4 ms·
My long-term prediction: Rural areas and exurbs will up-class, housing the higher-paid remote workers. The remaining non-farming rural poor will be priced out
by bm3719 4y ago
My long-term prediction: Rural areas and exurbs will up-class, housing the higher-paid remote workers. The remaining non-farming rural poor will be priced out of these properties and will have to live in cities, in ever smaller apartments and eventually pods. The nice services that often are only available in cities currently will distribute more evenly geographically, negating a lot of the benefits of city life.
This will have some positive effects, like having the countryside and its adjoining natural environments better curated, along with the large underclass masses living more resource-efficiently. The main downside will be that cities will be even more of a concentration of crime and other social ills, combined with worse public infrastructure due to reduced city tax revenue.
- dcre 4y agoThere are still huge returns to concentrating nice in-person things besides work in one place. Nobody is attending zoos, museums, or restaurants remotely.
- bm3719 4y agoIf transportation accessibility has recently peaked and will invert, with fuel and vehicle prices continuing along current trends, the lower classes become increasingly less mobile. The better off can drive their $100k SUV to fine dining and museums, which may be as close as the nearby town/city center. They might accept that trade-off in exchange for space and separation from urban blight.
- dcre 4y agoDriving an hour sucks no matter how nice your car is.
- throwawayoaky 4y agoall of these things have already been happening for a long time. no jobs == priced out
- tayo42 4y agothis has already happened a few times. then the cities get cheap, people move in, gentrification happens, poor people move out of the cities and repeat
- ergvgdvgrd 4y agoA story like what you're describing is in the etymological history of the word "villain". The rich had villas outside the city and people who lived and/or were servants in a villa were villains. No judgement here, but interesting parallel.