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> Transport price per unit drops, rent drops, all infrastructure costs per unit drop No they don't, all that stuff is cheaper out of the city. People move to a
by ars 1y ago
> Transport price per unit drops, rent drops, all infrastructure costs per unit drop
No they don't, all that stuff is cheaper out of the city. People move to a city because their income also goes up, services (such as those you listed, but also others) are more expensive in a city, but goods are the same price, i.e. relatively cheaper compared to what you can earn out of a city.
So people in a city can, and are, far more wasteful of purchased goods because the price is effectively lower for them.
- const_cast 1y agoFrom the perspective of absolute cost, those things are absolutely cheaper. It's cheaper to build things closer together, period, because then you need less stuff. It's cheaper to build denser housing because it's less housing, and less land. The reason this doesn't pan out is because cities are subsidizing everything around them. We take tax dollars from denser areas, which are the only areas that are economically viable, and then we redistribute them to suburbs.
- ars 1y agoIt's time for that meme to die, cities are not subsidizing everything around them. Cities would die without those "areas around them", because those are the places where food is grown and stuff is made. Adjusting prices for food via taxation is something the government does all the time, but if it didn't food prices would just go up, and cities would pay the same amount, just via a different path. You might need less "stuff" to build things denser, but we've long passed the time when the main cost is "stuff". Labor is what matters, and building in a city takes much more labor. In the real world non-cities are cheaper in every way, and that includes roads and utilities - and this despite needing more road and pipes.