I am seeing a huge number of for sale or for rent signs in neighborhoods I frequent. If you are like me and you like it here, there are probably incredible deals to be had.
Nobody will be able to predict when, but I think it's pretty likely boom times will be back eventually.
I wonder if citizens of Detroit made the same predictions in the 1970s.
It's tempting to just linearly project the status quo into the future but looking at this graph here (https://cdn.howmuch.net/articles/61-c98f-5e41.jpg) it is highly possible that IT/Tech will play a less dominant role in 2067 than today including that the next big corporations potentially grow and rise in completely different areas than SF and Silicon Valley.
> I wonder if citizens of Detroit made the same predictions in the 1970s.
This is a good point, and I have spent time in the rust belt and great lakes regions so it isn't lost on me. This was frankly my reaction when I moved to the west coast. (Example from further north: it was hard to see glitzy retail in a place like Bellevue, WA and not think it is overly dependent on the rotting corpse of MSFT. Sorry for a blunt description.)
But in my understanding, though, I think San Francisco in particular has had the boom and bust cycles even before tech was most dominant and before a bunch of tech moved north from the valley.
It's famously hard to predict things like this. I just have a hunch that some form of housing scarcity will return to SF.
Not necessarily bullish on SF and california in general, but the bull case is:
California has GREAT weather and natural beauty. Frisco has the best west coast port and should continue which will allow it to capitalize on continued east asian growth.
The midwest is pretty awful from November to April (especially the lack of sunshine).
> The midwest is pretty awful from November to April (especially the lack of sunshine).
We get plenty of sunshine in the winter months. Not as bad as the Pacific Northwest where the sun can stay hidden for weeks. But alongside that sunshine you get, it’s still bitter cold.
I live in the sorta midwest (Rochester NY). Today is was basically pitch black outside at 5. I enjoy our winters for now, but I totally understand why people snowbird.
That's fair with the caveat that a lot of people don't really get to choose where they live based on climate and recreational opportunities--at least if they want to get paid at or near peak earnings potential. But I generally agree that, even if opportunities decrease in the Bay Area for tech workers, they'll probably remain decent for the foreseeable future even if they crash down to the level of other "tech" cities.
Detroit's white flight started happening in the 1950's, that's when the city population started shrinking and the suburbs became the mess we have now. My family left the city proper starting in the late 1950's onto the early 1980's. I think by the time the Rebellion happened in '67 that prediction was considered pretty mainstream.
Nobody will be able to predict when, but I think it's pretty likely boom times will be back eventually.