291–300 of 312 posts
Hmm an article on SF from the National Review. I'll pass on that one.
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It also helps that Vienna's population has been basically flat for many years. By contrast the prior #1 most liveable city - Melbourne - has grown from 2 million 30 years ago to 5 million currently, forecast to get to 8 million by 2050, all due to mass immigration. Livability has fallen directly in line with population growth. I've lived in a lot of cities around the world and think there is a 'sweet spot' population…
Could it be that change is painful? When people settle down, they want things to mostly stay the way it is until they die. A city in growth or decline interferes with that.
The opposition to mass-immigration (the country is growing at about 1.6% annually, with the same annual level of immigration as the UK, a country with 3x the population) is completely justified and it is not in the long-term interests of the country or of individual Australians.
Its not only the formal mechanics - the whole system is rorted, with a lot of fraud. A Chinese businessman bribing federal politicians for citizenship is a current news item.
Finally Australia makes its way in the world by mining and selling off its fixed endowment of minerals. The rest of the economy is not particularly competitive, mostly just domestic services and real estate. More people means a smaller slice of natural resources per person. This is not theoretical - wages are flat and cost of living pressures are high in the country. Public healthcare, education and transportation are all overcrowded.
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This isn't so far fetched. Much of the world lives in overpopulated dystopian slums. Kuala Lumpur is covered in walls, spikes and barbed wire. Rio de Janeiro walls off their favelas: https://assets.rbl.ms/14235733/980x.jpg The question with many cities is the same - is it worth saving? A lot of any city's downfall is often the fault of its older residents. Why do the poor stay? Why do the rich not focus on changing i…
>> The obvious answer seems to be moving to somewhere nearby that's cheaper and roomier. But people seem very resistant to this for some reason. Because that requires money.
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It also helps that Vienna's population has been basically flat for many years. By contrast the prior #1 most liveable city - Melbourne - has grown from 2 million 30 years ago to 5 million currently, forecast to get to 8 million by 2050, all due to mass immigration. Livability has fallen directly in line with population growth. I've lived in a lot of cities around the world and think there is a 'sweet spot' population…
It depends what you build for. San Francisco, the dystopia as described in the article, has under a million residents. Its wounds, and that of the bay area in general, are entirely self-inflicted.
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Most of the article was simply stating the obvious about SF, but the end was very weird. When the National Review starts calling for a land-value tax and a “redistributive policy”, I’m sorry, but I’m going to call this disingenuous trolling by the author, because these are not policies the National Review honestly advocates for.
"There's a sense in which all taxes are antagonistic to free enterprise – and yet we need taxes. ...So the question is, which are the least bad taxes? In my opinion the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago." —Milton Friedman
For those who are wondering, given the publisher, no, the essay is not simply a rant against rent-control: > True revolution would involve curbing the authority of the San Francisco Planning Commission. If Democrats in the city or in Sacramento actually cared about the poor or the environment (density is green), they would enact a land-value tax and establish a redistributive policy to align the interests of the city…
Is there anything in the world quite as dumb as this form of argument? If Democrats in the city or in Sacramento actually cared about the poor or the environment
[0] https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-democrat...
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Seriously, get off the internet and go volunteer at St Anthony's for an hour. You'll get to meet some representative sample of the homeless in San Francisco and gain a much more high resolution picture on what all the various causes of homelessness are. The picture is complicated but it's not at all what you're positing. I guarantee if you spend a week working with the homeless in San Francisco, you'll meet at least…
You're talking past me to a prototypical "person who (you) disagree with". To wit: - I made no comments about homeless people being uninteresting or unintelligent or how much money they do, or did earn, etc. - I have presented no pet theories about the causes of homelessness or the demerits of the homeless. I have simply pointed out that a very, very commonly published and cited statistic is, in my opinion, very ill…
I'm planning to move to SF form Barcelona next year and this kind of article always makes me doubt a lot about my decision. Especially because of the fact that seems like that there's nothing less then tech to talk about in SF, and i'm seriously worried about how this can affect not only my creativity but also my relationship (my girlfriend is not tech). Can you advise me any other place (in the US) to move for a whi…
I hope SF can find a way to revitalize, sort of like NYC has done. It seemed to go through some dark times in the 70s, but now is much nicer. Wishing the same luck for SF.
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Houston's answer to affordability is sprawl, which has some big problems of its own. But add housing they do, something the Bay Area has failed miserably at.
Fun fact: the Houston-Sugarland Metropolitan Statistical Area (“MSA”) is 50% more dense than the San Francisco-Oakland MSA. But the former is still vastly more affordable.
Also fun fact: Los Angeles easily beats both regions, with 13,353,907 people living in 4,848 mi^2 for a population density of 2,755 people/mi^2. L.A. is a lot more dense than people think.
Weighted density is a better calculation, in any case. With those figures the sprawl of Houston becomes even more apparent: SF comes in at 2 of 34 (plus L.A. at 3 and San Diego at 9), while Houston is ranked 23 [4].
I grew up not far from Houston. Say what you will about Texans, but urbanists they are not. :)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Houston#Demographics
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco%E2%80%93Oakland%...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_metropolitan_area#...
[4]: https://austinzoning.typepad.com/austincontrarian/2008/03/we...