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Dense cities are the one weird trick to human civilization itself. China has seen unbelievably explosive growth in its cities and has also seen 1 billion peopl

Dense cities are the one weird trick to human civilization itself. China has seen unbelievably explosive growth in its cities and has also seen 1 billion people lifted out of poverty during exactly the same time period. Coincidence? People flock to cities because they can get paid five times more than they could back in their home village – they're not cavorting, scheming millionaires. Trying to strangle your cities because cities are bad is the dumbest thing you could do in terms of economic growth other than than trying to strangle trade on the theory that those scheming foreigners are going to take all of our money away. I'm sure downtown Shenzen is more expensive today than it was when it was a small fishing village. Would the world be a better place if it had been kept as a small fishing village?

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
The Chinese property bubble makes the USA property bubble look tame in comparison. At least rents are cheap ($1000/month rent is about $1 million to buy). Density doesn’t fix anything if many apartments are speculative investments and not worth the effort of renting out (because rents are low anyways compared to the appreciation).
majormajor 9y ago
> other than than trying to strangle trade on the theory that those scheming foreigners are going to take all of our money away. Wait, you don't think China has been doing this too? --- The US has had decentralized economic booms in the past; even China's current one is based around several cities and regions, and China continues to build outwards, not simply make Beijing and Shanghai ever denser inside the same radius. They do it at a higher density than we do in the US, sure, but other than that the strategy doesn't seem completely unfathomable - I think the Chinese-style answer to the Bay Area is less likely to be "make SF denser" and more "move a bunch of development to the East Bay or Dublin or something and make new companies start up over there." Expanding on what I said in a separate comment (sigh, I was headed to bed, maybe after this one), we are currently in the US letting many of our cities die while putting a ton of eggs into NYC/SF/etc baskets. I don't think further density in just a few places is going to fix anything price-wise or have any superior outcomes than reducing those bottlenecks would.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

The Chinese property bubble makes the USA property bubble look tame in comparison. At least rents are cheap ($1000/month rent is about $1 million to buy). Density doesn’t fix anything if many apartments are speculative investments and not worth the effort of renting out (because rents are low anyways compared to the appreciation).

majormajor 9y ago

> other than than trying to strangle trade on the theory that those scheming foreigners are going to take all of our money away. Wait, you don't think China has been doing this too? --- The US has had decentralized economic booms in the past; even China's current one is based around several cities and regions, and China continues to build outwards, not simply make Beijing and Shanghai ever denser inside the same radius. They do it at a higher density than we do in the US, sure, but other than that the strategy doesn't seem completely unfathomable - I think the Chinese-style answer to the Bay Area is less likely to be "make SF denser" and more "move a bunch of development to the East Bay or Dublin or something and make new companies start up over there." Expanding on what I said in a separate comment (sigh, I was headed to bed, maybe after this one), we are currently in the US letting many of our cities die while putting a ton of eggs into NYC/SF/etc baskets. I don't think further density in just a few places is going to fix anything price-wise or have any superior outcomes than reducing those bottlenecks would.