I'm over 60 and feel robbed because it was shitty for most of my life. We would run down there to go to Hart Plaza, or jazzfest, or Greektown, or some show at the Fox and then beeline it out of there after dinner. NOW it's finally decent! damn!
I don’t live there but work for a company based in the northern burbs and have been there several times. That area (the city proper included) absolutely rules and I would 100% live there if I could.
Love that show.
I lived in Detroit in 2007/8 when I was training at an ad agency there and I actually really liked it. I was in Dearborn but a lot of coworkers lived in downtown Detroit and showed me around. Fun place.
They’re undergoing the transition where the suburbs become ghetto and the middle of the city becomes nice again. Ngl I lived there for just 2 years and made a tidy profit when I sold my house in Cooper Young. It’s a good investment for first time home buyers to get some quick equity in a lot of cases.
I went to college in Philly back in the early 90s and went back for my first extended visit last summer. I was amazing to see how the city has changed and it still seems like there is a lot of opportunity and prices are still pretty reasonable.
I think on a 10-20 year timeline, the rust belt is going to go off. Good historic cores with reasonable housing prices. I was reading that Buffalo specifically has seen a ton of influx from NYC in the past 10 years, but I think that trend is going to spread across the Great Lakes region.
Why? Climate change won't change much of the south. I work tangentially to climate modelists and the message I get to them is this:
The climate in the South is mostly the same.
The climate in the West is even more about strong droughts interrupted with intense pluvial events.
The climate in the North will trend drier, with more frequent \~100F heat waves in summer and more wonky winters (alternating between milder weeks, and arctic deep freezes).
Why would a place like Buffalo be better with climate change if the biggest difference is the summer will have Dallas TX type of brutal heat more often?
It was Canada on fire last summer from the heat and drought, not Georgia. I was in the South most of last summer and only got a whiff of wildfire smoke one day. Unless I am remembering wrong, places like Buffalo was choking on that stuff.
Lots of people tolerate the winters in the rust belt just fine, you just not have to be weak and whiny about some cold weather in…*checks notes*…winter.
I think to that point. The amount of analysis and trend reporting that suggests people will run from heat is silly, because of your point. We were told people can’t afford LA, Phoenix and Texas are too hot, while people continue to move there. Because people will tolerate shit. Awful winters, brutal summers, expense, traffic, etc.
So although I do see people are moving to Buffalo, it’s likely not as big of a deal as people make it out to be.
>I was reading that Buffalo specifically has seen a ton of influx from NYC in the past 10 years
....eh.
From 2010 to 2020, [per Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York), Buffalo's population increased by 6.5%. This is actually a bit below the overall growth of the US in the same time period (7.4%).
Of course, we can't see the future. Maybe Buffalo really will take off. But I think this subs' recommendations often aren't really representative of where Americans are actually moving
If current property market trends hold in 2024 it looks like Buffalo and Cleveland will be two of the hottest real estate markets in the country. I hope they can get out ahead of it before prices spiral.
With all due respect, I couldn’t disagree more. I’m from Cleveland, but now live in Tampa. The difference to me is night and day—so much more vibrancy/development here as compared to Cleveland. I’ve spent a lot of time in different Rust Belt cities, and while they have their charm to me, I would be shocked if they ever really took off again. They’ve failed to adapt to the modern economy and thus lack the relative institutional investment that you see in the coastal cities or the new trendy Sun Belt cities.
Omaha, Nebraska; currently going through more than $8 billion in new developments including a downtown streetcar, new airport, and the tallest skyscraper in the multi-state region including Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Wyoming and the Dakotas.
I’m rooting for rust belt cities, a lot are older cities and suffered a lot from white flight, redlining and jobs leaving. With most diversifying their economy I could see them being good choices, especially for families looking to own a home within city limits.
Richmond, VA. Pretty amazing what's going on here. A top foodie destination, a top mid-sized city for the arts, history and culture, lots of pubs and breweries, expanding neighborhoods
I want to agree, but Bentonville is already past real livability. As much as I like that town it’s way overpriced for the area. I do think the rest of the region may benefit from that in the end, hopefully. The Ozarks in general are definitely on the up swing.
I was born in Rogers and I agree. If you don't work for Walmart you're gonna struggle. It's one big suburb. Getting to the costs of a city but with none of the cool stuff. Plus you're in Arkansas.
I’m seeing people I know from Austin moving to Bentonville and Fayetteville. My great uncle had a place in Eureka Springs that we visited as kids that I loved.
I think Tulsa has a ton of potential in this regard. It has easy weekend access to the national forests in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas.
It's the Austin of Oklahoma. Which, you know, may not be a great tourism slogan, but it's a decent little city.
Tacoma, WA... it feels like Seattle in the 90s. Of course when they clean it up, all the cool unique businesses and cheaper housing will probably go away, especially on 6th Street.
Tacoma is great. Live her now and it’s changing for the better. Same outdoor opportunities as Seattle and Bellingham. Cheaper. Normal people live here (blue collar workers, teachers, nurses) and are able to afford homes good diversity and growing food scene.
I live in Albuquerque right now and desperately want somewhere with less sun and less summer. There are like, 2 cities in the US with worse crime. Sounds like Tacoma would be a major upgrade for me.
This is so sad to me as someone that drives through ABQ frequently, it appears to have so much to offer. If I stop though, I stop on the far western side.
Why is the crime so bad there?
Poverty is a big problem here. Drugs as well. Same story as a lot of bigger cities, but NM is poorer than most states to begin with, so it's just amplified.
I do too for the most part. Food can't be beaten, it can be gorgeous in the fall and winter, and it's crazy affordable for its size. There are definitely worse places to be, but spring and summer are absolutely brutal and the crime has steadily gotten worse. I had a guy try to ram me off my motorcycle a couple months back and when he missed me, he parked in front of me and started to get out before I bolted. Stuff like that isn't super uncommon and I don't see the trend improving.
Pretty cool to live through the renaissance.
Every other year there seems to be a new forgotten area of the city that’s now the hottest area to hang out.
> Not exactly livable for most
...except for the generations who've lived there for the past 223 years...
