[unixbeard1337]

I'm pro-YIMBY, but building more will only solve part of the problem. The problem it won't solve is that our winner-take-all economy is winner-take-all for cities, too. Everyone is pouring into the top n metro areas and even the most ambitious building program won't do more than put a small dent in all that demand. A small dent will make a real difference for a lot of people, but it also won't make much of a difference for a lot more.

If we can't figure out a way to get people to live in Cleveland and St. Louis again, we're spitting into the wind.

[derefr]

Obviously, we should just build more world-class metro areas.

Of course, top-down planning a city (as would be needed to "stamp" one out whole) has never worked; but how about we copy-and-paste the zoning plans from cities we already know are functional, and then incentivize all the same major companies that have headquarters in City The First to build secondary HQs in City The Second?

(I'm not sure if I'm joking.)

[prawn]

I'd look at subsidising 'desirable' small businesses for towns. Take a normal country town and prop up a little wine bar, grocery, couple of non-chain restaurants. Attract younger, remote workers and then eventually there'd be enough going on that the small businesses would survive on their own, and more would be naturally created.

Even a coordinated national program like this: https://renewadelaide.com.au/grow/

[vladvasiliu]

> Attract younger, remote workers and then eventually there'd be enough going on

I think there may be something to this.

The other day I was riding around the French Pyrenees, and some (bigger) villages had signs along the lines of "fibered village", as in "with optic fiber". Along those were other signs about selling lots, mostly by the town hall.

I was thinking that maybe this could attract remote workers. The environment is beautiful (if you're into mountains), they have clean air, etc. It could be great for a remote worker.

But then it hit me. Say you'd go to one of those villages, with a girlfriend / wife, or you found one there, and wanted to have kids. They'd be able to go to elementary school. But probably starting in junior high, and certainly in high school, they'd have to take the school bus to the "local big town". Which is, basically, a commute.

So I got a feeling of "unfairness": people moving there to escape commutes, but then subjecting their young kinds to the same...

[epistasis]

I disagree completely, the big cities are not even trying to build, and they could.

We need to tax land hoarders and use the proceeds to build public housing.

This will be sooooo much easier than trying to do business development in smaller cities. Those cities have already been doing their best to expand the job situation, but top down planning of jobs rarely works. Our top down planning to induce housing shortages is far easier to fix.