Economic links

[erudito]

Why spiders do not need arachno-capitalism (I laughed lots and do read the comments).

Amusing undergrad video.

The classic 1958 I, Pencil essay updated to I, Beer. Three quotes on markets.

You are poor, you cannot afford daycare, you both work and your daughter has already been stolen so, how do you ensure you do not lose your two-year old son

Comments

Heh.

[tcpip]

Detroit, South Bend, Youngstown, Flint, Toledo, Akron, Peoria, Cleveland, and many other "affordable" cities are not places where anyone would particularly want to live.

Re: Heh.

[erudito]

An amusing comment, but not a fair one. If you look at the Demographia study, it takes the view that a housing affordability ratio (median house price/median household income) of about 3 or so is where things should be. (Below 3, as the cities listed all are, tells you something not good about such places.) Some of the fastest growing cities in the US (so demonstrably places where people do want to live) have affordability ratios of about 3.

The Oz national metropolitan average of 6 is just madness. We are not remotely a highly actual land-constrained country.

Re: Heh.

[tcpip]

We are not remotely a highly actual land-constrained country.

Land should be, of course, distinguished here from 'economic land'. In others words, worthwhile infrastructure is too heavily concentrated.

Either we expand the suburbs (extremely cost inefficient) or we create new centres of population. I think the latter is the better choice.

Re: Heh.

[erudito]

People prefer to live in houses-with-gardens: a strong cross-cultural pattern. You either have to massively constrain people's choices (thereby making existing houses-with-gardens even more valuable) or you end up either creating white elephants people do not want to live in or just creating new cities with suburbs.

Suburbs are not as "cost inefficient" as places people do not want to live in.

[tcpip]

No, land is too constrained by regulation.

It is constrained by regulation, but that comes with positive externalities as well as price increases. With the exception of Indianapolis (which relies on septic tanks), for example, population centres in a first-world economy come with connectivity to sewerage systems.

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[anonymous]

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