7 ms·

Wouldn't be better for pretty much everyone to just help the people in areas where services are unsustainably expensive to move to denser areas where they can b

Wouldn't be better for pretty much everyone to just help the people in areas where services are unsustainably expensive to move to denser areas where they can be properly attended? At this point the less dense areas are a waste of energy and resources that are worsening our climate outlook, we should be starting to think about real solutions instead of some cockamamie telemedicine patch - seeing a doctor over the phone is only a solution for trivial problem, as soon as there's something serious the only option is a very long car ride or a very expensive helicopter ride.

TulliusCicero 7y ago
Almost certainly yes. The main problem is that as a whole, we tend to romanticize and privilege rural living. It's generally bad for the environment and economy, and really the latter is why people have already been urbanizing for, well, centuries now. That as many people are able to live in rural areas now with a modern-ish standard of living is largely because of subsidies from more productive urban areas: just look at state government tax revenues vs spending by county and this is obvious. I don't hate rural areas, but there's really no reason we should be subsidizing a lifestyle choice that's bad for the environment. At the very least, zoning rules at city and county levels that prevent densification even from landowners who want it on their property should be illegal, there's no good reason for those to exist. Some regional housing and transportation authorities with teeth would also go a long way. There are all sorts of ramifications to the inefficiency of rural living that developed societies struggle to cope with. That providing, say, high speed internet out there may be too expensive for its own residents to afford may seem like an ignorable problem, until you remember there are kids out there too, and what if the local school wants the students to do things at home that depend on that internet access, which is a reasonable expectation in most of the country these days?
wwweston 7y ago
Only if there's really no society-supporting activity that people who live in rural areas are engaged in.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  Obviously there are some people who need to live in rural areas to be farmers and whatnot. But that's not all that many people, these days.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Rural areas also have non agricultural industry. Heck, it doesn’t make sense to do manufacturing in dense urban areas these days, which are restricted to mostly services. That means a lot of light manufacturing falls into semi rural areas.
    - TulliusCicero 7y ago
      Yes, but there you could easily have people living in medium density small towns. You don't need everyone sprawled out on huge lots as is common in the states. This isn't some wild suggestion, living in Munich now I've gone through plenty of little Bavarian towns that are more walkable than US cities 100x as big. I think the US is a bit unusual in how once you get out of bigger cities, it's just assumed that yeah of course any kind of multi-family housing is going to be almost completely absent now, as if the economics of scale there suddenly stop existing. The market might even achieve this by itself to a large extent, but usually zoning rules make it illegal. Plus, there are non-market effects like property taxes not taking into account how expensive it is for the government to provide services, resulting in subsidies from denser neighborhoods to sprawly ones.
      - ravitation 7y ago
        > you could easily have people living in medium density small towns. Yes, you could have those things if you had... a thousand years of history with vastly different agricultural economics, socioeconomic pressures, political pressures, and climate pressures that led to the development of those "medium density small towns" in Europe. Oh, and of course on top of those things (and largely as a result of those things) you also now had a culture that predisposed people to remaining in the communities of their birth and childhood, a much more consistent (and much higher) population density (with large cities being uniformly extremely nearby by American standards), and rural communities that benefit from exporting large amounts of high-end agriculture products. It's absurd to imply that the only difference between a place like rural Oklahoma and rural Bavaria is "zoning rules" and "property taxes"...
coryrc 7y ago
Yes, but only if the wealthy, liberal city-dwellers would be willing to zone for higher density and lower cost.
wcunning 7y ago
Well, that depends. Will the urban area allow me to have a workshop? Will it do like San Diego did and disallow any personal car repair even in my own damn garage? Will I be able to even modify the way in which I enjoy my hobbies without incurring literally 100x the cost in an urban area vs. a rural one? The town I live in now has messed with zoning so much over the last 30 years that any extant property is a minefield of exceptions and variances, so any time you want to even repair what's there, you need a $500 zoning variance application. Anytime you want to expand in place, you violate the setback rules. Anytime you want to do anything other than stay exactly as is, doing only the mowing the lawn and walking to the restaurants in town that the "City Master Plan" expects, you are begging for permission from the high and mighty civil masters ahem servants. All of my friends that enjoy the same things as I do, do what I'm working towards doing -- move out of the city and away from the upper class zoning that intends to keep the working class out.
- namdnay 7y ago
  > Will I be able to even modify the way in which I enjoy my hobbies without incurring literally 100x the cost in an urban area vs. a rural one? I think the point the parent is making is that the people in urban areas are the ones subsidising your extra-urban lifestyle, which would be unaffordable if you had to pay the real cost of all your services
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

