If you're thinking about moving from a FAANG bank to a major bank, you'll find no shortage of interested firms – even if you've taken a short career break in the process.

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Jake Johnson joined JPMorgan this month as chief web officer and managing director. Johnson moved to New York for the opportunity, leaving Meta – where he started when it was still called Facebook – around this time last year.

Johnson spent three and a half years as a senior manager on the production engineering team at Facebook/Meta, where he joined (without a career break) from Amazon. He was responsible for Meta's cluster management system, Twine, formerly known as Tupperware. Twine is responsible for Meta's persistent data storage products for Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.

JPMorgan is Johnson's first foray into finance, having previously worked primarily in the industrial sector. JPM is a good entry into finance; the bank is investing heavily in technology companies and hiring new staff, while financial rivals such as Citi are cutting both their spending and headcount.

According to Levels.fyi, Meta pays senior product managers $600,000 and senior software developers $1.3 million and more.

Have a confidential story, tip or comment you'd like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.

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A new analysis from the Economic Innovation Group finds that the cities that were once employment superpowers no longer hold that title. Instead, “for the first time since the Great Recession, the richest metros are no longer creating the majority of new jobs in the U.S.,” noted August Benzow, research director at EIG and author of the report.

While coastal centers like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston used to create jobs at a much faster rate, Sunbelt metros like Gainesville, Georgia and Hilton Head Island in South Carolina are now leading the way in job creation.

Cities in the Midwest and inland Northeast, including Wenatchee, Washington, and Lansing, Michigan, are also experiencing stable job growth rates, in part due to their relatively cheap real estate prices, the EIG analysis found.

The trend is only about a year old, but it is part of a shift that began with the pandemic's geographical realignment and has only continued as the cost of living rises in the most expensive cities. And it shows once again how the American economy is moving south and center – away from the previously dominant coasts.

The analysis found that cities with the lowest average wages are seeing the fastest job growth. This is partly because the cost of living in these cities is lower due to lower housing costs as large coastal cities have become increasingly unaffordable.

“Employers track where people want to live and where they can afford it,” Benzow said. However, he added that some employers are proactively moving to cheaper regions, not only to follow the workforce but also to save money on office space and take advantage of other financial incentives.

A slowdown in the tech sector is helping drive this job reallocation, according to EIG. But a similar shift is occurring across a variety of industries. “These sectors tend to be pretty closely linked. If you have more professional services jobs in one place, you tend to get more retail and other service jobs,” Benzow said. The job data is based on the employer's location and not the employee's place of residence. Therefore, this data does not capture remote workers who live in one location but are technically employed in another location.

The EIG analysis is the latest data point to show how the hiring market is changing as 2020 progresses. A Gusto analysis of over 30,000 small and medium-sized businesses using its payroll platform found that between the pre-pandemic period, that is, from January 2018 to March 2020, and more recently, from April 2022 to As of December 2023, hiring rates in smaller and medium-sized cities have increased. At the same time, major coastal cities such as New York City, Los Angeles and Seattle saw their hiring shares decline. This is another sign that the aftereffects of the pandemic's major economic and geographical reordering are still being felt.

“Some of it is justified, some of it is not, but I think they are no longer viewed as the most desirable places in the country in the same way that they were before the pandemic,” Benzow said.

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• U.S. job creation is shifting from wealthy coastal cities to the Sun Belt and Midwest.

• The shift is due in large part to skyrocketing housing costs in coastal cities.

• Cities with the lowest average wages are seeing the fastest job growth.

Americans are moving south – and with them their jobs.

A new analysis from the Economic Innovation Group finds that the cities that were once employment superpowers no longer hold that title. Instead, “for the first time since the Great Recession, the richest metros are no longer creating the majority of new jobs in the U.S.,” noted August Benzow, research director at EIG and author of the report.

While coastal centers like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston used to create jobs at a much faster rate, Sunbelt metros like Gainesville, Georgia and Hilton Head Island in South Carolina are now leading the way in job creation.

Cities in the Midwest and inland Northeast, including Wenatchee, Washington, and Lansing, Michigan, are also experiencing stable job growth rates, in part due to their relatively cheap real estate prices, the EIG analysis found.

The trend is only about a year old, but it is part of a shift that began with the pandemic's geographical realignment and has only continued as the cost of living rises in the most expensive cities. And it shows once again how the American economy is moving south and center – away from the previously dominant coasts.

The analysis found that cities with the lowest average wages are seeing the fastest job growth. This is partly because the cost of living in these cities is lower due to lower housing costs as large coastal cities have become increasingly unaffordable.

“Employers track where people want to live and where they can afford it,” Benzow said. However, he added that some employers are proactively moving to cheaper regions, not only to follow the workforce but also to save money on office space and take advantage of other financial incentives.

A slowdown in the tech sector is helping drive this job reallocation, according to EIG. But a similar shift is occurring across a variety of industries. “These sectors tend to be pretty closely linked. If you have more professional services jobs in one place, you tend to get more retail and other service jobs,” Benzow said. The job data is based on the employer's location and not the employee's place of residence. Therefore, this data does not capture remote workers who live in one location but are technically employed in another location.

The EIG analysis is the latest data point to show how the hiring market is changing as 2020 progresses. A Gusto analysis of over 30,000 small and medium-sized businesses using its payroll platform found that between the pre-pandemic period, that is, from January 2018 to March 2020, and more recently, from April 2022 to As of December 2023, hiring rates in smaller and medium-sized cities have increased. At the same time, major coastal cities such as New York City, Los Angeles and Seattle saw their hiring shares decline. This is another sign that the aftereffects of the pandemic's major economic and geographical reordering are still being felt.

Even the richest coastal cities suffer from negative perceptions of security and public order, and this reputation likely also plays a role in the migration of people.

“Some of it is justified, some of it is not, but I think they are no longer viewed as the most desirable places in the country in the same way that they were before the pandemic,” Benzow said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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New York and California are large, diverse states, and the distance between them makes a cross-country move a daunting prospect. We’ve compiled some recommendations, tips, and checklists to help New Yorkers who are on their way to becoming Californians. This major interstate move can be less stressful and more exciting as long as you’re prepared.

Why Move From New York to California?

Some people move from New York to California for a job. The San Francisco Bay Area and its tech scene draw a huge crowd of aspiring entrepreneurs, while plenty of entertainers head to Hollywood and Los Angeles to try to hit it big.

The change in scenery is also a huge draw. The East Coast is beautiful in the fall, but it doesn’t have the year-round appeal of much of California, which boasts mild, comfortable weather more consistently.

Cost is another factor: It’s 22% less expensive to live in Los Angeles than it is to live in New York City, according to Salary.com. Housing prices are high in many parts of California, but you’ll still get more bang for your buck. The median home size in California is 1,860 square feet, compared to New York’s median of 1,490 square feet.

Cost to Move From New York to California

Moving costs will likely be substantial because 3,000 miles separate these two states. The price will depend on how many belongings you have, the distance from home to home, the time of year, and the services you need. An average move price is consequently difficult to estimate, but consider these moving quotes we received for a three-bedroom, long-distance move of 2,900 miles originating in Santa Rosa, California. This is the equivalent distance of moving between California and New York. All moving quotes include full packing.

A self-service move involves hiring a truck, packing your belongings yourself, and unpacking them on your own. Partial service may refer to boxing your own items but having movers load the trucks and pad your furniture and large items. A full-service move includes all packing, loading, unloading, and driving.

Long-Distance Moving Companies

The best long-distance moving companies can handle the hassle of moving for you. Full-service movers are typically the most expensive, but their service provides tremendous peace of mind, particularly when it comes to moving large or delicate items such as antique furniture, pianos, and electronics. Professional movers know how to pad and secure these items so they won’t shift during transport. They’ll also make the most out of the available truck space, so you won’t rent a larger truck than you need.

Here are some of our picks for the best interstate moving companies to get you from the Empire State to the Golden State. 

