So, I just got back from a vacation down to south carolina. And this post has been in the back of my mind since I went down. Yes yes, I did review a couple books I read while I was down there, but I did want to discuss some other subject matters once I got back, which I will get to now.
The first of which being, essentially, the trip down. Now, as you guys know, I hate I-95. I live in Pennsylvania, and it's THE route south. Often times we will try taking I-81/77/26 and the like just to avoid the crapshow that is 95, and I did that post a while back about how there should be a giant beltway going from Richmond VA up to like Boston, MA that parallels 95 but allows people quick access to the cities if needed (or at least I thought I did? I can't find it). Anyway, there are two problems I find, as a Pennsylvanian, with I-95. 1) Baltimore. 2) Washington DC. I spent much of today navigating the circles of hell known as beltways, and my trip down was even worse. Now there are parts of 495 with unavoidable tolls that are EZpass only, and I didn't have an EZpass because I literally avoid toll roads at all costs and pay cash when I do go on them (I don't do it often). I didn't realize it because I haven't taken 495 around DC in years and the last time I went around the other way which IS free. Anyway google recommended I take the other route so I did, only to encounter this BS. So I had to get off of the highway, ended up paying cash for my toll, and then spent the next hour navigating suburbia trying to find my way back to freaking I-95 going through the slog that is DC traffic. And between this and navigating Philly the week before for a Rammstein concert, I really came to the conclusion that HEY, CITIES SUCK! At least the large ones. Medium sized ones are tolerable, but the big ones are a complete hot mess. I know a lot of lefties seem to demonize suburbia and seem to think we should all live in densely populated areas and use *shudder* public transportation, but honestly, I HATE big cities.
The fact is, there are too many people. it takes too long to do anything. There are lines everywhere. You spend hours in traffic just trying to get anywhere. Rent is sky high. I keep telling people what the problem with housing is in a lot of these big cities, and I know DC in particular has this problem, but it's too many people wanting to live in too small of an area. That's why rent is so insane, why it keeps going up, and blah blah blah. Of course, we try to make people live there to get jobs that DON'T suck (see: the war on normal people, the other side of the equation), but the real question is, should we? A lot of ideologies and ideas that I ain't really big on, like say, georgism, actually make sense when applied to cities. because cities are neoliberal hellholes. You need to pay money just to EXIST there, literally. Just passing through I was hit with tolls. When I went to my Rammstein concert, I had to pay $30 for a parking spot for like 6 hours. Existence is commodified in cities to an insane degree even by capitalist standards and if you can't afford to live there, then you dont belong there. Capitalism literally introduces this king of the hill dynamic to it of whomever wants a piece of land the most and is willing to pay the most for it gets it. And this pisses off the propertyless because the owners of the land can easily exploit a location for money, which is why landlords are so despised. Like, I get it. I might think differently, but I get it.
I just think the big problem is...the cities themselves. Sure, the problems with cities exist everywhere. Even in my own crappy city in a gunshot neighborhood, prices are going up, $600 rents from about 5-10 years ago are now $1000+. It's crazy. And wages aren't really keeping up either. But at least, I think anyway, my UBI ideas would work for more rural areas and smaller cities. Will they solve the problems of BIG cities? Of course not. And that's why many urban dwelling leftists hate the idea and keep going on about rent going up. Because they're trying to live in these insanely unaffordable areas where quite frankly too many people want to live. As it turns out, commodifying everything and then putting people in a densely packed area causes runaway inflation because the supply can't meet the demand. That's just basic economics. But then we have all of the best jobs in these areas too, so people are incentivized to live there if they want to avoid the hell that is the post industrial service economy working for amazon and walmart for peanuts. It's a mess.
But seriously, being the anti work person, who doesnt prioritize jobs, and recognizes jobs are not and never will be the solution to our ills, and who sees the world differently, I think, gee, maybe people should flee the cities and we should live more spread out? I mean, Im not sure how well this would work in say, Europe, or China or Japan or something, but in the US at least, the US is a big place. Theres TONS of land. Tons of places to live, tons of places to develop. There's no reason, other than jobs, that we all have to live in these giant mega cities where population density accelerates the problems of capitalism to their breaking point. If we gave people a UBI, and made everywhere else more affordable, then maybe things would actually be better for people. We would have a human centered economy where we can all find our way somewhere, rather than this cut throat dog eat dog economy if either playing economic deathmatch in a densely populated area that can't support the population trying to live there, or basically being sentenced to a hell of working minimum wage jobs just to barely survive. Maybe if we had a UBI, we could make the more suburban, rural, and smaller urban centers more attractive, as people spread out more and seek to live as they want, rather than trying to crowd into cities that can't support them. And perhaps this will be good for the cities themselves too. After all, fewer people means that demand for housing drops, and housing and rent prices drop there too.
Anyway, that's just how I see these issues. I hate big cities. I dislike visiting them. I dislike even passing through. Because there's just too many people, it takes forever to do anything or get anywhere, and it's just so expensive. Let me tell you, I never go to big big cities on vacation. Hotel prices are insane. Everything is insane. Meanwhile if I go somewhere down south like Myrtle Beach, Charleston, or Savannah, hotels are more affordable (well maybe not Myrtle Beach as much, at least during peak season, hence why I go in September when the prices drop), you know, these smaller cities with less population density where everything is more spread out, I tend to have more fun. It's more laid back. There's fewer people everywhere. The fewer people and the quieter it is, the better (within reason, I don't wanna be in the middle of the woods alone with no one but me and the bears or something). I know big cities have more stuff to do (if you're an extrovert), and if you like crowds and stuff, they might be good too, but I just ain't a fan. And I say this as someone who lives in a city myself. But I don't live in a monstrously large one. I live in a smaller one. Think less than say 250,000-300,000 people. That's about what I figured is a cutoff between what I consider an acceptable population size and what I consider "too big" looking at this list of cities online. Of course population density probably factors into things too. The cities I despise have a mindblowing 10k+ population per square mile, and that seems to factor into my hatred for them too. Again, too much congestion. Having a population of 10k+ per square mile seems to be too much in my opinion. I would be tempted to say even over 5000 is too high, but then I see cities that I find relatively livable that have that. To be fair, they also have far less than my 250-300k cutoff so maybe it is a matter of having both high population and high density.
But yeah, DC and Philadelphia are examples of this phenomenon. Not even getting into New York. Only been there once. It was right after 9/11, I got to see ground zero, and yeah, same thing. Very expensive, very crowded, everything monetized. No thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment