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Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

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Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#191

Post by johnminter »

danmaz74 wrote: post #146
Bucephalus355 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make very good points above. I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes. That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive? If you were a 22 yr old who studied from zero-level computing knowledge for 12 months and got the AWS Solutions Architect Pro cert (somewhat possible assuming 2 hours / day) I can already guarantee you’d receive a written…

I really wouldn't compare learning a very specific technology with college. The idea with college level education is that you get the foundations of what you study and a learning method, so that you can adapt to changes (eg new technologies) faster and better. Of course you can learn the foundations without college and not learn them with college, but on average it's much easier to do so with that.

Yes. Technology and business environments change. Students will only succeed if they become self-motivated, life-long learners who can identify the key problems/technology that their employers need solved/developed and rapidly build upon their skill-set to solve those problems and implement the solutions. Ideas/technology are like Legos - the point is to know how to assemble the pieces you have to build what you need.

When I started my career as a scientist in a corporate analytical lab 36 years ago, corporate funding for travel and continuing education was plentiful. When budgets got tight, that was the first to go. Those of us who were self-directed learners survived the downsizing and cost-cutting much longer than those who didn't.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#192

Post by cimmanom »

jamiek88 wrote: post #123
CydeWeys wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The over-arching point I believe the parent comment is making is that the kinds of people who didn't get college degrees back then because they weren't needed are getting college degrees now, because they are needed as qualifications for jobs. They weren't incapable of it back then, it just wasn't necessary nor widespread. Now it is. So it's the same kinds of people doing police work then as now, with the same aptitu…

Just a point on the population of Manhattan, it’s be careful with those numbers and applying them to modern day. People used to cram into death trap tenements 10 to one windowless room in some cases. Hundreds of thousands would live on a street that now houses a thousand people. I don’t think that density is coming back or desirable.

Yes, in 1880 people were crammed into tenements. Today we live roughly as densely as we did in 1960 (maybe slightly more densely due to more high rises), but housing is far, far more expensive.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#193

Post by maxxxxx »

fastball wrote: post #134
wonderwonder wrote: post #12

The top 1% of American's own more wealth than the bottom 90% and this concentration is only increasing. Soon no cities regardless of size will deliver for low skilled workers as there will simply not be enough of the proverbial pie to go around. As wealth is concentrated and rents and property values rise the vast majority of this country will (does?) live paycheck to paycheck. This is unsustainable and will either n…

Repeat after me: Wealth is not a zero sum game. Wealth is not a zero sum game. Wealth is not a zero sum game.

It absolutely is. Western economies have been growing at about 0-4% percent yearly over the last few decades. That means if somebody's wealth grows at a faster rate the money has to come from somebody else. If the US was suddenly full of people like Bezos or Gates I don't think the economy would grow much faster. They would just fight for the same piece of the pie.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#194

Post by selimthegrim »

fastball wrote: post #174
dragonwriter wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's, at best, extremely misleading; outside of the most extreme absolute deprivation, relative deprivation (or prosperity) appears to be much more of a contributor to experienced disutility (or utility) than absolute deprivation or prosperity, such that, in practice, and modulo alleviating the most crushing poverty (which isn't where marginal gains go in the developed world, even where such poverty still remains)…

I am impressed with the level of nonsense in this comment.

Not just that, my God, the Alpine sentence structure!

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#195

Post by smokeyj »

peisistratos wrote: post #167
alkibiades wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“not enough money to go around” Where do people get this strange idea that if someone else makes money it somehow precludes others from doing it? Bill Gates got rich with an invention that also generated probably a trillion dollars in economic growth for everyone. Including most people on this sites income.

> if someone else makes money it somehow precludes others from doing it? There is an easy way to see that and it is if the median inflation-adjusted hourly wage has risen in the US since the early 1970s. Or if inflation-adjusted weekly earnings have risen. They have not, with GDP growth, both have fallen . That this even has to be discussed shows the deep control those heirs who expropriate surplus labor time from wo…

If someone invents a tool and sells it for a profit - who was exploited? Is it not possible for everyone to be richer than they started and also create wealth??

The question was really simple. Your answer is the kind that inevitably ends with "you just have to read Das Kapital". That is not an answer.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#196

Post by ruralqs »

motohagiography wrote: post #112

I find the tone of articles like these to be patronizing. Let's be clear, the hollowing out of rural economies is a direct and explicit effect of trade policy, and not some accident of economics and markets. The precise dynamic in this article is that where previously cities provided capital and farms provided food, with a spectrum of services in between - with globalization, cities no longer depend on their regional…

The interests of rural people in the US are, depending on the state, protected by the electoral college and Senate allocation. Look for more attempts to abolish these things, which would be civil war-risking changes to government.