• International Van Lines: IVL specializes in brokering long-distance moves, so you’ll be in good hands. They’re our top overall pick based on their quick quote process and robust cancellation policy.
• American Van Lines: We recommend AVL for homeowners with antiques, art, or other high-value, fragile items, as they handle everything in-house.
• Interstate Moving & Relocation Group: IMRG offers specific moving guides for major cities.
• Allied Van Lines: Allied provides the best customer service experience available by offering a personal moving coordinator.
• North American Van Lines: We recommend NAVL if you have high-end electronics or other specialty items.

DIY Tips to Save Money

A cross-country move is expensive, but there are ways to keep moving costs down.

• Avoid moving during the peak season of May to August when moving companies are busiest.
• Do as much as you can yourself, such as packing what you can and renting your own moving truck.
• Downsize your belongings as you pack to save on truck space. Donations to Goodwill or other charities are tax-deductible.
• Schedule everything as far in advance as possible to avoid extra fees.
• Use suitcases, hampers, and towels before purchasing cardboard boxes and disposable padding.

Finding the Best Mover From New York to California

Remember these tips as you compare long-distance moving companies:

• Get at least three quotes from different companies, and ask for binding estimates when possible.
• Look at the company’s Better Business Bureau page for its rating, accreditation status, and customer reviews.
• Look at the company’s cancellation policy to confirm your options for rescheduling or refunds.
• Moving companies typically request a deposit up-front, particularly for large moves. Note that some deposits may be up to 50% of your total move cost.
• Mention any specialty items you may have, including fine art, large musical instruments, hot tubs, vehicles such as ATVs or jet skis, or pool tables. These often cost extra to move.
• The U.S. Department of Transportation requires interstate moving companies to maintain a current license, so ask the mover to provide proof of this license or look them up in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration database.

Paperwork Needed to Move From New York to California

Prepare the following documentation as you prepare for your move from the East Coast to the West Coast:

• California has its own Affordable Care Act healthcare marketplace called Covered California. Register here after your move if you don’t get healthcare through your job.
• Change your address with your car insurance provider and update your policy. This insurance is often cheaper in California than in New York.
• Check with the California Public Utilities Commission about setting up electricity, gas, and water. Most California utilities are provided by Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, or Southern California Edison.
• Complete a change-of-address form with the United States Postal Service and begin mail forwarding on your moving date. You can sign up for this service online or in person. Complimentary mail forwarding usually lasts one calendar year.
• Keep your important documents, such as Social Security cards, birth certificates, and passports, on your person.
• Homeowners insurance isn’t mandatory in California, but it is a good idea, and the same can be said for renters insurance. We strongly recommend you pay extra for disaster insurance, as forest fires and earthquakes are more common in California than elsewhere.
• You’ll have 10 days to notify the Department of Motor Vehicles of your move once you arrive in California. The California DMV is heavily invested in online services, so you must navigate the website to schedule an appointment. Have your New York license, vehicle registration, and car title ready to bring with you.

Settling Into Life in California From New York

Coping with moving to a new city can be difficult, especially when considering the wildly dissimilar New York and California. Here are some tips to make this process easier:

• California and the Bay Area, specifically, are known for microclimates. Dress in layers, and prepare for fog in coastal areas.
• California has more changes in elevation than New York, especially in cities such as San Francisco. Be aware that walking several blocks may require you to go up and down steep hills.
• California is a huge state that encompasses many different cultures and types of people. The beach culture of Southern California is different from the farming life of the Inland Empire, which in turn is very different from the tech focus of the Bay Area. Wherever you land, be open to new experiences.
• Embrace the laid-back culture, and be patient with your new friends and colleagues.
• If you like the outdoors, sample the many different environments California has to offer. Beaches, mountains, deserts, and forests will be within your reach.
• Join new groups in your area instead of relying on social media for outreach. This may include professional organizations, churches, hobby groups, neighborhood organizations, and more.
• Many California cities are far more spread out than those in New York, so give yourself extra time to get from one place to another. Remember that public transportation will likely be less available than it is in New York City.
• Unpack quickly, and make your new home your own.

Most Popular Cities in California for New York Transplants

While California is more than just its major cities, consider these areas if you’re seeking a metropolitan home:

• Los Angeles: LA is more than just Hollywood and the beach. It’s also home to a number of professional sports teams, research universities, and art and science museums.
• Sacramento: Sacramento is one of the fastest-growing cities in California, thanks to its relatively low cost of living and numerous state government jobs. The state capital is also rife with Gold Rush history and is close to mountains, vineyards, and lakes.
• San Diego: San Diego offers many historical landmarks that date back to the founding of California. The city is famous for its mild weather, naval base, proximity to Mexico, and yearly Comic-Con.
• San Francisco: San Francisco is a densely populated peninsula located at the north end of the Bay. It’s famous for iconic landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the Transamerica Pyramid. San Francisco also has a robust public transportation network and a big-city feel.
• San Jose: San Jose sits at the south end of the San Francisco Bay and is home to Silicon Valley and the booming tech industry. Real estate is extremely expensive, so many people who work in San Jose live in suburbs throughout the South and East Bay.

Our Recommendation

Make the process of moving from New York to California easier by hiring an experienced moving company that specializes in coordinating long-distance moves. Get quotes from multiple companies, trust your gut, and enjoy your new home in the Golden State.

Moving from New York to California FAQ

How much does it cost to hire movers from New York to California?

A full-service move from New York to California is likely to cost between $10,400 and $17,000, depending on the size of your household. Partial and self-service moves will cost less.

What size truck do I need to rent for a DIY move from New York to California?

The size truck you need to rent for a DIY move from New York to California depends on the size of your home. According to U-Haul, a cargo truck or small 10-foot box truck will transport the contents of a studio apartment. A 15-foot truck is sufficient for a one- or two-bedroom apartment. A 20-foot truck is appropriate for a home with two or three bedrooms. You’ll need a 26-foot truck or larger if you have four or more bedrooms.

How far in advance should I book a moving company to get from New York to California?

You should try to book movers at least eight weeks out for a cross-country move. Book 12 weeks in advance for a move during the busier summer season.

How long does it take to drive from New York to California?

Driving from New York City to Los Angeles takes about 41 hours without traffic or rest stops.

What steps should I take to prepare for a move from New York to California?

To prepare for a move from New York to California, schedule movers at least eight weeks out, use a u003ca href=u0022https://www.architecturaldigest.com/reviews/moving/moving-checklistu0022 target=u0022_blanku0022 rel=u0022noreferrer noopeneru0022u003emoving checklistu003c/au003e to keep yourself organized, and expect a substantial difference in weather and culture in your new home.

What should I do first after relocating to California from New York?

When you move to California, you have 10 days to notify the DMV and get your address and vehicle registration changed.

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HERE’S one for the annals of homeowner negligence: as of last month, my chimney had gone eight full years without being inspected, much less cleaned. For all I knew, a few generations of squirrels had summered in my bricks before fleeing at the first scent of smoke.

In those years we had probably burned 50 fires, but none since March 2011. But with Hurricane Sandy approaching, I knew I would likely need the fireplace for light, heat and maybe some cooking duties. Could I start it up once more without burning the house?

To answer that question and others, I called on Ashley Eldridge, the director of education for the Chimney Safety Institute of America, and John Gulland, writer and manager of WoodHeat.org, a site devoted to wood-heat systems.

With a few kernels of knowledge and a handful of low-cost items from the hardware store, homeowners can keep a chimney healthy between cleanings and keep the home’s heating system in good repair, they said. My experts also suggested a cheap way to make a great backyard fire pit, but more on that later.

My most pressing concern was whether I could light the first fire of the season without fear. I had ignored stories about chimney safety because my chimney looked fine from the outside, and it wasn’t belching smoke into our living room. People who live in similar ignorance are taking a risk.

Creosote can build up in a flue if you burn enough smoky fires, which come from wet wood, or fires that smolder before catching. This tarlike substance can catch fire with an inferno so intense that flammable materials abutting the chimney can also ignite.

“It just goes nuts in that chimney,” Mr. Gulland said. “All the heat produces a strong draft, so it sounds like a jet engine or a railroad train. It’s terrifying.”

