Best balance of COL and QOL in your opinion Forum

[A&O]

LMAO....I guess you didn't do enough research to know that I was URM when you made the assertion that I was "trolling for schools I couldn't get into". Nice "cover". By the way, how the hell the fact that I don't have grades yet is relevant to this discussion at hand is beyond me. I suspect you brought it up because you were starting to say some pretty dumb stuff and wanted to find a way to make some ad hominems to make it appear that you knew what you were talking about.

O U SO MAD!

[FlanAl]

QOL in California can be fantastic but the COL is stupid. Unless you are making 160 and your spouse or whatever brings in a big chunk of change you are not going to be able to truly take advantage of the QOL. A house in a neighborhood by the coast with decent schools will cost you at least a mil. and if you're going to be in california you're going to want to be by the coast.

I'd like to think that the coastal south has a good balance but having never been there i'm probably wrong.

thats all I can do to be helpful because California is all I know, SD specifically. I'm very interested in this topic as well and I hope this thread can get back on track.

[notanumber]

This thread, in summary form:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

[Renzo]

And frankly you've said on numerous occasions exactly that-- that locations other than NYC and SF (if even SF) suck. You then proceed to "prove" why they suck by saying stuff about the rest of the country, especially the South and Texas being "Hick" filled etc.

I will send you $100 if you can find a post where I have said anything even close to this (I don't count my gripes about Texas being conservative-that's not derogatory, nor is it untrue). I have never cast aspersions like "hick-filled." I have, however, made the exact same point that I'm making here: high COL is objective evidence that on average people find a place more desirable--that's why they bid up the COL.

I've also said there are places I'd never live--both urban and rural. I hate the weather in the south, otherwise I'd love Atlanta. Same goes for Chicago. And I really hate DC, LA, and SF. Again, this is the second point I made in this thread--that QOL is completely individual and subjective, so there's no such thing as a city with an objectively "high QOL," there are only cities that are more or less desirable on average, and the way you measure that is COL.

[BruceWayne]

QOL in California can be fantastic but the COL is stupid. Unless you are making 160 and your spouse or whatever brings in a big chunk of change you are not going to be able to truly take advantage of the QOL. A house in a neighborhood by the coast with decent schools will cost you at least a mil. and if you're going to be in california you're going to want to be by the coast.

I'd like to think that the coastal south has a good balance but having never been there i'm probably wrong.

thats all I can do to be helpful because California is all I know, SD specifically. I'm very interested in this topic as well and I hope this thread can get back on track.

Thank you! That's the reason why I recommended the cities I did to the OP. I'd argue that California may actually have a higher QOL than NYC--obviously that's subjective.

You're so right. Who cares if Cali and NYC have such QOL when you can't afford to take advantage of it because of the stupid COL. Your argument about housing applies to NYC as well. The thing that makes NYC so attractive to a lot of people is Manhattan--that's the part that people think of when they think of NYC's high QOL. But on the entry level biglaw salary you really won't be able to take advantage of that if you don't have a spouse. Nobody dreams of working 60 hour work weeks in NYC to live in New Jersey or Brooklyn. Be real--- we all know that the people on here dreaming of the NYC biglaw lifestyle are dreaming of living in Manhattan.

[lwaring1]

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[BruceWayne]

"Quality of Life" doesn't mean "where you get the most bang for your buck." That's "Cost of Living."

Texas and Atlanta might have lower costs of living, but you'd have to live in Texas or Atlanta. Gross.

Chicago has a legitimate argument.

And the Texas salary scales are not the same. Though they usually start at $160k, the raise-structure is more condensed than NYC. Atlanta, I believe, now typically starts at $160k.

You have a reading comp problem. The title says" in your opinion". And frankly you sound like a 20 year old yuppie if you think living in Atlanta is "gross".

You also seem to be pretty ignorant about what you speak; Texas has several firms on the NYC scale. In addition, Atlanta has pretty few firms on that scale. HTH

There is a basic, fundamental truth that this question ignores. Cities with high costs of living don't arise randomly--they are desirable places to live, and so people bid up costs to live there, making them expensive. Cities with low costs of living aren't as desirable, or else people would move there and drive up costs.

