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Comment by Mathnerd314 | Hacker News Reader

Paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329729827_The_Socio...

So they buy/beg data for 382 "community zones" from walkscore.com, do linear regression, and find a correlation. Then they get funding to do an individual-level survey and there's no correlation. And it doesn't appear in South Korea either.

Their explanation is some statistical magic to pull out a "sense of belonging" as a mediating factor and a statement in the conclusion that "It may be that walkability is an emergent property most clearly visible at the level of aggregate, not at the level of each individual."

No discussion of data accuracy besides noting that even perceived walkability and actual amount of walking are barely correlated in their surveys (i.e., their data sucks).

Interesting paper idea, but the implementation seems like more statistical garbage.

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To quote the study, the walkscore.com data is "the earning records from all American citizens born between 1980 and 1982 whose parents filed taxes." Your use of the number 382 seems to be rhetorical implying that the sample isn't large enough. Moreover, your use of "buy/beg" verges on a predicative sort of ad hominem. Your criticism are totally valid, but you missed the most egregious flaw: "[O]ur analyses treat walkability and access to public transportation as interchangeable."

“whose parents filed taxes.“

As an outsider to the American tax system: is this a strong selection that could impact results? Here in Germany for example filing is optional for a lot of people (not just legally, but also in terms of expected returns) which would have quite unpredictable results on a study like this.

whose parents filed taxes

Excludes recent immigrants or orphans then, both of which groups could be particularly acute case-studies of upward mobility.

Big picture though, walkability and public transport definitely imply at least the potential for interaction and empathy, and cars the opposite.

The Highway and Automobile culture are symbols of totalitarian cultures which deny people more sustainable and equitable alternatives for mobility and transport. - Vandana Shiva, February 19, 2004.

It is 100% mandatory to file taxes if you make over $12k and over $13.5k if you’re over 65 and file single. Doesn’t matter if it’s from a job, investment, or unemployment.

I can imagine Americans living abroad will be shaking their fist at the parent poster. They have to pay taxes in the USA even when working abroad, never mind in the USA!

Sigh, this always comes up and I’ve never met a single person who actually had to pay taxes. My brother in law was out of the country for a decade and a few other friends lived in Europe and never paid.

Has anyone on HN paid US taxes living abroad?

You do still have to file a tax return, which can be a bit complicated if you have foreign income. But if you work in Europe, you're right that you likely won't have to pay any actual US taxes. You can take the European tax paid as a foreign tax credit against the US taxes, and that almost always zeroes it out, since European countries mostly have higher tax rates. That was the case for me, anyway.

You will have to pay some tax if you work in a country whose tax rates (for your bracket) are lower than US federal tax rates. That can be the case for Americans working in places like Hong Kong or the Bahamas.

This is often also the case in Switzerland.

California’s residency requirements are quite strict, and they don’t offer foreign tax credits, so if you’re planning to go back after a few years you’re effectively being double-taxed on the state income.

I worked with a guy in the UK who constantly lamented this.

It is required in the states but could potentially limit results to include less low income/unemployed individuals. Almost any job will withhold income tax and send it off to the government without you doing anything.

The walkscore data is separate from the earnings records; it's calculated almost on-demand from the Google Maps API. The earning records are from https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/land-of-opportunity/, they didn't actually analyze the records themselves. And yes, 382 isn't particularly fine for geography of the US: https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/m.... For comparison, there are 3142 counties and they could have used that data instead.

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