Once years ago, I lived in the Chicago suburbs and was offered a good job in New Jersey. When I compared the cost of housing and the cost of living, the job didn’t sound so good. Quality of life is important and I turned down the job. I did open a branch office for the company in a Chicago suburb a few years later.
I was once involved in starting a new company. Part of the initial plan was forming a syndication of open-wall home fabricators across the county. We made presentations to these fabricators in nine cities in two consecutive weeks. We traveled to Indianapolis, Washington DC, Atlanta, and Dallas the first week. Des Moines, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles were the second week. We made this trip in December on a very tight schedule without incident except for some lost luggage on the last leg home.
The reason I mention this is we often hear the saying that you get what you pay for. This was certainly not the case on this trip. In fact the absolute reverse was the case. The best facilities and service were in Des Moines and they were the cheapest. Denver was second in quality and the next lowest price. As the price went up, the facilities and service went down. Washington DC was the highest price and had the worst quality and service.
We probably could have gone to New York City and made DC look like a good value. I am not a big fan of New York. About twenty years ago, I paid $75 dollars for an a la carte piece of fish in Manhattan with bad service. I probably wouldn’t have complained too much, but I got food poisoning from it. I prefer a Friday night fish fry here in Northwest Wisconsin, where sushi is called bait.
My point is, why would anyone want to live in Washington DC or New York City compared to most places in this country? I have a problem with heads of business or government making decisions for the rest of the country based on life in these two cities. The quality of life in these cities is not normal or even desirable in my opinion. Sometimes I don’t think DC politicians or our media has any concept of the world outside DC and New York. Some politicians in DC think spending over two billion dollars on the Obama Care web site is reasonable. What a waste of our tax dollars.
There was a time when business and finance needed to be located in major metropolitan areas. This is no longer necessary, cost effective, or even desirable with today’s technology and communications. In most major urban cities, people and companies are moving to the suburbs for better value and a better quality of life. Are some of our major urban areas turning into the fictional Gotham City?
One of the reasons people give for going into business for themselves is being able to control where they live and their quality of life. The problem often is finding the right business to reach their goals. Some people choose a business for the wrong reasons. I wrote Business Fits to help people reach their goals.
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