This doesn't mean that NYC or LA or SF is always better for every person's tastes; price (COL in this case) just represents an average, and any one person might much prefer to live in a "less desirable" place. So the only way to answer this question is based on a subjective assessment of what things you value

You're saying this like it's fact--it's not. To help cement how off this is, the cities that you are bashing and saying have low cost of living because they aren't "desirable"--and are "proving" your point by stating that people aren't moving-- there is dead wrong. The NYC metro area has only grown 4 percent in recent years, SF has grown a little less than 5 percent. The cities that you bash have had huge increases in population--much higher than SF and NYC. Dallas and Houston have both grown by nearly 25 percent--that's why Texas is gaining 4 seats in the senate. The Atlanta metro area has grown by a whopping 28 percent in recent years. Georgia's gaining 1 new seat in the senate-NY is losing a seat.

Desirability is not the only reason an area has a high COL; one of the main reasons why NYC, DC, SF etc. have such high COL is because of the high number of jobs that pay large salaries that are located in these areas. It's disingeonous at best to make it seem like the low COL cities are that way simply because they "suck" etc.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_U ... ical_Areas

BruceWayne and Renzo, are you all seriously posting on TLS about how states are gaining and losing Senate seats? Looks like a bit of a US politics fail to me...

Last time I checked each state gets two Senate seats (50X2=100) regardless of population, and each state's number of Representatives is dependent on population.

Good catch; It hit me a second ago that I mixed the two up. That's clearly not the point either of us was focusing on though. COL vs. QOL being indicative of one another was the main disagreement.

[motiontodismiss]

Best CoL: Texas
Best QoL: New York
Best balance: Chitown.

[lwaring1]

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[Jessep]

An interesting article that sheds some light on the debate re: cost of living and quality of life.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/ ... ion-shift/

To summarize: high cost of living does not come about purely because of demand - much of it relates to building regulations and the elasticity of housing supply.

[concurrent fork]

Chicago

[Knottsingham]

No question that Chicago has the best COL/QOL balance for me. It's too bad that the market is in the tank and the field I am interested in has no presence there.

If you are looking for a cheaper version of NYC but a fun city try DC, San Francisco, and Boston. All have a large population of young professions, good culture and active nightlife without the insane prices of New York City.

DC and San Francsico both have very high COL. You would get a middling two bedroom condo in DC for the price of that great house in TX posted above.

Agreed -- COL is about the same in NY, DC, and SF.

Texas is probably your best bet. Chicago is also a good deal, except it is extremely competitive to get biglaw there.

[20160810]

This is so subjective, and depends on the individual. Personally, I wouldn't leave CA and chose the Bay Area for the IP market. In addition, not everyone wants a big house-some of us actually prefer to live in a high rise/other condo. For these preferences, SF is ideal, but it is not ideal for everyone.

This is an awesome point. Having to maintain a big house and yard is a hassle. Give me a nice condo in downtown SF 10 times out of 10.

[09042014]

This is so subjective, and depends on the individual. Personally, I wouldn't leave CA and chose the Bay Area for the IP market. In addition, not everyone wants a big house-some of us actually prefer to live in a high rise/other condo. For these preferences, SF is ideal, but it is not ideal for everyone.

This is an awesome point. Having to maintain a big house and yard is a hassle. Give me a nice condo in downtown SF 10 times out of 10.

How much does a nice condo in downtown SF cost?

[A&O]

I'd rather have a house in Pac Heights, and the prices are 10x more reasonable than the NY stuff I see.

And you get a amazing view.

[Renzo]

An interesting article that sheds some light on the debate re: cost of living and quality of life.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/ ... ion-shift/

To summarize: high cost of living does not come about purely because of demand - much of it relates to building regulations and the elasticity of housing supply.

That article is the silliest thing I have read. If there were no land use restrictions at all in Manhattan or Boston, it would still be insanely expensive to build. Land scarcity is the primary problem, not regulation. If the author had confined the argument to geography that wasn't already overbuilt, then it would have some merit. But he doesn't, so it doesn't.

[20160810]

I'd rather have a house in Pac Heights, and the prices are 10x more reasonable than the NY stuff I see.

And you get a amazing view.

From what I can tell, real estate in SF is less than NYC, about on par with DC, and more expensive than everywhere else. Still, it's awesome. And +1 to PH. There are some great places in North Beach too.

Edit: I meant to quote DF's post too. Too lazy.