The likelihood of a house fire depends on how closely your home’s builder adhered to safety codes. Some second-story floor beams, for instance, are anchored in the chimney. If they were placed without careful regard for building codes, they could encroach too closely on the flue and ignite in a creosote fire.

A good chimney sweep, Mr. Gulland said, “will have a radar for screw-ups like that, because there’ll be hints.” And keeping the flue clean, he added, minimizes the risk that such factors will come into play.

Mr. Eldridge suggested having a chimney inspected annually by a sweep who carries a certification from his organization, in that way ensuring the sweep meets training, educational and ethical standards. The CSIA.org site includes a searchable index of such sweeps, but none was available in my area.

Like most people, I’ve heard horror stories about swindles where a low-cost chimney sweep with a high-pressure sales pitch will identify costly phantom problems in places you can’t see.

To find a trustworthy sweep, Mr. Gulland suggested asking friends and avoiding low bidders. “You want someone who’s around 45 with a good-looking truck that’s not a rust bucket, the truck of a guy who’s proud of himself,” he said. “When you get a good sweep, you can pretty much tell immediately.”

I had five days before Sandy arrived, and a very low likelihood of finding a sweep before then. I needed to do an inspection on my own, but I had no idea what to look for. Mr. Gulland and Mr. Eldridge suggested getting a pair of safety glasses, a mirror and a strong flashlight, and starting at the bottom.

And that doesn’t mean the fireplace.

A chimney often has two flues, one for the fireplace and one that reaches to the basement, where, in homes heated with water, it connects to the boiler’s exhaust pipe. Multi-flue chimneys commonly terminate in a chamber that catches soot from a “cleanout” passage at the bottom of the fireplace. That soot can build up so much that it interferes with the boiler’s airflow. A little doorway, commonly found on the chimney and below the exhaust pipe, is there for removing soot.

I extracted at least 20 pounds of the stuff, and noticed gaps in the mortar connecting the exhaust pipe to the chimney. I tried not to think about the fumes that were escaping into my basement.

Next, I checked the fireplace itself. I slipped on goggles, opened the damper and, for the first time, checked the flue.

It wasn’t so bad. I scraped the surface with a poker, which revealed less than a half-inch of soot. I ran my finger across it and found a soft, sooty form of creosote rather than the more dangerous tarry variety.

My next bit of do-it-yourself maintenance was clearly not meant for the masses. I got up onto my second-story rooftop with roofing cement and silicone caulking seal. Mr. Gulland suggested sealing any gaps between the metal flashing and the chimney so water did not creep into the seams between the chimney and the house.

I also saw that my chimney cap had been installed with wire mesh, to keep critters out. Lovely. I’ve been looking at the mesh for 12 years and never really registered its existence.

Mr. Gulland and Mr. Eldridge both strongly recommend chimney caps, to keep animals, foliage and rainwater out. I removed the cap and found the boiler flue clear, and the fireplace flue looking the same as it did from the firebox.

Before I lit a fire, I bought a creosote sweeping log ($20), which my local hardware store manager recommended as a way to reduce creosote. I didn’t notice much of a difference in the soot after burning it, but I felt marginally safer, and Mr. Eldridge said it would make the chimney easier to clean, should I ever find a sweep. (Mr. Gulland was more dubious of the value of such products.) Two of my Facebook friends recommended Nutmegger Chimney Service, as did my hardware store manager. After Mike Przygocki, Nutmegger’s owner, and I traded voice mail, he rolled into my driveway with a polished truck and stepped out, looking to be about 45 and as trustworthy as anyone I had ever met.

Mr. Przygocki, who said he had been sweeping and repairing chimneys since 1983, then inspected the chimney from the same points as I did. The soot wasn’t dangerous, he said, and the chimney’s workmanship appeared to be adequate. (Among other things, the huge grout seams at the top of the structure would likely crack over time.)

But he couldn’t vouch for the chimney’s health (specifically, the terra cotta flue tiles) without sweeping it. This took roughly 40 minutes, and involved Mr. Przygocki’s setting up an expansive drop cloth and a vacuum that, remarkably, kept the soot from entering our house. When it was done, he declared it good to go.

“I’ve seen much worse, but it’s not great,” he said of my circa-1970 chimney. “A lot of developments from around this era were done this way, with old bricks and this kind of masonry work. It’s good for my business.”

Given my fairly infrequent use of the fireplace, he said, I should be O.K. waiting two years for an inspection. And when I showed him the inflatable damper pillow ($57, from Battic Door) to prevent drafts, he declared it “not a bad idea.”

My last order of business was building a fire pit, because my family had been requesting one for years. I assumed it was an arduous and expensive job. It was neither. (New York City residents, take note: fire pits violate the fire code.)

Mr. Gulland said the most common mistake with fire pits is that people make them too big. “Make it tiny,” he said. “A proper campfire, which is really what you’re building, is only 18 to 24 inches in diameter, and it’s just as pretty and less intimidating if it’s small and bright.”

I spent around $35 on 27 bricks from Lowe’s and a $17 grate from Home Depot, and assembled the pit in 20 minutes. My family was thrilled.

When Hurricane Sandy knocked out our electricity, the fireplace provided much-needed warmth, light and hot pasta. The fire pit will get its turn soon enough. And the trees sprawled across our property should keep both busy for a few seasons at least.

A Few Tips on Building a Better Fire

A BLAZING fire can be good for the soul but bad for the lungs, at least if you do it wrong.

“Many of the same components that are in cigarette smoke are in wood smoke,” said Nancy Alderman, president of Environment & Human Health, a public-health organization.

To avoid breathing those toxins, it helps to perfect the art of the low-smoke fire. For this, you need the right wood, a new approach to fire building and, perhaps, some insulation.

Hardwoods, like maple, oak and apple, are less likely to produce smoke than soft woods, like pine or cedar.

But hardwood will smoke if it’s not cured for at least six months before burning, said John Gulland, writer and manager of WoodHeat.org. “Low moisture content and correct piece size are more important than species,” he said.

Prevent backdrafts by clogging drafts elsewhere. Ashley Eldridge, the director of education for the Chimney Safety Institute of America, said if your attic door isn’t properly sealed and insulated, it can draw air from everywhere else, including your fireplace.

Also, burn hot fires. Because the traditional kindling-at-the-bottom approach typically leads to smoldering, Mr. Gulland suggested a top-down fire design, with heavier pieces at the bottom and kindling at the top. This gives kindling more air to burn, and helps produce a hot fire more quickly, and with less smoke.

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Michael Johnson gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

By CLAIRE RUSH, JANIE HAR and MICHAEL CASEY | Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. — Tossing tent poles, blankets and a duffel bag into a shopping cart and three wagons, Will Taylor spent a summer morning helping friends tear down what had been their home and that of about a dozen others. It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last.

Contractors from the city of Portland had arrived to break down the stretch of tents and tarps on a side street behind a busy intersection. People had an hour to vacate the encampment, one of more than a dozen cleared that July day, according to city data.

Whatever they couldn’t take with them was placed in clear plastic bags, tagged with the date and location of the removal and sent to an 11,000-square-foot (1,020 square meter) warehouse storing thousands like them.

“It can get hard,” said Taylor, 32, who has been swept at least three times in the four years he’s been homeless. “It is what it is. … I just let it go.”

Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend before Rapid Response Bio Cleanup removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023. Taylor says that he has had to move three times since becoming homeless. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer) 

Angelique Risby, 29, watched as workers in neon-yellow vests shoveled piles of litter into black garbage bags. Risby, who has been homeless for two years, said she was prepared for a drill she’s done multiple times.

“Everything that I own,” she said, “can fit on my wagon.”

Tent encampments have long been a fixture of West Coast cities, but are now spreading across the U.S. The federal count of homeless people reached 580,000 last year, driven by lack of affordable housing, a pandemic that economically wrecked households, and lack of access to mental health and addiction treatment.

