Comments on: There’s only so much erosion a tax base can take before it starts to crumble from the inside

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 05:54:25 +0000

“[The welfarees] can’t go anywhere, so what is going to happen to them when the city gets poorer and poorer?”

They’ll continue to live in NYC and collect welfare, just like in Newark. Only problem with turning a productive city into a welfare slum is that after a decade or two, buildings start falling down for lack of maintenance.

That’s why Americans don’t build stuff to last anymore. Why bother, when the place will probably be a welfare ghetto in 20-30 years’ time?

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 23:01:03 +0000

Sunoma, the “providing services” mentality is a big part of what’s wrong with urbanization. I think Jared Diamond has a chapter about why this is so.

And I have my doubts that cost of living is higher in the suburbs.

By: Sunoma 69

Sunoma 69 — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 20:26:14 +0000

It is easier to provide services to x thousand people if they live close to one another. Cost of living is higher in the suburbs. New York is full of wellfarees. They can’t go anywhere, so what is going to happen to them when the city gets poorer and poorer?

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 16:33:25 +0000

Mike, I don’t think dropping by half will be enough. The population density needs to drop about an order of magnitude for the NYC metro area to be livable.

An area like Atlanta or DFW is purely a Schelling point. Everybody lives there because everybody lives there. When everyone wises up, these artificial concentrations will dissipate. It may take major disasters to bring about that mass epiphany.

New York is a different case. There’s a reason they don’t unload container ships along the South Jersey shore.

By: RLVC

RLVC — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 05:04:05 +0000

“And only one of them produces something of indisputable value.”

Advertising?

By: Mike in Boston

Mike in Boston — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 04:22:34 +0000

those ships have to dock somewhere.

How much does it matter where they dock?
Here in Boston, the big cargo ships do dock very close to downtown; but isn’t that the exception, not the rule? Thinking of the New York area, they dock in Elizabeth, New Jersey where containers are loaded onto rail and trucks. I doubt the whole operation would be affected much even if Manhattan’s population and GDP dropped by half.

By: Borepatch

Borepatch — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 03:52:56 +0000

This article could have been written in 1880 about how industrial production of course will remain in England.

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 03:04:30 +0000

The only reason most megacities exist is because of deep water harbors. Unfortunately, deep water harbors will matter for the foreseeable future.

We can certainly dissolve the inland megacities. But those ships have to dock somewhere.

Perhaps mulligan harbors?

By: VXXC

VXXC — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 23:00:34 +0000

“…rather than having a mayor who is constantly trying to drive jobs away.”

People with jobs have the option of not voting democrat. Of course he wants to drive jobs away.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:55:33 +0000

Note also that instead of trying to get out ahead of this, New York’s leaders are actively working to drive everyone away with the increased lawlessness and rioting.

News flash for Mayor DeBlasio: Those jobs ain’t coming back, and those stores ain’t gonna reopen. The internet is finally realizing the promise of destroying centralization as represented by cities, and I think the future is going to be a hell of a lot more spread out than anyone ever considered.

It’s actually a fairly wise move; decentralization is a good idea in the era of WMD. New York is easy to target with a terror attack or a nuke; a more spread-out proposition where there is no central office hub? Not so easy.

We really should have been doing this before, if only for mental health reasons.