New Yorkers want to move to Boston

Though it really says more about Redfin's user base than anything else, I'd say that, from my anecdotal experience, it's directionally right.

I wonder if it's also based on including the broader metro areas - for example, does Westchester to Wellesley count?
 
I should point out that for the longest time Redfin did not support Manhattan. Seems like that changed only in the last year but if you used Redfin in the past to search there you might not have known about it.
 
I don't believe it. After you've lived in NYC it's hard to move anywhere smaller. Even my old roommate who moved to LA told me pretty much everyone out there is from NY anyway!
 
The Census Bureau tracks this in a more comprehensive way (but with a data lag).

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2015/demo/geographic-mobility/metro-to-metro-migration.html

Based on my reading of the table from 2011-2015, an average of 10,560 people moved from Boston to NYC, while 14,779 moved the other way.

It would be interesting to see more about the types of people moving: student vs non-student, foreign vs native born, people coming from Manhattan vs the suburbs, etc.
 
I find the redfin article hard to believe, unless you are a Bostonian in NYC that wants to move home or there is an amazing job opportunity in tech / medical / biotech-pharma / academia.

People who move to NYC want the global mega-city (LA, NYC, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc.) experience. Of the friends I have here in NYC that have left, LA and London are the top destinations.
 
i think of LA as a supersized Houston w/ wealth-drenched villas high up on eroding hills, miles of ugly concrete beaches, film industry surf-side swank (beyond Pacific Palisades) and a few miles of nice coast. With a city like New York you can see it's absurd proportions from billions of angles. Not so with LA. You can barely perceive it's vast sprawl from anyplace.... and when you can see a good part of it, such as the 360 degree loop over the water after takeoff, it's rarely through a clear lens. i guess the glitzy + fanciful vastness of the nicer parts + Hollywood + the great weather is the lure that more than makes up for lacking a prodigious dense core like those possessed by New York, London and Paris.

LA punches so far below its weight in the full, urban experience. Boston punches above well above a huge metro like LA or Houston–because there is so much usable "urban life" so close, accessible and walk-able..... where in LA, so few people are accessing it at all – or at any 1 time. But, in Boston people are experiencing so much, so much of the time.

This makes Boston's urban experience far more familiar and recognizable to a New Yorker. And it's only a relatively short train ride away.

*While rarely giving Boston its due credit, the City-Data folks expound on this crap all day long. i'd have a hard time setting "what the urban experience is" down in words so with your promise never to ask....
 
odurandina said:
i think of LA as a supersized Houston w/ wealth-drenched villas high up on eroding hills, miles of ugly concrete beaches, film industry surf-side swank (beyond Pacific Palisades) and a few miles of nice coast. With a city like New York you can see it's absurd proportions from billions of angles. Not so with LA. You can barely perceive it's vast sprawl from anyplace.... and when you can see a good part of it, such as the 360 degree loop over the water after takeoff, it's rarely through a clear lens. i guess the glitzy + fanciful vastness of the nicer parts + Hollywood + the great weather is the lure that more than makes up for lacking a prodigious dense core like those possessed by New York, London and Paris.

LA punches so far below its weight in the full, urban experience. Boston punches above well above a huge metro like LA or Houston–because there is so much usable "urban life" so close, accessible and walk-able..... where in LA, so few people are accessing it at all – or at any 1 time. But, in Boston people are experiencing so much, so much of the time.

This makes Boston's urban experience far more familiar and recognizable to a New Yorker. And it's only a relatively short train ride away.

*While rarely giving Boston its due credit, the City-Data folks expound on this crap all day long. i'd have a hard time setting "what the urban experience is" down in words so with your promise never to ask....
Click to expand...

At a high level, Boston is basically a smaller version of NYC. It has a very similar climate, similar geography and similar demographics (though less ethnically diverse than NYC). So if someone wanted to move out of NYC, why would they ever choose Boston? It would be like saying "I'm sick of Spanish food, let's go for some Portuguese instead" - doesn't really make sense.

Los Angeles on the other hand presents a totally different lifestyle from the North East: good weather, nice beaches, mountains, Mexican food, etc. If I'm someone who's sick of NYC and wants to move, LA presents a much different lifestyle than Boston which is more of the same.

There are also plenty of urban neighborhoods in LA so I don't agree that LA "punches below its weight" in that sense. Sure, there's terrible suburban areas in LA like The Valley but Boston has its fair share of soulless suburbs as well. The core areas of LA are vibrant and full of people walking around.
 
FenwayResident said:
At a high level, Boston is basically a smaller version of NYC. It has a very similar climate, similar geography and similar demographics (though less ethnically diverse than NYC). So if someone wanted to move out of NYC, why would they ever choose Boston? It would be like saying "I'm sick of Spanish food, let's go for some Portuguese instead" - doesn't really make sense.
Click to expand...

I could argue the exact opposite - the similarities between Boston and New York make Boston an easy "second choice" if things aren't working out for one in New York. That is exactly how I ended up here. I still like New York better Boston, hands down, but this is where I got a job and now its where I call home. I can tell you I never considered LA or Houston or Atlanta for a second. The less like New York, the less likely I was to consider a city. I don't think I even considered a city beyond New York, Boston, and Washington - in that order of preference.

