Americans Moving Back Into Suburbs

[Torie]

I read on the plane a fascinating article in The Economist about the improvement in many inner city areas of the UK, and deterioration of places further out, including rural areas. That is happening in New York, as the poor dependent on transfer payments move out of NYC to cheaper locales, where their transfer payment stipends buy more good and services. Vermont now has a massive heroin epidemic. Troy, New York, I am told, has become a real "pit," as it becomes a pit stop as it were for this kind of population moving in.

[Torie]

I read on the plane a fascinating article in The Economist about the improvement in many inner city areas of the UK, and deterioration of places further out, including rural areas. That is happening in New York, as the poor dependent on transfer payments move out of NYC to cheaper locales, where their transfer payment stipends buy more good and services. Vermont now has a massive heroin epidemic. Troy, New York, I am told, has become a real "pit," as it becomes a pit stop as it were for this kind of population moving in.

Do you think Vermont's problems are linked to poorer people moving in to the state? The dominant narrative for drug issues here and other places (like Cape Cod) is that people moving in have money, and it's the local population which struggles with boredom and limited opportunities. Troy has also been in bad straits for decades because of deindustrialization, and it's always been a temptation of upstaters to ascribe problems to the "others" from downstate, whether or not the data backs it up.

Don't know, but the anecdotal chat about the ups and downs of the towns along the Hudson follows the narrative that I described. For example, Catskill became known as Cracktown around 2000, per the commentary of the marble vendor with whom I was chatting (very intellectual and knowledgeable sounding), at which time he bought the building he has his store in, on the now very presentable main commercial street for 29K. I asked why? He said it was the transfer payment crowd moving in from NYC where they were priced out. Now they are slowly being priced out of Catskill, block by block. So where do they go? On to Troy said my broker, also unusually intellectual and informed for the breed. A lady on the plane from Vermont said the same thing as to that state, when I was chatting about the amazingly huge underclass in some of these upstate NY small towns and some rural area. Are they right? I don't know, and I don't have the data.