I45Tex wrote:It is (unfortunately or not) totally normal in the labor market for cities that are valuable/expensive relative to the surrounding region to serve as "finishing schools."
These locations import recent graduates or recent immigrants and export "fleeing" established midcareer professionals who have been developing a network with job opportunities elsewhere. In many cases, living in that location has helped them to start to get the opportunity to save more money every year than they could if they stay there. Put that way, it's a specialized role that such central land can still be successful at once it has priced itself out of the greenfield subdivision competition.
I am not saying I desire to live in such an "up or out" lifestyle environment but I am saying that coastal metro core counties have been this way (driving net domestic outmigration) for decades without it being a sign of impending economic doom. I also don't believe that the greenfield subdivision suburbs are signs of economic viability either. They don't and can't generate enough of those midcareer professionals to sustain themselves, so they are on life support until they develop their own industrial base.
This is an underlying, sometimes even a bit more subtle, occurrence that is so very often overlooked. It has definitely been going on in some places for a very long time.