I'm from Seattle, and while I'm not an expert, I personally think it's because of lack of housing. Portland, Seattle, and LA don't really have public housing in a large capacity. SF has some really old public housing blocks, but they've also been lagging.

Seattle in particular tore down one of it's only public housing projects, Yesler Terrace, and planned to redevelop it. The redevelopment however is similar to what we do here, in that it's market rate housing with some low income properties. This does not make up for the low income housing they displaced. That paired with skyrocketing rents, it's a trickle down situation where people eventually get pushed out on to the street.

Once that happens, there's few opportunities to find a shelter. Seattle also lacks good city run shelters, so a lot of the burden is taken by Catholic shelters in Pioneer Square. Those buildings simply don't have the space, and are extremely restrictive. All of this compounds to a massive population that are basically working for minimum wage, but live on the streets or in tent cities.

Vancouver Canada's Downtown East side is essentially an exacerbated version of this, as the rent spike was quicker there and the salaries lower. It's always been a bad neighborhood, but has just kind of become a dumping ground that the city would like to ignore.

Every city on the west coast kind of follows this model. It all comes down to them not having the services that NYC and many east coast cities started adopting during the Jacob Riis era. Every city in the US is basically capable of having the problems west coast cities have, but haven't had to contend with them because there isn't enough demand to move to those cities.

This is actually an excellent idea. The neighborhood I lived in in Lisbon had one of the worst rat problems in the city. They rolled out "Patrulha Gato (Cat Patrol)", which unleashed several feral cats and also meant more frequent garbage pickups. The rat population plummeted and real estate values in the area or flying up.

Don't get me wrong. I love all of these things, but rent seems extremely out of reach in Copenhagen. Would love to move there as that security is hard to quantify. Don't like being tied to my job for health care.

Absolutely. Visiting family in Seattle it definitely makes more sense to live outside the city rather than within.

Is there a good rent/salary kinda ratio there? We did that whole region for our honeymoon. Loved Budapest and knew it was cheap, but would be afraid of living under Orban. Don't know much about the prices of the other two cities, just that while the people of Vienna seemed snooty, they all live in kick ass social housing.

While I'm not surprised that we've topped the list, the reason we continue to stay is both what the city offers culturally and the salaries here.

He did a stint in Portugal during the pandemic and were SHOCKED at how expensive rent was and how low the salaries were. Granted, compared to the rest of western Europe, they pay much lower, but still it was a no brainer that coming back here would mean a better quality of life.

Other cities on the list like Paris and Copenhagen offer half the salary (or less) of what we could get here in Brooklyn with similar rents. I'm sure the full Economist article could probably prove me wrong, but it still felt more affordable here relative to rent prices than anywhere we were scoping out in Europe.

Not much beauty? The east coast isn't beautiful? I'm gonna stop you right there buddy.

I grew up in Seattle and lived in San Diego. While both are beautiful, you can definitely get that beauty out here. The Hamptons and Montauk have some of the best beaches in the world, and the water is actually warm unlike in LA/SD. If that's too far, Fort Tilden and Jacob Riis park are excellent beaches too within the city limits (you can even take a public Ferry with a full bar to the Rockaways now) As for hikes? We've got those in spades too. Just take a look at the Catskills or the Hudson Highlands. You can even take a public train to several hikes, and it only takes about an hour and a half, maybe even less if you're doing some lighter hikes like the Croton Aqueduct trail.

Finally, London is gorgeous, but in my opinion NYC actually does parks better. There's not as many scattered through the neighborhoods, but the ones we have are better designed. London mostly tore down their old growth trees and built parks over them, so their parks can feel a bit barren. Olmsted felt differently when designing parks in NY and MA. He instead built around the trees, so our parks feel much more natural. Taking a walk through the center of Prospect Park, you can really feel like you're in the middle of the woods. Honestly all the Olmsted parks are gigantic and beautiful (Riverside, Fort Greene, Central Park, Prospect Park). If you're not seeing beauty or greenery here, I'm not sure what to tell you! Central Park is HUGE by the way.

Anyway, welcome to the city. You're going to love it. I too was sick of the influencer focus of SoCal. That's definitely a huge thing here too, but it's very easy to avoid, as there's restaurants or neighborhoods that just attract that kind of thing that you can avoid.