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Reversing the trend of jobs concentrating in metro areas is not exactly feasible. How would this be done? Prohibiting companies from hiring more than X employe

Reversing the trend of jobs concentrating in metro areas is not exactly feasible. How would this be done? Prohibiting companies from hiring more than X employees? What keeps them from just setting up another company and hiring them as consultants? Or is there going to be a fixed cap on the number of people who are permitted to be employed? If someone moves to the city, and it's already at it's max number of workers they're just prohibited from working? Jobs becoming concentrated in certain hubs is natural emergent phenomenon. You're not going to legislate your way out of it, at least not without resorting to oppressive systems like hokou.

jjav 5y ago
> Reversing the trend of jobs concentrating in metro areas is not exactly feasible. How would this be done? Strange question to ask, given we've been seein the decentralization of jobs happening pretty strong for two years now. Jobs are remote now, wheneve possible, and people are moving to areas they want to live instead of being chained to the commute to an office.
everforward 5y ago
There are ways this could be done. One option is building for remote work. Up the definition of "broadband" to include something people can actually use for work, and mandate that employees are allowed to work remotely, with full pay, unless employers can demonstrate the job cannot be done remotely. Workers who have to be local should either get the same tax break, or the company should have to pay those taxes instead. It might also require simplifying (or at least simplifying the administration of) state/local taxes. There are a lot of people, myself included, that live in dense areas for work rather than by choice. My hangup is that I want to live in a nice house, but don't want the risk of buying/building a nice house that I have to sell at a loss because I have to move for work. Another option is to add population density as a factor on taxes. Raise taxes and then offer a discount for people in low population density areas. Or you could tie the discount to the median income. Anecdata, but a lot of the people I know don't really want to live in urban areas so much as that they have to because of jobs. We either need to decouple workers from physical proximity, or force companies to disperse. The first option decouples workers, and the second incentivizes companies to disperse.
belorn 5y ago
The first step a government could do is to encourage remote work. Good Internet infrastructure is an essential first building block, one which is slowly start to be a reality even in rural areas. My government currently have tax reduction programs in place to enable people to commute to work. The same program could be applied to work from home, giving people tax reduction if they do not travel to work and thus lighten wear on the road system and reduces the pressure on mass transport systems. In the transportation sector there could be government programs to further incentives technologies that enable direct-to-customer delivery. During the pandemic we saw how reducing crowded stores had some very positive effect on reduced transmission rates, how viruses other than covid also saw a strong reduction. It is possible also that by improving direct-to-customer delivery we end up with less waste, fewer middle men, and possible less impulsive purchases. We don't need to impose quotas. Make it easier, cheaper and convenient to live outside of large cities and a lot of people will jump for the chance to do so.

jjav 5y ago

> Reversing the trend of jobs concentrating in metro areas is not exactly feasible. How would this be done? Strange question to ask, given we've been seein the decentralization of jobs happening pretty strong for two years now. Jobs are remote now, wheneve possible, and people are moving to areas they want to live instead of being chained to the commute to an office.

everforward 5y ago

There are ways this could be done. One option is building for remote work. Up the definition of "broadband" to include something people can actually use for work, and mandate that employees are allowed to work remotely, with full pay, unless employers can demonstrate the job cannot be done remotely. Workers who have to be local should either get the same tax break, or the company should have to pay those taxes instead. It might also require simplifying (or at least simplifying the administration of) state/local taxes. There are a lot of people, myself included, that live in dense areas for work rather than by choice. My hangup is that I want to live in a nice house, but don't want the risk of buying/building a nice house that I have to sell at a loss because I have to move for work. Another option is to add population density as a factor on taxes. Raise taxes and then offer a discount for people in low population density areas. Or you could tie the discount to the median income. Anecdata, but a lot of the people I know don't really want to live in urban areas so much as that they have to because of jobs. We either need to decouple workers from physical proximity, or force companies to disperse. The first option decouples workers, and the second incentivizes companies to disperse.

belorn 5y ago

The first step a government could do is to encourage remote work. Good Internet infrastructure is an essential first building block, one which is slowly start to be a reality even in rural areas. My government currently have tax reduction programs in place to enable people to commute to work. The same program could be applied to work from home, giving people tax reduction if they do not travel to work and thus lighten wear on the road system and reduces the pressure on mass transport systems. In the transportation sector there could be government programs to further incentives technologies that enable direct-to-customer delivery. During the pandemic we saw how reducing crowded stores had some very positive effect on reduced transmission rates, how viruses other than covid also saw a strong reduction. It is possible also that by improving direct-to-customer delivery we end up with less waste, fewer middle men, and possible less impulsive purchases. We don't need to impose quotas. Make it easier, cheaper and convenient to live outside of large cities and a lot of people will jump for the chance to do so.