Opportunity Cost

Depends what you call a big metro.
I have a feeling our definitions are different.

 

I'd call a big metro any metro with a population greater than 1 million. To me, that's big.

 

Other than Texas, which city has a low cost of living?
We will exclude Texas because they either don't pay anything or they're hemorrhaging employees.

1 New York City, New York 8,143,197
2 Los Angeles, California 3,844,829
3 Chicago, Illinois 2,842,518
4 Houston, Texas 2,016,582
5 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1,463,281
6 Phoenix, Arizona 1,461,575
7 San Antonio, Texas 1,256,509
8 San Diego, California 1,255,540
9 Dallas, Texas 1,213,825
10 San Jose, California 953,679

This list doesn't include the D.C. Metro area.
But, we can assume how much it is to live in or around the Beltway.

 

I'm going on metropolitan area, which would make NYC 20 million. So, that means there are about 50 metro areas with 1 million population.

Places like Louisville, Cincy and others in the midwest have decent costs of living. The coasts are going to be expensive. Not sure about Phoenix, though.

 

phoenix is not cheap my friend.

 

I've worked all over this country. From Miami to Seattle, from Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, and there is one thing in common...
The bigger the paper, the higher cost of living. Being an editor, I've had to live close to city center because of the necessity to be in the office.
I'm not sure the point you're arguing, but I've been doing this for 17 years and have hired people from all over the country. I know what it cost to live throughout the 50.

 

I have no clue what we are arguing here either, but as a journalist, I love this kind of logic.
"OOOOHH.....He's been doing this for 17 years, and has hired people from all over the country...HE MUST BE AN EXPERT."

Yes, I also participated in the "My daddy is smarter than your daddy" arguements as a 3rd grader. I think it was 4th grade that I learned facts are the best way to support arguements.
But what do I know? I've only been doing this for 16 years. And since most of the 16 have been in Texas which is excluded, I'll go back to my corner now and try to learn how to be a proper journalist.

 

Upper-middle class is about the top of the food chain in this business, and it takes a fairly expensive area to reach that level with a few exceptions. But as long as basic needs are tended to, the field is a pretty interesting way to while away the decades before running the B&B near the mouth of the Rogue River.

 

assuming somebody dies and leaves you a B&B.

BTW - have a dead guy ale for me.

 

Um, Joe ... doing something for a length of time and dealing with people all over the country are precisedly the kinds of things that make, well, an expert.

 

SF, I understand that. Although I would argue that Dubya being president for 8 years (assuming he makes it out) doesn't much make him an expert on how to run a country.
But that's not my beef, and it isn't specifically with Fishwrapper either. My beef is the kind of logic...saying you have been doing this for XX amount of years so you know what the heck your talking about doesn't fly with me. I don't doubt Fish's expertise, I's just like to see more constructive arguements than "I've been doing it forever." If you have been, you can provide more insight than simply "I know..."

And I might not even say anything if it hadn't been for the generalization about the major metros and Texas doesn't count. Sure, the DMN has a well-deserved bad rap lately, but is it fair to lump all Texas metors together because of the DMN? If so, I'd like to see evidence of this. Sure they've had employee buyouts, lay-offs too, but are their anymore problems there than the rest of the country? I'm not saying I agree with or disagree with Fishwrapper, I am saying make a case instead of a generalization. Just as easy as it is for Fish to say that, it's just as easy for me to say that I know several Chronicle staffers who do quite well in the salary department.

 

These are city sizes. There are some metro areas that belong in the top 10, like Miami-Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco-Oakland. Why strike the Texas papers? San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth pay decently and aren't shedding papers like at the Dallas Morning News.