The framing of this article really bothers me. It's not that it's wrong, but that it ignores what I see as the biggest causes in favor of spinning a narrative about zoning. I feel like that has...
The framing of this article really bothers me. It's not that it's wrong, but that it ignores what I see as the biggest causes in favor of spinning a narrative about zoning.
We are a migratory people and we flourish best when we make an occasional change of base
I feel like that has more to do with some combination of giving away stolen land to white people, slaves escaping persecution, and complete economic instability. In fact, this phrase implies 'pulls themselves by bootstraps' more than 'deperstely seeks a way out of collapse.'
As the 19th century turned into the 20th, as two world wars passed, as the Baby Boom began, Americans kept on moving. And as Americans moved around, they moved up. They broke away from stultifying social hierarchies, depleted farmland, declining towns, dead-end jobs. If the first move didn’t work out, they could always see a more promising destination beckoning them onward.
It also completely handwaves away the economic gains of the New Deal and being the only remaining industry not devastated by two ground wars.
They also cherry pick how moving rates were higher in the 60s (about 20%), but ignored that the real downward slide started happening in the mid-90s....when the externalities of Reaganomics really started kicking in.
Left to their own devices, most people will stick to ingrained habits, to familiar circles of friends, to accustomed places.
This contradicts a lot of this 'Americans like moving' framing. It's almost like Americans would generally prefer not to move, but don't really ever get that opportunity en mass.
More than Reaganomics, this is when post-car city planning metastasized, and community input became an ingrained way to kill new development projects. Around that time, the US truly slowed down...
but ignored that the real downward slide started happening in the mid-90s....when the externalities of Reaganomics really started kicking in.
More than Reaganomics, this is when post-car city planning metastasized, and community input became an ingrained way to kill new development projects. Around that time, the US truly slowed down building public projects that might offend a single homeowner. Since the US has long had a >60% home ownership rate, there's a large entrenched landowner class that'll rabidly try to kill anything that changes their neighborhood even slightly. This is when modern NIMBYs really came to form, blocking any developments that'd benefit the community.
Yoni Appelbaum's theory that the decrease in American mobility, which has reached a historic low, is linked to the decrease in prosperity and social satisfaction. The title of the article reflects...
Yoni Appelbaum's theory that the decrease in American mobility, which has reached a historic low, is linked to the decrease in prosperity and social satisfaction. The title of the article reflects the often-prohibitive zoning regulations erected in politically progressive localities, which are often the most prosperous and economically productive in the nation, and how those regulations prevent people from freely moving as they once did.
The framing of this article really bothers me. It's not that it's wrong, but that it ignores what I see as the biggest causes in favor of spinning a narrative about zoning.
I feel like that has more to do with some combination of giving away stolen land to white people, slaves escaping persecution, and complete economic instability. In fact, this phrase implies 'pulls themselves by bootstraps' more than 'deperstely seeks a way out of collapse.'
It also completely handwaves away the economic gains of the New Deal and being the only remaining industry not devastated by two ground wars.
They also cherry pick how moving rates were higher in the 60s (about 20%), but ignored that the real downward slide started happening in the mid-90s....when the externalities of Reaganomics really started kicking in.
This contradicts a lot of this 'Americans like moving' framing. It's almost like Americans would generally prefer not to move, but don't really ever get that opportunity en mass.
More than Reaganomics, this is when post-car city planning metastasized, and community input became an ingrained way to kill new development projects. Around that time, the US truly slowed down building public projects that might offend a single homeowner. Since the US has long had a >60% home ownership rate, there's a large entrenched landowner class that'll rabidly try to kill anything that changes their neighborhood even slightly. This is when modern NIMBYs really came to form, blocking any developments that'd benefit the community.
Yoni Appelbaum's theory that the decrease in American mobility, which has reached a historic low, is linked to the decrease in prosperity and social satisfaction. The title of the article reflects the often-prohibitive zoning regulations erected in politically progressive localities, which are often the most prosperous and economically productive in the nation, and how those regulations prevent people from freely moving as they once did.