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But why do we even need to cluster in massive cities, when today’s technologies allow for remote work for pretty much any non physical type of work? Accountants

But why do we even need to cluster in massive cities, when today’s technologies allow for remote work for pretty much any non physical type of work? Accountants, developers, designers, architects, customer support, and so on can all be done remotely. That would reduce both the need to drive and to cram people in overcrowded public transport options.

Phenomenit 7y ago
Gravity is still an important aspect of an economy. People congregate near food sources(jobs). Companies congregate close to the other services they need because it costs less. as long as our food is on one specific location so will we. If the trend of subsistence farming because more than that we might see a shift in urban areas.
ElFitz 7y ago
It's not just a matter of work. Good luck finding my local theater's shows in Greenfields, nowhere, USA. Sure I can work from anywhere, but businesses (especially leisure) tend to concentrate where people concentrate. Just like when I went trekking. I asked our guide once, _where do we have to go for the trail to be less crowded?_ He named a few places. Then mentioned there were no stairs on the slopes of the mountains he just named. No hot water for showers in the lodges on the way. Much fewer places to stay to eat or sleep. And not as much choice on the menu. Wether it's around the Annapurna or in the US, businesses and services develop and concentrate where there they can find more customers. People go where they can find the products, services and experiences they long for, and the people they care about.
mantap 7y ago
Many people like living in cities. There are many dozens of restaurants within walking distance of my home and quite literally thousands if I hop on the tube. How would my life be enriched if I lived in suburbia?
- 14 7y ago
  Many people like living in she suburbs. There they are exposed to less traffic and emissions from said traffic. We discussed this [1] last week and it seems less traffic has a major effect on air quality. The air you breath would literally be enriched if you lived in suburbia. But I do get your point, I live in a small town and when I travel to a place like Vancouver, it is fascinating to be able to choose from so many different venues and options throughout the entire giant city. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21322291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21322291
  - chosenbreed37 7y ago
    I think both points of view are accurate. Cities offer a number of advantages but so do towns within commuting distance of cities.
bluGill 7y ago
Because you have some unique interest. In a city you can fill it, not in a small town. Do you want a tank of Argon - you won't get that in the smallest towns (argon is useful enough that many farmers have a tank for welding). What about a new magic trick - order from amazon and hope it isn't cheap junk, or buy from the local store and see it in person first - you need a larger city to support that store. Maybe you want see a Broadway type musical, the larger the city the better talent they can afford to act. (in small towns the main actor is still pretty good but the support actors are not very good)
Nasrudith 7y ago
The reason why is scaling of infastructure. It is cheaper to provide services for 1000 in one skyscrapper than 1000 in a small town. Even if we had FTL communication for full cyberpunk "jack in robot bodies remotely" those benefits would remain. It is true that there are also costs to the arrangement but cities are here to stay and growing even. Add in doctors and other specialized labor which is important but thankfully rarer in need and have a larger "patient footprint". That small towns are mostly dying is no accident or sinister conspiracy - they are victims of not being able to compete with scale barring some niches like say tourist towns. The only implausible escape from cities as a situation involve not only teleportation but cheap teleportation which effectively scribbles over many spatial constraints.
imtringued 7y ago
The big reason is money. We now have large multinational corporations that service the entire world but have headquarters in one or two cities. So all the high paying jobs end up in a handful of cities. I live in an completely unremarkably small city except for the fact that there is one big employer with a lot of money. The rents and house prices are only going up.
- ghaff 7y ago
  And many of the companies are not actually in the urban core. And people live over a fairly large radius from the central city. The discussion always seems to assume that you live in a dense central city or in Nowhereville USA. In reality, a huge number of people live in suburbs, exurbs, and less dense parts of the city. There's no shortage of local shopping. And "downtown" is easily accessible for those times when someone wants to take advantage of the resources (like better restaurants and theater) that are mostly less available outside of the city proper.
Swenrekcah 7y ago
Because cities make a lot of things much better and easier. There are definately downsides, but they can be solved. We have systems to collect and clean waste so that is no longer a problem. When cars can be mostly eliminated and the ones that are left will be autonomus, that’s the traffic and air pollution problem mostly solved. Then we can also have more of untouched land for wildlife and our general pleasure.
- jcims 7y ago
  >Then we can also have more of untouched land for wildlife and our general pleasure. I live in a rural area in Ohio. Any eligible land that isn't being tilled already gets converted to farm land. Plots are getting consolidated, treelines are getting leveled and burned to gain another couple acres of arable land. I think if we all move to cities there will be some natural parks but most of it will be converted to ag and industry. If you get a couple million acres of privately held land, who knows what's happening in there.
  - Swenrekcah 7y ago
    True, that’s another problem to solve. How to reduce each person’s nutritional footprint while improving their nutritional intake.
darkmighty 7y ago
Physical interaction is still extremely important to societies and individuals; not everything can be virtualized or made remote without loss of effectiveness or efficiency, at least not yet. For personal interactions, you have face-to-face talking and generally (in the context of clustering) access to many people with aligned interests to talk and interact with in person in real time. Culturally, you have art installations, exhibitions, and all sorts of activities like musical concerts, theater, etc. that aren't exactly reproduced remotely. In terms of work and hobbies, clusters can give access to tools, workshops, that might be too expensive to have at home. Say using a hackerspace/fab lab vs. having a complete electronics lab in your house or a laser cutter. All of those should be more readily accessible (in terms of transportation time and cost) if you are well located within a large hub. Of course, remote does have significant cost benefits in some respects (housing and supplies), and for some professions the benefits of cities aren't strictly necessary, but clustering and the physical world should not be underestimated or thought obsolete.
fooblitzky 7y ago
For two main reasons: efficiency and preventing habitat loss. Higher densities of people make many things more efficient, e.g. shared heating in apartment building, making mass transit viable, sharing resources like food and water. Climate change is forcing our hand on transitioning to a higher-efficiency society, but we would have to do it soon anyway because we are running out of oil. When you can't enjoy the energy density of fossil fuels, efficiency will start to matter a whole lot more. Our current mode where a single person might travel up to 50 or 100 miles every day, just to live their life, is a ridiculously inefficient way of spending your time on Earth. Secondly, habitat loss is the single greatest cause of the mass extinction of species we are currently experiencing. Most of that is agriculture, but urban sprawl certainly plays a big part. If we want to enjoy, you know, other species existing, we should be looking for ways to reduce the amount of land we need to occupy as humans. Also, a bonus: kids that grow up in walkable neighborhoods have been shown to have the highest levels of upward economic mobility. So really if you want to do right by your kids, you should be moving to a walkable area and reducing your car use.

