[TheAdamAndChe]

I hear the same argument on this site every time poverty and homelessness in Silicon Valley is brought up, but I really don't understand it. Massive capital concentration is leading to only a few cities in the country experiencing economic growth, and your solution is to just build more housing in those few areas?

Why not do something about the capital concentration? Why not do something to push some of those jobs into the Midwest? That would sure lower housing demand in those few cities, and would lead to a more equal country overall.

[adamsea]

The answer to your question is poverty. Several studies have shown how poverty has serious negative mental consequences, and how poverty makes everyday tasks significantly more challenging. Especially for someone who grew up poor and is poor as an adult.

https://ivn.us/2014/05/23/the-psychological-effects-of-pover...

> Recent studies suggest that the mental strain undertaken by the poor far surpasses previously expected amounts.

This strain can easily affect one’s ability to succeed in school and/or work, and can even influence one’s ability to pay bills on time. Specifically, poverty affects such cognitive functions as decision-making, memory, focus, patience and even awareness. The scientific reasoning for these shortcomings is linked to the brain’s finite ability. Thus the limited brainpower resulting from poverty infringes on the ability of such people to complete everyday tasks.

The problem with many people’s understanding of the stress of poverty is that they neglect to include the added stress that most U.S. adults face on a daily basis. Such triggers include work, money, health, relationships, poor nutrition, media overload, and sleep deprivation. In fact, 76 percent of U.S. adults correlate work and money to their top stress indicators.

https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/webinars/neurobehaviora...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/am-i-right/201210/the-e...

[jimmywanger]

Massive capital concentration is one of the reasons the valley, SF, and to a lesser extent Seattle, Austin, and New York, are creating so much.

Capital concentration leads to higher pay, which leads to smart people coming, which leads to cool products, which leads to an increase in the economic productivity of a society.

I don't see why anybody should "push" jobs away. That would make both the jobs and their employers less desirable.

There are few instances where central government control of economic allocation led to innovation. Even China and Singapore generally is pretty laissez faire about who does what where. It's not like the Korean government is trying to push industry out of Seoul, even though real estate there is insane.

Free markets created the Bay Area and SF (arguably the lack of enforcement of non-competes did), but that's another example of the government backing off. It's not like Communist Russia was a hotbed of innovation.

[TheAdamAndChe]

The issue with this is that it's going to create massive political instability if there are a few megacities with massive poverty in every other state. There are already signs that our political system is already destabilizing. What makes you think this wouldn't amplify that?

[jimmywanger]

The alternative is government mandated poverty. The government hardly ever creates wealth. They can create the conditions for wealth creation by getting the heck out of the way.

To be a bit dramatic, Venezuela, PRK, Sudan, and Cuba all have incredibly low wealth inequality. Except for the rich and corrupt, everybody else has just about the same as everybody else, which is nothing, based on government policies. Hong Kong is cutthroat with high levels of inequality, but it's also an engine of economic growth. Would you really rather like in Sub Saharan Africa than Hong Kong?

EDIT: And massive wealth and capital concentration brought us Amazon and Google. In exchange for newly minted millionaires being "equal" to us, would you rather live in a world without those technologies - next day shipping and Google Maps and Search?

[caseydurfee]

"The government hardly ever creates wealth. They can create the conditions for wealth creation by getting the heck out of the way."

Yes, we're aware that's how it works in shitty novels about trains from the 1950's.

Here in the real world, every single technological innovation in the iPhone was created by the US Government, or with the assistance of US government-funded basic research. This book breaks the whole thing down: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State

Google Maps is a particularly terrible example. It wouldn't exist without GPS, a technology invented by the US government.

Hong Kong's government puts billions of dollars a year into technology research. That's not a good example, either. Furthermore, HK has lower income inequality than Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Burundi, The Gambia, Swaziland, Botswana, CAR, Sierra Leone and Namibia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq... . So your statement "everybody else has just about the same as everybody else" in sub-Saharan Africa is total bullshit.

Japan and Scandinavia have relatively low rates of income inequality (especially compared to sub-Saharan Africa). Are you saying those countries are less innovative than Namibia (highest income inequality in the world)?

Finally, the idea that the sole difference between "Sub Saharan Africa" (a region that encapsulates over a billion people and over 40 countries which you regard as a monolith) and Hong Kong is due to "government policies" is childishly ignorant. Africa is not a country.

[jimmywanger]

I don't understnad your trains comment.

As for the government never creating wealth, most innovations that came out of government basic research came out of the DoD/partially NASA. Although mostly the DoD. Are you advocating for more defense funding, and then I'd be all behind you.

As for your income inequality chart, it shows exactly what I'm talking about. One of the highest "equality" ratings of the Gini coefficient is the Netherlands, where the Jante law holds sway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

As I said, those are countries who seem like they're stagnating. Do you really want countries with low outcome equality vs. equality of opportunitity vs countries who actually let you excel and keep the fruits of your labour and skill? Outcome inequality is not a bad thing.

Also note that in your gini chart, most of the countries which are awful have no statistics. Are they equal or just a blank slate that you can project your own feelings on?

[distances]

> Do you really want countries with low outcome equality vs. equality of opportunitity

This is a commonly given argument, but does not apply to the US -- it's nowhere near a country of equal opportunity. I'd be more open to the argument if you'd include items like no inheritance and no private schooling, to really give a more equal footing -- but I'm guessing these are not up for discussion. Thus, a certain amount of outcome equalizing is absolutely necessary.

[davidw]

> your solution is to just build more housing in those few areas

Yes:

http://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-w...

[pascalxus]

this is a very good post. I wish every voter in CA and SF would read this.

[majormajor]

Which cities are you thinking of? I bet you're leaving out a bunch of cheaper places that are also growing in the southern US/Texas region, among others.