The Meds and Eds industries alone can account for a couple thousand New Yorkers relocating to Boston every year, not to mention biotech, software, finance, and countless other industries we share with New York. Boston's economy is going gangbusters and people much more often choose where to live based on their job than anything else.
 
FenwayResident said:
So if someone wanted to move out of NYC, why would they ever choose Boston? It would be like saying "I'm sick of Spanish food, let's go for some Portuguese instead" - doesn't really make sense.
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Because they got a job in Boston, obviously.
 
jklo said:
Because they got a job in Boston, obviously.
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Of course. I was talking about people who are choosing to move to a city of their own volition. I know a lot of people don't have that luxury and have to go where the jobs are.
 
odurandina said:
LA punches so far below its weight in the full, urban experience. Boston punches above well above a huge metro like LA or Houston–because there is so much usable "urban life" so close, accessible and walk-able..... where in LA, so few people are accessing it at all – or at any 1 time. But, in Boston people are experiencing so much, so much of the time.
Click to expand...

For all of LA's sun-drenched dazzle and noir-ish history--"Chinatown," "LA Confidential," all that wonderful seamy atmosphere, this point cannot be overemphasized. LA's embrace of freeways is soul-sucking. They take up so much space, they dominate the landscape so tyrannically, they make you feel so insignificant when you're driving on them, given their immensity and volume.

Walkable LA? You're talking parts of Westwood, Santa Monica/Venice Beach, Pasadena, Koreatown, historic downtown core. The rest is auto dystopia.
 
Nobody and i mean nobody slow-walks, fast-walks, or for that matter, uses Griffith Park (either). Try getting there from anywhere after 2:45pm (hahaha). Mostly, the only people i see using it are a few recreational tennis and baseball doers, and immigrants having their extended family picnics.

tbc..... *I'm at Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon, up the road from Sundance. Gotta do my walk before the sun gets too strong.

**We got an incredible view of Mercury after sunset last night.
 
DBM said:
For all of LA's sun-drenched dazzle and noir-ish history--"Chinatown," "LA Confidential," all that wonderful seamy atmosphere, this point cannot be overemphasized. LA's embrace of freeways is soul-sucking. They take up so much space, they dominate the landscape so tyrannically, they make you feel so insignificant when you're driving on them, given their immensity and volume.

Walkable LA? You're talking parts of Westwood, Santa Monica/Venice Beach, Pasadena, Koreatown, historic downtown core. The rest is auto dystopia.
Click to expand...

Koreatown alone is bigger than downtown Boston. You're also forgetting quite a few neighborhoods - West Hollywood, Los Feliz, Arts District, Silverlake, Mid-Wilshire, Echo Park just to name a few off the top of my head.

The main problem with LA is that the urban parts of neighborhoods aren't well connected via public transit. However it's entirely possible to have an urban lifestyle within many neighborhoods where you can walk to local shops and bars and restaurants. Also on that note, LA passed Measure M in 2016 which will drastically expand the metro over the coming years.

Of course LA isn't nearly as dense or walkable as cities like NYC or Boston and I'm not trying to make that argument - but the notion that it's just some car-centric suburban hellscape simply isn't true.
 
FenwayResident said:
Koreatown alone is bigger than downtown Boston. You're also forgetting quite a few neighborhoods - West Hollywood, Los Feliz, Arts District, Silverlake, Mid-Wilshire, Echo Park just to name a few off the top of my head.

The main problem with LA is that the urban parts of neighborhoods aren't well connected via public transit. However it's entirely possible to have an urban lifestyle within many neighborhoods where you can walk to local shops and bars and restaurants. Also on that note, LA passed Measure M in 2016 which will drastically expand the metro over the coming years.

Of course LA isn't nearly as dense or walkable as cities like NYC or Boston and I'm not trying to make that argument - but the notion that it's just some car-centric suburban hellscape simply isn't true.
Click to expand...


All good points. Again, I'll just reiterate: the freeway system in metro LA--which I take to mean the area between Tejon Pass on the northwest (I-5), Cajon Pass to the northeast (I-15/I-215 junction), Dana Point to the southeast, and Santa Monica at the far west--takes up a colossal amount of space and we're extraordinarily lucky in comparison that so much of our landscape wasn't devoured by such an alienating, anti-human infrastructure.

Also, remember: "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" was entirely real in its allusion to the Great LA Trolleycar Dismantlement Scandal of ca. 1938-1960:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/25/story-cities-los-angeles-great-american-streetcar-scandal
 
I read this article and it reminded me of this thread. If you scroll to near the end, they compare pairs of metro areas that are close to each other and it shows the (according to their methodology) you stand to make about 15% more in Metro Boston than in Metro New York, adjusted for cost of living. There is always some glaring flaw in these adjustment schemes and it clearly does not really apply to high income jobs, but still it is at least an indicator of why people would be relocating from New York to Boston.
 
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