Thanks again for the perspective! These are good things to note and provide a lot of context. I still wonder what qualifies as "family owned" and whether it's really just farming that brings 60 million to rural life.
The median household income in rural America looks to be only a bit lower than urban. Otoh, the rural poverty rate was 16.4 percent in 2017, compared with 12.9 percent for urban areas.
Jason Crawford mentions farms worked with trains and horses before trucks. The scenario I mentioned with trains would still use (intermodal?) trucks for the last mile and just replace rural highways. I could believe farming transport demands are too strange for this, but... (read more)
This is clarifying of rural life. Thank you!
I think you make a lot of assumptions of what I believe here.
Large family owned farms constitute about half of total farm area. It's not really clear to me what qualifies as "family owned" here: I imagine most still have a number of workers.
I'm also not sure if farms are the primary driver of rural economies. They certainly occupy most of the area. Rural areas appear to take the form of vast swaths of nothing but farms surrounding tiny suburb-density towns. I think there's a good chance that without the subsidy and with more direct infrastructure burden, the tiny towns (which seem to be most... (read more)
No, just that the following doesn't make sense if people have more kids as a result:
half of everyone you know over the age of five is alive today only because of antibiotics, vaccines, and sanitizing chemicals in our water supply
I suppose this is fuzzy, but you could also argue no one you know would be alive in such a counterfactual because all their genes and experiences would be different as well.
This is pretty much pedantry, but you could've phrased it just as "there's been a huge reduction in childhood death".
If infant mortality was higher that'd be terrible, but I assume people would have more kids to compensate. Automobiles other than trucks don't help much; they enable rural settlements, but not many live there and they are disproportionally expensive. I bet they'd be a lot less populated w/o all the subsidy. Cars also may not last long with a carbon tax. And cars actively harm cities substantially.
Professionals in these fields don't know some of these either. And why should everyone else? I'd go the other way: Untangle policy from the masses.
I attempted to address rent stuff in a reply to your other comment. I generally agree on psuedoexterior spaces.
I expect if intentional communities or micro placement coordination are valuable enough and rent/space unregulated, communities will outbid people with weaker ties both in construction and allocation. It's possible you can overcome the frictional costs of all this allocation being centrally planned, but I'm skeptical of the overall value.
I think the issue I have with this is: Density is expensive and may not be necessary. Let the market decide if it's a good idea. Deferring the density question to another system begs the question of how efficiently it matches the market and how it works. The city can still tax away land value increases and give that money back in other ways, or limit the total tax. A new city doesn't exist in a vacuum. It competes in a broader space market and overall market of tax burden. Pricing these too low may just limit city growth.
The price on usable space being close to the value is an effective means... (read more)
Hey there! I researched a lot of these things recently and made a post here about it.
Some particularly relevant things to your post: The yet non-existent (at scale) system you describe is Personal Rapid Transit (PRT). The best podcar design is likely a one-seater with a fully-reclined passenger. Fully-reclined minimizes air resistance along with used road volume, but people may prefer partially-reclined for comfort.
One great measure of efficiency is total cost of ownership per mile. Cars have a minimum total cost of ownership per mile 3x ($0.5 vs < $0.2) that of trains, but are admittedly pretty big.
Space is at a premium in cities, and mass transit makes 15-30x more efficient use... (read more)
Thanks again for your input!
Sunlight/windows/view/air
OK, I might not understand what you're saying here. I agree that this is the primary issue people raise and that means this isn't discussed enough, but I figured that would dominate the article if I focused on it.
A few things... Circulating air even from all the way outside is a lot cheaper and easier to deal with than the sunlight issue, so fresh air is really not a huge issue.
You mention "worst neighborhoods" near the ground implying there is a section of the city where crime is high, but there are no streets near the bottom: Any poor people living below are living in a small space... (read 600 more words →)
Well, the Charter Cities Institute is trying to help make stuff along these lines happen, but they're probably not as interested in super-high density things. I've heard Singapore tends to have better urban planning than other countries. Many European countries and Japan have nice train systems, but still have a lot of cars as well.
Crossposted from Medium. Initial description of proposed infrastructure.
Epistemic status: I've read a few books on the subject, spent a few months trying different things and working out the details, and am fairly confident this is at least worth a shot; definitely some kinks to work out; would appreciate writing and technical feedback.
-updated 07/26/2020 with more notes on sunlight, windows, and fires-
-transit network section updated 08/02/2020-
This article will be an exploration of some of the main issues people encounter with cities, the causes of those issues, and a comprehensive set of partial solutions and possible infrastructural innovations.
One of the main issues people have with cities is the cost of housing.... (read 5080 more words →)
Not with that attitude! Also, Manhattan daytime and Paris densities are already much higher (~200k / sq mi).