Omaha is Hip Dude

Sweet Home Omaha

By RICHARD DOOLING

Published: October 29, 2006

Unemployment’s down, inflation is inconsistent, the housing market is finally cooling off and consumer confidence blows with the wind. Just how are Americans doing? The Op-Ed page asked four writers from around the country to provide snapshots of their local economies over the course of the year. Here is their fourth round of dispatches.

HOUSING prices are falling on both coasts, and bubble panic is around the corner. The financial magazines are already grabbing their readers by the throat and taunting them with headlines like: “U.S. Housing Crash Continues!” “Where Will Housing Prices Fall the Most?” “Is It Time to Cash Out?”

What if it is time to cash out? Where do you go? If you sell on either coast, then you need to find real estate somewhere that the housing bubble missed. Guam? American Samoa? Wait, how about eastern Nebraska? Downright frothless when it comes to housing: the median home price here usually chugs along at the annual rate of inflation and never goes down (up 4 percent last year, up 22 percent over the last five years).

Before you recoil in horror at the thought of living in Omaha, a city of 414,000 souls, consider that this year Money magazine ranked it seventh of the nation’s 10 best big cities to live in, ahead of New York City, which ranked 10th. O.K., now you may recoil in horror.

These compelling statistics have Nebraskans preparing for the imminent arrival of several million New York refugees (victims of post-traumatic bubble anxiety disorder), who will need emergency real estate and housing triage services. The accompanying chart gives some facts and figures for Manhattan condo owners contemplating the big move to the Big O.

According to the cost of living comparison calculator at CNNMoney.com, if you were earning $229,000 in Manhattan, or $153,000 in Queens, you’ll be able to maintain the same standard of living in Omaha with a salary of $100,000 (and not because rodeos are cheaper than Broadway shows). Your money will go farther, and you’ll find less competition for jobs: Omaha’s unemployment rate (3.3 percent) is lower than New York’s (4.5 percent). While you are job hunting and living off your real-estate profits, groceries, utilities and health care will all cost roughly one-third less than you are paying in New York.

According to the Tax Foundation, the move to Omaha will save only about 1 percent in taxes. New York has the second highest average state-and-local tax burden in the country (at 12.9 percent of income); Nebraska has the sixth highest (at 11.6 percent). Why so high here? In part because Nebraska’s 1.7 million residents must pay for schools and roads spread out over 77,000 square miles, compared to more than 19 million New York State residents who occupy a mere 47,000 square miles.

Nebraskans also tolerate notoriously high property taxes because they go to the public schools, where rich and poor alike get a quality education. (A proposed state spending lid on the November ballot is widely expected to fail.)

So, why do people live in a state with high taxes, no mountains, no ocean beaches, no lakes to speak of, no major professional sports teams, no grand old museums or dazzling science centers? The three answers you hear most often from Nebraskans are: (1) quality of life; (2) good schools; (3) wouldn’t moving be kind of a bother?

Here are some other pros and cons to consider before cashing out and heading to flyover country.

Pros:

• Big yard (no more dog walkers and poop bags).

• Big sky (makes you look up, and out).

• Traffic (cars move around, at or near the speed limit).

• Cornhusker football (fall Saturdays with the family in the bleachers).

• Friendly people (perfectly sane strangers say, “Hi!”).

• Public schools (excellent, and “free”).

• The local news (high school sports instead of murders).

• The Berkshire Hathaway convention (you don’t have to fly in for it).

Cons:

• Big yard (lawn maintenance can be noisier than street maintenance).

• Big sky (makes even a New Yorker feel small).

• Traffic (sidewalks are optional, no more walking to the corner deli).

• Cornhusker football (the morbidly obese fellow next to you is wearing a Go Big Red cowboy hat, red Sansabelt slacks and white shoes).

• Friendly people (who love to visit ... for hours).

• The local news (high school sports?).

• The Berkshire Hathaway convention (you don’t get to leave when it’s over).

Required reading: “The Quality of Life Report,” by Meghan Daum. In 1999, Ms. Daum moved from New York City to Lincoln, Neb., and wrote this hilarious novel. The heroine, Lucinda Trout, is a television journalist living in a rent-stabilized “one-windowed cell” at Broadway and 94th Street in Manhattan.

When the building changes hands, Lucinda’s rent soars to $2,100 per month. She learns of an assignment in Prairie City, where she can rent an entire farmhouse (and a farm) for $400 a month. She takes the plunge. Unexpected pleasures ensue: “Something about the blandness of the town and the flat land that surrounded it were making me feel alive and exotic. Almost like another person.”

Richard Dooling is a screenwriter and the author, most recently, of “Bet Your Life.”