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I don't think this would be a problem. There's no reason for people moving out of cities to cluster anywhere in particular. Housing costs near jobs may remain o

I don't think this would be a problem. There's no reason for people moving out of cities to cluster anywhere in particular. Housing costs near jobs may remain out of reach for basic income alone, but they should still be much more reasonably aligned with wages, since if people start to get stretched, they can just quit and move away.

int_19h 10y ago
> There's no reason for people moving out of cities to cluster anywhere in particular. Economy of scale. Given fixed size of the UBI check, you want to live where services are cheapest. And services will be cheapest in places where more people are serviced together, because that cuts down on distribution costs and other such overheads. Also, areas where people who have more money than just UBI live, would have higher prices simply by virtue of there being more money in the local economy. This isn't really dissimilar from the existing arrangement, where rich areas are expensive to live in, and so there's natural geographic segregation. But UBI would boost this into high gear. To clarify, I am a strong proponent of UBI personally. But I think we should be really careful with these kinds of unintended side effects, and try to anticipate and manage them before they cause a bigger mess than what we're trying to address. Also, have a look at this: https://medium.com/migration-issues/should-a-universal-basic-income-be-adjusted-for-local-prices-1b4794d8e1f1#.zaisplg9c https://medium.com/migration-issues/should-a-universal-basic...
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  Economies of scale have failed. It's official. Huge retailers today offer worse prices, lower quality and lousy service because they can get away with this, being the only game in town. At the same time, rent in cities skyrocketed, making low-density and rural places much more affordable. We now know that economy of scale peters off at some fixed scale.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    That's about monopolies, not economies of scale. Yes, they often go together, but they don't necessarily have to.

int_19h 10y ago

> There's no reason for people moving out of cities to cluster anywhere in particular. Economy of scale. Given fixed size of the UBI check, you want to live where services are cheapest. And services will be cheapest in places where more people are serviced together, because that cuts down on distribution costs and other such overheads. Also, areas where people who have more money than just UBI live, would have higher prices simply by virtue of there being more money in the local economy. This isn't really dissimilar from the existing arrangement, where rich areas are expensive to live in, and so there's natural geographic segregation. But UBI would boost this into high gear. To clarify, I am a strong proponent of UBI personally. But I think we should be really careful with these kinds of unintended side effects, and try to anticipate and manage them before they cause a bigger mess than what we're trying to address. Also, have a look at this: https://medium.com/migration-issues/should-a-universal-basic-income-be-adjusted-for-local-prices-1b4794d8e1f1#.zaisplg9c https://medium.com/migration-issues/should-a-universal-basic...

guard-of-terra 10y ago
Economies of scale have failed. It's official. Huge retailers today offer worse prices, lower quality and lousy service because they can get away with this, being the only game in town. At the same time, rent in cities skyrocketed, making low-density and rural places much more affordable. We now know that economy of scale peters off at some fixed scale.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  That's about monopolies, not economies of scale. Yes, they often go together, but they don't necessarily have to.