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Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

economist.com

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Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#391

Post by labcomputer »

adrianN wrote: post #101
codingdave wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Supporting a large, rural population is less efficient than urbs or even suburbs. Whenever I see statement like this, it makes me wonder if you know where your food comes from. Because for the most part, the rural populations are supporting the cities. If the supply chains in this country were to fail, it is not the rural communities who would be scrounging for food and water. We'd be just fine.

I don't know how it is in the US, but in Germany at least a quarter of the population lives in "rural" parts of the country, but only a single digit percentage actually works in agriculture.

It's roughly the same in the US.

The US Department of Agriculture estimates that 10.9% of the population is employed in agriculture, food and related industries. More than half (6.4% of pop.) of those are employed in food service (i.e., waitstaff at restaurants). Only 1.3% of the population are actually employed on farms.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#392

Post by davidw »

vailprogrammer wrote: post #365
davidw wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it might look something like Innsbruck, Austria, which is a beautiful city. It may come as a shock to Americans raised in suburbia, but there are housing types between single family units and skyscrapers that are very human-scale and attractive. Look at pretty much any mountain town in Europe.

As an American with an EU passport, thanks for the idea. I had been leaning towards moving/retiring to Grenoble, France for the engineering university nestled in the Alps, but I will look further afield.

Trento and Bolzano in Italy are nice too. Probably depends on what languages you speak and what mix of amenities you care most about.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#393

Post by anoonmoose »

waheoo wrote: post #373
RC_ITR wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listen, nearly everyone largely agrees that wealth inequality at the current US level is bad. Wealthy people moving to low-cost areas (and thus raising cost of living) accelerates inequality for a few reasons. 1) Unlike you scenario, many working-class people in places like Sedona can only afford to rent their homes (25% of total, give or take in Sedona). These people incur huge monetary costs in being forced to move…

[flagged]

What a lazy, unnecessary, unproductive comment. I'll not defend myself; HN would be better if both our comments get removed.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#394

Post by dan-robertson »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #79

Are we still ignoring the ecological collapse that is caused by urban sprawl? We *must* increase the density of our cities. If you believe that the climate crisis is a problem and a big one, then you could be for a rude awakening as most experts now consider the collapse in biodiversity to have far bigger impacts on human lives and living conditions than climate change[0]. The only reason why there are fewer headline…

Meh, cities are quite small. Their expansion can lead to eg draining marshes and wetlands (especially coastal cities), but in many places in the developed world, that happened long ago.

If you care about ecological collapse, you should be worried about intensive agricultural practices and agriculture in general. I think one should always be wary with topics like climate change or ecology that issues may exist at many orders of magnitude and it is important to focus on the bigger issues. (Yes there are very small areas to which some species are endemic but general hand waving about density is not sufficient for them: a farm is not dense)

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#395

Post by rendang »

simonsarris wrote: post #215
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #79

Are we still ignoring the ecological collapse that is caused by urban sprawl? We *must* increase the density of our cities. If you believe that the climate crisis is a problem and a big one, then you could be for a rude awakening as most experts now consider the collapse in biodiversity to have far bigger impacts on human lives and living conditions than climate change[0]. The only reason why there are fewer headline…

> We must increase the density of our cities. We could also try to make a few new cities, instead of ten thousand new suburbs

The West Coast could use a new metropolis somewhere near SW Oregon, to fill in the gap between the Bay and Portland.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#396

Post by ghaff »

DavidAdams wrote: post #363
mark_l_watson wrote: post #281

My wife and I traded living near a beach and lagoon in San Diego country for a small but nice house in a mountain tourist town (Sedona Arizona). That was back in 1998. Except for some time working as a contractor at Google in Mountain View and managing a deep learning team for Capital One in Urbana/Champaign IL, we have lived a quiet life in the mountains since 1998. One reason for my success in being happy here is t…

I lived in Park City for a decade, and it's the same. If you live your life being mad at the traffic during the Sundance Festival and Christmas vacation skiiers, you're just an old man yelling at clouds. That tourist money pays for so many of the amenities that make our town a nice place to live during the rest of the year. Lighten up!

There are probably exceptions but the intersection between towns with a lot of nice restaurants, cultural amenities, etc. and towns that don't have any real tourist presence for at least part of the year is pretty much the null set. The reality is that the small towns that probably most appeal to many people here are somewhat unnatural constructs.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#397

Post by deepakhj »

vailprogrammer wrote: post #348
driverdan wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are skyscrapers harmful to wildlife? Density is much better for wildlife than sprawl.

Good point. I guess you could say that its the contents of skyscrapers that are harmful to wildlife: humans. Lots of traffic (whether car, bicycle, foot, alpine touring skiing, etc) causes the wildlife herds to be pushed further away from where they originally may have inhabited.

With density you can afford transit which would reduce traffic. See Japan for an example. Most people take the train or bus to the ski area. There’s barely anyone in the parking lot.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#398

Post by deepakhj »

Spooky23 wrote: post #149
throwaway6734 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locals wouldn't get screwed if they advocated for better zoning policy and allowed more housing to be built. This doesn't happen because those same locals that are homeowners love the value of their house exploding upwards

Honestly, no. Just because you have a hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail. Complete zoning and policy failure is a uniquely California problem. Nobody has a structural, and likely unconstitutional inequity in taxation that California does. Some rando Bay Area suburb being more expensive than Manhattan is not the same problem.

It’s a United States problem.

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#399

Post by kortilla »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #33
sien wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That local may well have a better paying job because more people are moving into the area. Also, it's the US mountain west. There is a lot of space there to build more houses. Housing isn't a zero sum game unless you have poor zoning.

Is there though? Arable land is at a premium in the mountain west, because of all those mountains. And it’s not just land, but water is lacking...build a bunch of houses and then what will they drink? And infrastructure, if you build without building roads and schools...well, they do that in China and Russia and it doesn’t always come eventually. It is easy to say the problem is that we just aren’t building enough in…

Water for residents is a drop in the bucket compared to farming. A single farmer selling out their plot to a suburban housing development will more than provide the water excess required to support the houses.

The problem is strictly the water rights being a political labyrinth (water rights don’t easily transfer from farm to residential).

Re: Small cities in America’s Mountain West are booming

#400

Post by seattle_spring »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #362
seattle_spring wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument has always bothered me too. I'd rather a place be relatively inaccessible but great, rather than accessible but shitty.

How do you decide who gets to live in the great places?

Unfortunately I don't have a good answer, but no matter the answer I believe strongly that if it's good for some but not for others, it's still better than "bad for all." This extends beyond housing.
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