Phenomenit 7y ago

Gravity is still an important aspect of an economy. People congregate near food sources(jobs). Companies congregate close to the other services they need because it costs less. as long as our food is on one specific location so will we. If the trend of subsistence farming because more than that we might see a shift in urban areas.

ElFitz 7y ago

It's not just a matter of work. Good luck finding my local theater's shows in Greenfields, nowhere, USA. Sure I can work from anywhere, but businesses (especially leisure) tend to concentrate where people concentrate. Just like when I went trekking. I asked our guide once, _where do we have to go for the trail to be less crowded?_ He named a few places. Then mentioned there were no stairs on the slopes of the mountains he just named. No hot water for showers in the lodges on the way. Much fewer places to stay to eat or sleep. And not as much choice on the menu. Wether it's around the Annapurna or in the US, businesses and services develop and concentrate where there they can find more customers. People go where they can find the products, services and experiences they long for, and the people they care about.

mantap 7y ago

Many people like living in cities. There are many dozens of restaurants within walking distance of my home and quite literally thousands if I hop on the tube. How would my life be enriched if I lived in suburbia?

14 7y ago
Many people like living in she suburbs. There they are exposed to less traffic and emissions from said traffic. We discussed this [1] last week and it seems less traffic has a major effect on air quality. The air you breath would literally be enriched if you lived in suburbia. But I do get your point, I live in a small town and when I travel to a place like Vancouver, it is fascinating to be able to choose from so many different venues and options throughout the entire giant city. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21322291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21322291
- chosenbreed37 7y ago
  I think both points of view are accurate. Cities offer a number of advantages but so do towns within commuting distance of cities.

bluGill 7y ago

Because you have some unique interest. In a city you can fill it, not in a small town. Do you want a tank of Argon - you won't get that in the smallest towns (argon is useful enough that many farmers have a tank for welding). What about a new magic trick - order from amazon and hope it isn't cheap junk, or buy from the local store and see it in person first - you need a larger city to support that store. Maybe you want see a Broadway type musical, the larger the city the better talent they can afford to act. (in small towns the main actor is still pretty good but the support actors are not very good)