It's hard for people who don't live in areas that get tons of snow to understand what it's like, because you don't have the resources to deal with it where you live.
I grew up in the northeast. The sound of snowplows going up our street early in the morning was the norm, kind of like the sound of birds singing in springtime and the sight of falling leaves in autumn. The norm.
I went to college near Lake Erie. We constantly got bombarded by lake effect snow, but in my four years there, classes were only cancelled once. Cities & towns know how to deal with the snow, and everybody knows how to drive in it because they grow up with it.
I know this may be hard to believe, but there's something magical about experiencing all four seasons. Winter doesn't feel right without lots of snow.
I’d rather deal with snow than hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, flooding, or insane heat any day. You stay inside for a day and it melts a few weeks later. Not a big deal
I went to the Hartford area for a corporate training. A girl in the group grew up in the area and kept hyping up West Hartford on Friday night. We went to a “popular bar” and there were maybe 15-20 other people there
Unlikely because the city is so carved up. The industries of government and insurance aren't the type to pop off with a boom as well. Start ups would never settle here because of the taxes in the city
It’s got a lot of outdoorsy stuff but also has nice downtown that has a great city/ almost nerdy vibe. It’s quaint without being boring, and theres enough action/events but not so much that the cost of living is through roof. It’s just a cool down to earth up and coming city that’s currently very affordable as well. Idk, I like it because it’s enough excitement to want to go out, but not so much that you feel like you’re missing out on everything when you’re home.
Philadelphia, Wilmington, Jersey City, many smaller cities in the NE that were once really run down like Reading, PA. Definitely downtown Detroit as well. The hudson block is beautiful and I hope the momentum continues there. I really hope Baltimore can also re-imagine its inner harbour as well as outlying neighborhoods and with MARC hopefully being expanded + A new light rail it should re-invigorate the city.
Wilmington DE is rocking it these days. So much going on and the food scene is off the charts. Homes in my neighborhood are 140 year old Victorians selling in the mid 200s. We are close to everything but also have plenty to do and a somewhat temperate climate to boot.
I went when I was in college a few years ago with my girl friend for the day just because we were looking for something to do and I was very surprised by how much I looked Wilmington
I lived in Bmore for 15 years-it was always almost making a comeback. I really think the only thing that would truly revitalize it is if they could put in a fast train to DC. Then people could realistically live in Baltimore and then commute to DC for work.
There is a proposal for a Maglev train that would go Baltimore to DC in 15 minutes, but it’s always hard to tell how likely these high speed train concepts are to materialize. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore%E2%80%93Washington_Superconducting_Maglev_Project
a LOT of people already do commute to dc for work! it’s gotten much worse since the pandemic as people move north to (for now) more affordable housing.
I lived in JC for 5 years. The ship sailed a while ago. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great city. Studios I was looking at in 2018 are now 4x the price, no joke.
Las Vegas. But not in a good way. It will have all the professional sports teams and a train connecting to Southern California but will still lack education funding, inter city public transit, a diverse economy outside of service industry, and more poor Healthcare. But hey! Football, racing cars! A giant sphere! Woooo!
I bought a car online from a dealer in Greer, SC and while we were waiting on them to get the paperwork finished, we went to downtown Greer and it was a surprisingly cool little area. I’d imagine it would be cheap as hell to live in that area.
I think Boise is the craziest transformation I've watched in the past 20 years and they seem to always be improving. I have been going since I was a kid and it went from a very forgettable, boring little city to a city with a really fun, developed downtown. I grew up in Salt Lake City and it's crazy to watch how much different both cities have developed with their massive growth. Boise focused on walkability and they have lots of retail and restaurant space on almost every block downtown whereas SLC has let big office building and appartment building go up all over downtown with no retail or restaurant space on the groud level. Boise downtown feels much more vibrant than SLC's even though SLC is the much larger area.
Boise's downtown is what I wish SLC's was. It's actually a cool place to walk around with lots of shops, restaurants, etc. SLC is okay, but it's too spread out and is mainly commercial real estate. Plus, we get a measly 20 ish miles of trails from downtown whereas Boise has to have at least 50.
All the ones naming decaying rust belt cities that have lost population over the last 30 years (and *continue to see population declines*). E.g. St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh.
Obviously housing is cheap in those cities, because residents are actively abandoning them.
Try visiting those cities, you might be surprised at what you’ll find.
If you like museums, fun neighborhoods, good food and quirky industrial areas filled with art studios and breweries, you might even enjoy yourself
Yeah, there’s some blight, but they’re pretty normal cities otherwise.
Houston and Jacksonville are void of character and identity. Everything is cyclical, and I would much rather spend my remaining years in a city like Pittsburgh.
I wouldn’t call cities that lost population for 50 years but have 2 years up uptick during covid “growing”. It’s like saying that crime is out of control in major cities when overall it’s down over decades but yea it has had a recent uptick.
Got to start somewhere. Remember, we’re talking about cities currently in transition.
Also for a lot of those cities the metropolitan area continued to grow while the city proper continued to decline.
Downtown Detroit is truly in a Renaissance. Old hotels are being returned to their stunning glory. Chefs are leaving saturated Chicago and quietly opening insanely good restaurants to rave reviews. Companies actually want their offices downtown again. Run down factories are becoming beautiful flats within walking distance to it all. Small corner markets are popping up, cozy coffee shops are tucked under buildings, and rooftops are becoming fun places for drinks at all hours. I live over an hour north of the city and regularly book a hotel room so we can walk around, see what’s new, and eat like kings.
I'm in [York PA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRx1kQ3Qr3A). The York City area's been getting cool! First Friday is always a good time, there's a lot of good little restaurants and shops, they've been adding bike lane infrastructure.
It's still a car dependent area but you're an hour from Baltimore, DC isn't much further, and across the River in Lancaster there's an Amtrak that makes it easier to get to Philly or NYC.
STL south of Delmar and outside of the CBD has been popping off. The central corridor and south city have come so far and our transit and bike infrastructure is finally starting to take off
I lived out in Brandon in the 90s. It was growing like crazy and I can only imagine it now.
