03-13-2022, 12:59 AM
(12-13-2021, 09:26 AM)Anthony Wrote: But urban sprawl is not the issue. Urban cost is.
Already, as the first Baby Busters are becoming eligible for Social Security, they do not feel "entitled" to remain in hyperexpensive cities like New York and San Francisco, where "aging '60s progressives" (the term that the local media in San Francisco actually uses to denote them) are largely staying put.
Instead, they are turning up in such places as Fargo and even Wahpeton, both in North Dakota, and Yankton, South Dakota (home of the now defunct Yankton College, where the late Lyle Alzado played football). Those with more conservative cultural tastes are gravitating toward such locales as Joplin, Missouri.
Urban sprawl brings high costs of maintenance for the revenue earned from property taxes from owners of McMansions (the streets devour huge amounts of asphalt, wire, and pipes per person living therein. Even box stores such as Best Buy, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart devour public services. Cities need tax revenue to meet the cost of maintaining infrastructure. So do public utilities that force rate hikes on others.
This is not a question of climate or topography.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.