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Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 19, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I have lived in a couple towns. In both, existing residents have complained that high-income new residents are bidding up the price of housing, so it seems like the problem you are describing does not exist that much. Things probably change when you get to poor immigrants, refugees, etc, but few families with an $85k income would even consider moving to high-cost cities like NYC.

Another thing that your argument is missing is that many muni services have very high fixed costs. As you correctly point out, growing cities indeed run into traffic problems, crowded classrooms, etc, as population rises but before they do the next big capital infusion. Sure, it is annoying, but it is far better than the opposite problem of spreading the same fixed costs across a declining population, especially since the latter usually means an increasingly poor population.

Another thing that your argument is missing is that many muni services have very high fixed costs.

An even more important point is that paying existing debt is a fixed cost. Most governments (at all levels and almost everywhere - blue state municipalities in the US are just particularly bad) have marginally-payable debt (if you include implicit debt from underfunded pension liabilities, which you should) and adding a net zero-contribution new resident improves their finances by reducing debt per capita. This is a Ponzi process (the population needs to grow exponentially to keep the government solvent) but one that can be kept going for longer than a human lifetime, so a growing city is more sustainable than most phenomena that exist nowadays.