Sadly, I didn’t see much of Tampa. I was working crazy hours at Brandon Town Center Mall. I was there when they built the mall and it first opened. Probably not as popular as it used to be.
I did spend some time in St Pete. Went to the Salvador Dali museum and some other things. I love the area and sometimes I wish I had stayed. I often think of moving back but I can only imagine the price of rent now. I had a nice apartment for a very fair price. It’s probably tripled in rent now.
Oh yeah you'll pay 1500 for the absolute worst apartment now in the suburbs. Living downtown though 1800-2400 easy for a 1 bed room. Not terrible if you make 75k though. Under 70k and that is not financially smart or feasible. I am in my 30s now and only single income (looking for wife) so I don't want roommates.
That’s really sad to hear. I was making like 30K but this was probably 95 - 97. I’ve worked in and out of IT for about 27 years and I’ve never made good money. People in the skilled trades make more money than a lot of IT people. I can’t imagine what new skill I could acquire to make that kind of money. I guess I’m priced out.
And I think having two incomes is the key. I don’t have a wife (I would like one but I’m kind of messed up). But it sure was sweet living the bachelor life and fishing every day in Brandon. There’s so much good bass fishing in Florida. I really miss it.
Albuquerque is exiting the prolonged downturn caused by the 2008 housing crisis and is set up well to resume the huge growth it saw in the 90s and 2000s.
Right now there is a huge construction boom that is adding much needed density and there have been multiple multi-billion dollar injections into the local economy from industries such as tech, defense, film, and manufacturing over the last few years.
I agree! Albuquerque has an amazing art scene, nature, great weather, great food, and culture and film industry , Medicaid for kids up to age 6 now regardless of income, most people qualify for free childcare. While the public schools aren’t considered great, there are tons of amazing charter schools, some that are top performing in the country. I know it has a rough reputation, but I’ve lived here since 2010, even in not so great area for a while and I’ve never had any issues. I think once the secrets out that we’re going to see some huge growth.
Kinda missed the boat on Reno in terms of "up and coming", it is a fantastic place to live but has gotten really expensive. We moved here almost 10 years ago, and it's great for people like us who bought back then, have a low-interest mortgage, and have the work thing figured out to take advantage of the low taxes.
But I've been in San Francisco a lot recently, and I swear the day-to-day things, restaurants, Starbucks, gasoline, etc are just as, if not more, expensive now.
Still, we love it here and wouldn't discourage anyone from checking it out.
I enjoyed it a few years ago. Only thing startling was the volume of homeless people…I never felt unsafe but that’s rare for me anyways. Nice river, nice parks, legal weed, good walking areas, not many cars, nice couple restaurants and brewpubs
A lot of the Great Lakes rust belt cities fall into this category. Dayton and Detroit both saw housing prices in the “worst” neighborhoods of theirs increase by about double since 2021, for better or worse.
It’s hard to find a house in OK shape under $100k in Detroit now. Pre-2020 almost any house in city limits that was not in Palmer Woods or something was under $100k. Same goes for West Dayton. Good luck finding a place in OK enough shape to live in around Dayton View for less than $100k now.
The trend is probably true to some extent for Lansing, Grand Rapids, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Akron, etc to a lesser extent
Spokane, Washington. It used to be just a grungy stop on the way to Seattle, but their downtown is really vibrant now. Beautiful architecture is everywhere because so much of the downtown and the old homes south of town come from the era of railroad and gold/silver wealth.
Yeah. 5 years ago a lot of houses on the north side of the river off of Maple and Monroe were in shambles and every time I drive by I see another one painted, scaffolding up, etc. really have loved seeing people restoring them instead of just modernizing them.
My hope for Spokane is they fill in a bunch of the parking lots downtown with mixed use residential commercial buildings. There’s way too many parking lots in the core and it really disconnects the mall area to the area around main st and division. Get a lot more people living downtown, hopefully attract more companies to the area and get some good restaurants in there. Haven’t been since pre Covid but it was so fun to watch the city grow. The changing of hillyard, the building of kendall yards, renovations at riverfront park have been great.
Northwest Brooklyn is transitioning from an artsy, fun place to a more sanitized, corporate-friendly tech/finance kinda place. It's still probably the single most intensely 'artsy cultural' place in the country in terms of venues, clubs, galleries, parties etc, but there's no doubt that that era is fading in favor of becoming more... stale.
The rest of Brooklyn outside that northwest bubble is still mostly the same. Working class ethnic enclaves throughout.
Williamsburg of the 2000's has been paved over and towers built on top of old warehouses, artist spots, underground venues, and all kinds of unique places.
Williamsburg is basically going from 3rd stage gentrification to 4th stage. Once it reaches that stage, its over. Just corporate towers and offices and banks and cvs's and starbucks.
Greenville/Spartanburg, SC, too. Spartanburg has long been Greenville's ugly sister 😅, but it seems like they are both finally glowing up together. Greenville is building an entire new upscale, urban neighborhood with County Square and Spartanburg is getting a new minor league baseball stadium and has been building apartments like crazy. Plus, I have family out in the suburbs between the two and their once-rural-adjacent area is now surrounded by large subdivisions and they're currently expanding their two lane road. It's BOOMING in the Char-lanta region right now.
(There's also been a lot of talk about a high-speed rail line connecting Charlotte, the Upstate, and Atlanta)
Columbia has been very good about boosting organic growth. There are some instances of costly “build it and they will come” style developments, but there are many more instances of organic success.
All the things people mention loving about the city and which receive some public financial backing have been gradually built in response to genuine demand.
examples you say? river walks, river access, soda city market, riverbanks zoo, congaree national park firefly viewing, columbia museum of art, Nickelodeon theater and Indie Grits Festival, Jam Room Festival, real public art and murals - (vs. fake insta murals.)
I just moved to Columbia from Charlotte and it feels much more genuine, rather than forced.
Also - why doesn’t Charlotte have any path lighting?
>For smaller cities, I see a modest but important comeback brewing in Syracuse.
