

 job growth continues to be concentrated in a small number of high-performing metros.

http://www.citylab.com/work/2016/09/where-the-good-jobs-are/498323/

[Mackin USA]

The top ten metros for job growth are a mix of knowledge-based and service-based metros.

Note that the North East is......... well FUCKED UP

[ergophobe]

The top ten metros for job growth are a mix of knowledge-based and service-based metros.

Note that the North East is......... well f###ed UP

Why do you say that? Compared to Bay Area (similar to NE) or Florida (massive growth of low-wage jobs, with no growth in high-wage jobs)?

One thing not included here is population change, which is an important factor.

[buckworks]

Another factor not mentioned is the cost of living in different areas.

[ergophobe]

Another factor not mentioned is the cost of living in different areas.

That's why I think the Bay Area is actually worse off than the Northeast. Outside of NYC and possibly Boston, the NE isn't insanely expensive like California. And even in New York, the train to Poughkeepsie is 1:50 min according to Google. Depending on when you go, BART out to Pleasanton is a bit shorter or a bit longer.

Meanwhile, a 3-4 bedroom house in Pleasanton is $1m to 1.4m (first listings on Zillow). A 3-4 bedroom house in Poughkeepsie is $130,000 to $280,000

Oh, and a million dollars in Pleasanton (which, by the way, is a thousand degrees in the summer and not all that pleasant) gets you this weirdo house:
http://www.zillow.com/community/driftsong-at-wallis-ranch/2098675629_zpid/?3col=true

[Mackin USA]

ya do have a point, ergophobe 

[Drastic]

Interesting related thread on reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/519i1p/in_the_long_run_is_worldwide_incomewealth/

[ergophobe]

ya do have a point, ergophobe 

If you throw enough spaghetti against the wall, eventually some of it sticks ;-)

My personal knowledge of the NE is rather outdated, because I haven't lived in Vermont full-time since 1988, so I haven't held a job there in three decades.

But "life" in Vermont always felt more sustainable than in California. I see Vermont in 2100 as being much like it is now - not the land of plenty, but regular people can make a living. I see CA in 2100 as just completely screwed barring massive, concerted and expensive action starting right now.

I was just talking to a friend yesterday about how long to hang onto CA real estate and when to sell before things go into freefall. He has a rental property in Fresno, which has got to fall off the edge in another couple of decades.

[Mackin USA]

My boys live in So Calif and I sent them this PIC today

Symbol for Brown's California:

[littleman]

I think California is complicated.  There is definitely two California, the coast and inland -- probably a grey area too, which would be places that are about 1-2 hours from the coast, like Pleasanton.  The thing about the California coast is that everyone wants to live here, the weather is probably the best in the country, it is a mild and warm Mediterranean climates with low humidity.  If you go inland it gets to feel like hell in the Summer.  The Central Valley offers nothing for residence other than the close proximity to the place that everyone wants to live in.

[ergophobe]

That's true. Maybe four Californias... but which ones will survive. I see water as a major problem unless CA starts making huge investments in desalination.

The Central Valley agriculture is just screwed. You can't desalinate your way out of that and the supermarket demand for prickly pear cactus is not going to solve that one.

The coast is saveable if people start xeriscaping and desalinating, charging a lot more for water. And then there's the simple problem of million dollar homes on supermarket checkout or even teacher/cop salaries. You have the people who provide the infrastructure commuting from farther and farther for diminishing returns and sooner or later that hits a breaking point if the costs and income disparities aren't addressed.

In VT, at my dad's church, they have people who clean houses and do in-home care who are squeaking by but surviving and at least one person who built a $12,000,000 *second* home. I just don't see people like that living within an hour of each other in CA unless the house cleaner is living in her car.

[littleman]

Yeah, you are right.  I guess I just don't see it imploding as much as coming back into balance eventually.  As the population has grown I've seen most of the people I grew up with leave.

[ergophobe]

I just don't see it imploding as much as coming back into balance eventually

I hope you're right and I think right now, all futures are on the table from utopic to catastrophic.

We can have a great future it people get real on pressing issues like
- water shortages
- housing costs
- income disparity
- govt debt
- personal debt
- effects of climate disruption (a sort of ecological debt, actually)
- effects of automation/AI

I think we have a few more years to get serious about these, but we do not have another twenty years to dilly dally around. If we do that, it will be too late. So I feel a sense of urgency lately that has me both energized and worried.

My apologies if I'm being a downer.

I'm reading a book about denialism and cognitive dissonance now, but I've only made it through the setup part where he talks about why humans are so bad at putting long-term interests in front of short-term interests, so that has me in a pessimistic mood.

One real measure of how short-term the memory and thinking of Americans is -- SUV sales are back up and we are on track to break the all-time gas consumption record. People just are not paying attention and that's why I fear collapse. In the area I live in, a typical issue would be fire danger. People have their biggest asset surrounded by fuel and can't be convinced to clear their brush. I just can't understand it... but it's an insight into human nature.

I am just about to start the "solutions" section of the book which, I hope will give me back a bit more optimism.

Again, sorry if I'm coming off negative. Lots of reading and thinking lately on a cluster of issues related to the above bullet points and it is just rattling around my head a lot.

[buckworks]

Name of book, please?

[ergophobe]

What we think about when we try not to think about global warming, but Per Stoknes

https://www.amazon.com/What-Think-About-Global-Warming/dp/1603585834

He's a psychologist and the question he's addressing is why, in the face of overwhelming evidence and dire predictions do some people still not believe that climate disruption is happening and the *majority* of people believe it is not a pressing threat to the point of being willing to take action. Even people with kids whose planet is going to be fucked if we blow through the 3.5-degree threshold as we almost certainly will if we don't get more serious.

He looks at it from the perspectives of evolutionary psychology, social psychology and cognitive psychology and essentially says that humans are built to be able to ignore all kinds of long-term threats and that the messaging that has been given to this point (charts and graphs and data and doom and gloom) are precisely the kinds of approaches that will never work in cases like this.

As I say, I haven't gotten to the parts outlining the approaches that do work. I hope those parts will give me reason to hope.

As a taste of what the first 90 pages cover, you can think of smoking which has followed a similar trajectory. Strong science, followed by concerted efforts to sew doubt by Big Tobacco (who famously said "Our product is doubt"), and even when those doubts can't be sustained, people look to Aunt Margie who smoked and grew old (equivalent to people who see one cold winter in their locale) or they think "well, I eat right" (reduces dissonance, equivalent to "but I recycle") or they say "I don't smoke as much as Jim" (= "I don't drive as much as Jim") or they say "I'm young. By the time I'm old enough to get cancer, they'll have a cure" ("scientists will figure out carbon sequestration") etc.

Many other strategies that people use when confronted with long-term, predictable risks which tend to scare them way less than the very unlikely risk of being attacked by a shark while swimming.

And when I say "people" I mean me. In fact, that is one "issue" with the book - it does hold a mirror up and I'm not all that pleased with what I see. At least a couple of the "equivalents" in the smoking example completely apply to me.

There's a ton swimming around in my head from recent reading. Bummed that you are cancelling on Vegas Bucky. Would have loved to have sat down over dinner at the Wynn again and (possibly) expressed this all more coherently... or at least have you take my wife on another shopping expedition (damn... and now my second thought is "what's the climate impact of shopping, of trips to Vegas, etc etc).