The Weeds: the economic recovery has been concentrated in big cities. That's a big problem.

[applegrove]

The Weeds: the economic recovery has been concentrated in big cities. That's a big problem.

by Jeff Stein at Vox

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/3/11852934/the-weeds-economic-recovery-cities

"SNIP............



Here's Matt taking a look at some of the biggest factors that might be causing this shift:


We've especially seen growth in Brooklyn, Miami-Dade, San Francisco — a handful of big city places and not the vast yonder of the country. And that's a big change. Some people looked at the math and said, "That's not so bad," but that's missing the point.

You have the structural decline of physical goods retail — more and more, Amazon is how people are shopping. You're not seeing physical stores vanish, but people aren't building new ones at the rate they used to. It used to be taken for granted: If the economy is growing, we'll need more stores. But the big city already has stores, and so it's on the fringe where you'll add new ones.

A related point is because we had such a crisis in the housing building industry people aren't adding new homes at the rate they used to. That used to be a high-growth area — sprawl, exurbs — and we've seen very little homebuilding over the last few years.

And the last factor is the economy seems to have shifted to put more emphasis on the hottest big-city hubs. If you think about where there's dynamism, it's technology startups in big cities, and food startups and hospitalities in the big sectors have been growing a lot. … People want to find great places to eat and stay in nice hotels, and those are big city things.




..............SNIP"

[StarTrombone]

1. It's concentrated in 2 cities

NYC on Wall Street and Washington DC where the wealthiest counties in the country exist

How did that happen?

[LisaM]

2. No, the tech hubs, too

San Francisco and Seattle (and to a lesser extent, Portland) are becoming two-tier cities, with all the working-class people being pushed out so that tech companies can attract young workers to the increasingly-less-affordable downtowns.

People complain a lot about Wall Street and bankers, but a lot of wealth is being amassed by individuals in the tech industry (Gates, Bezos, Elon Musk, etc.) and I don't see anyone much boycotting Amazon (I do), or minimizing their tech devices.

[StarTrombone]

6. But much of that wealth ends up on Wall Street

And in the pockets of politicians via lobbyists

At least the loot that isn't kept off shore

[AngryAmish]

14. Wall Street, as known, is a corpse walking.

The AI trading algorithms own it. The trading companies know it. The government has no clue. Less than a clue, they think the markets are not fixed...and will not understand that they are.

We. Are. Fucked.

[tonyt53]

3. Actually DC is home to some of the poorest.

[StarTrombone]

5. That's in the city

It's surrounded by wealthy suburbs

[taught_me_patience]

4. The problem is NIMBYs that refuse any new development of Condos and apartments in the cities

driving the cost of rent and entry level home ownership too high. The other, bigger, problem is the people living in Peoria waiting for the jobs to come back. They ain't coming back.

[LisaM]

7. No, the problem is that they build new housing and it's all for the luxury market.

I work in downtown Seattle and really ugly glassy towers are popping up everywhere, and they are all advertising that they are luxury apartments. Most of it's really ugly, too, the U District used to have a lot of charm and now it looks like a Soviet Bloc country, except even those ugly buildings have luxury apartments inside them. No rent control, people being evicted, and older building being knocked down to put up apartments that start at about $1600 for a one bedroom.

They are knocking down a successful subsidized housing project that's been here since the 1960s called Yesler Terrace - lots of people being evicted there, too, so they can put up more atrociously ugly buildings with these expensive (yet tasteless) apartments inside.

There used to be two reasonably-priced hotels in downtown Seattle and Amazon took them both - for office buildings.

These companies could do a lot towards rebuilding middle America, but they don't. What do their workers care where they live? They never go outside anyway, order all their stuff online, order all their meals from delivery services. They can get their laundry done at work. They eat all their lunches in the company cafeterias. Why doesn't Amazon build a glittering campus in some place that's losing population? None of it makes sense.

[1939]

9. Would you build anything in Detroit?

It is just a Potemkin Village downtown surrounded by several square miles of total blight and anarchy.

[LisaM]

11. Not sure when the last time you were in Detroit was....

I go many times a year and I love the people, and I love their spirit. And downtown is getting really nice. There's no need to build when there are all kinds of places ready to re-hab. There are also some very nice (and nearby) suburbs.

There are some people investing in Detroit. I'd rather Amazon didn't get their hands on it because their makeover of Seattle is horrific.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. NIMBY isn't the problem, density isn't the solution

You can't build enough urban housing to create a perfect equilibrium, it just isn't possible.

[Egnever]

10. I see this as a good thing in a lot of ways.

If it comes with good mass transit it reduces energy consumption. Also large cities tend to have much more diversity and racial intolerance.

It would be nice to live in the country but I don't see the small town decline as necessarily a bad thing.

[bhikkhu]

12. There has been a demographic shift toward metropolitan living since the recession

that is, an exodus from rural areas (which has been going on for ages), combined with a stalling of suburban growth. People want to live in big cities, so there is urban development the last few years, reversing the urban exodus of the previous couple decades.

Of the 381 urban centers in one study, about 70% gained population since the recession ( http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/03/more-americans-moving-to-cities-reversing-the-suburban-exodus/359714/ ).

I don't see how its a "big problem", or how its a problem we need to worry about and try to solve. What if people just like to live in cities?

[taught_me_patience]

13. There is a shift to metropolitan living

All around the globe over the last 30 years. It's a good thing.