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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

#121

Post by alkibiades »

wonderwonder wrote: post #12

The top 1% of American's own more wealth than the bottom 90% and this concentration is only increasing. Soon no cities regardless of size will deliver for low skilled workers as there will simply not be enough of the proverbial pie to go around. As wealth is concentrated and rents and property values rise the vast majority of this country will (does?) live paycheck to paycheck. This is unsustainable and will either n…

“not enough money to go around”

Where do people get this strange idea that if someone else makes money it somehow precludes others from doing it? Bill Gates got rich with an invention that also generated probably a trillion dollars in economic growth for everyone. Including most people on this sites income.

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

#122

Post by marcosdumay »

rafiki6 wrote: post #87
landryraccoon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t buy this. Are saying if you get college a degree in Chemical Engineering you wouldn’t be far more productive as a Chemical Engineer than if you only went to high school? Or in say, physics or chemistry or botany?

No the commenter is saying that having completed a degree in chemical engineering serves as a signal to your productivity. It does not in fact determine how productive you actually are.

Well, I understand that the GP is saying that expecting the same person to have the same productivity as a chemical engineer after and before a graduation on that area is ridiculous.

Claiming that high education has only signaling value is ridiculous. (It's even more ridiculous than claiming it has no signaling value.)

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

#123

Post by jamiek88 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #78
cimmanom wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a couple generations ago, college was not a proxy for "middle class". Lots of blue-collar jobs (especially industrial ones) paid enough for a "middle class" lifestyle and financial security. Small businesses were competitive and many of their owners were not college educated either. College wasn't a necessary qualification for most blue-collar jobs, including some for which it now is (such as police work, in man…

The over-arching point I believe the parent comment is making is that the kinds of people who didn't get college degrees back then because they weren't needed are getting college degrees now, because they are needed as qualifications for jobs. They weren't incapable of it back then, it just wasn't necessary nor widespread. Now it is. So it's the same kinds of people doing police work then as now, with the same aptitu…

Just a point on the population of Manhattan, it’s be careful with those numbers and applying them to modern day. People used to cram into death trap tenements 10 to one windowless room in some cases.

Hundreds of thousands would live on a street that now houses a thousand people.

I don’t think that density is coming back or desirable.

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

#125

Post by dv_dt »

slededit wrote: post #13
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.

US worker productivity growth has been extremely limited over the last 15 years. Simply put the economy isn’t that efficient relative to population growth. What has happened is massive growth in drug prices, housing, and other non-productive areas of the economy. Rent seeking is rampant.

Rent seeking is rampant, and capitalism is unwilling and/or unable to figure out how to productively employ more and more people. e.g. decisions to buyback stocks instead of investing in anything of fundamental value, including productivity improvements.

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

#126

Post by rjf72 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #78
cimmanom wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a couple generations ago, college was not a proxy for "middle class". Lots of blue-collar jobs (especially industrial ones) paid enough for a "middle class" lifestyle and financial security. Small businesses were competitive and many of their owners were not college educated either. College wasn't a necessary qualification for most blue-collar jobs, including some for which it now is (such as police work, in man…

The over-arching point I believe the parent comment is making is that the kinds of people who didn't get college degrees back then because they weren't needed are getting college degrees now, because they are needed as qualifications for jobs. They weren't incapable of it back then, it just wasn't necessary nor widespread. Now it is. So it's the same kinds of people doing police work then as now, with the same aptitu…

I think you phrase the grandparent's comment much better than he did. That is much more clear. Appreciated.

But on housing, there's a major issue you're not considering. This [1] is a list of US city populations in 1950. This [2] is the list for 1960. So we're looking at the sweet spot of the housing boom and a period where the population also dramatically grew increasing by about 30 million (~20%) in those 10 years. Now you might notice something funny. Nearly every major city shrank in size!

The housing boom did not involve building up (rather literally as is the desire of some people today) in desirable areas so everybody could affordably live there. Instead people sacrificed some comfort and moved outside of cities and started building houses in uninhabited areas outside of the cities. Houses were cheap because people were developing in areas where there was nothing and that nobody wanted before. In turn this movement away from city centers helped keep those prices within the city reasonable, as it had a depressing effect on demand.

The reason prices are so high today is because of simple market dynamics. People are less willing to live in less desirable areas. This is driving the prices in desirable areas into crazy land. There is still immense cheap housing available outside of these areas. Some cities are so hungry for new citizens that they're literally even giving away land on the condition that you put or build a house on it.

[1] - https://www.biggestuscities.com/1950

[2] - https://www.biggestuscities.com/1960

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

#127

Post by jpindar »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #105
grawprog wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's been on employment insurance before. I can't understand the appeal of ubi. Getting a small amount of money to do nothing is excruciating. It's really not a fun way to live.

It's not meant to be solely sustainable. Lots of people get this wrong though, which means the name Universal Basic Income probably isn't the best name for it. Maybe Universal Supplemental Income? Could very well be the idea needs a rebranding before a larger adoption ever happens.

Researchers have tried using different names for it and comparing people's reactions. Terms like "national dividend" or "citizen's dividend" got the most favorable results.

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

#128

Post by njarboe »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #91
oralty wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do colleges exist to promote education and intellectual curiosity or to train workers? When college cost in the US what it did in the 1960s this sort of little bit false-dichotomy, little bit navel gazing question was at least fairly harmless. Now it's just fucking ridiculous even for most public schools.

This. For what is costs in 2019 college had better be opening a door to a lucrative career path.

Or it is a luxury good for those who can afford it for their children, like in the old days.

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

#129

Post by Retric »

rlabrecque wrote: post #109
Retric wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs have become less specialized not more. Being able to effectively communicate over email takes more writing skills than most people assume. The internet adds a lot of flexibility in the kind of things the average office worker will do.

I disagree with that first part. At least in software engineering. Remember when you just had software engineers? Eventually we got things like game programmers and web developers. Now every game has at the very least an audio programmer, gameplay programmers, network programmers, graphics programmers, platform engineers, etc. Web Developers are even more specialized, walk into any web development shop and you can fi…

That's an outgrowth of the same rise in general competency.

Inside a company programmers such as my self have been assigned to work on React without ever having seen it before with the expectation they will pick it up. It's only when looking for new employees that these differences have much weight.

PS: I have been told to pick up low level network programming, frameworks such as React, new langues, even jumped into web programming from nothing. I can only assume this is generally the norm.

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

#130

Post by notfromhere »

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…

Building cities is more efficient and cheaper that low-density suburbia. The problem we have is speculation and rent-seeking in RE has really made housing unaffordable in many cities.
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