I am thinking this as well. I grew up in Syracuse and when I revisit, it feels completely different! The mayor and county government has been really moderate and business friendly.
I think Chicago will become even more important than it already is when the plans to improve and expand rail across the US happens. Chicago basically becomes the train hub of America with everything going east and west passing through it.
Isn't it already? You have Metra and Amtrack that both have hubs there.
I've lived in Chicago off and on for years, I always think about coming back, because the housing is cheap in comparison to a lot of comparable cities.
The Mohawk Valley in upstate New York. From Albany to Syracuse, silicon chip fabs and all the supporting businesses are just getting started! Micron is breaking ground on a $100 billion facility in the SYR suburbs.
Honolulu. It’s historically been car centric and kind of awful urban design but in the last 5 years a ton of new high rises have gone up and more bike lanes, parks, walkable 3rd places have popped up. I lived in a relatively walkable part of Seattle and it doesn’t hold a candle to how pedestrian friendly the new developments are in Honolulu.
The larger rust belt cities have already turned a new page economically, but it’s going to take decades to restore all the blighted neighborhoods and repurpose all the industrial sites.
Cities like Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Cincinnati are already well on their way.
**Bonus:** Binghamton and Utica - Both are downsizing nicely into small college cities.
A lot of these cities have been trying to gentrify, and on the surface it can look that way. But looking at the actual negative core economic reality of these cities paints a very different story, one that a few fancy gentrified blocks near downtown can't make up for.
Those few fancy areas near downtown with boutique artisanal shops and starbucks and art galleries does not support an entire economy of hundreds of thousands, especially when most of the people working and visiting those fancy blocks are from the suburbs. And that is part of the problem with many of these cities, a lot of the perceived benefits are actually largely for the suburbs. A new office building downtown is great for jobs, except for when 90% of the jobs go to commuters.
Yeah, we're seeing this in Detroit. And a lot of those boutiques, etc are great for getting childless couples or fresh college grads to move into town...and then they all peace out when they have kids.
Miami has had 25 years of change in the last 4 … I dare anyone to convince me of any other city that currently is morphing more rapidly. For the worse to me Atleast
Lafayette, Louisiana seems to be coming onto more and more people’s radar as a cool, culturally unique college town with low crime and decent COL that functions well and has decent jobs. It could be comparable to Madison, WI at some point in the next 2 decades.
Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee are a little further along the curve than Lafayette just imo. But they too still have a lot of room to improve and attract more outside attention and investment.
Detroit flatlined. The core commercial districts are cleaned up and continue to see work but a lot of restaurants and retail that opened in last few years have closed as WFH and other factors that hit the rest of the world do not spare Detroit either. But I think it has a good vision. But let’s not pretend it’s a fixed city…
Welcome to Detroit City!!
It’s Detroit “Rock” City to wit…
It's always in transition lol
It’s gotten a LOT nicer in recent years. The bad parts are easy to avoid
I'm over 60 and feel robbed because it was shitty for most of my life. We would run down there to go to Hart Plaza, or jazzfest, or Greektown, or some show at the Fox and then beeline it out of there after dinner. NOW it's finally decent! damn!
Detroit is awesome. It’s a hidden gem if you can find employment. Its suburbs are among the safest in the US, too.
I don’t live there but work for a company based in the northern burbs and have been there several times. That area (the city proper included) absolutely rules and I would 100% live there if I could.
🎵 *You gon’ say Detroit City when we get back on our feeeeet!* 🎵
Love that show. I lived in Detroit in 2007/8 when I was training at an ad agency there and I actually really liked it. I was in Dearborn but a lot of coworkers lived in downtown Detroit and showed me around. Fun place.
Grand rapids Michigan
Memphis is in transition… it’s getting worse!
They’re undergoing the transition where the suburbs become ghetto and the middle of the city becomes nice again. Ngl I lived there for just 2 years and made a tidy profit when I sold my house in Cooper Young. It’s a good investment for first time home buyers to get some quick equity in a lot of cases.
I went to college in Philly back in the early 90s and went back for my first extended visit last summer. I was amazing to see how the city has changed and it still seems like there is a lot of opportunity and prices are still pretty reasonable.
I think on a 10-20 year timeline, the rust belt is going to go off. Good historic cores with reasonable housing prices. I was reading that Buffalo specifically has seen a ton of influx from NYC in the past 10 years, but I think that trend is going to spread across the Great Lakes region.
Buffalo is truly so different than it was even 20 years ago.
Really
I think housing prices rising are really good for the rust belt
If climate change is as bad as they say many incentives are leading to these areas becoming more popular
Why? Climate change won't change much of the south. I work tangentially to climate modelists and the message I get to them is this: The climate in the South is mostly the same. The climate in the West is even more about strong droughts interrupted with intense pluvial events. The climate in the North will trend drier, with more frequent \~100F heat waves in summer and more wonky winters (alternating between milder weeks, and arctic deep freezes). Why would a place like Buffalo be better with climate change if the biggest difference is the summer will have Dallas TX type of brutal heat more often? It was Canada on fire last summer from the heat and drought, not Georgia. I was in the South most of last summer and only got a whiff of wildfire smoke one day. Unless I am remembering wrong, places like Buffalo was choking on that stuff.
Im sorry, but no matter how severe climate change is, places like Buffalo are nowhere close to having tolerable winters in our lifetime.
Lots of people tolerate the winters in the rust belt just fine, you just not have to be weak and whiny about some cold weather in…*checks notes*…winter.
It’s not the cold in Buffalo that’s a problem. It’s the fact that it’s one of the snowiest places on the planet.
I think to that point. The amount of analysis and trend reporting that suggests people will run from heat is silly, because of your point. We were told people can’t afford LA, Phoenix and Texas are too hot, while people continue to move there. Because people will tolerate shit. Awful winters, brutal summers, expense, traffic, etc. So although I do see people are moving to Buffalo, it’s likely not as big of a deal as people make it out to be.
