171–180 of 183 posts
Keep building these bike lanes and 15-minute neighborhoods. So that people don't even think about having children. Make sure people have no personal space and no personal time. That's how we reduce the Earth's population!
GOOD. We’ve done well to keep everyone alive. All that’s left is to implement sensible economic policies that allow normal folk to start families
But the people disinterested in starting families (boomers, genx) are going to be the majority of the voting base? We've already seen 20 years of policy driven by people who don't care about families being started.
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> that would eliminate the 60% or so of the federal budget dedicated to the aggregate of all social welfare programs The combination of UBI and healthcare largely should . UBI serves as a better alternative to most such programs (and has much less administrative overhead). Also, any form of UBI will likely result in substantial spending increases (trickle- up economics is well-established as actually working, increme…
Studies also show that $1.2k/mo sustained do not result in substantial changes to people’s lives. They change what they spend their time on but not in a productive direction. If we eliminate the 60% of spending and give people $1.2k/mo we nearly instantly kill almost all dialysis patients. That amount is below the floor of cost for that treatment. And those 800k people use just under 1% of the federal budget.
And I fully expect that to do it properly, we would need to have a government-revenue-to-GDP ratio higher than our current near-rock-bottom on that scale.
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Well personal space and personal time were not in abundant supply in our times of growth. It is true that urban areas have far fewer children than rural areas and that this is a worldwide property. It’s a pity since I like the ability for kids to walk to places and take the bus or train and I’ve grown up in a rural place (pythons and peacocks, cows and birds, scorpions and cobras!) and in a highly urbanized environme…
> I personally think it’s just opportunity cost. Nope. It's just time and personal living space. It's THAT simple. Go on, try to plan your day with transit and no car if you have 3 children (with 2-3 year age gaps). You'll find that this really works only if everything is concentrated, or if it's a full-time job for you. That's why we hear so much about "15-minute neighborhoods". But when everything is concentrated,…
If you think most families who live in a city only have access to "one" park or "one" daycare you must be joking. Things are denser in cities. What do you think all that dense stuff is? It's parks and daycare and stuff.
Maintaining a car payment, gas, garage, oil changes, etc is not "freedom". Surely it's fine for many people, but cars do not equal "freedom" in any sense of the word. Their use is entirely dependent on government spending, just like transit.
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> I personally think it’s just opportunity cost. Nope. It's just time and personal living space. It's THAT simple. Go on, try to plan your day with transit and no car if you have 3 children (with 2-3 year age gaps). You'll find that this really works only if everything is concentrated, or if it's a full-time job for you. That's why we hear so much about "15-minute neighborhoods". But when everything is concentrated,…
You seem to have a axe to grind against cities. And based on how you describe them, you actually never lived in a city with children. If you think most families who live in a city only have access to "one" park or "one" daycare you must be joking. Things are denser in cities. What do you think all that dense stuff is? It's parks and daycare and stuff. Maintaining a car payment, gas, garage, oil changes, etc is not "f…
Yup.
> And based on how you describe them, you actually never lived in a city with children.
Nope. I also grew up in a city.
> What do you think all that dense stuff is? It's parks and daycare and stuff.
Daycare and parks for other people who live closer to them. Not that you're forbidden to visit other parks, you just won't do that because it's going to take too much time.
> Maintaining a car payment, gas, garage, oil changes, etc is not "freedom".
Paying hundreds of thousands for transit is also not freedom. Cities are EXPENSIVE. Just one trip on a subway in NYC costs around $20!
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You seem to have a axe to grind against cities. And based on how you describe them, you actually never lived in a city with children. If you think most families who live in a city only have access to "one" park or "one" daycare you must be joking. Things are denser in cities. What do you think all that dense stuff is? It's parks and daycare and stuff. Maintaining a car payment, gas, garage, oil changes, etc is not "f…
> You seem to have a axe to grind against cities. Yup. > And based on how you describe them, you actually never lived in a city with children. Nope. I also grew up in a city. > What do you think all that dense stuff is? It's parks and daycare and stuff. Daycare and parks for other people who live closer to them. Not that you're forbidden to visit other parks, you just won't do that because it's going to take too much…
Thanks for the jokes bud. Hilarious that there are serious people who say mostly the stuff you are saying (but actually believe it!)
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> You seem to have a axe to grind against cities. Yup. > And based on how you describe them, you actually never lived in a city with children. Nope. I also grew up in a city. > What do you think all that dense stuff is? It's parks and daycare and stuff. Daycare and parks for other people who live closer to them. Not that you're forbidden to visit other parks, you just won't do that because it's going to take too much…
Sorry, I didn't realize you're a parody account. A typical trip on the NYC subway is not 20 dollars haha. You almost got me. Thanks for the jokes bud. Hilarious that there are serious people who say mostly the stuff you are saying (but actually believe it!)
Yes, it is. It's a part of how urbanists hide the true cost of that "transit freedom".
Divide the yearly budget of the MTA ($21.3 billion) by the number of rides (1.28 billion).
> Hilarious that there are serious people who say mostly the stuff you are saying (but actually believe it!)
Perhaps you should do a bit of self-reflection instead of just parroting things you've heard?
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Got data? I think any even remotely serious attempt will discover a very mixed bag. I had an LLM pull data from various places in California and New York (because doing it by hand is a pain), and there isn’t really a clear trend either way as to where the children are. Palo Alto has a surprisingly large number of children under 18 and under 5, and Palo Alto is fairly walkable as California cities go. Fresno and Baker…
Look at Houston vs. NYC. Both have approximately similar populations but completely different approaches to city design. NYC is at 52 and Harris County (that contains Houston) is at 67 births per year per 1000. But NYC is also diverse, with relatively sparse parts in Brooklyn and Queens, where most children live. > In general I suspect that children in the US are mildly skewed toward more suburban areas, but not stro…
> Yes, in desperately poor neighborhoods. That's called an "inverted J curve".
Sorry, but this is just incorrect. There are plenty of people who are far from desperately poor, live in dense areas and/or highly transit-oriented areas, and have kids. Sadly, the US has spent many decades making it hard to build family oriented (>=2 bedroom) housing in these areas, so there are fewer such families than might otherwise live in such areas, but these families are far from absent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look at Houston vs. NYC. Both have approximately similar populations but completely different approaches to city design. NYC is at 52 and Harris County (that contains Houston) is at 67 births per year per 1000. But NYC is also diverse, with relatively sparse parts in Brooklyn and Queens, where most children live. > In general I suspect that children in the US are mildly skewed toward more suburban areas, but not stro…
> > There are plenty of children in dense areas. > Yes, in desperately poor neighborhoods. That's called an "inverted J curve". Sorry, but this is just incorrect. There are plenty of people who are far from desperately poor, live in dense areas and/or highly transit-oriented areas, and have kids. Sadly, the US has spent many decades making it hard to build family oriented (>=2 bedroom) housing in these areas, so ther…
Are you arguing with the reality?
> There are plenty of people who are far from desperately poor,
No, there aren't "plenty" of them _statistically_. Can you find individuals with 4 children in Manhattan? Of course. But there won't be _a_ _lot_ of them.
The total fertility rate is inversely correlated with the density. You can just check the Census age bracket data if you doubt me.
> Sadly, the US has spent many decades making it hard to build family oriented (>=2 bedroom) housing in these areas
No. The US made it possible to build dense housing that displaced family-oriented homes. And dense housing will ALWAYS be small.
I live in Seattle, and there are no regulations that prohibit real estate developers from building 3-bedroom apartments. They don't do it because it's far more profitable to build three 1-bedroom studios instead.