Letters to the Editor
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Cities vs Towns - a related question
As someone who has checked out the cost of apartments in Canadian and European cities (along with many of my fellow liberals), and found them exceedingly high, even before the fall of the dollar, I'd like to know if anyone can comment on the trend of cities becoming too expensive for the middle class.
In the US, the real estate "boom" seemed to push the prices of homes in most cities far above reasonable prices and rent costs haven't fallen in most cities, even though the bust has supposedly occurred. On a fixed income, my choices are slim, and I would have to move to a rural area to be able to buy a house, where job opportunities are limited. And I live in the South, where you would expect prices to be lower. Atlanta, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, all have pushed their middle class way out to the suburbs and beyond, and the cities are left for the very wealthy, and the very poor.
How does this correlate with the data in this article, or is there a correlation? Does anyone else feel the need to move to another country just to be able to afford a home?
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Didn't England already go through this and come out the other end?
Remember that haunting Beatles song with "all the lonely people... where do they all come from?"
Ah yes -- Eleanor Rigby. The subject of Eleanor Rigby was the depopulation of rural in England in the sixties.
That's why they were all so lonely.
But isn't that over? I thought the London yuppies were fleeing back to the villages now.
In terms of popular culture, one can see this pattern reflected in the character conflicts in a typical episode of "Midsomer Murders," a mystery series on BBC.
In a typical Midsomer episode, there is a three-way class conflict in the village between the yuppie newbies, the traditional middle class villagers, and the tattered remains of the local aristocracy.
People go through phases. One generation gets all excited by the big city and then the next generation gets burned out by urban life and wants to go back to the land.
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Not Entirely a Bad Thing
I live in a small town and like the rural life, but still, concentrating populations in cities is not necessarily a bad thing. I have worried for some time now that the countryside is being ruined by suburban sprawl. Putting more people into less space is environmentally friendly in many ways.
The key is that governments have to get ahead of this curve and anticipate city growth with appropriate planning. This world needs more Londons and Parises and fewer Atlantas and Los Angeleses.
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what about us? (U.S.)
Didn't this happen in Rome? In that time agriculture was becoming specialized, and the change drove the independents off the land, and the cities became filled with 'rootless parasites'. To control this problem in our society there are all sorts of hi-tech Big Brother gadgets to keep urban miscreants in line. Europe has a massive underclass of Middle Eastern immigrants, which will make any efforts to control the problem seem like the 1930's.
Europe may become the last refuge of democracy and freedom, in the world, after the Bush tenure and the me-too Democrats take power, or not, doesn't matter. Europe is between Putin and Bush, and the followers of Bush, tough place to be, and perhaps there will be a lot more lawlessness, but that implies some degree of freedom to express yourself and move around. If I had to live someplace for the next hundred years I would go move to Europe.
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Try southern France
I was in Provence, near Mont Ventoux, and there were plenty of people in small towns. The same is true in Perigord, near Montignac and Tarrason, and Le Buge. Plenty of older people, but in every one of those towns I saw shops for kids clothes. Just another reason to emulate the French.
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Too many old pensioners
Not enough workers. All the more reason to open the floodgates to Turkey and turn the EU into a nascent Islamic confederacy.
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not much of a surprise
one very negative aspect of losing rural populations is losing the ability to produce local food because you have no workers. This is already a problem in agricultural communities today. The solutions we use today of importing more food or cheap labor from foreign countries is not sustainable. We may need to pay more for farm labor (3x-5x) to attract more local labor with a corresponding jump in food prices.
on the plus side, this could reduce obesity because if food is so expensive people can't afford it, they will consume less calories.
A question I have about migration to cities. If people are moving into smaller places because real estate is more expensive, does this mean they will buy less stuff which implies a shrinkage of the consumer economy or does it mean they will throw out more stuff as they replace it with new stuff which means that the consumer economy may remain healthy but now there is a serious negative environmental impact.
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Where are the jobs?
I live in a major metro area suburb, for the simple reason that not only is my job here, my network for finding future jobs when this one tanks is here. I've been laid off twice in the last ten years, and dodged countless other rounds, at three different companies. I know I have the skills and experience to land somewhere else, but only here, where my friends and connections are.
I'd love to live in the country, in a small town. But if I did, it would only be an illusion with a long commute. Unless one has a very specific type of job (teacher, doctor, nurse) that is applicable anywhere, the jobs are in the cities.
I know a few people who are making a go of home-based businesses, mostly independent contracting using a broadband internet connection. But the only reason they're able to do that is because they spent years building up their contacts in the city.
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Uh... what about migration?
Does the author really think that as the cities of India, China, and Brazil swell and burst, the streets of Berlin and Prague will remain empty? Hell no. Migration will accelerate. Cultures will clash. Wars will be fought over where to put all those people, and old-world Europe will lose. Should of thought about that when they colonized the world. It will all work out in the end; but when it's over, you won't hear much French or German spoke anymore.