Records obtained by The Associated Press show attempts to clear encampments increased in cities from Los Angeles to New York as public pressure grew to address what some residents say are dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. But despite tens of millions of dollars spent in recent years, there appears to be little reduction in the number of tents propped up on sidewalks, in parks and by freeway off-ramps.

Homeless people and their advocates say the sweeps are cruel and a waste of taxpayer money. They say the answer is more housing, not crackdowns.

The AP submitted data requests to 30 U.S. cities regarding encampment sweeps and received at least partial responses from about half.

In Phoenix, the number of encampments swept soared to more than 3,000 last year from 1,200 in 2019. Las Vegas removed about 2,500 camps through September, up from 1,600 in 2021.

But even officials at cities that don’t collect data confirmed that public camping is consuming more of their time, and they are starting to track numbers, budget for security and trash disposal, and beef up or launch programs to connect homeless people to housing and services.

“We are seeing an increase in these laws at the state and local level that criminalize homelessness, and it’s really a misguided reaction to this homelessness crisis,” said Scout Katovich, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of sweeps and property seizures in a dozen cities, including Minneapolis, Miami, Albuquerque, Anchorage and Boulder, Colorado.

“These laws and these practices of enforcement do nothing to actually alleviate the crisis and instead they keep people in this vicious cycle of poverty,” she said.

But California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose state is home to nearly one-third of the country’s homeless population, says leaving hazardous makeshift camps to fester is neither compassionate nor an option.

He is among Democratic and Republican leaders urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a controversial 9th Circuit appellate court ruling that prohibits local governments from clearing encampments without first assuring everyone living there is offered a bed indoors.

San Francisco, which was sued by the ACLU of Northern California last year for its sweeps and property seizures, is under a court order to enforce the ruling.

• Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend before Rapid Response Bio Cleanup removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023. Taylor says that he has had to move three times since becoming homeless. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer)

• Amber Nastasia from Rapid Response Bio Cleanup cleans a homeless camp in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer)

• Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend before Rapid Response Bio Cleanup removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023. Taylor says that he has had to move three times since becoming homeless. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer)

• A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

• Roxanne Simonson, 60, removes her long sleeve shirt after being told by Rapid Response Bio Cleanup that she has 72 hours to vacant her illegal campsite in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023. Simonson has been homeless for two years. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer)

• Amber Nastasia from Rapid Response Bio Cleanup cleans a homeless camp in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer)

• Michael Johnson gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

• A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

• San Francisco Public Works crew load a truck while cleaning items from a homeless encampment in San Francisco, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

• Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend before Rapid Response Bio Cleanup removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023. Taylor says that he has had to move three times since becoming homeless. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer)

“I hope this goes to the Supreme Court,” said Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco, in a September interview with news outlet Politico. “And that’s a hell of a statement coming from a progressive Democrat.”

A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) 

Earlier this month, crews in Denver erected metal fencing as police officers called to residents to leave an encampment covering several downtown blocks. A bonfire blazed against temperatures in the teens and snow covered the ground around tents.

“The word ‘sweep’ that they use … that’s kind of how it feels, like being swept like trash,” said David Sjoberg, 35. “I mean we’re not trash, we’re people.”

He said he and his wife would “wander a couple blocks from here and see if we get yelled at for being there.”

David Ehler Jr., 52, left the encampment with his toiletries, a sleeping bag, tent and a propane heater.

Ehler has been homeless in Denver for about two years after a friend kicked him out. He said work was hard to come by in Connecticut, where he lived before Colorado, and the public has no idea how big a problem homelessness is.

“It started ever since the COVID, people losing their jobs, losing their houses, losing their apartments, losing everything,” he said. “And this is where they end up.”

Sometimes, numbers can’t explain what a city is doing.

The city of Los Angeles said its sanitation department responded to more than 4,000 requests a month from the public at the end of 2022 to address homeless encampments, double the amount the previous year.

But the agency would not explain whether that meant the encampment was dismantled or simply cleaned around or how large the encampments were, directing AP to the city attorney’s website for definitions. The city defines an encampment as a place where at least one person is living outdoors.

In contrast, Portland clears some 19 encampments every day on average, according to the mayor’s office. Crews have shut down nearly 5,000 camps in the city of 650,000 since November 2022, but residents continue to report new clusters that need to be dismantled.

Crews have even found bodies of overdose victims in tents, said Sara Angel, operations manager for the contractor that clears encampments for the city.

“If we never cleaned a camp in the city of Portland, I just don’t know what Portland would look like,” she said. “I don’t think that we’re making it better by moving them, but I don’t think that we’re making it worse.”

Removing encampments is costly — an expense more cities, counties and states have to budget for. Several cities queried by the AP provided some cost breakdowns, but officials at others said comprehensive costs were difficult to get given the multiple departments involved, including police, sanitation and public health.

Denver reported spending nearly $600,000 on labor and waste disposal in 2021 and 2022 to clean about 230 large encampments, some more than once. Phoenix said it spent nearly $1 million last year to clear encampments.

San Francisco Public Works crew load a truck while cleaning items from a homeless encampment in San Francisco, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) 

Despite all that spending, said Masood Samereie, little seems to change on the streets. The San Francisco real estate broker has seen businesses lose customers because of people camped on sidewalks, some clearly in mental distress, and he wants tents gone.

“It’s throwing money at it without any tangible or any real results,” Samereie said.

Being homeless is supposed to be a temporary event, he added. “Unfortunately, it’s becoming a way of life, and that is 100% incorrect.”

For homeless people, sweeps can be traumatizing. They often lose identification documents, as well as cellphones, laptops and personal items. They lose their connection to a community they’ve come to rely on for support.

Roxanne Simonson, 60, said she had a panic attack during one of the four times she was swept in Portland. She recalled feeling dangerously overheated in her tent. “I started yelling at them, ‘Call an ambulance, I can’t breathe.’ And then I changed my mind, because if I go, then I would lose all my stuff,” she said.

And yet, cities can’t stand by and do nothing, said Sam Dodge, who oversees encampment removals for the city of San Francisco. His department, created by the mayor in 2018, coordinates multiple agencies to place people into housing so crews can clear tents.

“Saying, ‘This is not working, this is dangerous, you can do better than this, you have a brighter future than this,’ I think that’s caring for people,” said Dodge, who has worked with homeless people for more than two decades. “It seems immoral to me to just … let people waste away.”

One August morning, Dodge and his crew surveyed about a dozen structures and tents, some inches away from vehicles zipping by.

Four outreach workers fanned out, asking people if they had a case manager or wanted shelter indoors. Police officers stood by as Department of Public Works employees, masked and wearing gloves, hauled away a rolled-up carpet. The block was crammed with bicycles, ladders, chairs, mattresses, buckets, cooking pots, shoes and cardboard.

City officials are particularly frustrated by people who have housing, but won’t stay in it.

Michael Johnson, 40, has been homeless in San Francisco for six years. Before that, he lived with his pregnant girlfriend and was a driver for a commuter van tech start-up. But he lost his job, and their baby died.

He was assigned a coveted one-room pre-fabricated structure with a bed, desk and chair, a window and locking door. But his friends aren’t there and to him, it feels like jail, so he’s sleeping in a tent.

At his tent, friends hang out, including Charise Haley, 31, who says shelter rules can make grownups feel like children. She left one shelter because residents weren’t allowed to keep room keys and had to ask staff to get in.

“Then you get pushed somewhere else,” she said. “There’s too many directions. But never an end solution.”

There are many reasons why someone might reject shelter, say homeless people and their advocates. Some have been assaulted at shelters, or had their belongings stolen. Sometimes, they don’t want to pare down their belongings, or follow rules that prohibit drugs and drinking, officials say.

Of the 20 people at the San Francisco encampment, six accepted temporary housing and seven declined, said Francis Zamora, a spokesperson for the Department of Emergency Management.

Two people already had housing and five wouldn’t communicate with outreach workers, Zamora said. The city has connected more than 1,500 people to housing this year. It’s unclear, however, if they remain housed.

Many cities say they link camp residents to housing, but track records are mixed. Homeless people and their advocates say there are not nearly enough temporary beds, permanent housing or social services for drug or behavioral health counseling so people caught up in sweeps just get kicked down the road.

