> I wish more people would move away from the super high cost of living areas (California, New England, ...etc) and "vote with their feet" so to speak.
This is (and has been) happening for years now. Poorer people are reverse-migrating from the denser parts of the country to the Sun Belt.
And it's a problem. The high cost of living in many of the "desirable" parts of the country is artificially created by government regulation of housing (as well as other markets, thanks to the propensity of densely populated municipalities to be run by liberals). But with the services sector growing, it makes more sense for poorer people to live near the wealthy people (who are going to be in the desirable parts of the country), since those are the people who can and will buy services. It's very different from, say, manufacturing, which is far more location-independent.
I firmly believe the problem of high cost of living can be solved through more sensible housing policies and efficient public transit (among other things). See this (quite short, at 64 pages) book for more details: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Too-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078X...
It's the services sector that is and will continue to be the most difficult to replace with outsourcing and automation (see Moravec's paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec's_paradox). It only makes sense that we try to create as many jobs as possible in this area. By lowering housing and transportation (and other) costs for people in the service industry, they can offer their services at a lower cost, allowing more people to purchase those services, which will drive down unemployment.
That's not true actually - migration between states is lower than it used to be and still falling. I can't remember where I first read about this, but here's a random paper on the overall decline of movement [0] and an NYT article specifically about declining migration to the Sun Belt [1].
The crux of your argument is unconvincing. Service jobs have to be near the wealthy? What kind of myopia is that? Un-wealthy people go out to eat and get their car repaired just as much as Richie Rich.
Yes, if nobody but tech workers come to San Francisco, the city will collapse. But that doesn't mean everybody else has to live there too. It's also awful presumptuous to say, "Well I'm wealthy, this is where I want to live. You are poor, you don't get a choice, live near me"
> The crux of your argument is unconvincing. Service jobs have to be near the wealthy? What kind of myopia is that?
Actually, what's myopic is this:
> Un-wealthy people go out to eat and get their car repaired just as much as Richie Rich.
People who aren't wealthy don't eat out as much and don't spend nearly as much when they go out to eat. They buy food that has smaller margins and expect less in the way of service, meaning lower wages for the workers.
And of course service jobs have to be near the wealthy. When it doesn't matter where a worker is located, that job gets outsourced. Location-dependent jobs are the ones that are least likely to disappear in the future (or to have disappeared already).
> It's also awful presumptuous to say, "Well I'm wealthy, this is where I want to live. You are poor, you don't get a choice, live near me"
It's no more presumptuous than Henry Ford was when he expected workers to move to Detroit to work in the booming automotive industry, rather than setting up a bunch of small factories all across America so he could accommodate them. Moreover, in this case, such a policy would help to keep workers from having to move (to the Sun Belt, or another low-cost-of-living locale) away from their families and communities in the first place.
You can dream all you want of a utopia where people can live in the middle of nowhere and have their ideal job. But that isn't going to make it a reality.
People who aren't wealthy don't eat out as much and don't spend nearly as much when they go out to eat.
My apologies, I didn't mean they spend the exact same $$$. Poor choice in wording on my part. My point is being poor doesn't mean your car never needs a mechanic.
And of course service jobs have to be near the wealthy. When it doesn't matter where a worker is located, that job gets outsourced.
Non sequitur. Plenty of un-outsourceable jobs exist serving people who are not wealthy.
You can dream all you want of a utopia where people can live in the middle of nowhere and have their ideal job. But that isn't going to make it a reality.
Where do I speak of dream jobs? I'm just saying it's awfully self-centered to think that the poor exist to serve the wealthy.
> My point is being poor doesn't mean your car never needs a mechanic.
I know poor people who are decent at basic car maintenance (once again, the sorts of things where you get high margins). I also know wealthy people who are car enthusiasts, but they wouldn't want to get their hands dirty, so they'd rather pay someone to do it for them. You're speaking in absolutes when the market relies on relative differences.
This particular point isn't too significant though, since ideally, most poor people wouldn't need to own a car (they would use public transit instead).
> Non sequitur. Plenty of un-outsourceable jobs exist serving people who are not wealthy.
Non sequitur. The goal is to optimize new job creation. The service industry is one of the fastest growing in America, so it makes sense to harness that.
> Where do I speak of dream jobs? I'm just saying it's awfully self-centered to think that the poor exist to serve the wealthy.
And I'm just saying that worrying about whether the poor can have their dream job (where they don't have to serve the wealthy) is something you can worry about when chronic unemployment hasn't been dragging down the economy for the last several years.
It could merely be the people I've known, but I think the un-wealthy actually do spend far less going out to eat and repairing their cars. To whit, I think it's more likely to say I've been duped by Poe's Law.
I mean, one of the defining characteristics of being poor-ish to me is what a person is willing to put up with when driving junk cars. Cars which - when it inevitably gave up the ghost - would be replaced by another junker. Now, I was raised lower middle class, but for a brief period my parents got out of it; the defining turning point was managing to get financing on a new Ford Escort. It wasn't nearly as expensive to own as feared, partly due to incredibly better gas mileage, but also it drank less oil (two quarts every two days, and not a drop on the pavement... Well maybe one or two for good measure.)
Anecdata, to be sure, but I've met quite a few people with similar stories.
That situation also means that the lowest wage workers have to commute the furthest, often (as the author of the article experiences) spending most of their daily pay just getting to and from work. "Move further from your job" is rarely an option.
> The high cost of living is caused solely by liberals and their zoning policies?
You really need to work on your reading comprehension. I said that liberals have caused the cost of living to increase in urban areas due to regulation in markets other than housing. Housing regulation is something that both liberals and conservatives engage in.
You really need to work on having any logic at all in your arguments.
Chinese cities are the highest cost of living areas in China, but it's certainly not because of liberal regulation. But you ignore this, because it disagrees with your predispositions.
It would destroy your religious viewpoint if you were to admit that much of the high cost of living is just the market at work, and natural frictions within that market, so you blame something you hate instead.
You're a typical fundamentalist, you're mouth is open by your mind is closed tight.
And when somebody mis-reads part of your ignorant and utterly fact-free argument, you attack them on that, instead of admitting that I gave a list of examples that show that your entire premise is utterly and completely idiotic, and devoid of anything resembling logic.
> Chinese cities are the highest cost of living areas in China, but it's certainly not because of liberal regulation.
Try failing harder. The primary factor that makes the cost of living high in Chinese cities is their property bubble, which is a direct result of government regulation. Foreign investment is restricted for Chinese citizens and weak property rights under the authoritarian government make other types of domestic investment risky.
This is (and has been) happening for years now. Poorer people are reverse-migrating from the denser parts of the country to the Sun Belt.
And it's a problem. The high cost of living in many of the "desirable" parts of the country is artificially created by government regulation of housing (as well as other markets, thanks to the propensity of densely populated municipalities to be run by liberals). But with the services sector growing, it makes more sense for poorer people to live near the wealthy people (who are going to be in the desirable parts of the country), since those are the people who can and will buy services. It's very different from, say, manufacturing, which is far more location-independent.
I firmly believe the problem of high cost of living can be solved through more sensible housing policies and efficient public transit (among other things). See this (quite short, at 64 pages) book for more details: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Too-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078X...
It's the services sector that is and will continue to be the most difficult to replace with outsourcing and automation (see Moravec's paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec's_paradox). It only makes sense that we try to create as many jobs as possible in this area. By lowering housing and transportation (and other) costs for people in the service industry, they can offer their services at a lower cost, allowing more people to purchase those services, which will drive down unemployment.