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Americans are rethinking where they want to live

economist.com

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Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#581

Post by oblio »

legerdemain wrote: post #167
larrymyers wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love visiting Milwaukee, and Wisconsin in general for the sheer amount of outdoor activities. Unfortunately it would send us the wrong direction with respect to visiting family. I want to spend less time in a car in general.

Have you considered remote/teleconference family visits? The last two years have shown that it's perfectly possible to lead a normal social life on Zoom, etc. There isn't really any need to get into a car and drive several hours just to see someone.

It's not. How do even chat in a group of say, 4-6 people or more? Bigger in person groups naturally diverge and converge in real time, while with Zoom you're either completely separated or have people taking turns speaking in a very unnatural fashion that kind of works for business meetings but not for casual social interaction.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#582

Post by yourusername »

Pasorrijer wrote: post #493
mumblemumble wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in the country, used to live in the suburbs, and currently live in Chicago. Yes, we could afford to have a lot more space that we personally own if we lived in a less dense area. But no, I don't miss it. I don't feel cooped up in a small space where I live right now. Nor did I feel cooped up living in a college dormitory, for that matter. I do feel cooped up in a small space when I'm staying with friends an…

Sure a small backyard isn't great... But I live in a major city and instead we just walk to the enormous park, which is way bigger than any backyard. It's a very different mindset that I thought I'd hate but now that I'm here I couldn't imagine it any other way.

The enormous parks here were closed multiple times over the past 2 years. I'll never depend on such amenities again because they can be taken at will.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#583

Post by Pasorrijer »

yourusername wrote: post #582
Pasorrijer wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure a small backyard isn't great... But I live in a major city and instead we just walk to the enormous park, which is way bigger than any backyard. It's a very different mindset that I thought I'd hate but now that I'm here I couldn't imagine it any other way.

The enormous parks here were closed multiple times over the past 2 years. I'll never depend on such amenities again because they can be taken at will.

How did they close them? In Toronto they put up caution tape. The people walked through it. They placed reasonable restrictions, and the unreasonable ones were ignored. Honestly one of the biggest benefits of the pandemic (and there were very, very few) was the transition of classrooms, community and family events to the parks. I've never seen them so active and busy and it gave a liveliness to the neighbourhood that was refreshing.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#584

Post by glial »

alistairSH wrote: post #386
liveoneggs wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay them more to keep failing to provide protection? The cops extort you (the tax payer) by playing with your safety for the sake of inflating the budget.

Police in the US are under no obligation to protect the citizenry. SCOTUS has reaffirmed that over and over again.

For anyone interested, there's a great Radiolab episode about this:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/no-sp...

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#585

Post by glial »

CountDrewku wrote: post #297
michaelcampbell wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that doesn't kill kids While the numbers are low, it is not 0. This is, sadly, categorically untrue.

Can you provide an example of a child in that age range dying when without a secondary illness that made them high risk? All the examples I've seen are children with cancer or something else. The percentages still don't pan out to having such massive restrictions on children that young.

https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-reports-third-covid-19...

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#586

Post by glial »

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #370
CountDrewku wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you ought to pay more attention to what it actually says instead of getting upset at what is obviously a generalization about the overreaction to COVID when it comes to young children- >A smaller subset of states reported on hospitalizations and mortality by age; the available data indicate that COVID-19-associated hospitalization and death is uncommon in children. Here's a more accurate representation - https:…

Thanks for bringing in that hard data. I don't understand why the news media keeps saying "thank goodness kids can get vaccinated now!". Why are they trying to normalize annual or 2x a year shots for these kids, who are more likely to suffer from myocarditis as a result than to actually contract or get ill from this virus? Nobody freaking knows.

Even if vaccination does nothing for kids except keep them from spreading it, it's net positive for the community.

Of course, with omicron, who knows...

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#587

Post by ericmay »

Symbiote wrote: post #569
zerocount wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most models outside the US would not work for the entire US, perhaps a few cities. Also, it doesn't seem possible to have more than 10 supermarkets within 10 minutes of your walking distance. They would have to be next door to each other. Of course, I'm thinking about this in the context of where I've lived in the US. It would take me 3 minutes just to walk out of my apartment complex, and another 5 to get to the sup…

Taking a friend's address in inner Copenhagen (a cheap place as she's a student), she has 4 supermarkets within 5 minutes walk (400m). Taking a different friend's address in the suburbs, he has 3 supermarkets within a 10 minute walk (800m). In the city centre, there are 10 supermarkets within a 5 minute walk. The supermarkets in the city centre are smaller, and have a relatively limited range, although in practise I…

> You'll need to travel further (on average) to buy a barbecue, tent, etc. I think I remember the large American supermarkets selling this sort of thing — in Denmark, you'll need to go to the DIY / sports / etc shop. This will have a car park.

And that's if you don't get it delivered. And even so that is when you use the car (hence why Europeans have a lot of hatchbacks). Not driving to a grocery store a quarter mile away to get a bag of chips that you forgot for a party. The energy expenditure for that is crazy. It's no wonder America has such high resource consumption.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#588

Post by glial »

CountDrewku wrote: post #463
diveanon wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>Asymptotically spreading COVID has been discussed and documented all over the world. I don’t believe this question is in good faith. Then you should easily be able to back that up with data. So please provide it. Hypothesis are not evidence. I have plenty of evidence that shows the opposite. https://adc.bmj.com/content/105/7/618 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710100934.h... https://jamanetwork.com/…

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...

> Asymptomatic cases had a significant but lower secondary attack rate when compared to symptomatic individuals.

Curious what your searches look like, because that took me like 2 seconds to find.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#589

Post by greedo »

perl4ever wrote: post #538
greedo wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual, it depends. As more people buy upscale gear (Miele or Oreck come to mind), they last much longer and are designed with servicing in mind. And the local vacuum shop services almost every vacuum around. Most vacuums are easy to fix assuming the motor isn't shot. It's replacing a frayed power cord, or a belt/beater. It's kind of similar to how good shoes can be resoled.

I had an Oreck years ago, I thought it was a good brand, it looked solid, ads made a big deal of it being lightweight and used by hotels...but it didn't suck. And I thought that's just the way things are. But I got a Hoover upright, which was much cheaper, looks cheaper, like a toy, mostly garish purple plastic, and is also much heavier. But it sucks up an order of magnitude more dirt. It's bagless, which some people…

My Oreck worked great for 18 years, but it did have flaws. I disliked the bags (difficult to change), but it ran like a champ with a lot of abuse. My Miele isn't as light, but does a far better job (and is HEPA compliant). Hopefully it lasts as long as my Oreck.

Re: Americans are rethinking where they want to live

#590

Post by mumblemumble »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #466
mumblemumble wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I have seen in my travels is that those cafés and bakeries are not all that expensive in places where they are the norm. They occupy an environment where they have serious competition from truly comparable businesses, and a larger potential clientele. That brings market forces into play, which means they are more directly incentivized to compete on price and make it up on volume, while keeping quality high. Comp…

> The bread is overpriced and hastily made. This is contradicted by this: > But they probably also need to have high prices because people only buy bread there for special occasions. It is not overpriced, it is prices according to its supply and demand.

Supply and demand is the simplest possible model for pricing, and only applies in certain contexts.

The argument I'm trying to make comes close to suggesting that their bread functions as a sort of Veblen good. Which is an example of a kind of product whose pricing dynamics are slightly more complex than can be neatly explained by the econ 101 model.

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