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It's not just about the jobs. There are enormous economies of scale to living in cities. Distances travelled are shorter, stores do higher turnover(meaning fewe
by conjecTech 5y ago
It's not just about the jobs. There are enormous economies of scale to living in cities. Distances travelled are shorter, stores do higher turnover(meaning fewer of them per capita), and multi-family housing is cheaper to heat & maintain to name a few. Urbanization is one of the most tested ways of making people richer.
The problem historically has been the distribution of that additional wealth. It's common to see cycles of increasing rent seeking, followed by de-urbanization/migration, and then a gradual return to cities.
- refurb 5y agoNot sure how "rich" people feel trading a single family home on a quarter acre for a 800 sq ft 2-bedroom house. I've lived in plenty of dense urban cities in developing countries and they live that way because they can't afford better, not because it's ideal.
- eru 5y agoYes, that's a trade-off that people have to decide for themselves. Though if more and higher construction were legal, they could afford a bigger place in dense urban cities, too. (Of course, the number of plots for single family houses is limited. But there's no limit to how big your apartments can be, if you are willing to stack them.)