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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

#21

Post by [deleted] »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #19
netcan wrote: post #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?…

You make very good points above. I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes. That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive? If you were a 22 yr old who studied from zero-level computing knowledge for 12 months and got the AWS Solutions Architect Pro cert (somewhat possible assuming 2 hours / day) I can already guarantee you’d receive a written…

[deleted]

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#23

Post by mertd »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #11

And yet we see this huge push in the intelligentsia for how cities “increase creativity” and promote value “x y and z” and how “we should be like China and build planned mega cities”. Cities that are very walkable and have a thriving downtown / mixed business areas can be a ton of fun and very good, but it’s very hard to ever make that affordable, and basically impossible to do in America which has large space demand…

Why is is hard to make affordable? Not every urban core needs to be Manhattan. Look at smaller European cities.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#24

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

netcan wrote: post #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?…

> 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.

At one time there was an argument that general skills had value. We as a society have become super specialized and those general skills relatively ubiquitous that those general skills aren't terribly valued any more. Your employer doesn't care if you understand Cartesian philosophy or having an understanding of classical rhetoric, they just want to see you spent 4 years learning accounting/law/human resources because those are the skills that's required.

This may also be why our leaders have gone from "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." to "We love winners. We love winners. Winners are winners." in the last century.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#25

Post by YawningAngel »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #19
netcan wrote: post #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?…

You make very good points above. I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes. That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive? If you were a 22 yr old who studied from zero-level computing knowledge for 12 months and got the AWS Solutions Architect Pro cert (somewhat possible assuming 2 hours / day) I can already guarantee you’d receive a written…

Who on earth employs a "solutions architect" whose only qualification is some random certificate that tests AWS trivia?

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#26

Post by SamuelAdams »

> So what’s to be done in order to help mid-skilled and non-college workers live decent, middle-class lives? ... build lots more housing in cities, driving down rents and making cities more livable for everyone.

This is a nice idea in theory, but isn't this a temporary fix? For the first five years, housing prices will lower. But as more companies (demanding higher-educated individuals) realize more people are available, those companies will increase their staff or start new companies.

So five years later, we are back to where it started.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#27

Post by mattmanser »

swampthinker wrote: post #2

My 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.

I think the more likely truth is it's been enabled by weakening unions, mass immigration and globalisation.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#28

Post by Wowfunhappy »

collyw wrote: post #8
llukas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In the short term yes, but in the long term it will benefit them too. If there is less work to be done in the world, then everyone will work less on average.

I firmly believe that one of two things will eventually happen:

• We will find new industries which replace the old jobs. Companies in these industries will by necessity find ways to fill positions, either by paying enough that (even) more people can afford college, or by providing on-the-job training, etc.

• Society will reach a point where it no longer makes sense for so much of the population to be in the workforce. We will need some form of Universal Basic Income to allow people who choose not to work to still live. The amount of money distributed would be set according to the number of workers needed—we'd raise the UBI when there's too many workers, and lower the UBI when there's too few.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#29

Post by moorhosj »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #19
netcan wrote: post #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?…

You make very good points above. I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes. That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive? If you were a 22 yr old who studied from zero-level computing knowledge for 12 months and got the AWS Solutions Architect Pro cert (somewhat possible assuming 2 hours / day) I can already guarantee you’d receive a written…

==I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes.==

I think this highlights the true question. Do colleges exist to promote education and intellectual curiosity or to train workers?

According to PEW, Americans believe colleges are for work training:

"Americans are split on the main purpose of college, with 47% saying it is to teach work-related skills and 39% saying it is to help a student grow personally and intellectually."

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2011/06/02/purpose-of-c...

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#30

Post by nradov »

netcan wrote: post #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?…

College doesn't necessarily make people more productive. Rather it acts as a filter to knock unproductive people out of the hiring pool. And in economics terminology, completing a degree acts as a signal for candidates to demonstrate intelligence and persistence to employers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)

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