[onlyrealcuzzo]

Most of the time, people are pretty good at knowing what they want.

Everyone seems to want the city completely paved over in roads and parking and places to shop and eat and do as much for as cheap as humanly possible.

There's a small number of people who want greenspace and acknowledge it comes at a cost, and they seek it out.

Everyone else seeks out more cheap appliances and clothes and gasoline.

[Swenrekcah]

By this logic we must conclude that only a tiny portion of people actually want to live in beachfront properties and take a few months off to travel every year.

Everyone else seeks out cheaper apartments and 9-5 jobs with two weeks vacation.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

You could.

There's plenty of beachfront places in other countries American families could easily afford and retire and yet chose to work to live in dumpy apartments in Manhattan instead.

It only works if it's within your financial means.

We can't all assume everyone doesn't want a $200M house in the hills with a megayacht and a full staff because they don't have it. They don't have the means.

But if you have the means and chose something else, it's not because you're dumb and society is evil and tricking you. It's because that's what you want.

[Swenrekcah]

The actions people take are generally not a product of careful deliberation and certainly not always genuine reflections of their deepest desires.

Most of the time, people just do things without thinking too much about it and they do the things that are the "default mode" operations in the context in which they are operating.

It is not wise to look at actions people take and conclude that's what they really wanted to do. At the very least you'd need to ask them about it.

There may be 100 reasons why they feel tied to a spot where they actually don't want so much to live in. So let's try to really and truly improve the cities, make them walkable with green and blue spaces, easy public transport out to larger parks and reserves, etc.

[cempaka]

Yeah just retire somewhere where you don't speak the language, have minimal-to-zero connection to local culture, and will be thousands of miles from children, family, and friends. Simple!

[onlyrealcuzzo]

So obviously they care about those things more than nature, just like they care about driving their car all over the city more than spending money on greenspace.

Everyone has choices. The society we've made is the sum of our choices. You don't freely chose to do things you don't want to (given your available options).

[Swenrekcah]

Yes! You’ve got to the point here. People want natural parks and durable clothing, but given the set of constraints society has put on them they “choose” the more affordable and less desirable options because they’ve also got kids to feed (and/or other stuff).