Nasrudith 7y ago

The reason why is scaling of infastructure. It is cheaper to provide services for 1000 in one skyscrapper than 1000 in a small town. Even if we had FTL communication for full cyberpunk "jack in robot bodies remotely" those benefits would remain. It is true that there are also costs to the arrangement but cities are here to stay and growing even. Add in doctors and other specialized labor which is important but thankfully rarer in need and have a larger "patient footprint". That small towns are mostly dying is no accident or sinister conspiracy - they are victims of not being able to compete with scale barring some niches like say tourist towns. The only implausible escape from cities as a situation involve not only teleportation but cheap teleportation which effectively scribbles over many spatial constraints.

imtringued 7y ago

The big reason is money. We now have large multinational corporations that service the entire world but have headquarters in one or two cities. So all the high paying jobs end up in a handful of cities. I live in an completely unremarkably small city except for the fact that there is one big employer with a lot of money. The rents and house prices are only going up.

ghaff 7y ago
And many of the companies are not actually in the urban core. And people live over a fairly large radius from the central city. The discussion always seems to assume that you live in a dense central city or in Nowhereville USA. In reality, a huge number of people live in suburbs, exurbs, and less dense parts of the city. There's no shortage of local shopping. And "downtown" is easily accessible for those times when someone wants to take advantage of the resources (like better restaurants and theater) that are mostly less available outside of the city proper.

Swenrekcah 7y ago

Because cities make a lot of things much better and easier. There are definately downsides, but they can be solved. We have systems to collect and clean waste so that is no longer a problem. When cars can be mostly eliminated and the ones that are left will be autonomus, that’s the traffic and air pollution problem mostly solved. Then we can also have more of untouched land for wildlife and our general pleasure.

jcims 7y ago
>Then we can also have more of untouched land for wildlife and our general pleasure. I live in a rural area in Ohio. Any eligible land that isn't being tilled already gets converted to farm land. Plots are getting consolidated, treelines are getting leveled and burned to gain another couple acres of arable land. I think if we all move to cities there will be some natural parks but most of it will be converted to ag and industry. If you get a couple million acres of privately held land, who knows what's happening in there.
- Swenrekcah 7y ago
  True, that’s another problem to solve. How to reduce each person’s nutritional footprint while improving their nutritional intake.

darkmighty 7y ago

Physical interaction is still extremely important to societies and individuals; not everything can be virtualized or made remote without loss of effectiveness or efficiency, at least not yet. For personal interactions, you have face-to-face talking and generally (in the context of clustering) access to many people with aligned interests to talk and interact with in person in real time. Culturally, you have art installations, exhibitions, and all sorts of activities like musical concerts, theater, etc. that aren't exactly reproduced remotely. In terms of work and hobbies, clusters can give access to tools, workshops, that might be too expensive to have at home. Say using a hackerspace/fab lab vs. having a complete electronics lab in your house or a laser cutter. All of those should be more readily accessible (in terms of transportation time and cost) if you are well located within a large hub. Of course, remote does have significant cost benefits in some respects (housing and supplies), and for some professions the benefits of cities aren't strictly necessary, but clustering and the physical world should not be underestimated or thought obsolete.

fooblitzky 7y ago

For two main reasons: efficiency and preventing habitat loss. Higher densities of people make many things more efficient, e.g. shared heating in apartment building, making mass transit viable, sharing resources like food and water. Climate change is forcing our hand on transitioning to a higher-efficiency society, but we would have to do it soon anyway because we are running out of oil. When you can't enjoy the energy density of fossil fuels, efficiency will start to matter a whole lot more. Our current mode where a single person might travel up to 50 or 100 miles every day, just to live their life, is a ridiculously inefficient way of spending your time on Earth. Secondly, habitat loss is the single greatest cause of the mass extinction of species we are currently experiencing. Most of that is agriculture, but urban sprawl certainly plays a big part. If we want to enjoy, you know, other species existing, we should be looking for ways to reduce the amount of land we need to occupy as humans. Also, a bonus: kids that grow up in walkable neighborhoods have been shown to have the highest levels of upward economic mobility. So really if you want to do right by your kids, you should be moving to a walkable area and reducing your car use.