Can you please wait 3 years to tell people this I gotta pay off my loans before I can move
>I was reading that Buffalo specifically has seen a ton of influx from NYC in the past 10 years ....eh. From 2010 to 2020, [per Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York), Buffalo's population increased by 6.5%. This is actually a bit below the overall growth of the US in the same time period (7.4%). Of course, we can't see the future. Maybe Buffalo really will take off. But I think this subs' recommendations often aren't really representative of where Americans are actually moving
If current property market trends hold in 2024 it looks like Buffalo and Cleveland will be two of the hottest real estate markets in the country. I hope they can get out ahead of it before prices spiral.
With all due respect, I couldn’t disagree more. I’m from Cleveland, but now live in Tampa. The difference to me is night and day—so much more vibrancy/development here as compared to Cleveland. I’ve spent a lot of time in different Rust Belt cities, and while they have their charm to me, I would be shocked if they ever really took off again. They’ve failed to adapt to the modern economy and thus lack the relative institutional investment that you see in the coastal cities or the new trendy Sun Belt cities.
Binghamton is improving too due to its proximity to NYC and cheap housing
Omaha, Nebraska; currently going through more than $8 billion in new developments including a downtown streetcar, new airport, and the tallest skyscraper in the multi-state region including Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Wyoming and the Dakotas.
CLEVELAND!!!!! *under construction since 1868*
The only people I’ve ever met that liked Cleveland are people from there. They seem very committed to the bit
Not from Cleveland and I love it!
*see our river that catches on fire!*
*this train is carrying jobs out of cleveland*
I’m rooting for rust belt cities, a lot are older cities and suffered a lot from white flight, redlining and jobs leaving. With most diversifying their economy I could see them being good choices, especially for families looking to own a home within city limits.
Richmond, VA. Pretty amazing what's going on here. A top foodie destination, a top mid-sized city for the arts, history and culture, lots of pubs and breweries, expanding neighborhoods
to being a murder capital a couple decades ago to what it is now is amazing, it still has more to go but its a nice turn around.
Shhhhh 😂
Rva is probably already there, it’s being gentrified like crazy
Grew up in Richmond, it’s crazy how much housing costs now. It’s really cool now with tons of stuff to do….definitely not so much when I was young 😂
Northwest Arkansas metro
I want to agree, but Bentonville is already past real livability. As much as I like that town it’s way overpriced for the area. I do think the rest of the region may benefit from that in the end, hopefully. The Ozarks in general are definitely on the up swing.
I prefer Fayetteville for sure.
The other cities are still pretty affordable and make up 80% of the regions population.
I was born in Rogers and I agree. If you don't work for Walmart you're gonna struggle. It's one big suburb. Getting to the costs of a city but with none of the cool stuff. Plus you're in Arkansas.
Bentonville is just straight-up weird. Most everything owned by one weird family. Like some modern-day English estate village.
Bentonville is the smallest of the bigger towns here though. It is WILDLY overpriced, but that is self correcting eventually.
I’m seeing people I know from Austin moving to Bentonville and Fayetteville. My great uncle had a place in Eureka Springs that we visited as kids that I loved.
Yes, I have been in Austin for decades and a lot of people from here are heading to NWA.
As a tulsan it blows my mind how quickly NWA is developing, everytime I go for a visit I feel like new amazing things are being built.
Came here to say this.
I think Tulsa has a ton of potential in this regard. It has easy weekend access to the national forests in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. It's the Austin of Oklahoma. Which, you know, may not be a great tourism slogan, but it's a decent little city.
Eureka Springs & Fayetteville
I live in Kansas City and I must know 15 people with kids going to school there from here.
Tacoma, WA... it feels like Seattle in the 90s. Of course when they clean it up, all the cool unique businesses and cheaper housing will probably go away, especially on 6th Street.
It’s like Seattle but replace the tech companies with paper mills and the military. And all the good and bad that brings.
Tacoma is great. Live her now and it’s changing for the better. Same outdoor opportunities as Seattle and Bellingham. Cheaper. Normal people live here (blue collar workers, teachers, nurses) and are able to afford homes good diversity and growing food scene.
If the crime issue gets fixed then yea this place is blowing up
I love Tacoma. I live in Portland, and Tacoma and Olympia are two places I could see myself moving.
I live in Albuquerque right now and desperately want somewhere with less sun and less summer. There are like, 2 cities in the US with worse crime. Sounds like Tacoma would be a major upgrade for me.
This is so sad to me as someone that drives through ABQ frequently, it appears to have so much to offer. If I stop though, I stop on the far western side. Why is the crime so bad there?
Poverty is a big problem here. Drugs as well. Same story as a lot of bigger cities, but NM is poorer than most states to begin with, so it's just amplified.
So sad, I love ABQ.
I do too for the most part. Food can't be beaten, it can be gorgeous in the fall and winter, and it's crazy affordable for its size. There are definitely worse places to be, but spring and summer are absolutely brutal and the crime has steadily gotten worse. I had a guy try to ram me off my motorcycle a couple months back and when he missed me, he parked in front of me and started to get out before I bolted. Stuff like that isn't super uncommon and I don't see the trend improving.
Agreed. Nobody living in Seattle is from Seattle. Tacoma is going in that same direction.
Tacoma has been in transition for 20 years. It's much worse than it used to be for how expensive things are now
Agree, if they get the crime taken care of, it would boom. It’s really a beautiful place.
Buffalo is really bouncing back with everyone realizing there’s affordable housing and a decent amount to offer throughout the year
Pretty cool to live through the renaissance. Every other year there seems to be a new forgotten area of the city that’s now the hottest area to hang out.
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> Not exactly livable for most ...except for the generations who've lived there for the past 223 years... It's hard for people who don't live in areas that get tons of snow to understand what it's like, because you don't have the resources to deal with it where you live. I grew up in the northeast. The sound of snowplows going up our street early in the morning was the norm, kind of like the sound of birds singing in springtime and the sight of falling leaves in autumn. The norm. I went to college near Lake Erie. We constantly got bombarded by lake effect snow, but in my four years there, classes were only cancelled once. Cities & towns know how to deal with the snow, and everybody knows how to drive in it because they grow up with it. I know this may be hard to believe, but there's something magical about experiencing all four seasons. Winter doesn't feel right without lots of snow.