In New York City, more than 2,300 people were forcibly removed from encampments from March to November 2022, according to a June report from Comptroller Brad Lander. Only 119 accepted temporary shelter, and just three eventually got permanent housing. Meanwhile, tent encampments had returned to a third of the sites surveyed.

“They just totally failed to connect people to shelter or to housing,” Lander, who opposes sweeps, told the AP. “If you’re gonna help them, you have to build trust with them to move them into housing and services. The sweeps really went in the opposite direction.”

Amber Nastasia from Rapid Response Bio Cleanup cleans a homeless camp in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer) 

A spokesperson for Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Charles Lutvak, disagreed. He said 70% of camp sites cleared were not re-established and homeless residents accepted offers of shelter at a rate six times higher than under the previous administration.

“Despite the inherent difficulty of this work, our efforts have been indisputably successful,” Lutvak said in a statement.

The city of Phoenix cleared out a massive downtown homeless encampment by a court-ordered deadline this month, and said it had helped more than 500 people find beds in shelters and motels.

Encampments were not a serious issue in Minneapolis until the pandemic, when they became more commonplace and much larger, drawing thousands of complaints. In response, the city closed down more than two dozen sites where 383 people were camped from March 2022 until February.

At the same time, Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, launched a program last year aimed at finding short- and long-term housing for homeless people, including some living in encampments.

“We are hyper-focused on housing,” said Danielle Werder, manager of the county’s Office to End Homelessness. “We’re not walking around with socks and water bottles. We’re walking around saying, ‘What do you need?’”

In Portland, the encampment dismantled in July was cleared again, in September and November. Two dozen newly installed boulders helped keep the camp from being reestablished along parts of the sidewalk.

Kieran Hartnett, who’s lived in the neighborhood for seven years, said there was fighting, drug use, open fires and vehicle break-ins around the encampment. Some tents were on grass just outside his house, which was particularly stressful when people started acting in erratic ways.

He hopes the people moved from the site are getting help.

“I understand the argument that clearing them just moves them to somewhere else, and they don’t really have a better place to go,” he said. “On the same account, I feel like you can’t allow things to just fester.”

“There’s not a good solution to it,” he said.

____

Har reported from San Francisco, Casey reported from Boston. Thomas Peipert in Denver, and Angeliki Kastanis and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed.

View more on
The Mercury News

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“Urban doom loop.” “Office real estate apocalypse.” Today, anyone who reads business news has seen dire predictions for America’s downtown commercial towers, which emptied out when the coronavirus arrived and remain under-occupied three and a half years later. Most coverage centers on the most expensive big cities, such as New York.

But the focus on glittering superstar cities is misguided, because many more fragile downtowns—the likes of Dayton, Ohio; Birmingham, Alabama; and St. Louis—entered the pandemic with little margin for failure. Even Minneapolis, with a strong overall labor market, faced a high office-vacancy rate in 2019. Still more commercial space emptied out during the pandemic, and foot traffic downtown has waned. “It’s spooky,” one retail clerk told The Wall Street Journal.

To be sure, Manhattan office investors and their lenders certainly have plenty to lose, because participating in that market was so expensive to begin with. According to the 2023 outlook from the commercial-real-estate company Colliers International, asking rents for downtown Class A office space in Manhattan are $81 a square foot per year, down slightly from $85 the year before the pandemic. Current rents for comparable space in San Francisco ($79) and Boston ($72) also dwarf the rents typical in boomtowns such as Atlanta ($38), Denver ($39), and Dallas ($31). The rents in some of the priciest markets have started to come down—notably in San Francisco, where Class A rents, according to Colliers, hit $105 in 2019—but are still nowhere close to Sun Belt levels.

Dror Poleg: The next crisis will start with empty office buildings

Class A refers to a city’s most attractive buildings—typically recently constructed towers in desirable locations. If rents for such buildings in Manhattan must drop by half to return to normal occupancy, landlords will lose a lot of money. Some major real-estate investors in New York are halting debt payments for certain properties and giving up control to their lenders. The shift in the market could cost New York City 3 to 6 percent of its tax revenue, by some estimates. But the city will still be the world’s financial capital; a tech hub; the headquarters of a slew of major corporations; a home to major educational, medical, and cultural institutions—all of which generates demand for office space even in the remote-work era. New York, in other words, will be fine.

By contrast, if office rents in the Rust Belt or the Mississippi River Valley drop by anything close to half, downtowns in those regions face abandonment—not only by white-collar businesses and the shops and restaurants that once served their employees but also by the owners of entire buildings. In a city such as Dayton—which, according to Colliers, has downtown Class A rents of $18 a square foot per month and had a vacancy rate of more than 25 percent even before the pandemic—rents can’t fall far while still yielding enough money to pay taxes and operating costs. Class A rents are comparably low in Memphis, Tennessee ($20); St. Louis ($20); Albuquerque, New Mexico ($23); Cleveland and Akron, Ohio ($23); and Birmingham ($23). St. Louis and Albuquerque also had pre-pandemic vacancy rates hovering around 20 percent or higher. Many cities, including Dayton, are working—with some success—to repurpose their downtown with new condos and apartments, restaurants, and entertainment venues. But how quickly struggling central business districts can replace what used to be their core economic activity is an open question. In the meantime, a lender who seizes a commercial building in so weak a market may turn around and surrender the property to the city rather than run up bills while awaiting a buyer.

That is what an actual public-policy crisis looks like: Think of Detroit, Buffalo, or Flint, Michigan—places where, over the past several decades, owners simply stopped paying property taxes and let the government take over. Many abandoned buildings were demolished for surface parking or left vacant altogether, in some cases prompting major publicly funded demolition campaigns that continue today.

When downtown commercial rents are high, it’s partly because the downtowns themselves are desirable places to work—and partly because the supply of office space is limited. New York, Boston, San Francisco, and other cities that are notorious for limiting housing construction also constrain the supply of commercial real estate. The high cost of building in some cities also helps explain high rents, but only up to a point. Indeed the New York Building Congress found that office-construction costs are 15 to 50 percent higher in New York than in most other major U.S. cities. This might justify rents that are persistently 15 to 50 percent higher, but the artificial scarcity is the primary explanation for why, before the pandemic, Class A rents in Manhattan were 74 percent higher than in Chicago and 82 percent higher than in Los Angeles.

For all the hand-wringing about New York, a major rent drop could end up being good for business. Brad Hargreaves, a New York–based entrepreneur, told me on Twitter (now X) earlier this year that his education start-up, General Assembly, rented a “beautiful” space for $29 per square foot in 2010. “In 2018–19 they were charging upwards of $75psf,” he wrote. “We never would’ve started GA if we had faced those rents on Day 1.” Acknowledging this threat to the city’s competitiveness, Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio broke from anti-growth norms by rezoning areas such as Hudson Yards and East Midtown to permit more office space. Bloomberg’s “upzoning” of Hudson Yards alone legalized 28 million square feet of potential office construction—more than all of the office space of Portland, Oregon.

Not least because of that easing of regulations, Manhattan still has more than 11 million square feet of downtown office supply under construction, Colliers reported earlier this year. That’s about four Empire State Buildings. It’s nearly as much downtown office space under construction as in the entire South—which includes Atlanta, Houston, Austin, Charlotte, Dallas, and a dozen other cities. Even if the pandemic had never brought about an exodus from white-collar workplaces, the addition of so much new commercial space in New York would have forced the owners of existing office buildings to hold down or even cut rents. The new space, combined with the remote- and hybrid-work shocks to office demand, may foretell a Houston-like abundance of office space—which means that Manhattan office rents might conceivably fall to a Houston-like $40 to $50 a square foot.

If you own a dilapidated, highly leveraged building in Manhattan, you may lose it to the bank. But then the bank will auction it to a new owner, who might cut the rent by double digits or convert the property to another use to fill it back up. Nobody should even start to worry about a Dayton-style abandonment of Manhattan until its office rents fall below Houston’s or Atlanta’s. No foreclosing lender will simply abandon a tower that can still collect Sun Belt Class A rents.

