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You just sold me on watching 'They Live," but if there's one movie that does a great job of explaining the society we live in today, it's clearly; Idiocracy.
A few years ago, that movie was hilarious. Today, it's a really sad documentary.
My point is we should be building new cities where there is space to
I think people are skewed by where they live - especially a handful of "great weather" or great economy/culture cities.
Example - Philadelphia is a modern and desirable city these days. The "high speed line" into Southern NJ can have you in a nice "small town" setup within 15 minutes (plus maybe a 5 minute drive or uber)....no, it's not "farm country", but if you work in Philly or want the access to big city living it's a decent compromise.
In Sarasota FL where we winter a nice single house is about 300K. That's not far out of line for someone who makes a decent living.
Of course, real flyover country can be vastly cheaper. My son lives in Pitt and he already owns 4 houses which cost him from a low of $42K to a high of 115K.
I'd say we should reuse a lot of the brownfields (old industrial land, etc.) rather than bulldozing up burbs in the middle of nowhere.
My wife would prefer to live in a rural area, I would prefer to live in a beach town, so I understand that way of thinking (we're in the middle of Manhattan). I had the same feelings about e-commerce, and it allowing for people to not live so close to the major urban centers, but the data suggests that people are moving to the cities now, more than ever.
I was only commenting on Dbones dumb reply. In a thread asking why so many people are moving to the cities, a response of 'who wants to live in cities?' makes no sense at all. It's like he has a quota of dumb posts he needs to reach per day. It gets annoying, and takes away from good discussion.
Well said. I'm the opposite extreme, I live on a 20 acre parcel on a little lake, with 4 miles of dirt road to pavement. And love it. But it's certainly not for everyone, even those in a relatively "rural" area (N. Idaho). Our area is pretty lucky-highly desirable area to live (touristy, with nice hotels and restaurants, but National Forest and lakes minutes away). As such, we have attracted a fair number of small manufacturing and high-tech development companies and are working on more. Tough to maintain the proper balance. I personally have NO desire to live in a large metro area, but I can see the appeal of a smaller city (say 5k-35k) due to some reasonable number of amenities, let alone jobs. Flip side is that our area is becoming pretty expensive, and wage growth has not kept pace with the increase in real estate prices.
Small towns were/are supported by ag. The average farm size has doubled since the 50s and lots of it is farmed for corporations like ADM, Cargill and Harvest States. Therefore the supporting infrastructure is not needed..ie small towns.
I grew up in a small town and it will be nothing more than an interstate exit and a gas stating in a few years.
ITA with the OP. I would LOVE for more great cities to be new NYC or SF's. I notice that locals tend to hate their city becoming that dense, though... if you look at any of the city threads, Portland, Denver, and Seattle locals seem to decry how expensive and crowded their cities have gotten.
At the end of the day, people go where the jobs are... and companies seem to be moving towards dense cities and out of the suburban office parks. You see it most recently with GE and Aetna moving to Boston and NYC (respectively) but even when a company doesn't move its HQ, it may still be migrating many of its bigger offices to the cities.
In the 50s, the affordable American dream was achieved by building out the suburbs of major cities- often only 20 miles or less from downtown (and the good jobs).
20 +/- miles one way as a commute is very doable on an interstate. Can you imagine a 50 mile one way commute every single day, accounting for peak hour traffic, and worse, when it is snowy and icey? Sure, some people do it, but it certainly decreases quality of life.
A lot of working people would rather live closer to their job and have more leisure time as opposed to spending 2 hours commuting each day.
And some people would rather live somewhere where their money goes much further. I travel 50 miles each way every day for work. It's an hour, very doable. If I was to move closer to work, I would be paying twice as much for a mortgage and 4 times as much for property taxes, that to me is more of a decrease in quality of life since I'd become a slave to the mortgage and taxes. Even RENT near my job would be more than my mortgage.
I am utterly confused.
You read the thread, and this was your well thought out response?
The premise of the thread is that people are leaving bumble**** and moving to the cities.
If the cities are overcrowded, it's because people are moving there.
If the cities are expensive, it's because people are moving there (it's called demand).
You are only confused because you didn't read what I was responding to. Not everyone wants to live in a concrete jungle. I don't and never will. It's irritating, loud, smelly and super expensive with not much to do but spend boat loads of money.
There are people that are willing, and actually WANT (hard as it is to believe) to live in overcrowded, dirty cities, with miles of stop and go traffic, miles from nature. Good for them if that's what they want. There are a lot of us that prefer to live in a less crowded environment, close to or in a natural environment, away from the dirt and crowds of the concrete jungle. Good for them too.
Internet based commerce is opening up the way for rural and smaller communities to compete in many markets. Will be interesting to see if more people give up on metro areas for the higher quality of life in smaller towns and rural areas.
EXACTLY! Count me as one of those who would MUCH rather have that quality of life. Every time I go to a city, after about 8 hours I can't wait to leave.
And some people would rather live somewhere where their money goes much further. I travel 50 miles each way every day for work. It's an hour, very doable. If I was to move closer to work, I would be paying twice as much for a mortgage and 4 times as much for property taxes, that to me is more of a decrease in quality of life since I'd become a slave to the mortgage and taxes. Even RENT near my job would be more than my mortgage.
An hr commute is not bad at all. But you're lucky if 50 miles only takes you an hour. My commute in LA was 30 miles each way and it was about 1 1/2 hrs each way. That was my breaking point. Couldn't do that long-term, especially if I had kids. I don't think there's a wrong answer... it just depends on people's situations and priorities.
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