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> The trouble is that it decreases them per capita, and now you need more teachers and firefighters to cover the additional residents. That doesn't sound right
by cheriot 7y ago
> The trouble is that it decreases them per capita, and now you need more teachers and firefighters to cover the additional residents.
That doesn't sound right. Average incomes in urban areas are higher. The economies are stronger. Then there's the economies of scale in providing infrastructure.
Wish I could find numbers on it one way or another.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago> That doesn't sound right. Average incomes in urban areas are higher. The economies are stronger. Average incomes in urban areas are higher because it requires a higher income to afford to live there. What do you expect to happen if you increase the housing supply, allowing lower income people to be able to afford to move in? > Then there's the economies of scale in providing infrastructure. The biggest cost centers don't really have these -- it's why they're the biggest cost centers. If you want to add ten new classrooms full of students then you need ten new teachers. If you want to add twenty new classrooms then you need twenty new teachers. You don't need twenty new superintendents, but the cost of the superintendent was already a rounding error to begin with.
- TheCoelacanth 7y agoThey're higher because they have more productivity. Business don't preferentially open locations in the places with the most expensive real estate just because they have too much money burning a hole in their pocket, they do it because they make more money by having locations there.