The expensive superstar cities enjoy an advantage accidentally created by bad, anti-growth choices before the pandemic. Like nature, markets abhor a vacuum—and if office rents eventually fall far enough below residential rents, developers in cities starved for housing will find a way to take advantage.

Skinny buildings with lots of windows can easily be turned into apartments, particularly if their current zoning accommodates multifamily residential. But few office towers fit those criteria. In harder cases, extensive and expensive renovations, which in some cases may involve cutting huge lighting and ventilation areas dozens of stories deep, can produce high-end residential units. Cities could also change their building and zoning codes to allow dormitories and rooming houses with shared dorm-style kitchens and bathrooms that wouldn’t require threading in new vertical plumbing stacks for every unit.

Tracy Hadden Loh: Downtown needs to change to survive

Were New York and San Francisco farsighted in creating housing shortages and a “safety buffer” of priced-out people waiting to move in? Certainly not. Nevertheless, they do today in fact have hundreds of thousands of people ready to move in if they loosen their land-use regulations. The waitlist is shorter than in 2019, but NYC alone is still at least 300,000 homes short of demand.

If office rents really plunge, one last option comes into play: Desperate landlords will start renting out gray-market “artist studios” and not checking too carefully to find out whether people are staying overnight. Are unrenovated Class C office-building interiors ideal places to live? Not really. But neither are the large-floorplate 19th-century factories that have long supplied New York’s famous artist lofts. Impractical floor plans and bad plumbing didn’t stop artists from seeking big, cheap, gray-market factory loft studios when Manhattan began deindustrializing in the 1960s. It wasn’t just the 1960s, either; New York regularly updates the Loft Law to catch up with ongoing illegal factory and office loft conversions in the outer boroughs (and last did so in 2019). Although 1970s office buildings aren’t as pretty as lofts in 1870s factories, they’re also safer to live in.

New York and a few other cities have the easy option of changing the rules—or just looking the other way—as underused office buildings turn into apartments. But this alternative isn’t available to cities with more reasonable housing costs and fewer desperate tenants. Not many New Yorkers will shed tears for the incumbent landlords of Manhattan, whose supply-side comeuppance is long deserved, and an “office apocalypse” that lowers rents for start-ups and opens up space for artists could even make the city more vibrant. Instead, national policy makers and urbanists should be worrying about the already-cheap downtowns of cities that cannot survive any more rent cuts.

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The big migration story of the pandemic was the emptying out of major US cities. As more employees return partly or fully to their offices, people have begun to talk about a rejuvenation. Don’t believe it.

The housing trend of the pandemic had people leaving big, expensive cities and moving to destinations that were some combination of cheaper, warmer or more scenic. People left Northeast cities such as New York for Florida and Texas, and they left the West Coast for Montana, Idaho and Arizona. 

That migration slowed down in 2022 as companies called workers back to the office and, importantly, as the housing market began to sputter.

We can expect to see a further slowing in the 2023 population numbers from the Census Bureau, due in December, in line with what’s showing up in the change-of-address data from the US Postal Service. This doesn’t mean the coastal-city exodus that we saw during the pandemic is over, just that elevated mortgage rates and the sluggish resale housing market are holding back moves that people will make once activity picks up again.

Interstate migration and the level of existing home sales go hand in hand. Transactions in existing homes rose from an annualized rate of around 5.25 million a year prior to the pandemic to 6.5 million in late 2020 and early 2021 at the height of the migration boom, the fastest in 15 years.

Now, homes aren’t selling so homeowners aren’t moving. Since the pandemic boom, existing home sales have collapsed by 40% as of last month. 

We have some confirming data courtesy of the USPS, which began publishing monthly change-of-address statistics at the ZIP code level during the pandemic so researchers could track migration trends.

The USPS has complete monthly data through May 2023, which covers most of the period we’ll get population numbers for in December. The data show, for instance, that requests for change of address to the popular destinations of Florida, Idaho and Texas fell by 9.5%, 13.9% and 10.9% respectively — matched by slowdowns in moves away from California and New York — in the first five months of 2023, compared with the first five months of 2022. Existing home sales have fallen even more since May, suggesting even less interstate migration in the second half of the year.

Civic leaders in big cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco that saw a lot of outmigration during the pandemic shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security by the slowing of these outflows. While the peak of pandemic migration may have been unsustainable and due for some giveback, current low levels of migration and existing home sales aren’t a new normal as much as a temporary friction while the market adjusts to higher interest rates.

Even before the pandemic hit, the 2020s were destined to be a period of higher migration as the two biggest generations — baby boomers and millennials — both found reasons to move. Baby boomers were retiring, following a long-established pattern of retirees moving to places like Florida. Millennials were entering their family-formation ages, which historically has meant moving from cities to suburbs and from the north to the south. The dispersion of knowledge jobs and the rise of remote and hybrid work make mid-career moves even more attractive than they were five years ago.

There’s history of a surge in interest rates and slump in home sales temporarily slowing population migration. In the 1980s, Nevada had the fastest population growth of any state in the US and was the most popular destination for domestic migration. The growth was interrupted by a slump in the housing market in the early 1980s in response to high mortgage rates. Nevada’s population growth fell from over 6% a year in 1978 and 1979 to just 2.3% in 1983 before rebounding to more than 5% by the end of the 1980s.

I am not convinced by all the pessimism around how long home sales will be depressed because of elevated mortgage rates. John Burns Research & Consulting’s survey of real estate agents nationally shows buyers still outnumber sellers, signaling lack of inventory is a bigger constraint on transactions than the impact from high rates on affordability. It is why home prices have remained so resilient.

Yet, as I’ve noted, inventories are now rising at a time of the year when they typically don’t, suggesting 2024 could be a year of more inventory, more transactions and a pick-up in interstate migration.

History suggests that rising interest rates aren’t enough to permanently impair housing transactions. Rising mortgage rates in the late 1970s and early 1980s temporarily slowed housing activity, but the market found its footing once inflation settled down and interest rates stabilized. Housing activity and Americans being on the move may be on pause for now, but don’t bet on it lasting.More From Bloomberg Opinion:

• Millennials Are Right to Complain About Housing: Justin Fox

• The US Housing Market Is Now Completely Broken: Conor Sen

• Maine Is the New Florida for Climate Migrants: Conor Sen

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Conor Sen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is founder of Peachtree Creek Investments.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

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Daniel Jones – © USA TODAY Sports

QUARTERBACK

-Daniel Jones: 22/32 – 137 yards / 0 TD – 2 INT / 64.2 RAT

Jones added 5 yards on the ground. This was a matchup nightmare on paper. The Niners ability to put “quick pressure” on the passer, the makeshift offensive line, and not having their two best offensive players on the field made the margin for error miniscule. Jones had to play perfect and everyone around him had to play bigger than the sum of their respective parts for this to be competitive. The game-plan was full of dinks and dunks and I estimate about 50% usage of the full playbook even being an option. There were not a lot of positives to take away from this game when it comes to Jones. The few times where the team needed a play (and he had things working around him), he did not come through. The 3rd-and-11 miss to Waller in the fourth quarter with the score at 23-12 was the standout negative. Waller does not escape his share of the blame (I will discuss this in the tight end analysis), but that is an easy throw that needs to be made 99 out of 100 times. We’ve heard and saw all summer just how big and long Waller is, how he towers above everyone else. Jones had that target wide open (NFL standards) for a first down and he air-mailed it above his outstretched hands.

The positives remain the same. He stood tall in the face of pressure in a situation that had ‘loss’ written all over it. He went through progressions, he did not abandon mechanics, and he was accurate on almost all throws. While I will not call him Joe Montana when it comes to ball placement, he threw strikes most of the night on the quick-release throws. For the second time in three weeks, he was fighting uphill in mud, nothing to gain traction on and slowly having the ground slip from underneath him. He is now 1-11 in primetime games and while that is more of a correlation between the quality of opponents + the poor state of the NYG roster than the time of day that present his struggles, it is hard to get past the notion he is not rising to a better version of himself in situations like this. Daniel Jones just….is.

