Axios and Generation Lab have something new called the Next Cities Index. The goal is to track US work and culture trends through people's geographic preferences. For their first cities index, they asked over 2,100 students in the US, on two separate occasions, the following question: "Considering all factors that matter to you, where would you most like to live after college?"
The aggregate answer to this question is shown above. But they also collected people's incomes (anticipated since they're students?), political affiliations, and gender. The list of cities changes slightly when you sort based on these different factors, but not by much. Seattle, New York, and Los Angeles remain top cities -- at least in people's minds.
It is, however, interesting to note that about 45% of respondents had different answers to where they want to live and where they think they will live. For a number of reasons, the city of people's dreams isn't often a practical or realistic choice it would seem. Still, wanting a particular place still tells you certain things I suppose.
Given all the chatter over this pandemic, I would have thought that Miami would have appeared higher up on this want list.
Chart: Axios/Generation Lab
Back in March and April, there was a belief that big and dense cities were going to pose a serious problem in the fight against COVID-19. The narrative was that the benefits of urban density suddenly flip to glaring negatives during a pandemic. Elevators are a problem. Public transit is a problem. Busy streets and public spaces are a problem. Instead of density, you want dispersion. There was also some speculation that COVID-19 cases would be somewhat correlated with colder climates.
The data that we are seeing today suggests the opposite. Note the above chart by Axios. On a per capita basis, COVID-19 cases are now the lowest -- and below the national average -- in large US cities with populations greater than 1 million people. Where cases are the highest, again on a per capita basis, is in rural areas. Non-metro areas less than 10,000 people. The county with the highest rate also isn't the coldest of places. It's Childress County, Texas, where the rate is about 1,265.3 cases per 100,000 people.
I have a lot of questions about the most important factors affecting transmission rates. Is mask wearing, for example, more important than average temperatures? What is the impact of socio-economic status? I am seeing maps that, unfortunately, suggest this plays a meaningful role. What is really driving these so-called "hot spots?" But what seems clear to me is that density is not necessarily destiny during this pandemic.
P.S. Here's a related article on hospital capacities across the United States.
Chart: Axios
I just came across this chart from Axios, which relies on data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the Kaiser Family Foundation. It compares median household income against the average cost of employer health insurance (in the United States).
What it is saying is that, after adjusting for inflation, the median household income has only increased by 2% from 1999 to 2017, whereas employer health insurance costs have increased by some 121% over this same time period.
The takeaway: Rising healthcare costs are believed to be eating away at take-home pay in the US. As of 2017, health insurance costs were estimated to represent about 30% of the average household income. That feels like a big number to me.