4 ms·

Over the years I keep hearing a general sentiment that cities are more efficient places for humans to work and live than their rural alternatives. If this was

Over the years I keep hearing a general sentiment that cities are more efficient places for humans to work and live than their rural alternatives. If this was true, shouldn't efficiency make living there cheaper?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nkjnlknlk 4y ago
It is cheaper than having all of NYC live in the rural equivalent, yes.
- GenerocUsername 4y ago
  Is it? Wouldn't each individuals expenses be lower? And therefore the total would also be lower...
  - chucksta 4y ago
    The only thing that makes it expensive is the desire to be there. If you move that "desire" to a rural location, its going to cost the same but have larger distances to travel, a la Los Angeles.
jeffbee 4y ago
It doesn't because of the constrained housing regime. All marginally available money flows to landlords. Anything that begins to cost less simply raises rents.
javanissen 4y ago
Not if the supply dramatically outstrips demand. If you want to live in a walkable city in America with decent public transit (to the point where car ownership is optional), low to moderate crime, and lots of jobs, relatively few places meet that demand. If there were twenty American cities with the same economic abundance and amenities as New York City, New York City rent would be lower.
- automatoney 4y ago
  This was almost word for word my decision process when picking where to live. "I'm not going to buy a car, so I want to live somewhere designed for that, and I want to live somewhere with local tech jobs." I also don't like the heat too much, so that gives me a couple of cities in America, or I could move to another country.
  - javanissen 4y ago
    Yep. I live in NYC because the my thought process was the same, with the additional constraint that I needed to be close-ish to family. Have not regretted it for a second
twblalock 4y ago
That general sentiment is unsupported by evidence and most of the time when you challenge it you get links to strongtowns.org which is a non-credible source run by a crank. People constantly say that cities "subsidize" suburbs but when you look into it you find out that is only sometimes true, and that many of the people who do the most productive work in cities commute there from the suburbs, and that many of the world's most valuable companies, including all but one of the FAANG companies, are located in suburban areas. Plus, if people really want to talk about "subsidies" they should admit that big dense cities get plenty of those too. You'll also see a lot of commenters who think "suburban" and "rural" are the same thing, often without realizing it, to the extent that one particularly clueless comment I saw recently asserted that nobody in the suburbs had city utilities and all the houses had septic tanks. Cities are actually very expensive to maintain, and they tend to have the worst concentration of problems such as crime and drug abuse, and NYC is one of the prime examples.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  > and they tend to have the worst concentration of problems such as crime and drug abuse, and NYC is one of the prime examples. Per capita drug use in NYC isn't as bad as many rural areas, where meth has become a huge problem. The fact is that more people mean smaller percentages can still mean lots of people. Cities really aren't that expensive compared to the wealth they produce. Its just that with scale also means demand goes up, which increases prices because resources are still finite.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    Cities don't produce wealth. People produce wealth. Many of the people who work in cities to produce wealth actually live in suburbs. For example, many of the people who drive NYC's economy live in New Jersey, Long Island, and the suburbs north of the Bronx and commute to work. It's wrong to give the city full credit for that wealth creation, which is the fundamental mistake that Strong Towns makes when they assert that cities subsidize the suburbs.
    - 4y ago
whywhywhydude 4y ago
It increases efficacy, but most of the efficiency gains probably goes to the landlords, property owners and a few lucky percentage who win the subsidized housing lotteries.
toshredsyousay 4y ago
There aren't many places with the access to as many high-paying jobs and the desirable walkability of NYC. That makes demand to live here high, and then we have on top of that artificial constraints on building new housing. Additionally, the suburbs outside of the city also have artificial constraints on building housing, and generally other cities that could become alternatives to NYC also have artificial constraints on building housing (and also don't build enough transit). All of that makes NYC more expensive and makes cities remotely like it (e.g. S.F.) more expensive.
addcommitpush 4y ago
Landlords are able to capture the efficiency gains through higher rents. What makes it so much more expensive to live in NYC is not that (e.g.) construction costs are that much higher, it's because the land costs so much more because it is more desirable.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
> If this was true, shouldn't efficiency make living there cheaper? You make more money in cities, and it is easier to find a job. Living in a small town in Montana sounds great, until you realize that you can't find a job and are starving to death. Smaller towns and cities are cheaper simply because people have less money to spend on housing. But try going to Aspen CO or Jackson WY, and its crushing because so many rich people are living in those places and the only jobs to be had are low paying ones serving those rich people.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

nkjnlknlk 4y ago

It is cheaper than having all of NYC live in the rural equivalent, yes.

