7 ms·
Inflection? Grosse? Needle??
by iab 5y ago
Inflection? Grosse? Needle??
- dredmorbius 5y agoI don't follow in the latter two. The possibility that the US might be headed to informal and unsanctioned permanent slums as is common in other countries is one possibility. Effectively a permanently-unpropertied class.
- 6510 5y agoI imagine at some point the younglings will just leave the country.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dredmorbius 5y agoI'm wondering if it's going to be the young, first, or the talented, who can choose to live and work elsewhere. Either working remotely, or finding a new low-cost centre with suitable infrastructure. Where that might be I'm not so certain, as numerous candidate are either expensive or lack sufficient infrastructure. California of the 1950s--1970s was reasonably inexpensive and low-drama relative to much of the rest of the US, while at the same time not being remote or encumbered with unattractive weather (too hot, too cold, too humid). Northern California was largely more affordable than Southern up until the early 1990s IIRC, when the draw-down from the Cold War crashed Los Angeles and San Diego real estate values. The San Francisco Bay Are rebuilt following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and saw the first dot-com boom in the late 1990s, with property values beginning their stratospheric climb. Financialisation of real estate has contributed to price increases throughout the US, whilst supply has been constrained through numerous factors, benefitting both existing homeowners and financial institutions holding mortgage-backed securities. Taxing real estate or securities based on it seems to be what's required. Unfortunately, that knowledge is 200 years old, but seems impossible to implement politically. A region which could offer today in comparison to other current location choices the benefits that Northern California had to offer ~1950--1990 or so* just might be able to draw off talent. Where that would be ... I don't know: Vancouver, Berlin, London, Dublin, Sydney, Melbourne, Madrid, ...? None of those jump out at me. Many are pleasant and modern, but most or all are expensive.
- 6510 5y agoSounds like a great business plan.
- dredmorbius 5y agoLess a business plan than a coherent economic policy.
- 6510 5y agoI mean something like starting a colony on mars with the sensible exception that it would be on earth. Even Antarctica would be a viable candidate location but I imagine there must be some sweet spot with decent cable, water, electricity, healthcare, food, climate, transportation and land prices or at least have some of those with an option to build the rest. Someone is going to have to organize it?
- throwaway19937 5y agoI would argue that the unsanctioned permanent slums are already present in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities on the west coast.
- dredmorbius 5y agoYou could make a very strong case that they're forming, and that at the least a precursor has existed for a decade or more now. They're not yet at the scale of slums, favellas, barrios, etc., of third-world cities. For the most part that role remains the domain of "retirement" communities of the less-than-privileged sort, usually in outlying regions or depressed (e.g., Rustbelt, rural Sunbelt) areas.