TulliusCicero 7y ago

Almost certainly yes. The main problem is that as a whole, we tend to romanticize and privilege rural living. It's generally bad for the environment and economy, and really the latter is why people have already been urbanizing for, well, centuries now. That as many people are able to live in rural areas now with a modern-ish standard of living is largely because of subsidies from more productive urban areas: just look at state government tax revenues vs spending by county and this is obvious. I don't hate rural areas, but there's really no reason we should be subsidizing a lifestyle choice that's bad for the environment. At the very least, zoning rules at city and county levels that prevent densification even from landowners who want it on their property should be illegal, there's no good reason for those to exist. Some regional housing and transportation authorities with teeth would also go a long way. There are all sorts of ramifications to the inefficiency of rural living that developed societies struggle to cope with. That providing, say, high speed internet out there may be too expensive for its own residents to afford may seem like an ignorable problem, until you remember there are kids out there too, and what if the local school wants the students to do things at home that depend on that internet access, which is a reasonable expectation in most of the country these days?

wwweston 7y ago

Only if there's really no society-supporting activity that people who live in rural areas are engaged in.

TulliusCicero 7y ago
Obviously there are some people who need to live in rural areas to be farmers and whatnot. But that's not all that many people, these days.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Rural areas also have non agricultural industry. Heck, it doesn’t make sense to do manufacturing in dense urban areas these days, which are restricted to mostly services. That means a lot of light manufacturing falls into semi rural areas.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    Yes, but there you could easily have people living in medium density small towns. You don't need everyone sprawled out on huge lots as is common in the states. This isn't some wild suggestion, living in Munich now I've gone through plenty of little Bavarian towns that are more walkable than US cities 100x as big. I think the US is a bit unusual in how once you get out of bigger cities, it's just assumed that yeah of course any kind of multi-family housing is going to be almost completely absent now, as if the economics of scale there suddenly stop existing. The market might even achieve this by itself to a large extent, but usually zoning rules make it illegal. Plus, there are non-market effects like property taxes not taking into account how expensive it is for the government to provide services, resulting in subsidies from denser neighborhoods to sprawly ones.
    - ravitation 7y ago
      > you could easily have people living in medium density small towns. Yes, you could have those things if you had... a thousand years of history with vastly different agricultural economics, socioeconomic pressures, political pressures, and climate pressures that led to the development of those "medium density small towns" in Europe. Oh, and of course on top of those things (and largely as a result of those things) you also now had a culture that predisposed people to remaining in the communities of their birth and childhood, a much more consistent (and much higher) population density (with large cities being uniformly extremely nearby by American standards), and rural communities that benefit from exporting large amounts of high-end agriculture products. It's absurd to imply that the only difference between a place like rural Oklahoma and rural Bavaria is "zoning rules" and "property taxes"...

coryrc 7y ago

Yes, but only if the wealthy, liberal city-dwellers would be willing to zone for higher density and lower cost.

wcunning 7y ago

Well, that depends. Will the urban area allow me to have a workshop? Will it do like San Diego did and disallow any personal car repair even in my own damn garage? Will I be able to even modify the way in which I enjoy my hobbies without incurring literally 100x the cost in an urban area vs. a rural one? The town I live in now has messed with zoning so much over the last 30 years that any extant property is a minefield of exceptions and variances, so any time you want to even repair what's there, you need a $500 zoning variance application. Anytime you want to expand in place, you violate the setback rules. Anytime you want to do anything other than stay exactly as is, doing only the mowing the lawn and walking to the restaurants in town that the "City Master Plan" expects, you are begging for permission from the high and mighty civil masters ahem servants. All of my friends that enjoy the same things as I do, do what I'm working towards doing -- move out of the city and away from the upper class zoning that intends to keep the working class out.

namdnay 7y ago
> Will I be able to even modify the way in which I enjoy my hobbies without incurring literally 100x the cost in an urban area vs. a rural one? I think the point the parent is making is that the people in urban areas are the ones subsidising your extra-urban lifestyle, which would be unaffordable if you had to pay the real cost of all your services

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]