RUNNING BACK

-With Saquon Barkley out again with another lower body joint injury (the story of his career so far unfortunately), the NYG backfield barely moved the needle. Matt Breida did score the lone NYG touchdown of the night on an impressive, aggressive downhill run of 8 yards. He had just 4 total carries for 17 yards and 3 catches for 1 yard. Gary Brightwell added 5 yards on 4 carries and had the team’s biggest gain of the night (18 yards) on a dump-off pass, but also dropped a pass. His sample size was small, but his overall impact was positive economically, just like in previous games where he has contributed.

WIDE RECEIVER

-Wan’Dale Robinson was back on the field for the first time since tearing his ACL 10 months ago. That is an impressive turnaround from the second-year gadget receiver from Kentucky. He had 4 catches for 21 yards while fellow slot receiver Parris Campbell led the team with 6 catches, netting just 24 yards. The limitations of the offense overall made them key focal points underneath because their skill sets can get them open in a hurry and both are supposed to be effective after the catch. They struggled to break tackles, though. Neither made an impact there, neither stepped up to make plays on their own, which was a vital ingredient to any potential success they were hoping to have.

-Darius Slayton appears to be the number one receiver on this team. He is the guy who has the most experience with Jones, he is the guy with the most contractual commitment to the team, and he is the only player who is being targeted more than 9 yards downfield on average (minimum 4 targets). He ended with 3 catches for 32 yards and had a couple of open looks deep that did not come to fruition because of poor blocking. He is playing hard and confident right now, and with his speed, that matters.

-I am disappointed we, A) barely saw Jalin Hyatt (16 out of 50 snaps) and B) he did not get a single target. I know we should temper expectations from the rookie receiver, as I even said myself last spring following the draft his impact in 2023 would likely be minimal. Even with that in mind, not one target? The one guy on this team (with Barkley out) who can strike fear into the defense? The guy who made two the biggest non-touchdown plays in their historic comeback last week? If he truly is more than just a vertical threat, then the argument that Jones simply not having enough time is not good enough for me. He should have been given at least two or three looks.

TIGHT END

-Darren Waller led the team with 7 targets, but he caught just 3 of them for 20 yards. He added a drop that led to an interception. After a summer full of optimism and beat reporters salivating when discussing how much of a threat he appeared to be, three games in and I am down on what his upside can be here. Sure, the underneath threat and security blanket component to his game are there and it will be all season. But there is a significant difference in his movement from what I saw from 2019-2021. Jones misfired on two throws in his direction, they were more on the passer. However, Waller’s attempt at what I call “late movement,” a reaction-based attempt to the ball looked like it belonged to a 275-pound blocking tight end. No abrupt, explosive leap to go up and get it. No sudden change of direction to snare the ball that hit his hands. Effort is not the issue from what I see, just a simple lack of ability. Perhaps the hamstring is a tighter constraint than I initially thought. My true fear is the 31-year-old does not, and will not, have the special athletic traits that made him a household name and we are simply looking at an average underneath threat. Not a bad thing, but not what some believed it would be.

-Daniel Bellinger played 30 snaps and seems to be having trouble finding his role within this team. One of the biggest surprises from the 2023 Rookie Class has taken a back seat to Waller for obvious reasons. He had 1 catch for 8 yards. He has seen 2 passes thrown his way in 3 games. His value is a guy who splits a blocker/receiver role, but because of Waller’s presence he has been way more biased toward the former and he simply is not good enough there. He allowed a sack, a hold, and was flagged for a false start. This two tight end package has been one of the more subtle disappointments for the offense through three games.

OFFENSIVE LINE

-A few days ago, I warned everyone to temper the enthusiasm regarding former Tar Heels Joshua Ezeudu at left tackle and Markus McKethan at right guard. Performing well against Arizona did carry some weight, but the truth is that defensive line can make a case to be the worst in football. I wanted to see what the line, and these two in particular, would bring to the table against one of the best fronts in football. Just a solid game against them would go a long way. It did not turn out well. Ezeudu allowed 5 pressures and was flagged for a face-mask penalty. He was clearly overmatched when he faced off against Nick Bosa. They offered help a few times from Bellinger, but big picture, Ezeudu cannot compete against the best in the league. McKethan struggled even more. He was charged with 4 pressures and a sack in addition to a holding penalty. His size and length appear to be weapons that can win a lot of battles, but it is a complete hit or miss due to a lower half that does not have enough shiftiness to it. Growing pains are allowed and we will need to see if these guys can improve with consistent snaps week to week.

-Despite a couple of ugly losses to Javon Hargrave, I ended with a positive grade on rookie center John Michael Schmitz. He allowed one pressure was driven back badly on an outside zone run (again) that caused a TFL. Besides that, I thought he moved well to the second level, provided quality help in pass protection, and anchored well. From my perspective re-watching the game, there appeared to be minimal communication issues up front. I credit that to Schmitz. Execution has not been good, we know, but the assignments have seemed cleaner than I remember over the past two-three years.

-A lot of eyes are on Evan Neal, and rightfully so. The 2022 seventh overall pick has not been good through 18 games. He allowed a sack on the two-point conversion attempt and two pressures. The bar has been set low, but I do believe this was an overall positive performance compared to what Neal has been putting out there. While it is not good enough and I still want to see substantial improvement, I did not walk out of this game lowering his status even further. Hopefully he can use this as a springboard to better play, more consistently. After all, that is what this comes down to.

-Shane Lemieux got the start over Mark Glowinski, something I did not see coming. He allowed 3 pressures and a sack, and the disheartening note I have from the live game was: “Not even competitive.” No anchor, minimal range in the running game, and inability to recover when beat.

EDGE

-Kayvon Thibodeaux was on the field for 72 snaps. He finished with 3 tackles, 1 sack, and 2 hurries. Overall, it was a game that lacked impact. He was flagged for a questionable illegal contact penalty which I did not mark against him, as I thought it was within five yards from the line of scrimmage. The issue was a lack of feel, lack of flow to the action, and slight hesitation. That and the obvious fact he is not winning one-on-one battles. I am not comparing him to Bosa by any means, but the difference I see in those two off the ball is completely night and day. Bosa has tunnel vision. Thibodeaux has hesitation. Does he play scared? Does he lack situational awareness? I see both. And no, I am not seeing improvement (at all) despite a couple positives in the traditional box score. I will say it again. He needs to play better, period.

-Jihad Ward, Oshane Ximines, and Boogie Basham were the other rotational edge defenders. None within the trio has stepped up with Azeez Ojulari out. Ward can set the edge against the run, but the next time he comes off a blocker to make a big stop will be the first. Basham has been unimpressive in action since the trade from BUF, as he looks like the JV version of Ward. And we know what Ximines is. He did add a pressure with 2 tackles. I think it is time we see Tomon Fox on the field.

DEFENSIVE LINE

-Dexter Lawrence had another Dexter Lawrence game, finishing with 7 tackles, 3 pressures, and a TFL. Leonard Williams came to play as well, at least more so than the previous two weeks, and finished with a half-sack, 6 tackles, and 2 QB hits. He was flagged for a roughing penalty that was correct when looking at the rulebook, but it is the one I just do not support. I am all about protecting quarterbacks but expecting a guy to fall a certain way while moving at full speed is a garbage way of making life impossible for defenders.

-D.J. Davidson got the look over rookie Jordon Riley again, and he showed why. On just 19 snaps (9 run / 10 pass) he finished with a half-sack, 2 pressures, and a pass break up at the line. He was injured on a dirty play by Jake Brendel, a play he should be fined for. Davidson was pushing the interior SF linemen around every time he got on the field. The injury to the elbow appeared to be fairly serious.

-A’Shawn Robinson and Rakeem Nunez-Roches are, at least, playing physical and prideful. They are getting beat initially at the point-of-attack and they do not have the recovery quicks to make up for it. They are clearly frustrated because of the part they are playing in the defense getting beat up front against the run. Robinson did end up with 5 tackles and pursues the action with a lot of hustle. I am still holding onto hope the line can turn things around. The size, power, and effort are all there from all of the guys.

