Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

I'm shocked that london, vancouver, SF and a few other cities are still functional. When working lawyers and doctors can no longer afford to live in a city, what actually happens? Are these now theme parks? Retirement villages for the uber-wealthy?

Some (SF, seattle) have developed this strange mix of the very very rich and the homeless on the street. Others (Vancouver) see inverted traffic patterns as more professionals (carps etc) drive into residential neighborhoods to work on houses than residents drive out. Suburbs are now industrial zones, places where people go to work. Anyone who can afford to live in the suburb, in a detached house, can live on investments alone.

I ran into a teacher from my old school last year. In my day, the school built doctors and lawyers. Everyone went to university. Now, the kids are so rich that they have no drive. None want to be doctors anymore. Doctors have to touch sick people. How do you motivate a kid who knows he has a guaranteed job at his parent's investment firm, that has trust portfolios that will support him forever?

>Others (Vancouver) see inverted traffic patterns as more professionals (carps etc) drive into residential neighborhoods to work on houses than residents drive out. Suburbs are now industrial zones, places where people go to work. Anyone who can afford to live in the suburb, in a detached house, can live on investments alone.

Do you have a source that more people are driving from the Vancouver core out than in?

I wouldn't describe Vancouver this way. The region was planned to have many regional centres, so that there is no mass migration from the 'burbs into the downtown. Instead people live and work everywhere.

There are more people working in downtown Vancouver than ever before, but traffic volumes in have been unchanged since the 60s. This is possible because of public transit and massive increases in the amount of residential density in downtown enabling people to walk to work.

They don\t commute from the core to the burbs. They move in from the hinterlands. People living in chilliwack, burnaby, Squamish and even further afield are commuting in. They are working on houses, on the industry that is every-rising house prices.

Watch the lions gate bridge or the upper levels highway on the north shore. Watch what rush hour is these days. The 7:30-8:30 rush across the bridge is barely a thing. Now it's thousands of pickup trucks driving into the burbs at around 6:30, ready to fire up tools come 7am.

> How do you motivate a kid who knows he has a guaranteed job at his parent's investment firm, that has trust portfolios that will support him forever?

You don't. And that's why (among other factors) most families squander their wealth within two generations.

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