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Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

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Re: Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

#71

Post by scientistem »

WalterBright wrote: post #59
scientistem wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not describe government as heavily involved in health care. The prices you see rising are from lack of meaningful competition and transparency allowing providers and insurance companies to dictate prices virtually arbitrarily and certainly irrationally to the consumer using the services. Meanwhile, government is the only meaningful access many have to healthcare and education.

About half of health care spending in this country is done by the government. That's heavily involved by any metric. Secondly, the amount of regulation of it is very, very heavy. The price rises are due to this. See https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-ame... Note how prices for Lasik eye surgery, which has little government involvement, have trended down dramatically.

While that may be true, the causal link between government spending and high prices is unclear. The vast majority of waste I see getting healthcare myself is the absolutely massive cost of dealing with insurance itself. This is an industry (billing!) that employs vast numbers of people. I think it’s much more likely the high costs are an effect of ludicrously poor price transparency and the unsustainable healthcare practices that this sustains. At worst, government regulation exacerbates this; I think you’d be hard pressed to demonstrate it’s the primary cause.

Either way, we need price transparency before people start acting rationally, and government regulation of irrational spending is going to be wasteful. Price transparency would make the promise of single payer (government) healthcare actually sustainable for a populace; without it, you’re just making the healthcare industry richer without actually providing a proportionate amount of care to the public.

Re: Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

#72

Post by justinator »

WalterBright wrote: post #25
justinator wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, Amazon (for example), are building large work centers in desirable places to work, which are raising the cost of living of everyone else in the town that may not have a six figure income. Google is moving to Boulder, CO as we speak; Denver was on the shortlist for Amazon. It's the same problem with kicking out artists in a dilapidated warehouse area, and moving in boring professionals to live in lofts built o…

> kicking out artists in a dilapidated warehouse area, and moving in boring professionals So artists are wonderful, interesting people, and professionals are boring and unappealing? Wow.

> So artists are wonderful, interesting people, and professionals are boring and unappealing? Wow.

Well, this fine article is partly about Richard Florida, and that's basically what he's saying: keep the creative class around, because they are the ones that add value to a city. Boring professionals flock to neighborhoods put on the map because creative people making them destinations.

In Denver, see the River North neighborhood. What once was a very vibrant place to see DIY shows, gallerys, etc, is now just a brewery neighborhood. Some underground venues were closed by the city and the one-year anniversary of this is coming up. The city shows no interest in providing an alternative. I guess this isn't very important to most, but these spaces were a safe place for many people to go: homeless teenagers, trans-folk, etc.

http://www.westword.com/music/rhinoceropolis-diy-venue-shut-...

Re: Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

#73

Post by WalterBright »

asdffdsaaasdf wrote: post #65
WalterBright wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> kicking out artists in a dilapidated warehouse area, and moving in boring professionals So artists are wonderful, interesting people, and professionals are boring and unappealing? Wow.

Generally speaking yes, I think artists add an element of interest and entropy in an area compared to professionals in white collar positions. Wouldn't agree on the 'wonderful' or 'unappealing' value judgments though; I think you added them for rhetorical emphasis.

I did add "wonderful" for rhetorical emphasis, but "unappealing" came from the parent.

Re: Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

#74

Post by justinator »

jsky_goog wrote: post #34
justinator wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, Amazon (for example), are building large work centers in desirable places to work, which are raising the cost of living of everyone else in the town that may not have a six figure income. Google is moving to Boulder, CO as we speak; Denver was on the shortlist for Amazon. It's the same problem with kicking out artists in a dilapidated warehouse area, and moving in boring professionals to live in lofts built o…

I always get slightly sad when I hear the complaints against Google in Boulder as I honestly believe the effect it has had on housing prices has been overstated. For some context, I'm a Boulder native, I grew up here, went to preschool through college here, and am fortunate enough to get a job that pays me enough to stay here. And for what it's worth Google has had an office in Boulder for about 10 or 11 years now. I…

I really think it's too early to tell, but people who don't work at Google - like me, are worried. In the last two years, the number of people working Google has doubled to 650; the new campus will hold 1500 workers. That's well over 1% of the total population of Boulder, working at Google - and you must agree that this will be a new phenomenon for Boulder's housing market.

For a city that's not so into building new housing, and most especially affordable housing, the writing is on the wall about what's going to happen to current housing prices, not to mention the general cost of living, in Boulder.

