cities have only been like that for the last 10,000 years or so. they're the engine of growth of civilization. the artificial housing shortage trap has only been going on in the west since starting around 1960 or so.
I don't see why if you could both live green and have space you wouldn't choose to do so. It doesn't seem to be a popular opinion here.
All of the big city problems are caused by centralization. I certainly don't see why HN isn't embracing this perspective or at least entertaining it. I see cases brought against centralization of technologies every single day here.
Luckily it's not up to you guys and it will naturally happen as we advance in technologies that allow us to spread out.
Ironically y'all are developing it via Zoom, Slack, Figma, and any other collaboration tool that further allows us to asynchronously and remotely collaborate.
What's the alternative? Abandoning the people that already live there and all the progress we've made in transportation in the last century.
The writing is on the wall, the technologies and ideas are pointing in that direction. The current solutions are falling apart and covered in shit.
Hopefully remote work, low orbit sat internet, solar efficiency, electric & autonomous cars will all lead to further
Low orbit sat. internet: internet access should be a fundamental right to all humans, there are still areas all around the world, including the US where there's little to no service because it's not economically viable to put a tower up or run lines.
Solar panels: if the internet is a right, then electricity definitely is. The ability to generate your own energy doesn't only embrace green ideals, it embraces American ideals.
Electic & autonomous cars: America is huge, and we all want to be connected w/o being crowded. If we can travel and stay connected with each other in a clean and safe way we should do it. Trains are part of it, but let's not throwaway a century of progress.
Source: I live in a small town. I have fresh air, I can see the stardust, and I paid $75k for my 3 bedroom house.
The thread I replied to referenced American housing so I chose that perspective both in terms of location and financial status.
> there's better ways to get internet besides orbiting routers
Carriers refuse to put up towers in low populated areas that won't make money.
Utility companies and ISPs will not run fiber for the same reasons.
Current satellite providers only offer geo-sat orbit and only have a couple satellites. This adds up to terrible latency and god awful bandwidth limits.
Starlink on the other hand has a potential to be faster than fiber in some scenarios.
Haven't heard from Loon. Facebook gave up. What's the way you suggest? Honestly satellites sound the most practical of those lol.
Having 1000000 people being able to afford $1m flats is better than 1000 of them
It would be like if someone was dying of dehydration, they drink a couple drops of water but are still dehydrated, then conclude oh well, I guess water is not what I need.
If you're not going to address the quantities involved how can you possible conclude that it's not working? I know less about Toronto but to use San Francisco as an example, there were something like 150,000 new jobs added in the last decade and 20,000 new housing units built. Of course it's not solving the problem yet, it doesn't mean that we don't need more housing, exactly the opposite.
I said the migrations caused overcrowding, and it caused it only in specific cities.
Decentralization causes more issues than it solves; it's extremely inefficient both from an energy and tax perspective (lots more infrastructure to serve the same people) and it ruins farmlands and existing biospheres. Density is very environmentally friendly, both in terms of energy use per person and in the fact that it limits the impact of human development.
Up until the 1980s, the variation in earnings and cost of living was around 20%. Meaning someone in rural Missouri could earn on average roughly 80% of a New Yorkers average wage. That wage premium has now skyrocketed, as has housing.
Allowing capital to concentrate in so few cities is why we have a few high performing metros and a ton of depopulated ones. And why we have Bay Area residents bidding six to seven figures for SFHs that would be condemned elsewhere.
I don't have access to a breakdown now, but I would guess the difference is < 50%.
The county median incomes NYC counties: Manhattan (New York County) is $67k, Brooklyn (Kings) is $25k, Queens is $26k, Bronx is $18k, and Staten Island (Richmond County) is $32k.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_counties...