Phoenix: hottest, least sustainable city is also the top destination for movers

Phil Rosen of Business Insider reported on the record number of homebuyers who are trying to move away from unaffordable areas of the country (top three: San Francisco, NYC, Boston) to more affordable areas. 25.4% of people looking to move are house hunting in a different metro-area. Before the pandemic, only 20% of homebuyers were looking outside of their current area.The most-searched for areas, according to Redfin data, are Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Miami. And while those areas have a lower cost of living and more affordable housing, they also have a deteriorating quality of life due to intense heat and storm activity, thanks to climate change.Arizona is now limiting construction in the Greater Phoenix area because the groundwater is not sufficient to support the additional residents who are coming in. Phoenix is the hottest city in the US, the least-sustainable city in the US and is also the #1 most searched for destination for people moving. The temperature is now steadily over 100 degrees in the summer, which is almost unbearable and definitely not sustainable for human life. An article on Salon recently suggested that Phoenix will be uninhabitable by 2099.The median single family home in Phoenix costs $450,000. In Boston, the median single family home costs $820,000. People are clearly willing to sustain the heat if they can't sustain the costs of the cooler Northeast.Remote work is surely playing a part in people seeking to move South and West, but all that computer work also uses electricity, putting further pressure on the grid. 

Brain drain from Boston, NY City, San Francisco

The New York Times' podcast "The Daily" recently did a feature about college-educated Americans leaving the big coastal cities (Boston, NYC, LA, San Francisco, DC) because they can't afford to live there. Instead, they are moving to smaller, mid-sized cities in other places in the country where the cost of living is more affordable.Without the high costs of housing, food and other essentials, these college-educated people can start businesses, start families, buy homes and achieve the components of the American Dream that they would never have been able to afford in the coastal cities, which are turning into places that only the wealthiest can afford.Lower wage workers have been leaving big cities for many decades, but the "brain drain" of college grads has been happening for just the past ten years or so. The pandemic accelerated this, with a third of all workers in Austin saying they are working remotely and moved there because it had the lifestyle and amenities they wanted at a price they could afford.As a result, much of the entrepreneurship and networking that used to happen in big cities is now happening elsewhere. These mid-sized cities are growing and are building to accommodate the new populations. Unlike older, larger cities that have made building difficult, these other cities: Phoenix, Austin, Salt Lake City are making it easy to build new housing.The podcasters interviewed two people who loved NYC and left it. They both talked about the many things they loved about the city, but getting worn down by the cost of living. One moved to Minneapolis and had so much time (without the daily schlepp of NYC) that he wrote a novel and is biking hundreds of miles each weekend and entertaining friends for dinner - things he never did in New York. The other moved to Austin and now owns a house, two bars that she runs, and four dogs - things she could never do in NYC.What does this mean for these big cities? Well, they're loosing the tax base and the trickle down spending that funds retail and service sectors and supports lower wage jobs.What should the big cities do? BUILD MORE HOUSING! So why don't they? The people who do own property in these cities (who get to vote) don't want more housing because they think it will reduce the equity and value they have in their homes, usually their greatest asset.What's the impact in smaller cities? If they keep building, the housing does increase in value, but not to the soaring heights of the no-longer affordable cities.