The elephant in the room when it comes to any housing boom (like in Denver) in the west is water: the current supply is already strained. Do remember we pump water through massive tunnels under mountains from the western slope to feed the current demand. We need more people on the front range? I dunno.

Re: Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

#75

Post by justinator »

jsky_goog wrote: post #34
justinator wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, Amazon (for example), are building large work centers in desirable places to work, which are raising the cost of living of everyone else in the town that may not have a six figure income. Google is moving to Boulder, CO as we speak; Denver was on the shortlist for Amazon. It's the same problem with kicking out artists in a dilapidated warehouse area, and moving in boring professionals to live in lofts built o…

I always get slightly sad when I hear the complaints against Google in Boulder as I honestly believe the effect it has had on housing prices has been overstated. For some context, I'm a Boulder native, I grew up here, went to preschool through college here, and am fortunate enough to get a job that pays me enough to stay here. And for what it's worth Google has had an office in Boulder for about 10 or 11 years now. I…

Also I think it's safe to think that the Silicon Valley region is a pretty unlivable/undesirable place to be, and what's happened to S.F isn't something any city really wants, unless you are filthy rich. "Google Effect" and all...

Re: Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

#76

Post by WalterBright »

Daishiman wrote: post #70
torstenvl wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who only relate on an emotional level and don't appreciate intellectual complexity are - wait for it - boring.

Artists generally have a pretty profound application of intellect to their work, which is usually much more conceptually interesting than building a CRUD app. And they also work with people who don't take an intellectual approach to their production but rather follow intuition. One thing is certain: it's a more heterogenous environment. I find that to be extremely stimulating.

> Artists generally have a pretty profound application of intellect to their work, which is usually much more conceptually interesting than building a CRUD app.

Deciding to become an artist doesn't make one profound or conceptually interesting. Rather few artists achieve that. The starving artist community generally has not, which is why they are starving.

After all, how many TV shows you watch are "pretty intellectually profound"? And those artists are good enough to get paid for their work, most aren't.

Re: Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

#77

Post by meredydd »

maxxxxx wrote: post #32
bigmario wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people make this claim with no evidence. It's understandable to feel insecure about future career prospects in our fast-changing industry, but honestly I'll believe it when I see it.

I bet a lot of the frontend guys will have problems when someone comes out with something like Visual Basic for the web. It's harder now to develop a LOB app than when it was twenty years ago and I think this will change at some point. Same for a lot of "data scientists". Unless you are on the forefront of development there will be more and more tools that make the data accessible to regular people instead of having…

> when someone comes out with something like Visual Basic for the web

Obligatory plug: Check out https://anvil.works - it is exactly that! Drag and drop UI, Python front-end and back-end, database integration...the whole deal.

Re: Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

#78

Post by WalterBright »

michaelchisari wrote: post #63
torstenvl wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who only relate on an emotional level and don't appreciate intellectual complexity are - wait for it - boring.

You said only, not me. Great art is heavy on intellectual complexity.

The Beatles made some of the greatest music in history, but "she loves you yeah yeah yeah" is a mite lacking in intellectual complexity.

Re: Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

#79

Post by WalterBright »

scientistem wrote: post #71
WalterBright wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About half of health care spending in this country is done by the government. That's heavily involved by any metric. Secondly, the amount of regulation of it is very, very heavy. The price rises are due to this. See https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-ame... Note how prices for Lasik eye surgery, which has little government involvement, have trended down dramatically.

While that may be true, the causal link between government spending and high prices is unclear. The vast majority of waste I see getting healthcare myself is the absolutely massive cost of dealing with insurance itself. This is an industry (billing!) that employs vast numbers of people. I think it’s much more likely the high costs are an effect of ludicrously poor price transparency and the unsustainable healthcare p…

It's the primary cause. See the article I linked to. Government payments, subsidies, regulations, and tax policy all act to distort market incentives.

Re: Rise of the Creative Class Worked a Little Too Well

#80

Post by scientistem »

WalterBright wrote: post #79
scientistem wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that may be true, the causal link between government spending and high prices is unclear. The vast majority of waste I see getting healthcare myself is the absolutely massive cost of dealing with insurance itself. This is an industry (billing!) that employs vast numbers of people. I think it’s much more likely the high costs are an effect of ludicrously poor price transparency and the unsustainable healthcare p…

It's the primary cause. See the article I linked to. Government payments, subsidies, regulations, and tax policy all act to distort market incentives.

Hmm, I suppose we have different standards for evidence.
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