This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
To open federal lands or not?
Most people in the US are unaware that the Federal government owns like half of the land in the western states. In states like Utah and Nevada, the ratio is even higher. Some people, mostly on the right, have proposed opening up this land for settlement and development. I'm of two minds but mostly against. Here's some arguments I see against and for.
Against:
Development is permanent. Once land is developed, it is almost never returned to its natural state.
Development is ugly. I love the beautiful wide open spaces in the west. In the east, there is very little true wilderness. Everything is someone's private property, with the associated buildings, trailers, junky cars, trash, etc...
Development turns public spaces into private property denying citizens of their birthright to enjoy the open spaces
For:
Development is pro-natal. Cities are fertility and IQ shredders. Density increases prices and decreases fertility, especially among high IQ people. If we want people having 3, 4, 5 kids, we need cheap housing with lots of space. But states like Utah, Colorado, and Nevada have relatively expensive housing despite lots of open space.
Development is good for the economy.
Should we open the public lands?
Is it ? I believe the causation is reversed. People who want kids move to suburbs because American inner-cities are the shame of the 1st world. Mormons moved because they wanted more kids, but more land won't magically create more mormons. Fertility rate is a super-national phenomenon. Intra-national fertility shows low variance (eg: Europe) and at times clashes with the more space = more fertility assumption (eg: France)
83% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas. So, at most, people would move to suburbs or exurbs. Suburbs and exurbs are already quite sparse and privately owned. People are tied to their job and profession. They move to cities for work. As long as jobs exist in cities, people aren't leaving urban areas.
Blatantly false. High demand and low supply increases prices.. Density increases supply, and therefore decreases prices. It's just that the densest places have such a high demand, that no amount of density can limit housing price increase. Places like Austin and Auckland have seen slower housing price growth because of permissive zoning (densification). On the other hand, Bay Area suburb prices keep shooting up because it's already full with single family homes, and rezoning isn't permitted.
Name one 1st world nation with a fertility rate above 2.5. The decline in fertility is relentless & global. I appreciate every genuine attempt towards increasing fertility. But, there is no evidence that more space leads to people having more kids.
Israel may count, but zoom in on any Israeli exurb/suburb and it's vastly denser than most American cities. Clearly density was not the issue. I want to offer a counter-solution for the same problem. Densify aggressively instead.
Jobs are in cities. People won't move and they can't move. But, you can make it easier for them to own property near where they work. If space is the issue, then going from 2 -> 4 bed apartments should solve those issues.
Is it ? First the multi-year infrastructure spending sink & then the annual drain on low-density infrastructure. All for a bunch of people who were unemployable enough to move to the middle of nowhere ? How is it any different than social science fake-jobs in the govt. It creates temporary jobs, with negative long term value.
The US needs to aggressively build out family-sized apartments within its existing cities. SJ, SF & LA should be the first targets. Boston, DC & Miami should be next. Austin & Phoenix (Tempe) area already in the middle of a build out, so non-coastal America is covered. In the north, I think Canada (Vancouver & Toronto) will cannibalize growth potential from Seattle & Chicago....so imma leave the north out of this.
I don't think this is true. Certainly all the East Asian countries show a large amount of TFR difference between the big cities (0.6) and elsewhere (1.2). Brutal numbers overall obviously.
I think it might be good to follow @morebirths on Twitter who digs into these details frequently and is a big advocate of lower density environments.
To a point, more building will equal lower prices. This is evident in Texas for example, which builds lots of (low density) stuff and has low prices. But if Dallas became Manhattan, prices in this new city would be much higher. Ultra dense building is space efficient, but not cost efficient. New York is structurally expensive and it's not just regulation that makes it that way. The cheapest major cities are ones like Dallas and Houston that are very spread out. There are no dense, cheap cities in the First World.
This fails to understand half the fertility crisis. True, we need more people to have kids. But we also need the ones that do have kids to have more. I'll have 4 so that you can have 0 and average at 2.
I think so. Greenfield architecture is easier and cheaper. Cities with medium density (like 2-5k per square mile) can provide good government services with low tax burden. My parents live in one of those cities and their property taxes are like $1,500/year.
Rural areas are probably net drains, but lowish-medium density is a sweet spot.
Agree. But how much is a 4 bedroom apartment going to cost in a major urban area? It would likely require an income far beyond what the average family could pay. Nevertheless almost all most new development inside dense cities is studios and 1 bedrooms. More large apartments would be an improvement.
By the way, none of this is a strong claim that we need to develop empty government land, only that it might help some things, and too much density is bad, actually.
Ah, come on! First and most famous example is Berlin - it's still relatively cheap today, when compared internationally, but it was fantastically cheap for 25 years.
Germany is actually full of examples like that. Dresden is following the Berlin playbook, and Leipzig is the new cheap/dense/hip city for now. There's also Dortmund, Dusseldorf and Essen, but those are cheap for a reason (they're ugly dumps, but they are dense - and there are jobs there, so they aren't cheap just because the region is totally economically destitute).
There's also Vienna, which is an interesting case, because Vienna has cheap housing mostly because the city owns tens of thousands of apartment units and is actively using its market position to push down prices. Austria also has a couple of other cities that are cheap and dense, and so does Italy, but going in detail isn't that useful if nobody has ever heard of them.
My conclusion is that you can have cheap and dense Tier 1 cities if you expend some effort, and there's great value in boosting your Tier 2 cities.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link