LINEBACKER

-Micah McFadden had a game. He led the team with 10 tackles, including 4 for a loss. He missed a tackle early on and I thought “here we go again”. But he made several tackles on plays away from the ball. He read the screen game exceptionally well and I guarantee other teams will be using his performance on film as “teach tape” throughout the season. He remains an easy target in the passing game but if he gets this kind of results downhill, they can deal with him being weak in backwards coverage.

-Bobby Okereke does not seem fully comfortable in the scheme. I say that because when he fills downhill hard, he is an absolute menace. But there still seems to be a lack of consistency to that part of his game and it is causing significant issues against the run. If I had to come up with a single catalyst to the issues the defense has there, it is him. He did finish with 9 tackles and 2 pressures (both untouched) but 3 missed tackles are way too many for a leader of the defense, the green dot.

-Isaiah Simmons saw a slight uptick in playing time, finishing with 4 tackles. His lack of feel for angles and blocking on a 3rd-and-13 conversion was an absolute killer. The speed and range are great assets but only valuable if he knows that to do. Very poor situational awareness by him on that play.

CORNERBACK

-Another rough night for the rookie corners. Deonte Banks suffered an arm injury and at the time of this writing, we do not have the MRI results. Tre Hawkins missed 2 (of his 3 on the night) tackles on the same play, something you could go an entire season never seeing. He got flagged for holding and allowed every target in his direction to be completed. He looked lost, unsure, and tight. He may not be the best fit for the number of snaps he is seeing and after three weeks (and as many penalties), it may be worth moving someone else into his starting spot.

-Adoree’ Jackson saw most of his snaps outside again, the spot I think he simply works best. He did allow a long touchdown pass to Deebo Samuel late in the game but I thought his coverage was solid most of the night. He broke up a pass over the middle on a great corner play.

-Darnay Holmes moved into the slot when Jackson went outside. He finished with two impact plays, a pass break up and a TFL on a screen, but he was also flagged for a hold on a third down stop. The issue we have seen since his rookie season continues to be his kryptonite and what simply makes him unreliable.

SAFETY

-Xavier McKinney and Jason Pinnock both played every snap again. They combined for 12 tackles and 3 missed tackles. They were targeted often, especially with SF tight end George Kittle. Pinnock made the biggest blunder of the night on the 3rd-and-14 conversion where they had everything lined up, he simply needed to make the tackle. He did not come close. He turned it up a bit in the second half with 2 pressures. McKinney seemed a bit lost. He was not anticipating routes and the precision of the SF passing game kept exposing it.

SPECIAL TEAMS

-K Graham Gano: 2/2 (Made 44, 57). The 57-yarder ties his career-long with NYG.
-Jamie Gillan: 6 punts / 52.7 avg – 49.0 net

3 STUDS

-LB Micah McFadden, DT Leonard Williams, K Graham Gano

3 DUDS

-CB Tre Hawkins, OG Markus McKethan, S Xavier McKinney

3 THOUGHTS ON SF

1. The best coach in football is Kyle Shanahan. That’s where I stand with him, and I know I’m not alone. What he has done over the years despite such injury turmoil (especially at QB) is something most (if not all) coaches would crumble under. He is a magician and trend setter when it comes to finding ways to play efficient football. Early down passing, motion pre-snap, versatile personnel packaging, etc. The scheme itself is fun to watch no matter who they play. Since 2017, they have been the 10th, 4th, 6th, 1st, 3rd, and 9th most injured team in the league, respectively. They made the NFC Championship despite zero games with their QB1, RB1, TE1, WR1, WR2 all healthy at the same time last season. How many teams could pull that off? I don’t think any. Coaching made the difference.

2. SF had 196 yards after the catch in this game alone. The Giants total net yards were 150. The thing is, SF is always among the league’s best in yards after the catch. They’re also near the top in explosive run plays. How come? Scheme is one, but also the kind of players they go after. They’re all strong and powerful relative to their positions and maybe the most overlooked component to their success is how hard they block downfield for each other. It is such a difference maker.

3. SF is one of the two or three best teams in the NFC. How did they get there? You may be surprised to see their early draft results in recent years. Since John Lynch took over in 2017, here are their first-round picks: DT Solomon Thomas (#3), OT Mike McGlinchey (#9), DE Nick Bosa (#2), DT Javon Kinlaw (#14), QB Trey Lance (#3). To be blunt, that is a terrible looking list outside of Bosa (the highest paid defender in the NFL). Only Kinlaw remains on the team. How is Lynch considered one of the top GMs in football and what can NYG learn from it? If you go back to 2017 and start going through their day 2/3 picks, you’re going to be wowed. TE George Kittle, DT D.J. Jones, CB D.J. Reed, LB Fred Warner, LB Dre Greenlaw, WR Jauan Jennings, OT Colton McKivitz, RB Elijah Mitchell, S Talanoa Hufanga, QB Brock Purdy, OG Spencer Burford. These guys in combination with the aggressive trades for OT Trent Williams and RB Christian McCaffrey are the catalysts to this being such a well-balanced team. Keep this in mind in the coming years with the NYG regime led by Joe Schoen. Even when you miss in the first, the doors are open later on to build the nucleus. You must find the right guys there.

3 CLOSING THOUGHTS

1. So let’s not beat the dead horses. Is Daniel Jones worth the money? Are the #5 and #7 picks from the 2022 draft going to step up? Save it for another time, I’m sure history will repeat itself. Let’s turn the attention to Defensive Coordinator Wink Martindale. It is hard to fully diagnose what is going on, but the results are scary. 98 points allowed in 3 games (let’s take off 14 for the special teams + defensive TDs from week 1). So, 84 points allowed. Sixth worst in yards per play allowed. Last in turnovers. Fourth most in yards per pass allowed. 14th most yards per rush allowed. Second worst in pressure percentage. Sixth most missed tackles. Seventh worst on third down. The personnel was upgraded. There are 7 returning starters. And everything has gone backwards. Has the league figured out Martindale? It is something that needs to be considered.

2. I’m not a fan of the “must win” label some put on games unless is mathematically eliminates someone from contention. So, no, Week 4 against Seattle is not a must win. But getting a 3-day rest advantage over a 1-1 team that is flying from the West Coast is one of the easier set ups they have and not taking advantage of it would be such a major blow to the vibe of this team.

3. The one time NYG scored a touchdown came on a drive where they had the biggest gain of the day. A 22-yard pass interference call on a deep ball to Waller. Getting the ball more vertical like this creates so many more opportunities for the offense. You can get that cheap penalty, which when it comes to results end up being the same as a long completion. It puts things on tape and in memories of defenders that needs to be accounted for, opening space up underneath. And it can change the entire mojo of a team. NYG needs to find ways to push the ball downfield at least a handful of times week in, week out. They have the speed.

The post Recreation Evaluate: San Francisco 49ers 30 – New York Giants 12 appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Malachi Keys, Contributing Writer

 This week’s pick is the San Francisco 49ers defeating the New York Giants in week three on Thursday Night Football. 

A red-hot Brock Purdy and his 49er offense will take on a struggling Giant offense, quarterbacked by Daniel Jones, and expect it to be a blowout. 

With the dynamic offensive weapons on the 49ers such as Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle, San Francisco should have no problem moving the ball against a New York defense that allowed 40 points in week one to the Dallas Cowboys. 

Not only are the 49ers better on offense, but they’re also stout defensively. The Giants will have to go up against the reigning Defensive Player of the Year in Nick Bosa and his fear-mongering pass rush. 

New York’s bread and butter is typically running the football and setting up play action, but they will likely be stifled by San Francisco who had the second-best rushing defense in 2022 according to Pro Football Reference. 

Look for two of the league’s best linebackers Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw to shoot gaps in the running game and to confuse and frustrate Daniel Jones on passing downs. 

Anticipate a San Francisco win with a score of around 30-17.

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