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Articles like this that obsess over consumption curtailment and ignore everything else are beyond foolish. Please at least mention the Inflation Reduction Act i

Articles like this that obsess over consumption curtailment and ignore everything else are beyond foolish. Please at least mention the Inflation Reduction Act in passing. Also the irony is that the "bank bailout" was a failure too! The 2010s were a lost decade because the politicians were afraid to adequate stimulus, the Europeans are still afraid! So the idea that the politicians are afraid of doing unpopular things is also dis-proven --- avoiding recessions would also be popular. There was a fear of doing anything at all, and now there is less of that. The IRA is very much a political theory that: - Green male jobs in red states will stave off fascism - Green suburbia is necessary because we can't get our shit together on density/transit fast enough. These environmental types need to becomes aware of the massive era-demarking shifts we've seen in policy in politics in recent years. And they better also support way more multi-story housing because giving people cheap apartments without parking spots is far more popular than directly curtailing driving / ICEs. Also do nuclear power but the brits already have some decent plans there.

bluescrn 3y ago
Eliminating 'suburbia' is even more distasteful to voters than forcibly taking away meat. While city life can be attractive to young and single people, people don't want to be forced to live in Mega-City One, especially as they grow older and have families.
- failuser 3y ago
  If people don’t want to live there why are big cities so damn expensive?
  - bluescrn 3y ago
    Job insecurity encourages people to live where there's a high density of jobs
- Teever 3y ago
  Why is your perception of this so black and white? Why can't we have environments that are somewhere between dystopian 'mega-city one' and unsustainable Las Vegas suburbs?
- Ericson2314 3y ago
  We don't need to eliminate suburbia by fiat, we just need to build way more urbia. See https://www.niskanencenter.org/sprawl-can-be-good-actually-expand-the-metropolitan-commute-zone-to-grow-housing-supply/ https://www.niskanencenter.org/sprawl-can-be-good-actually-e... where calling it "sprawl" is actually a massive troll because promoting walkable small towns connected by rail as they have in Europe (or America in the ~1920s) is nothing at all like our car-oriented sprawl.
- wk_end 3y ago
  I don't think you're wrong about the optics or political viability, unfortunately, but there's a million urban designs in between Kowloon Walled City and "I have to drive twenty minutes through a wasteland of lawns and detached houses to go to Starbucks".
- myshpa 3y ago
  Urban & built up land is 1% of habitable earth. Animal agriculture is 35% (80% of all agriculture lands). https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use Both are destructive for our environment. But one is worse that the other.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Europe has 'suburbs' that are not suburbia. The idea that everybody would be forced to live in a mega city that is just a single skyscraper is just suberia imagination of what the world be like if not 90% of the land was zoned single family.
ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
>The 2010s were a lost decade This is the first time I've ever heard this, how do you even begin to justify this claim.
- wombatpm 3y ago
  I'd start with the trillion spent on wars we didn't need. Holding an empire together is expensive. If Trump hadn't tied Biden's hands, we would still have troops in Afghanistan.
- yyyk 3y ago
  * No meaningful regulation of banks and definitely no attempt to charge bankers for fraud. Dodd-Frank was emptied of most meaning rather quickly, and no other steps were taken to prevent 'too big to fail'. Only very recently has Anti-Trust finally recalled its mandate. * American life expectancy rate of increase slowed down since the Great Recession, to the point that life expectancy went down between 2014 and 2017 and only then recovered. 2019 life expectancy was still slightly below 2014. And then COVID arrived... (There are slight changes due to various data issues and slightly different definitions, but the general shape of the graph is identical everywhere you'd look) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?end=2021&locations=US&start=2000 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?end=2021... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819944/live-free-and-die-the-sad-state-of-u-s-life-expectancy https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819... * Foreign policy far too desperate to woo every US adversary, starting with the famous 'reset' with Russia and turning a blind eye towards Putin's crimes. That worked out really well, didn't it? It's not an accident Obama was followed by Trump, or that the D primary was so savage that year - the failures of 'moderate' 'responsible' technocracy were already showing themselves, the voters wanted it to change. Fortunately, Biden is smart enough to understand that he must be the change the voters want. He just needs to put this into practice more.

bluescrn 3y ago

Eliminating 'suburbia' is even more distasteful to voters than forcibly taking away meat. While city life can be attractive to young and single people, people don't want to be forced to live in Mega-City One, especially as they grow older and have families.

failuser 3y ago
If people don’t want to live there why are big cities so damn expensive?
- bluescrn 3y ago
  Job insecurity encourages people to live where there's a high density of jobs
Teever 3y ago
Why is your perception of this so black and white? Why can't we have environments that are somewhere between dystopian 'mega-city one' and unsustainable Las Vegas suburbs?
Ericson2314 3y ago
We don't need to eliminate suburbia by fiat, we just need to build way more urbia. See https://www.niskanencenter.org/sprawl-can-be-good-actually-expand-the-metropolitan-commute-zone-to-grow-housing-supply/ https://www.niskanencenter.org/sprawl-can-be-good-actually-e... where calling it "sprawl" is actually a massive troll because promoting walkable small towns connected by rail as they have in Europe (or America in the ~1920s) is nothing at all like our car-oriented sprawl.
wk_end 3y ago
I don't think you're wrong about the optics or political viability, unfortunately, but there's a million urban designs in between Kowloon Walled City and "I have to drive twenty minutes through a wasteland of lawns and detached houses to go to Starbucks".
myshpa 3y ago
Urban & built up land is 1% of habitable earth. Animal agriculture is 35% (80% of all agriculture lands). https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use Both are destructive for our environment. But one is worse that the other.
panick21_ 3y ago
Europe has 'suburbs' that are not suburbia. The idea that everybody would be forced to live in a mega city that is just a single skyscraper is just suberia imagination of what the world be like if not 90% of the land was zoned single family.

ApolloFortyNine 3y ago

>The 2010s were a lost decade This is the first time I've ever heard this, how do you even begin to justify this claim.

wombatpm 3y ago
I'd start with the trillion spent on wars we didn't need. Holding an empire together is expensive. If Trump hadn't tied Biden's hands, we would still have troops in Afghanistan.
yyyk 3y ago
* No meaningful regulation of banks and definitely no attempt to charge bankers for fraud. Dodd-Frank was emptied of most meaning rather quickly, and no other steps were taken to prevent 'too big to fail'. Only very recently has Anti-Trust finally recalled its mandate. * American life expectancy rate of increase slowed down since the Great Recession, to the point that life expectancy went down between 2014 and 2017 and only then recovered. 2019 life expectancy was still slightly below 2014. And then COVID arrived... (There are slight changes due to various data issues and slightly different definitions, but the general shape of the graph is identical everywhere you'd look) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?end=2021&locations=US&start=2000 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?end=2021... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819944/live-free-and-die-the-sad-state-of-u-s-life-expectancy https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819... * Foreign policy far too desperate to woo every US adversary, starting with the famous 'reset' with Russia and turning a blind eye towards Putin's crimes. That worked out really well, didn't it? It's not an accident Obama was followed by Trump, or that the D primary was so savage that year - the failures of 'moderate' 'responsible' technocracy were already showing themselves, the voters wanted it to change. Fortunately, Biden is smart enough to understand that he must be the change the voters want. He just needs to put this into practice more.