jas121091 t1_j6i88mb wrote on January 30, 2023 at 2:57 PM

Reply to comment by RulerOfTheRest in “People Moving From NOVA to Richmond Are Ruining Our City” Reports Guy Who Moved Here in 2018 by ThatChildNextDoor

To go off of this, my parents live in one of the pricier neighborhoods in the West End. The couple who moved next door to them about a year ago are from Manhattan and have full-time WFH positions. They are in their low-to-mid 30s and still on an NYC salary, so the husband was telling me they were fortunate their budget allowed for them to buy a nicer house here vs. a decent apartment in NYC.

It was kind of eye-opening for me on how drastically more expensive it is to live there lol.

RVAforthewin t1_j6n5m1d wrote on January 31, 2023 at 2:55 PM

I really hate to say this, and maybe I don’t fully believe it, but maybe there needs to be some sort of regulation that allows or encourages employers to pay salaries based on home of record given the explosion of WFH. Like I said, I haven’t fully thought that idea through so I’m sure there are issues with it. I’m just not sure what else to do because the populations of these major cities (NYC, LA, Phoenix, etc.) are so astronomically larger than RVA that there’s NO way we can support more than a minute influx, and that’s not even counting DC/NoVa. At some point, RVA could primarily be comprised of WFHers who migrate here from major cities while pulling in salaries twice what locals make. It feels no different than what’s happened to places like Aspen where millionaires turned it into a playground locals can no longer afford (albeit for very diff reasons).