Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up • Hacker News Board

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#231

Post by terminal_d » Fri, Dec 09, 2022, 5:59 AM UTC

tsol wrote: post #81

fullshark wrote: post #37

A lot of upperwardly mobile, ambitious people don't realize this, or they generally understand it only in terms of chastising their high school peers who stayed home. If you build a society based on the assumption everyone will simply move and re-skill to the regions with economic opportunity, you get a lot of regions of bitter people who stayed behind somewhere and watched their local economy get destroyed by trade…

It's strange the level of distrust in the west over institutions that the majority of the world find completely uncontroversial. It takes a village to raise a child, and in a world without villages families are the biggest support system most people have. I have a feeling this is another instance of the minority being louder than the majority.

> institutions that the majority of the world find completely uncontroversial

Not even remotely true. And yes, as de-facto "management", most of the blame is on these "institutions".

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#232

Post by tomrod » Fri, Dec 09, 2022, 6:13 AM UTC

egberts1 wrote: post #230

tomrod wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP. It's a literal claim, not metaphorical. Pipes break. Schools wear out. Roads wear out. Houses and fencing wear out, etc. Many cities don't budget in perpetuity and (further) can't maintain existing infrastructure as a population bulge dissipates or as young people move away.

You can move into cities whose mayor is constantly reinvesting. Or you can move out if the mayor does not bother to reinvest into its community.

Aye, some communities get it (mayors don't typically have a lot of power or knowledge in these matters). These tend to be communities that have an industrial base of some sector, the more varied the better. Farming communities tend to have more maintainable infrastructure than bedroom communities under stable or growth regimes.

All hell breaks loose when the population sinks. Its hard to justify higher taxes now to pay for things 10 years away.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#233

Post by anovikov » Fri, Dec 09, 2022, 6:16 AM UTC

fullshark wrote: post #37

A lot of upperwardly mobile, ambitious people don't realize this, or they generally understand it only in terms of chastising their high school peers who stayed home. If you build a society based on the assumption everyone will simply move and re-skill to the regions with economic opportunity, you get a lot of regions of bitter people who stayed behind somewhere and watched their local economy get destroyed by trade…

Only fix could be Soviet style registration system right? Where you are tied to the place where you were born unless Party sends you somewhere else? I mean, we are over that phase even on international level. People move countries all the time. Complaining about this being the case within one country is just out of place. And to mitigate enti-globalization populists, just better propaganda is needed. Let's face it: democracy only works when people are brainwashed (or there is a poll tax or other system that lets only well-to-do vote).

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#234

Post by terminal_d » Fri, Dec 09, 2022, 6:20 AM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #206

fullshark wrote: post #37

A lot of upperwardly mobile, ambitious people don't realize this, or they generally understand it only in terms of chastising their high school peers who stayed home. If you build a society based on the assumption everyone will simply move and re-skill to the regions with economic opportunity, you get a lot of regions of bitter people who stayed behind somewhere and watched their local economy get destroyed by trade…

Well, wtf is wrong with them that they stay when the economy gets destroyed? Move and make money elsewhere? Do they know there is skills and worker shortage all over the country? Why do they think their little corner in the world is special? I think it is mix of fear and complacency because when it gets bad, it doesn't get bad enough. As an adult you are responsible for taking care of yourself and those you love abov…

Why the vitriol?

>fear and complacency

Not everyone wants to live in a big city, or away from people they know.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#235

Post by refurb » Fri, Dec 09, 2022, 6:53 AM UTC

akiselev wrote: post #103

Yhippa wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many suburbs are not sustainable, and are degrading. Genuinely curious: what is the basis for that claim? Even if you don't cite a source. Edit: these responses are very insightful. Thank you all for the responses.

See the Strong Towns article "The Growth Ponzi Scheme" [1] and the ASCE Infrastructure Report Card for more concrete data [2]. The gist is that we've funded the construction of our infrastructure nationwide without accounting for the cost of maintenance. Now after decades of neglect, the cost of fixing all of our infrastructure is astronomical, far worse than if we had been doing it correctly from the beginning. [1]…

Is Strong Towns an unbiased source? I mean, would they ever publish an article that runs counter to their policy position?

I’d assume one needs a bit broader set of data than that that comes from a clearly anti-suburb position.

It’s like only looking at NRA sources on the need for gun control.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#236

Post by refurb » Fri, Dec 09, 2022, 6:55 AM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #216

geraldwhen wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. I would rather burn this country to the ground than deal with the noise of density. Music. Street racing. 24/7 dog barking. Density is hell.

I live in one of top 20 densest municipalities in the US (Somerville MA) with 18k people per square mile, and none of those things are an issue here. You can have density without noise.

Having lived in Somerville I’m going to disagree on the “without noise”.

Sure it’s not like living next to Times Square but it’s far noisier than a neighborhood of single family homes.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#237

Post by 331c8c71 » Fri, Dec 09, 2022, 7:05 AM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #183

ethanbond wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick any moderate sized city in Europe! There's no reason Americans have to choose between glass and concrete imposing megastructures a la (parts of) NYC or sprawling car-dependent and socially atomized burbs a la Houston/Phoenix etc. We can have moderately dense, highly walkable, transit-connected, safe, clean, private, quiet, socially vibrant, affordable towns and suburbs all over the country. We just choose not to…

The thing is, America is very big. For perspective, America is just shy of the square mileage of all of Europe - but America is just one country... and it has half the population of Europe. This means things can be, and are, very spread out. It is not unusual for a person in the US to live 20-60+ miles from their work - by choice. It is simply not possible for everyone in the US to live in or near these mega-cities.…

> This means things can be, and are, very spread out. It is not unusual for a person in the US to live 20-60+ miles from their work - by choice.

