Posted on 07/29/2013 11:51:33 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
(Newser) – Detroit spent the last decade spiraling into bankruptcy, while Atlanta spent it growing like mad. But the two cities have something in common: "Both are places where the American dream seems to be dying," writes Paul Krugman at the New York Times. Social mobility is low in both cities—meaning the poor are staying poor. Why? Well, a new study suggests that it might be because they're just too spread out. "Sprawl may be killing Horatio Alger."
The study found that social mobility was correlated with how far apart various classes lived from each other. "In Atlanta, poor and rich neighborhoods are far apart because, basically, everything is far apart; Atlanta is the Sultan of Sprawl," Krugman writes. "Disadvantaged workers often find themselves stranded; there may be jobs available somewhere, but they literally can't get there." We need to build smarter, more compact population centers that let families get by without multiple cars. Click for Krugman's full column.
Interesting. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the poor fled to the suburbs across the bay, bringing poverty and crime with them. Meanwhile, middle-class and upper-class folks either fled further out east to the Sierra foothills, further north or south. Or, they moved back to SF. At one time, SF had high-rise projects for the poor. They've been demolished, the ghettos are disappearing. And new high-rise towers for the rich were built. Probably happening to other cities as well. Towers for the rich, that the poor can't afford.
That's easy. It costs more because people make the economic judgement that it's worth paying extra for what the city provides, like proximity to jobs and services.
If the subways charged what they really cost they would be far more expensive than automobiles.
And what would happen if all the people riding the New York City subway or the Chicago El started driving individual cars? What would hundreds of thousands of additional cars on the streets at rush hour, needing parking, cost the economy?
The city work hub is being replaced by the internet hub that enables workers to be widely dispersed.
Yeah, when that internet janitor app is perfected, it's gonna be great! But seriously, never gonna happen.Employers who have tried it are rolling it back.
NYC's population would be declining if not for the imports from third world countries.
I'll be someone could have said that every year since 1800 and thought it especially true.
The people that can afford to move out are voting with their feet.
Aren't you the one who said it costs more to live there? But the answer is that they're paying extra for certain benefits like space, better schools, and so on.
Atlanta is the Sultan of Sprawl
One of the most confusing aspects of the sprawl is that almost every street in the city has the words Peach Tree in them.
As I drove throughout the city I noticed that I was always on Peachtree, no matter where in the city I was driving or what direction I was headed.
So Krugman, why don’t you move there and transport them to A JOB...any job. Problem solved, next.
Awwwwww. Poor people in poor neighborhoods don’t live next door to successful companies that are hiring? Poor thangs.
I hope the country goes bankrupt before elite liberals can do to us what they did to blacks... That whole thing about making people dependent and useless is not a favor... it’s a horror.
Paul never changes; he just gets more set in his fantasy world where theories survive regardless of how poorly they match reality. I think this is a shame. I wish liberals would back off of their predetermined answers and start looking at what helps and what hurts the poor. I care about the poor, the sick, and the hungry far too much to stick them with the perpetual poverty inflicted by the far left fringe.
So what if it costs more infrastructure and other services, the city tax payers don’t have to pay for it? That is a nonsensical excuse for getting people out of the rural areas and cramming them back into the soulless cities, with crime rates through the roof.
When I was growing up in Philadelphia, gentrification of the area near the art museum was just beginning. One day, my girl friends and I had spent a day at the museum and were sitting on a bench along the park way across from the museum, waiting for my girl friend’s father to pick us up. I noticed a sign on this brand new high rise building that read, “for the discriminating buyer”. I was shocked because I had never heard that use of the word and the area was not yet gentrified. I laugh now, when I think of it. There is still a lot of tension over the gentrification of that part of Philadelphia.
Yes, I’ve seen it on the Home and Garden channel, million dollar row homes.
Yep, the suburbs are now considered the ghettos.
Personally, I don’t see the attraction for inner city life. I’m not interested in the night life, the restaurants or the shopping. We live on 15 acres with a 350 foot long gated drive way that does a 90 degree turn and have a lake in back of us. We don’t see another person, unless we want to. We like it that way.
Toronto is 240 square miles, but we figured out how to keep our population.
That is precisely what has been happening in Toronto for the past couple of decades. The amount of new housing going up in the downtown core is staggering, and people are willing to pay upwards of $250k for a one-bedroom condo.
I’ll be the first to admit that city life is not for everyone but I’m happy here. I’m self-employed and I like the fact that I live within walking distance of most of my clients. I’m fortunate that I live in a relatively low-crime area and that this city hasn’t hollowed out the way a lot of cities have.
Every single thing this guy says is stupid.
Nobody is forcing people back into cities, but I'll argue that a city, crime and all, has more soul than a cookie-cutter suburban subdivision with big box stores and an Olive Garden on the edge of the mall parking lot as the finest dining option around.
People are choosing to live in cities for reasons that make sense to them, not because they're being rounded up and run into the ghetto in cattle cars. I've lived in cities, I've lived in suburbs, I've lived in small towns and I've lived in the country. All have their good points and bad points, and we all make trade-offs when we choose where to live. How we weight those factors and how we make those decisions are individual choices.
There you go!
It is blunt and it is brutal but it is the truth that will set these people free!
Real life is brutal and if you are not smart short.
For these gangbangers in the inner cities the laws of the jungle have reasserted themselves. The only hope of bringing civilization back to these people is reasserting the laws of economics on their lives.
If the women of these communities start to watch their children starve because the men that they irresponsibly mate with will not provide support then they will rediscover morality and begin to be more careful in choosing when and with whom to mate.
Women have always been the civilizing influence on men. Women by choosing a mate that will provide long term support for her children moderates men’s behavior.
Unfortunately children will suffer and this will bring out the worst in the bleeding heart Liberals. But these children are suffering now and they are dying now. The only alternative is more and more of the same.
The kids will suffer for a long time. I think inner city women are as dumbed down as anyone else. They won’t be able to put 1 and 1 together.
But I think after they get past the anger and reality settles in most people know that they have to work for a living.
I also think that most women will in short order realize that they need a true husband to make life with children work.
Suburbanites aren't paying extra to live in the suburbs. They get so much more for their money they can afford to increase their standard of living. My half-acre 4 floor house in NJ is 7 miles geographically from Manhattan. A comparable house in Manhattan would go for $35 million, which is out of my price range at the moment. So doing an apples to apples comparison, it is profoundly more expensive to live in a city. The commute time from my NJ suburb into Manhattan is one hour door to door, shorter than many subway commutes from Brooklyn. Anyone that chooses to live in Brooklyn instead needs to have their head examined.
The demand for socialism, bigger government, more rules and restrictions, is driven by population density. Manhattan has 70,000 people per square mile and votes communist, while 60 miles northwest of Manhattan is Pike County PA which has 100 people per square mile. They vote for freedom, drive around with loaded weapons, barbecue their food, and blare their music as loud as they like.
Republicans represent the nicer suburbs and beyond, Democrats represent the city dwellers. Obviously Democrats want everyone to move into a city and learn to vote communist. Misery loves company. But Republicans should fight increasing population density. 70,000 people living per one square mile is not natural. Outside of modern times that has not occurred before in the history of mankind. The modern invention of the high-rise city served its purpose when there were factories that needed to be manned, but now with e-mail, the internet, video conferencing, there is no longer an economic advantage to building high density nuclear bomb targets.
While it doesn't apply to everyone, most people would do well to move out of the Devil's dens.
I remember visiting both Atlanta and Phoenix in the early 70s.
They were both really nice areas. Too nice in some respects because they became “Chicagos of the South”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.