3 ms·
I meant it's by its nature less productive per square meter than cities. Modern country could manage with <5% of population working the land, but I don't think
by ajuc 11y ago
I meant it's by its nature less productive per square meter than cities.
Modern country could manage with <5% of population working the land, but I don't think we have any countries where 95% live in cities. And I don't think it's obviously good idea to force them to migrate (by putting a border between them and their jobs).
- pjc50 11y agoI don't think we have any countries where 95% live in cities. Suprisingly we do, and not just microstates. Belgium is listed at 97.5%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_by_country If you set the threshold at 90% instead of 95%, that includes much of South America: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela.
- jessriedel 11y agoIt doesn't seem to bother anyone that folks in poor rural countries with no functional cities are separated from their potential jobs by a border. Why would we care more about rural New York State'ers being excluded from NYC than we would about Haitians being excluded from Davenport, Iowa? The latter exclusion has a much higher humanitarian cost, and most of the justifications for strong national borders can be used in a hypothetical world where the NYC metro area was sovereign, just like they are already used for city-states like Singapore and Monaco.
- ajuc 11y agoI'm exactly as worried about haitans as about new yorkers. Not much, because I don't know them :) But yes you should fix the situation with haitans. It doesn't make sense. I just think introducing new borders is painful (I can speak from my family experience with new borders - I live in Poland), and dismantling borders is great (personal experience with EU).