Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
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Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
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Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
#2My tinfoil hat theory is that this is being caused by the increasing concentration of wealth. Which is being enabled by increasing levels of automation and efficiency.
Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
#3Just to point out, this article is focused on the US only.
Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
#4>an economist at the job-search company Indeed, finds that when salaries are adjusted for local costs of living, the average worker actually makes less in New York City or Los Angeles than in Toledo, Ohio or Birmingham, Alabama:
Particularly impressive considering that the "average" for NYC, LA, SF includes a lot more very high salaries than Toledo and Birmingham (Google, FB, etc are not hiring hordes of SREs making six figures in the latter).
Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
#5Just to point out, this article is focused on the US only.
But we do see the same problem in several European cities. For instance there's been some debate about how nurses can't really afford to live in Oslo anymore due to the discrepancy between income and rent.
Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
#6My tinfoil hat theory is that this is being caused by the increasing concentration of wealth. Which is being enabled by increasing levels of automation and efficiency.
> Which is being enabled by increasing levels of tax evasion.
FTFY. Automation and efficiency is a good thing.
Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
#7>an economist at the job-search company Indeed, finds that when salaries are adjusted for local costs of living, the average worker actually makes less in New York City or Los Angeles than in Toledo, Ohio or Birmingham, Alabama: Particularly impressive considering that the "average" for NYC, LA, SF includes a lot more very high salaries than Toledo and Birmingham (Google, FB, etc are not hiring hordes of SREs making…
It would probably be interesting to compare average and median income for these cities.
Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
#8My tinfoil hat theory is that this is being caused by the increasing concentration of wealth. Which is being enabled by increasing levels of automation and efficiency.
> Which is being enabled by increasing levels of tax evasion. FTFY. Automation and efficiency is a good thing.
Not for the unskilled workers out of a job.
Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
#9Just to point out, this article is focused on the US only.
But we do see the same problem in several European cities. For instance there's been some debate about how nurses can't really afford to live in Oslo anymore due to the discrepancy between income and rent.
And there I think lies the problem. Cities have an economy of scale that rural areas can't match. In my opinion, living in a city should be cheaper. But land is finite and poorly utilized at the benefit of landowners.
Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
#10"middle-class life to those without a college degree"
Anytime you start delving into what has changed for a subset of people, over decades, the most important piece of the puzzle is decided ding who qualifies for the subset.
I mean concepts like "middle class" or "without a college degree."
A lot more people get degrees, in 2018. Does the graduates/nongraduates segment still represent a comparable group of people?
Human capital theory that recommended this explosion in tertiary education assumes/d it does. College makes you more productive. Make everyone go, get productive and earn more.
It turned out, college was partly a proxy for class. What college grad earnings in the 60s was actually saying is that upper-middle class kids grow into upper-middle class adults.
...at least partially.
I certainly agree that a lot of cities are too expensive for the average person. But, I don't think that you can take education in 1960 and 2018 and treat the populations as similar.
I'm also dubious about college as a proxy for skill, in the skilled labour sense. A lot of college is very general education, with even less focus on marketable skills than high school.