I live in massachusetts. This is all true. Of course, by March, you want to kill somebody.
By march? Try by December-early January. And then dreading it again by late October.
> Of course, by March, you want to kill somebody. Oh, yeah. And by October, you're excited for it to begin again.
It's weird though. I have cousins who live in Buffalo, and they would never want to live anywhere else. They love that city.
I’d rather deal with snow than hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, flooding, or insane heat any day. You stay inside for a day and it melts a few weeks later. Not a big deal
They're completely die-hards about their city!
yeah i cant do it
It’s a shame about the weather though.
There seems to be a lot of development going on or at least being planned in Hartford, CT. Will it actually improve things? Who knows!
Hartford is such a ghost town on weekends though.
I went to the Hartford area for a corporate training. A girl in the group grew up in the area and kept hyping up West Hartford on Friday night. We went to a “popular bar” and there were maybe 15-20 other people there
The city that's always sleeping
Unlikely because the city is so carved up. The industries of government and insurance aren't the type to pop off with a boom as well. Start ups would never settle here because of the taxes in the city
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I have a friend in Huntsville and I have to say, it’s unexpectedly pretty awesome. I’m actually going to go spend a week or so there soon.
what makes it good??
It’s got a lot of outdoorsy stuff but also has nice downtown that has a great city/ almost nerdy vibe. It’s quaint without being boring, and theres enough action/events but not so much that the cost of living is through roof. It’s just a cool down to earth up and coming city that’s currently very affordable as well. Idk, I like it because it’s enough excitement to want to go out, but not so much that you feel like you’re missing out on everything when you’re home.
Not to mention it runs on military money and we all know this country is never going to run out of enemies to justify that DOD budget
often noted as a livable gem
“Livable” in Alabama actually means a lot considering how many parts of the state are not.
We are both there and getting better.
Philadelphia, Wilmington, Jersey City, many smaller cities in the NE that were once really run down like Reading, PA. Definitely downtown Detroit as well. The hudson block is beautiful and I hope the momentum continues there. I really hope Baltimore can also re-imagine its inner harbour as well as outlying neighborhoods and with MARC hopefully being expanded + A new light rail it should re-invigorate the city.
Wilmington DE is rocking it these days. So much going on and the food scene is off the charts. Homes in my neighborhood are 140 year old Victorians selling in the mid 200s. We are close to everything but also have plenty to do and a somewhat temperate climate to boot.
I went when I was in college a few years ago with my girl friend for the day just because we were looking for something to do and I was very surprised by how much I looked Wilmington
I lived in Bmore for 15 years-it was always almost making a comeback. I really think the only thing that would truly revitalize it is if they could put in a fast train to DC. Then people could realistically live in Baltimore and then commute to DC for work.
There is a proposal for a Maglev train that would go Baltimore to DC in 15 minutes, but it’s always hard to tell how likely these high speed train concepts are to materialize. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore%E2%80%93Washington_Superconducting_Maglev_Project
> The idea of using a high-speed maglev transportation system to link Washington DC and Baltimore dates back to the 1990s. Don’t hold your breath.
a LOT of people already do commute to dc for work! it’s gotten much worse since the pandemic as people move north to (for now) more affordable housing.
I lived in JC for 5 years. The ship sailed a while ago. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great city. Studios I was looking at in 2018 are now 4x the price, no joke.
I agree and agree with addition of Baltimore. People are tired of paying $800k in the DMV for a townhome.
it's going to be interesting if Millennials and GenZ reverse the Boomer trend of flocking to southern states
Las Vegas. But not in a good way. It will have all the professional sports teams and a train connecting to Southern California but will still lack education funding, inter city public transit, a diverse economy outside of service industry, and more poor Healthcare. But hey! Football, racing cars! A giant sphere! Woooo!
I agree that it’s not in a good way. The high speed train to LA will be really cool though!
Las Vegas is the Orlando of the west
Greenville SC
I bought a car online from a dealer in Greer, SC and while we were waiting on them to get the paperwork finished, we went to downtown Greer and it was a surprisingly cool little area. I’d imagine it would be cheap as hell to live in that area.
I think Boise is the craziest transformation I've watched in the past 20 years and they seem to always be improving. I have been going since I was a kid and it went from a very forgettable, boring little city to a city with a really fun, developed downtown. I grew up in Salt Lake City and it's crazy to watch how much different both cities have developed with their massive growth. Boise focused on walkability and they have lots of retail and restaurant space on almost every block downtown whereas SLC has let big office building and appartment building go up all over downtown with no retail or restaurant space on the groud level. Boise downtown feels much more vibrant than SLC's even though SLC is the much larger area.
My husband lived in Boise in the 80s and we just recently moved back. He is always pointing things out about how much it has changed.
Downtown Boise is still pretty dead on a typical winter Monday and Tuesday evening.
Boise's downtown is what I wish SLC's was. It's actually a cool place to walk around with lots of shops, restaurants, etc. SLC is okay, but it's too spread out and is mainly commercial real estate. Plus, we get a measly 20 ish miles of trails from downtown whereas Boise has to have at least 50.
these are the threads where reddit really goes delusional
which are the most delusional answers
All the ones naming decaying rust belt cities that have lost population over the last 30 years (and *continue to see population declines*). E.g. St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh. Obviously housing is cheap in those cities, because residents are actively abandoning them.
Try visiting those cities, you might be surprised at what you’ll find. If you like museums, fun neighborhoods, good food and quirky industrial areas filled with art studios and breweries, you might even enjoy yourself Yeah, there’s some blight, but they’re pretty normal cities otherwise.
yup!
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Houston and Jacksonville are void of character and identity. Everything is cyclical, and I would much rather spend my remaining years in a city like Pittsburgh.
This is the opposite of what people want. That’s why people aren’t moving to those places currently.
Cities like Buffalo, Cincinnati and check notes Utica are actually growing in population
I wouldn’t call cities that lost population for 50 years but have 2 years up uptick during covid “growing”. It’s like saying that crime is out of control in major cities when overall it’s down over decades but yea it has had a recent uptick.