To me there's no reason that old, beautiful towns couldn't become parts of the information economy, as long as they have decent internet access and are within an hour or two of a decent airport. I also think that sheer class disdain is part of the problem with regional inequality. Many media contributors in the US -- almost always in the major cities -- have recounted the apparent economic success of these same cities with an almost gloating tone, putting themselves on the "winning" side of an inevitable historical progression.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#197

Post by tzs »

irrational wrote: post #189
Bucephalus355 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make very good points above. I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes. That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive? If you were a 22 yr old who studied from zero-level computing knowledge for 12 months and got the AWS Solutions Architect Pro cert (somewhat possible assuming 2 hours / day) I can already guarantee you’d receive a written…

"That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive?" Colleges shouldn't be in the business of training people for jobs - that is what tech schools are for. If you just want to get a job, go to a tech school, don't go to college. College is (or should be) about expanding your mind, your horizons. It should be about exposing you to new ideas and thoughts you hadn't b…

Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 1780-05-12:

> I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#198

Post by wutbrodo »

irrational wrote: post #189
Bucephalus355 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make very good points above. I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes. That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive? If you were a 22 yr old who studied from zero-level computing knowledge for 12 months and got the AWS Solutions Architect Pro cert (somewhat possible assuming 2 hours / day) I can already guarantee you’d receive a written…

"That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive?" Colleges shouldn't be in the business of training people for jobs - that is what tech schools are for. If you just want to get a job, go to a tech school, don't go to college. College is (or should be) about expanding your mind, your horizons. It should be about exposing you to new ideas and thoughts you hadn't b…

I fully agree that you can't ignore the broader education that college provides, even when that diverges from marketability.

But then you have to be clear-eyed about what we're talking about here: from the perspective of a college student, is it worth paying 1-200k[1] to become more worldly, with some auxiliary benefits to their income potential? I would probably still send my (future) kids to such a place, but then I'm in a pretty high income/wealth percentile. I suspect that many people (including my family when I was a kid), looking at this clear-headedly, would rationally decline this deal. If you think the pricing of college reflects the "broaden your horizons" aspect instead of the perception that it's "protection money for a middle-class career", you're sorely mistaken. Which means there are and can be far, far, far more cost-effective ways to broaden your horizons, particularly in the era of Internet communities, cheap travel, and all of humanity's knowledge at your fingertips at all times.

[1] I'm aware that there are ways to get through college more cheaply, like starting in community College. But a system in which the majority of people are going through ccs first is a very different system, so the thrust of GP's point still stands.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#199

Post by seereadhack »

As other comments have noted, this isn't just a national story. China has a large scale plan to push recent low skill migrants away from big cities toward medium sized cities (medium sized for China anyway) in an effort to help boost consumption. China also faces an enormous housing glut that is at least partially powered by middle and upper class folks using real estate as way to save and invest for retirement. Anyone under the age of 35 and/or without a family history of home ownership in a major American city can tell you that this sounds very familiar.

And though the economies in both the US and China are purportedly chugging along, wealth inequality seems to be pulling at the seams everywhere, dragging on growth and exaggerating the tensions between established urban families and those who serve them. How the differences in scale, complexity, and political culture will shape the political responses... well, I'd be inclined to put my money on Xi before the Orange one.

That said, the US will get to juice those spend-happy retiring baby boomers who will be spending their kids inheritance for the next couple of decades, and if the grad students powering the biotech, materials, and data improvements don't jump ship, there's a chance the west could actually keep pace. But the dynamics of market driven social and mass media don't inspire so much confidence of late.

The largest political challenge in both countries may be in reconciling the demands of the moralising progressive youth and the reactionary would-be capitalists, the entrenched liberal urban bureaucracies and the knee-jerk conservative know-bettering from the peanut gallery. While the Chinese impulse for social order will enjoy the advantages of increasing surveillance and sheer scale, the west will be waiting on the decaying but stubbornly persistent tradition of liberal education to surface some y'know, actual leadership.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#200

Post by hmmmDisagree »

irrational wrote: post #189
Bucephalus355 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make very good points above. I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes. That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive? If you were a 22 yr old who studied from zero-level computing knowledge for 12 months and got the AWS Solutions Architect Pro cert (somewhat possible assuming 2 hours / day) I can already guarantee you’d receive a written…

"That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive?" Colleges shouldn't be in the business of training people for jobs - that is what tech schools are for. If you just want to get a job, go to a tech school, don't go to college. College is (or should be) about expanding your mind, your horizons. It should be about exposing you to new ideas and thoughts you hadn't b…

  College is (or should be) 
  about expanding your mind, 
  your horizons.
College is not at all about that.

One, college is really damaging to the social fabric of towns across the country. My high school friends are gone, and we all lost touch immediately after high school. Why? College.

Did I make new friends? Friends at college? No. Not by the same measure of friendship. These people were cardboard cutouts. People to drink with. Not people to talk to. There’s more, but we’ll stop here.

Two, college is in every way, dumped on teenagers as THE ONLY way forward. By parents. By teachers. By nearly every adult with influence over a kid’s sense of the future. Those who apply (and get accepted) in senior year of highschool are applauded, everyone else is doomed.

No one is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even tens of thousands of dollars, to build character. No one is there to mature. No one is there to improve their concept of individuality. No one goes to college to learn for the sake of learning.

I mean, I could write a 300 page novel, but wow, seriously. College is designated a career path for pretty much every kid in the high school cafeteria.

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