GenerocUsername 4y ago
Is it? Wouldn't each individuals expenses be lower? And therefore the total would also be lower...
- chucksta 4y ago
  The only thing that makes it expensive is the desire to be there. If you move that "desire" to a rural location, its going to cost the same but have larger distances to travel, a la Los Angeles.

jeffbee 4y ago

It doesn't because of the constrained housing regime. All marginally available money flows to landlords. Anything that begins to cost less simply raises rents.

javanissen 4y ago

Not if the supply dramatically outstrips demand. If you want to live in a walkable city in America with decent public transit (to the point where car ownership is optional), low to moderate crime, and lots of jobs, relatively few places meet that demand. If there were twenty American cities with the same economic abundance and amenities as New York City, New York City rent would be lower.

automatoney 4y ago
This was almost word for word my decision process when picking where to live. "I'm not going to buy a car, so I want to live somewhere designed for that, and I want to live somewhere with local tech jobs." I also don't like the heat too much, so that gives me a couple of cities in America, or I could move to another country.
- javanissen 4y ago
  Yep. I live in NYC because the my thought process was the same, with the additional constraint that I needed to be close-ish to family. Have not regretted it for a second

twblalock 4y ago

That general sentiment is unsupported by evidence and most of the time when you challenge it you get links to strongtowns.org which is a non-credible source run by a crank. People constantly say that cities "subsidize" suburbs but when you look into it you find out that is only sometimes true, and that many of the people who do the most productive work in cities commute there from the suburbs, and that many of the world's most valuable companies, including all but one of the FAANG companies, are located in suburban areas. Plus, if people really want to talk about "subsidies" they should admit that big dense cities get plenty of those too. You'll also see a lot of commenters who think "suburban" and "rural" are the same thing, often without realizing it, to the extent that one particularly clueless comment I saw recently asserted that nobody in the suburbs had city utilities and all the houses had septic tanks. Cities are actually very expensive to maintain, and they tend to have the worst concentration of problems such as crime and drug abuse, and NYC is one of the prime examples.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
> and they tend to have the worst concentration of problems such as crime and drug abuse, and NYC is one of the prime examples. Per capita drug use in NYC isn't as bad as many rural areas, where meth has become a huge problem. The fact is that more people mean smaller percentages can still mean lots of people. Cities really aren't that expensive compared to the wealth they produce. Its just that with scale also means demand goes up, which increases prices because resources are still finite.
- twblalock 4y ago
  Cities don't produce wealth. People produce wealth. Many of the people who work in cities to produce wealth actually live in suburbs. For example, many of the people who drive NYC's economy live in New Jersey, Long Island, and the suburbs north of the Bronx and commute to work. It's wrong to give the city full credit for that wealth creation, which is the fundamental mistake that Strong Towns makes when they assert that cities subsidize the suburbs.
  - 4y ago

whywhywhydude 4y ago

It increases efficacy, but most of the efficiency gains probably goes to the landlords, property owners and a few lucky percentage who win the subsidized housing lotteries.

toshredsyousay 4y ago

There aren't many places with the access to as many high-paying jobs and the desirable walkability of NYC. That makes demand to live here high, and then we have on top of that artificial constraints on building new housing. Additionally, the suburbs outside of the city also have artificial constraints on building housing, and generally other cities that could become alternatives to NYC also have artificial constraints on building housing (and also don't build enough transit). All of that makes NYC more expensive and makes cities remotely like it (e.g. S.F.) more expensive.

addcommitpush 4y ago

Landlords are able to capture the efficiency gains through higher rents. What makes it so much more expensive to live in NYC is not that (e.g.) construction costs are that much higher, it's because the land costs so much more because it is more desirable.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

> If this was true, shouldn't efficiency make living there cheaper? You make more money in cities, and it is easier to find a job. Living in a small town in Montana sounds great, until you realize that you can't find a job and are starving to death. Smaller towns and cities are cheaper simply because people have less money to spend on housing. But try going to Aspen CO or Jackson WY, and its crushing because so many rich people are living in those places and the only jobs to be had are low paying ones serving those rich people.