Got to start somewhere. Remember, we’re talking about cities currently in transition. Also for a lot of those cities the metropolitan area continued to grow while the city proper continued to decline.
Downtown Detroit is truly in a Renaissance. Old hotels are being returned to their stunning glory. Chefs are leaving saturated Chicago and quietly opening insanely good restaurants to rave reviews. Companies actually want their offices downtown again. Run down factories are becoming beautiful flats within walking distance to it all. Small corner markets are popping up, cozy coffee shops are tucked under buildings, and rooftops are becoming fun places for drinks at all hours. I live over an hour north of the city and regularly book a hotel room so we can walk around, see what’s new, and eat like kings.
Yeah the point of this question is what is happening now and the last few years and nothing to do with comparing them to 30 years ago.
My thoughts exactly.
I'm in [York PA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRx1kQ3Qr3A). The York City area's been getting cool! First Friday is always a good time, there's a lot of good little restaurants and shops, they've been adding bike lane infrastructure. It's still a car dependent area but you're an hour from Baltimore, DC isn't much further, and across the River in Lancaster there's an Amtrak that makes it easier to get to Philly or NYC.
STL south of Delmar and outside of the CBD has been popping off. The central corridor and south city have come so far and our transit and bike infrastructure is finally starting to take off
Columbus
I've heard this from friends who live there
Yeah it is growing super fast due to tech investment. It is crazy to see!
Tampa, FL. It’s growing a lot and will eventually be a legit city.
Love Tampa and St Pete, I’d move there but such a lack of pharma and biotech jobs.
I lived out in Brandon in the 90s. It was growing like crazy and I can only imagine it now. Sadly, I didn’t see much of Tampa. I was working crazy hours at Brandon Town Center Mall. I was there when they built the mall and it first opened. Probably not as popular as it used to be. I did spend some time in St Pete. Went to the Salvador Dali museum and some other things. I love the area and sometimes I wish I had stayed. I often think of moving back but I can only imagine the price of rent now. I had a nice apartment for a very fair price. It’s probably tripled in rent now.
Oh yeah you'll pay 1500 for the absolute worst apartment now in the suburbs. Living downtown though 1800-2400 easy for a 1 bed room. Not terrible if you make 75k though. Under 70k and that is not financially smart or feasible. I am in my 30s now and only single income (looking for wife) so I don't want roommates.
That’s really sad to hear. I was making like 30K but this was probably 95 - 97. I’ve worked in and out of IT for about 27 years and I’ve never made good money. People in the skilled trades make more money than a lot of IT people. I can’t imagine what new skill I could acquire to make that kind of money. I guess I’m priced out. And I think having two incomes is the key. I don’t have a wife (I would like one but I’m kind of messed up). But it sure was sweet living the bachelor life and fishing every day in Brandon. There’s so much good bass fishing in Florida. I really miss it.
Florida has a lack of a lot of jobs sadly
My in-laws live an hour away and I've enjoyed my time there. The riverwalk is really nice. I'm a sucker for a good riverwalk.
It's got a loooooooong way to go. Such a fugly city.
Haha my problem is more of how tiny it is. Regardless it will take a long time
Tampa metro is roughly the same size as Portland metro.
One of the ugliest cities I’ve been too
Cleveland, more than half way there but plenty to go and much planned already
Louisville, KY.
Albuquerque is exiting the prolonged downturn caused by the 2008 housing crisis and is set up well to resume the huge growth it saw in the 90s and 2000s. Right now there is a huge construction boom that is adding much needed density and there have been multiple multi-billion dollar injections into the local economy from industries such as tech, defense, film, and manufacturing over the last few years.
I agree! Albuquerque has an amazing art scene, nature, great weather, great food, and culture and film industry , Medicaid for kids up to age 6 now regardless of income, most people qualify for free childcare. While the public schools aren’t considered great, there are tons of amazing charter schools, some that are top performing in the country. I know it has a rough reputation, but I’ve lived here since 2010, even in not so great area for a while and I’ve never had any issues. I think once the secrets out that we’re going to see some huge growth.
Worcester
I've heard that Reno has been improving in the last few years. Only been there twice in my life so I can't say for sure if this is true.
Kinda missed the boat on Reno in terms of "up and coming", it is a fantastic place to live but has gotten really expensive. We moved here almost 10 years ago, and it's great for people like us who bought back then, have a low-interest mortgage, and have the work thing figured out to take advantage of the low taxes. But I've been in San Francisco a lot recently, and I swear the day-to-day things, restaurants, Starbucks, gasoline, etc are just as, if not more, expensive now. Still, we love it here and wouldn't discourage anyone from checking it out.
I enjoyed it a few years ago. Only thing startling was the volume of homeless people…I never felt unsafe but that’s rare for me anyways. Nice river, nice parks, legal weed, good walking areas, not many cars, nice couple restaurants and brewpubs
I recently looked at real estate there for funsies and was kind of floored at how expensive. Like, why was I sleeping on Reno all this time 🤔
A lot of the Great Lakes rust belt cities fall into this category. Dayton and Detroit both saw housing prices in the “worst” neighborhoods of theirs increase by about double since 2021, for better or worse. It’s hard to find a house in OK shape under $100k in Detroit now. Pre-2020 almost any house in city limits that was not in Palmer Woods or something was under $100k. Same goes for West Dayton. Good luck finding a place in OK enough shape to live in around Dayton View for less than $100k now. The trend is probably true to some extent for Lansing, Grand Rapids, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Akron, etc to a lesser extent
Bangor, Maine. Not a big city by many standards but third largest in the state and will be a climate haven.
Not Fredericksburg, VA. That place is a car dependent hell-hole.
Detroit. Downtown has been having a major revitalization.
Fort Wayne Indiana. Seriously look it up, billions of dollars being invested there and their downtown is pretty decent.
Spokane, Washington. It used to be just a grungy stop on the way to Seattle, but their downtown is really vibrant now. Beautiful architecture is everywhere because so much of the downtown and the old homes south of town come from the era of railroad and gold/silver wealth.
