71–80 of 180 posts
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Some cultures have learned to tolerate minimal personal space as a necessary evil. But when people from those cultures get wealthy they almost always choose to buy more space and privacy.
That is an untrue generalization. Every large city has several high income, high density neighborhoods where wealthy people live when they prefer shorter commutes and access to amenities to larger living spaces.
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It's not to "better their bank accounts", it's to survive, because people need jobs to make money, and money to survive. Modern people can't support themselves on rural land any more, and even 100+ years ago ones who tried had short and unhappy lives (remember sharecropping?). There aren't enough jobs in rural areas to support the people there, so they leave.
You can totally live somewhere rural and support yourself and a family. There's just less opportunity to make easy money there so it will be harder. If your optimizing for least effort for a given income level moving to the city is a no-brainer since it's where all the easy money is.
You can say that about literally anywhere. It's a matter of how doable it is, and how much effort it'll be, versus the reward, compared to just going somewhere else. The simple fact is that there's far fewer jobs in rural areas, and also there's far, far fewer good-paying jobs.
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It's not to "better their bank accounts", it's to survive, because people need jobs to make money, and money to survive. Modern people can't support themselves on rural land any more, and even 100+ years ago ones who tried had short and unhappy lives (remember sharecropping?). There aren't enough jobs in rural areas to support the people there, so they leave.
That's another point for why universal basic income is needed. It reduces perverse incentives that make people unhealthier.
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Consider: for pretty much any animal I'm aware of, there's a notion of the minimum amount of space it needs to live normally. Somehow for people we've convinced ourselves that there is no such minimum (or it's so small as to be absurd).
Why are you narcissistic enough to believe that your idea of the “minimum amount of space” is the canonically correct one, and that city dwellers are idiots who don’t know how to live their lives correctly?
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That's not my experience with rural areas at all. Instead, it's usually pretty noisy because of all the neighbors with barking dogs (yes, there are neighbors in rural areas; most people can't afford 40 acres all to themselves, so they live in little clusters), and it stinks because of the cow and horse manure. Just hope you're not located close to a pig farm. And of course there's all the noisy trucks everyone drives…
It's a weird fetishization, isn't it? I think that's a really good point. Dovetails with political movements that idealize(d) the working man/class, as if poor people couldn't be as flawed and human as the rest of us. It's pretty bold to be talking about cities and mental health when about five minutes in a small town will vividly show you the backstabbing, gossipy, popularity contest bullshit that comes with "closel…
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That's not my experience with rural areas at all. Instead, it's usually pretty noisy because of all the neighbors with barking dogs (yes, there are neighbors in rural areas; most people can't afford 40 acres all to themselves, so they live in little clusters), and it stinks because of the cow and horse manure. Just hope you're not located close to a pig farm. And of course there's all the noisy trucks everyone drives…
Thank you so much for making the counterpoint. I grew up in a rural setting and would give just about anything to take back that loss of years of my life. A few extras: * You can't exercise, because dogs don't just bark but also chase you, and no one cares or thinks you're the asshole for complaining because you're in the country. * Daily life is /very/ stressful. Forgot milk? Well, fuck you, buddy, because you're ei…
Yep, I've seen this with Christians: "you have mental problems because you have demons in you!" This kind of thinking is extremely common in rural America these days.
>If you aren't lucky, you may even need your own well.
Wells are pretty expensive. Sure, the water itself is free, but the electricity to run the pump is not, and even at the frequently cheaper electric rates that rural areas enjoy, it adds up.
>You'll also have to burn trash or contract a company to come take it.
When I was growing up in rural areas, the common thing was to save it all up and haul it to the dump yourself every week or so.
All in all, you make a lot of excellent points that remind me a lot of the time I've spent in rural areas.
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That's not my experience with rural areas at all. Instead, it's usually pretty noisy because of all the neighbors with barking dogs (yes, there are neighbors in rural areas; most people can't afford 40 acres all to themselves, so they live in little clusters), and it stinks because of the cow and horse manure. Just hope you're not located close to a pig farm. And of course there's all the noisy trucks everyone drives…
I smell more sewage in the city I live in than cow manure or pig farms visiting the rural areas.
However, I just spent 2 weeks in Japanese cities, including almost a week in Tokyo, and it was extremely clean. Even on trash day it didn't stink.
Not to be overly melodramatic or sardonic but life is damaging to mental health, urban, rural, or otherwise. And not just modern life, but rather it is, I believe, our human condition. Too many of the people I meet are ground down, sliding by, holding on, grappling with their identity and place in the world, somewhere on the scale of mildly scarred to full blown post traumatic, anxiety ridden, and/or profoundly lost.…
I agree with most of this, but I think your observation on religion is exaggerated. It's a very personal thing and I think it still helps a lot of people cope, regardless of how un-cool it is these days.
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Why are you narcissistic enough to believe that your idea of the “minimum amount of space” is the canonically correct one, and that city dwellers are idiots who don’t know how to live their lives correctly?
So you at least accept the theory that human beings are not unique from other organisms regarding needed a minimum amount of space and that finding the amount is a valid goal?
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That is an untrue generalization. Every large city has several high income, high density neighborhoods where wealthy people live when they prefer shorter commutes and access to amenities to larger living spaces.
Do these wealthy people you speak of live in studio apartments?