[rayiner]

> So since rich people need baristas to serve them Starbucks, tax them to enable the barista to live near where she works.

That's a good characterization of what's happening. But is subsidizing people to be service workers for wealthy Parisians a good public policy and good use of public funds?

[dctoedt]

> But is subsidizing people to be service workers for wealthy Parisians a good public policy and good use of public funds?

Given that each of us is allotted exactly 8,760 hours in a year: Is it good public policy to force non-wealthy people to spend so many more of those hours in commuting than those who can afford to live closer to their jobs?

I live in a small, separately-incorporated city, a few minutes from downtown Houston, that has become increasingly wealthy. For several decades, the affordable bungalows built in the years following 1930s have been torn down and replaced by big houses. (Yes, my wife and I did that to build our house, more than 35 years ago.) Nowadays, though, many really big single-family homes are being put up on what used to be two-, three-, and four single-house lots. I get disgruntled every time we walk by one of those giant houses, because every one of them is, in effect, forcing two or more less-wealthy families to live further away — they're hoarding the space.

(My own thought is that for big, space-hoarding houses like that, property taxes should be progressive, so that such a house might be taxed at 2X, 3X, 4X, 10X the per-foot rate of houses on smaller lots.)

[rayiner]

> Given that each of us is allotted exactly 8,760 hours in a year: Is it good public policy to force non-wealthy people to spend so many more of those hours in commuting than those who can afford to live closer to their jobs?

Wouldn't it be better to direct public policy and funding to helping create jobs elsewhere and leave the wealthy urban people make their own coffee?

[closeparen]

If we are going to develop the state capacity to override inexorable forces of nature, like the productivity and desirability of the metropole over the hinterlands, might I suggest we first give the people a good show by turning off gravity? Bring the Mediterranean climate to Chicago? Maybe do something about climate change?

[rayiner]

I don’t know if I’d call it “inexorable forces of nature” as much as economic financialization and industry consolidation run amok.

[closeparen]

The arc of urbanization is thousands of years old! Once we figured out how to produce food at scale without much labor, it was pretty much over for decentralization.

[rayiner]

Urbanization doesn’t require entire industries to be concentrated in a handful of cities. Wall Street and uncontrolled consolidation do that. The question is, can you achieve through public policy an economy where a large segment of jobs doesn’t involve delivering food to knowledge workers? I think you can, even today. Germany, for example, is quite urbanized, but far more decentralized (in terms of having many important large urban centers, plus many small urban centers) compared to say France or the UK.

[dctoedt]

> Wouldn't it be better to direct public policy and funding to helping create jobs elsewhere and leave the wealthy urban people make their own coffee?

That’s certainly worth exploring too. But there’s a reason I no longer mow my own lawn nor do my own auto maintenance: I flatter myself that I’m now more productive for the larger community when I do work that uses the skills I’ve spent years developing.

[closeparen]

California perspective: rich people could meet their needs for workers/artists/etc by liberalizing the market, but this would cost them property value and eat into the market rents they're collecting. Favoring income-restricted housing allows them to address the same objectives without this blowback.

The cost of the necessary subsidy is calibrated to fall on grubby new-money high earners, so it is effectively free for the long-established propertied class who don't need much taxable income & locked in their property taxes long ago.

[seanmcdirmid]

Income-restricted housing isn't sustainable, nor is it very accessible (you either win the lottery and have it, or you are stuck in a very long line).

Liberalizing the market doesn't always work, even in the most dense economic liberal cities, the best environment for sustainable affordable housing is depopulation or some sort of recession or economic stagnation.

[kelipso]

Everyone needs service workers. Even service workers need service workers.

[bombcar]

My service workers have service workers who go to the market FOR them!

Wait, that's actually what we have now.