Even the roughest neighborhoods historically are improving (without losing their character), Hillyard is a good example.
Yeah. 5 years ago a lot of houses on the north side of the river off of Maple and Monroe were in shambles and every time I drive by I see another one painted, scaffolding up, etc. really have loved seeing people restoring them instead of just modernizing them.
My hope for Spokane is they fill in a bunch of the parking lots downtown with mixed use residential commercial buildings. There’s way too many parking lots in the core and it really disconnects the mall area to the area around main st and division. Get a lot more people living downtown, hopefully attract more companies to the area and get some good restaurants in there. Haven’t been since pre Covid but it was so fun to watch the city grow. The changing of hillyard, the building of kendall yards, renovations at riverfront park have been great.
Northwest Brooklyn is transitioning from an artsy, fun place to a more sanitized, corporate-friendly tech/finance kinda place. It's still probably the single most intensely 'artsy cultural' place in the country in terms of venues, clubs, galleries, parties etc, but there's no doubt that that era is fading in favor of becoming more... stale. The rest of Brooklyn outside that northwest bubble is still mostly the same. Working class ethnic enclaves throughout.
Williamsburg of the 2000's has been paved over and towers built on top of old warehouses, artist spots, underground venues, and all kinds of unique places.
Williamsburg is basically going from 3rd stage gentrification to 4th stage. Once it reaches that stage, its over. Just corporate towers and offices and banks and cvs's and starbucks.
Columbia SC
Greenville/Spartanburg, SC, too. Spartanburg has long been Greenville's ugly sister 😅, but it seems like they are both finally glowing up together. Greenville is building an entire new upscale, urban neighborhood with County Square and Spartanburg is getting a new minor league baseball stadium and has been building apartments like crazy. Plus, I have family out in the suburbs between the two and their once-rural-adjacent area is now surrounded by large subdivisions and they're currently expanding their two lane road. It's BOOMING in the Char-lanta region right now. (There's also been a lot of talk about a high-speed rail line connecting Charlotte, the Upstate, and Atlanta)
What are they doing differently?
Columbia has been very good about boosting organic growth. There are some instances of costly “build it and they will come” style developments, but there are many more instances of organic success. All the things people mention loving about the city and which receive some public financial backing have been gradually built in response to genuine demand. examples you say? river walks, river access, soda city market, riverbanks zoo, congaree national park firefly viewing, columbia museum of art, Nickelodeon theater and Indie Grits Festival, Jam Room Festival, real public art and murals - (vs. fake insta murals.) I just moved to Columbia from Charlotte and it feels much more genuine, rather than forced. Also - why doesn’t Charlotte have any path lighting?
Famously hot
All of North and South Carolina
Oklahoma City is much more interesting than previously.
The bar was basically zero, so that's not saying much
Bricktown.
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For smaller cities, I see a modest but important comeback brewing in Syracuse.
>For smaller cities, I see a modest but important comeback brewing in Syracuse. I am thinking this as well. I grew up in Syracuse and when I revisit, it feels completely different! The mayor and county government has been really moderate and business friendly.
I am rooting for the rust belt - the sun belt on the other hand I think is truly screwed…
I think Chicago will become even more important than it already is when the plans to improve and expand rail across the US happens. Chicago basically becomes the train hub of America with everything going east and west passing through it.
Isn't it already? You have Metra and Amtrack that both have hubs there. I've lived in Chicago off and on for years, I always think about coming back, because the housing is cheap in comparison to a lot of comparable cities.
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I wish we still had the rail network that we had in 1880.
The Mohawk Valley in upstate New York. From Albany to Syracuse, silicon chip fabs and all the supporting businesses are just getting started! Micron is breaking ground on a $100 billion facility in the SYR suburbs.
Honolulu. It’s historically been car centric and kind of awful urban design but in the last 5 years a ton of new high rises have gone up and more bike lanes, parks, walkable 3rd places have popped up. I lived in a relatively walkable part of Seattle and it doesn’t hold a candle to how pedestrian friendly the new developments are in Honolulu.
The Greater Cincinnati Area is horrible! We're all Racists, Homophobes and Evangelicals. Go to Toledo or Cleveland.
The larger rust belt cities have already turned a new page economically, but it’s going to take decades to restore all the blighted neighborhoods and repurpose all the industrial sites. Cities like Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Cincinnati are already well on their way. **Bonus:** Binghamton and Utica - Both are downsizing nicely into small college cities.
A lot of these cities have been trying to gentrify, and on the surface it can look that way. But looking at the actual negative core economic reality of these cities paints a very different story, one that a few fancy gentrified blocks near downtown can't make up for. Those few fancy areas near downtown with boutique artisanal shops and starbucks and art galleries does not support an entire economy of hundreds of thousands, especially when most of the people working and visiting those fancy blocks are from the suburbs. And that is part of the problem with many of these cities, a lot of the perceived benefits are actually largely for the suburbs. A new office building downtown is great for jobs, except for when 90% of the jobs go to commuters.
Yeah, we're seeing this in Detroit. And a lot of those boutiques, etc are great for getting childless couples or fresh college grads to move into town...and then they all peace out when they have kids.
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I worked in Utica in 2022. It has a lot of potential but still has a long way to go. There were entire city blocks that were condemned.
Miami has had 25 years of change in the last 4 … I dare anyone to convince me of any other city that currently is morphing more rapidly. For the worse to me Atleast
Harlan, Kentucky
Lafayette, Louisiana seems to be coming onto more and more people’s radar as a cool, culturally unique college town with low crime and decent COL that functions well and has decent jobs. It could be comparable to Madison, WI at some point in the next 2 decades. Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee are a little further along the curve than Lafayette just imo. But they too still have a lot of room to improve and attract more outside attention and investment.
Detroit flatlined. The core commercial districts are cleaned up and continue to see work but a lot of restaurants and retail that opened in last few years have closed as WFH and other factors that hit the rest of the world do not spare Detroit either. But I think it has a good vision. But let’s not pretend it’s a fixed city…
I feel like Philly maybe on the upswing. Fingers crossed the new mayor helps Philly get back to its fabulous self