Probably less common, but it is not that unusual to meet someone in Europe who commutes long distance by train. Probably it will become even more common as WFH or partial WFH becomes the norm in many industries.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#238

Post by silisili » Fri, Dec 09, 2022, 7:06 AM UTC

aaronax wrote: post #93

saraton1n wrote: post #34

I was a military child, and so I moved around my whole life. My best friend has lived their whole life in the city I live in now. Sometimes I get a little jealous because I don't have any heart-connection to any place. Most of the friends I regularly talk to are people I've met within the last 5 years, and I still don't have any still-standing friendships from the time before my dad retired. But also, I cannot imagin…

What are the concrete benefits of such a well-rounded background?

Not OP, but as someone who also moves around a lot, I'd say a few. Mainly, you don't get too entrenched in the local culture. You learn to kind of just be able to blend in with anyone. I could talk to some blue hair about radical ideas today, talk TCP pros and cons with some reserved networking guru tomorrow, and talk pro wrestling with a 50 year old redneck trucker the next day. Not that I'm super knowledgeable in all of those subjects, but would be just as comfortable doing all three. It's not as simple as having some extroverted ability or anything - anyone could do that, you just learn enough about people of different backgrounds and regions to understand how to interact that you really only get through exposure.

You also don't hold awful stereotypes that most people have - even most of those in a place like here. The south isn't all racist, the coast isn't all snobby, the southwest isn't full of dangerous cartels murdering everyone, middle America isn't a bunch of uneducated hicks, etc.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#239

Post by unity1001 » Fri, Dec 09, 2022, 7:28 AM UTC

fullshark wrote: post #37

A lot of upperwardly mobile, ambitious people don't realize this, or they generally understand it only in terms of chastising their high school peers who stayed home. If you build a society based on the assumption everyone will simply move and re-skill to the regions with economic opportunity, you get a lot of regions of bitter people who stayed behind somewhere and watched their local economy get destroyed by trade…

Worse: Because humans have evolved to live in close-knit communities that cooperate and human species have a 'bonding period' in which young adults bond with others in their group in order to create a social group that will collaborate to survive in the future, people leaving not only their early neighborhoods, but also their families creates subconscious anxiety in those who left. They go and live in locations where they don't know other people, changing places multiple times, often way past the early adulthood bonding period. This further isolates them and amps up the subconscious anxiety. The result are societies with psychological problems, or in worse cases like the US, entire societies running on prozac and other medication. Even further exacerbated with the system trying to isolate people more to make them into individual consumers to get maximum profit and work output out of them, pushing them also to compete with each other, further alienating people from each other.

The system uses concepts like "Social mobility" etc, but these are just terms pushed forward to avoid calling it what it is - the system forcing people to do this in order to maximize its profit by not investing where there is no immediate and maximal return, and instead milking economic centers and urban centers that are already highly profitable. For the same reason the US rural areas lack broadband - there isnt immediate, maximal profit for private companies in bringing broadband to those regions, and they also prevent municipalities from starting their own broadband service for their people with the excuse of 'free market'.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#240

Post by fineIllregister » Fri, Dec 09, 2022, 7:33 AM UTC

TacticalCoder wrote: post #177

parker_mountain wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of it, as well, is that a lot of these regions that people moved out of are the suburbs. Many suburbs are not sustainable, and are degrading.

> Many suburbs are not sustainable, and are degrading. If the suburbs aren't sustainable, then what about rural? What about seaside? Where everything is super spread. It sounds to me that the "because roads" is an argument constantly made by those who levy taxes and by those who wants ever more taxes to be levied on others. I live in a super-spread out rural/seaside area where I drive across vineyards to drive my kid…

> If the suburbs aren't sustainable, then what about rural?

Having lived in urban, suburban, and rural areas, I would say that rural areas can sustain themselves because they have significantly less infrastructure.

People have wells for water, septic for sewage, poorer (or satellite only) internet, and less reliable/resilient electricity. The roads are narrower, sometimes without lane markers, sometimes unpaved. Fewer cars on the roads means less maintenance.

This lowers costs.

Suburbs typically have none of these options due to density. They have city-like amenities but have to run them greater distances.

There are ways to improve suburbs. One is consolidate housing but keep the same overall density with greenspace (less wire and pipe to rowhouses). Also, mixed use development with small businesses can reduce roads needed and generate tax revenue.

Rural areas are also heavily subsidized by urban areas. This is necessary because we need rural areas to make food. Suburbs are also subsidized, but without the benefits.

> The tax never stops. And then, in addition to that, I've got to listen telling me that my area is too spread out "because roads and sewers" and I should pack my stuff and go live in a city?

It seems like you are agreeing with the parent poster but are also mad at them because they are right? Unsustainable suburban development leads to crushing taxes is exactly what most folks are saying in this thread. That's how infrastructure like "roads and sewers" are funded.

You can move to the city. You could also move to a more rural area, if you like. If you want suburbs with urban amenties, it's going to be expensive.