[camelNotation]

If you are guaranteed income, you aren't bound to specific regions or locations. You can move to places with cheaper land and healthcare systems with less overcrowding. You can work less lucrative jobs in those locations and find customers for your work because everyone including the local residents of those rural areas, will have new money to spend. Local regions would see an influx in cash, allowing for small businesses to be reborn in rural areas and spreading the economy out and away from coastal metro areas.

[Timpy]

A lot of people rely on friends as non-monetary resources. If I get locked out of my car right now I'll call a family member to bring me a spare key. If my car is acting up I have a friend that will look at it for me. I do a lot of tech support in return, not necessarily in exchange for other services in a direct way. It's just being part of a community. At least in my world (midwest US) I cannot imagine moving to an unfamiliar area as a form of resource management. I think this probably gets more extreme the more your financial resources are strained.

[karatestomp]

Having close family nearby is worth a hell of a lot of money by non-FAANG-wage standards. Hundreds to thousands of dollars a year in saved vehicle and equipment rentals or purchases, Ubers (car breaks down, need a ride to work), and so on. If you've got kids and have some nearby family happy to provide child care, we're talking hundreds a year in babysitters on the low end to many thousands if they can replace daycare, before/afterschool care, that kind of thing. That's a lot of money to most people.

[triceratops]

But with UBI, maybe larger networks of people could move together. For example, a single mom can't move to a new city to take a job because she relies on her parents for childcare, and her father can't leave his job. But with UBI they could all move together if it made sense for them. Her extended family could move with her and pay for expenses with UBI until they all found new jobs.

[Timpy]

I agree, I'm sure there are cases where UBI would enable people to move, I just don't think it's going to be a big paradigm shift/massive migration/stir the melting pot kind of thing.

[organsnyder]

That's definitely true for those that have networks with some amount of wealth. For instance, if your family member doesn't have a vehicle, or works a job with inflexible hours, they might not be available to bring you a spare key.

My wife and I are friends with a young single mother who, until recently, didn't have such a network (my wife met her through a mentoring program). She grew up in the foster system, suffered abuse, and went to an alternative high school. Her network consisted of family members who were themselves barely scraping by, as well as school friends who were in similar straits. If your network doesn't have the resources to support you, it's not nearly as valuable.

All that being said, I have a similar feeling on moving away from our community; but our network has a lot of people (family, friends, and acquaintances) with money and connections.

[d0100]

I disliked small towns. But I know several people who love them and would move back in a heartbeat if money and quality of life wasn't the issue.

[throwaway894345]

This might be a bug rather than a feature for a lot of people. Many people want humanity to concentrate in urban areas because it is better for the environment. Others complain about urbanites' tax dollars paying for rural roads (which is effectively the scenario you're describing, even if those tax dollars are labeled "UBI" and routed through rural citizens' bank accounts first). Still others see rural Americans as their political adversaries.

(Note that this is just an observation; not a value judgment)

[volkk]

> Many people want humanity to concentrate in urban areas because it is better for the environment.

I'm interested in learning more about this. I've never heard of it, are there any sources proving that this is the case? If people spread out more, is that actually more harmful? I can imagine this is an extremely complicated topic

[adwn]

I can't provide numbers for this, but many things are more efficient for dense settlements: transportation, any last-mile distribution (food, water, electricity) and collection (sewage, garbage).

[throwaway894345]

This is the line of reasoning I was referring to. Also urban areas emit (cause?) less carbon per capita than rural areas and both do better than suburban areas.

[teraflop]

So provide a basic income, but also shift some (or all) of the costs of those externalities onto the individual. Your basic income stretches farther if you choose a lifestyle that makes more efficient use of it.

[3fe9a03ccd14ca5]

This is already true. You make less money but it stretches farther in many areas outside of major cities. Most people live in these cities because they want to, even with all of the drawbacks. Not because they have to.

[dtech]

More "tax dollars" going to rural roads because more people live there is incomparable with a policy maker deciding that more budget should go there.

[throwaway894345]

In the current case, politicians are deciding to route dollars to rural roads because people live there. In the UBI case, tax dollars are given to people who live in rural areas who then pay tax to fix their own roads (or maybe we don't change how rural roads are funded and we just add on UBI?). Seems like you're making a distinction without a (meaningful) difference.

[naravara]

>If you are guaranteed income, you aren't bound to specific regions or locations.

Not disputing this, but there are some caveats that would need to be true for this hypothesis to hold. The main one being that people's reluctance to move comes down largely to career opportunities and moving expenses rather than access to amenities or proximity to family/community.

[camelNotation]

The primary reason people leave rural areas and move to large metropolitan areas is work. Most people in rural areas are already near their families, that's why they are there to begin with.