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So your main problem here is that cities (and larger cities) are more efficient than less dense places. Less energy use, easier to get around etc. Sure it take

by slyall 5y ago

So your main problem here is that cities (and larger cities) are more efficient than less dense places. Less energy use, easier to get around etc. Sure it takes an hour to get to the other side of town but you have millions of people reachable in that hour. If they were all in small towns the number of people in a one our radius goes right down. Also think carefully about why big cities are growing everywhere and villages, towns and small cities are struggling.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
> Also think carefully about why big cities are growing everywhere and villages, towns and small cities are struggling. That’s not entirely accurate. People are clearing out of urban cores for other areas, and are clearly choosing lower density locales when their income situation affords it (whether that’s remote work or retirement income streams from a combination of social security and investment income). Florida and Texas have grown by about 200k people in the last year. > “The patterns we’ve observed in domestic migration shifted in 2021,” said Dr. Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for estimates and projections in the Census Bureau’s Population Division. “Even though over time we’ve seen a higher number of counties with natural decrease and net international migration continuing to decline, in the past year, the contribution of domestic migration counteracted these trends so there were actually more counties growing than losing population.” In many cases, there was a shift from larger, more populous counties to medium and smaller ones. These patterns contributed to population increases in 1,822 counties (58.0%), while 1,313 (41.8%) lost residents, and eight (0.3%) saw no change in population. > Florida trailed only Texas in population increases from 2020 to 2021, while the nation had the slowest growth rate in its history, according to information released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. > Florida grew by 211,196 residents from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021, to a population of 21,781,128, the census estimates show. Texas grew by an estimated 310,288 residents to a population of 29,527,941. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2022/comm/where-counties-are-growing.html https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2022/comm/wher... https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/population-estimates-counties-decrease.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/populati... https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/florida-saw-second-highest-population-growth-in-nation-over-last-year/Content?oid=30514161 https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/florida-saw-second-hig...
- notfromhere 5y ago
  Suburban counties are heavily subsidized in a number of ways. You can't really compare migration flows for that kind of analysis
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    It’s immaterial if the long term economics of the suburbs or rural living is unsustainable; that’s where people are moving today, and the economics issue will be someone else’s problem in 20-30 years (metro Detroit comes to mind). Complaining about wide swaths of the population migrating to medium to low density suburbs and exurbs is like fighting the Fed. You can’t. Builders build, buyers buy and migrate, and you’re stuck with the resulting development. Tangentially, StrongTowns’ efforts (which argues against sprawl) is like arguing with someone who is racking up credit card debt and has no plans to pay it back. People want their low density housing and will fight you for it (see California for example, and their efforts to try to make upzoning possible at scale), and as long as one lives in a democratic country, you can move to and live what your economic means will support. (my comments are observations of the system and its participants, not my personal opinion of an optimal master planned community configuration)
giantg2 5y ago
Strict efficiency, cities are better. But if we're discussing quality of life, are cities still the best? Personally, I don't think so (and wouldn't want to live in one). But others may have different views.

by slyall 5y ago

toomuchtodo 5y ago

> Also think carefully about why big cities are growing everywhere and villages, towns and small cities are struggling. That’s not entirely accurate. People are clearing out of urban cores for other areas, and are clearly choosing lower density locales when their income situation affords it (whether that’s remote work or retirement income streams from a combination of social security and investment income). Florida and Texas have grown by about 200k people in the last year. > “The patterns we’ve observed in domestic migration shifted in 2021,” said Dr. Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for estimates and projections in the Census Bureau’s Population Division. “Even though over time we’ve seen a higher number of counties with natural decrease and net international migration continuing to decline, in the past year, the contribution of domestic migration counteracted these trends so there were actually more counties growing than losing population.” In many cases, there was a shift from larger, more populous counties to medium and smaller ones. These patterns contributed to population increases in 1,822 counties (58.0%), while 1,313 (41.8%) lost residents, and eight (0.3%) saw no change in population. > Florida trailed only Texas in population increases from 2020 to 2021, while the nation had the slowest growth rate in its history, according to information released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. > Florida grew by 211,196 residents from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021, to a population of 21,781,128, the census estimates show. Texas grew by an estimated 310,288 residents to a population of 29,527,941. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2022/comm/where-counties-are-growing.html https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2022/comm/wher... https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/population-estimates-counties-decrease.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/populati... https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/florida-saw-second-highest-population-growth-in-nation-over-last-year/Content?oid=30514161 https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/florida-saw-second-hig...

notfromhere 5y ago
Suburban counties are heavily subsidized in a number of ways. You can't really compare migration flows for that kind of analysis
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  It’s immaterial if the long term economics of the suburbs or rural living is unsustainable; that’s where people are moving today, and the economics issue will be someone else’s problem in 20-30 years (metro Detroit comes to mind). Complaining about wide swaths of the population migrating to medium to low density suburbs and exurbs is like fighting the Fed. You can’t. Builders build, buyers buy and migrate, and you’re stuck with the resulting development. Tangentially, StrongTowns’ efforts (which argues against sprawl) is like arguing with someone who is racking up credit card debt and has no plans to pay it back. People want their low density housing and will fight you for it (see California for example, and their efforts to try to make upzoning possible at scale), and as long as one lives in a democratic country, you can move to and live what your economic means will support. (my comments are observations of the system and its participants, not my personal opinion of an optimal master planned community configuration)

giantg2 5y ago

Strict efficiency, cities are better. But if we're discussing quality of life, are cities still the best? Personally, I don't think so (and wouldn't want to live in one). But others may have different views.