[HN Gopher] Ghost cities and abandoned areas with a declining po...
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Ghost cities and abandoned areas with a declining population
Author : haakonhr
Score : 124 points
Date : 2021-01-24 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| mapgrep wrote:
| I thought these were some very eye opening stats:
|
| " there are 1.97 cars per U.S. household, but in Des Moines,
| Iowa, there are 19 parking spaces per household. In Jackson,
| Wyoming, there are 27. "
|
| The article goes on to discuss how parking lots are major
| opportunity sites for housing development, especially in suburbs.
| This worked well in downtown Oakland, where from ~1998-2008 there
| were 10k units built, many on former parking lots. This has the
| benefit of reducing gentrification impacts.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Jackson Wyoming gets a lot of tourists in the summer, probably
| way more than they have residents, and most come by car...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Holiday towns really should not be considered as lessons to
| take for good urbanism. Most tourist towns would have their
| desirable tourism qualities destroyed if they became a land
| of usually-empty condos like Benidorm.
| bane wrote:
| When I was a teenager my family decided to dedicate one of our
| preciously few vacation to visiting my father's hometown. It was
| a town that was built and existed for two things: farming and
| oil. The oil dried up two generations ago and it threw the town
| into poverty and disrepair. My father escaped to "the city", the
| Army, college and a better life. His siblings and other relatives
| held on for as long as they could until eventually the entire
| clan of dozens had left or passed away. For decades they refused
| to contact or talk to my father, thinking him a "traitor to the
| family" with his fancy college degree and overseas adventures.
| From time to time two of his brothers would keep in touch, the
| common thread to their story was time spent in the military and
| overseas as well.
|
| The town was a ruin. Beautiful turn of the 20th century facades
| were crumbling, what was once a bustling town square was
| overgrown and had an abandoned truck left in the middle of it.
| The roads were in disrepair. All commerce of any kind had moved
| to another town a few miles away and existed solely of a couple
| eateries, a drug store, a small bank, and some farm supply
| stores.
|
| We drove aimlessly around as my father explained what this piece
| of abandoned oil pumping equipment was for or about some
| childhood adventure he had had pushing one of his polio paralyzed
| brothers around in his wheelchair or how they had engaged in
| minor industry to make the $.05 for an ice cream. Rather than a
| fond trip through nostalgia, the crumbling and abandoned state of
| the area was hard on him.
|
| These areas that are both economically depressed and depopulating
| slide into poverty, drug dependency, and most recently pointless,
| embarrassing, and dangerous political radicalization. Industry is
| not coming back to these place, the oil is dried up, the mill has
| shut down, the mine is all dug out, and so on. People stay
| because of memories and family and sometimes "history and
| heritage". In the case of my father they chose to shame him for
| decades for abandoning them. It's kind of cult-like in a way.
|
| It seems simple to solve, move! Migrate to where the jobs are.
| But beyond these emotional circumstances that nail people to
| these failing areas, there is a difficult monetary restraint.
| It's expensive to move elsewhere, especially with an established
| multigenerational family. It means abandoning functioning
| domiciles, maybe vehicles or even business relationships with no
| guarantee of success.
|
| We pay people to stay where they are, even if there's no long-
| term prospect, but I would support a "Move America!" program that
| offered some kind of incentive for people to move to areas with
| better economic outlook. This means cities for the most part.
|
| Both parties don't want this because this means a massive
| transformation in the politics of the urban/rural divide.
| bsanr wrote:
| I'm going to post this even though there is a large chance that
| it's going to be poorly received:
|
| This is simply an extension of what happened to urban poor
| (particularly blacks) in the latter half of the last century,
| and our failure to solve those issues adequately is simply
| allowing the dynamic to self-replicate.
|
| It happened with drugs (crack cocaine vs opioids), it happened
| with housing (contract housing and gentrification vs subprime
| loans and asset inflation), on and on. See also Native
| Americans on reservations, essentially abandoned by the state
| for having the audacity to want some measure of self-
| determination. Whatever we allow to happen to the least of us,
| will eventually happen to most of us.
|
| I come from the perspective of a military brat, a descendent of
| slaves, born overseas. My ancestral home is either unknown or a
| town built on the site of a plantation, depending on your
| perspective; my childhood home is an abstract idea shattered
| across 5 states and a dozen physical buildings; I have no
| memory of my place of birth and would have to get a visa to see
| it. I have a strong predilection towards dismissing sentiments
| concerning "home" because the society I live in has ruthlessly
| ground out any sentimentality I might have had towards it.
|
| However, I also know what the break-up of community has done to
| black people in the US, the ignoble gift of desperation that
| the dissolution and rot of family and economic opportunity
| leaves to people. That's now playing out for American whites,
| and as we've seen, it carries with it a very serious and
| threatening sense of aggrievement, rooted in the kind of
| entitlement minorities could never claim without putting their
| lives on the line against their fellow countrymen. Therefore,
| even in my own grievance, I see the necessity of compassion and
| action.
|
| I don't think a modern Homestead Act is necessarily the answer,
| though, because it doesn't get to the crux of the issue, which
| is our willingness as a country to let despair fester in one
| pocket or another, as long as it's not too close to home. I
| don't know what fixing that is going to take. Giving people
| money to move might be a part of it, but I don't think it's the
| be-all-end-all. There needs to be a more fundamental shift in
| how we view the right of people to secure shelter and build
| community, and perhaps of our responsibility to sacrifice and
| provide for this when it comes to people who aren't our own,
| may not live or look like us, may vote differently or work
| different jobs or have different dreams. We're all tied
| together.
| [deleted]
| 0xB31B1B wrote:
| 100%, what is even crazier to me is that (at least before
| covid) the US rates of families moving had declining and was at
| the lowest point it had been for over 100 years. The modern
| style of home ownership (30 year mortgage, house in the
| suburbs, local control of land use) has really deeply screwed
| up many economic feedback mechanisms that in previous
| generations powered the economic engine of the US. The economic
| history of our nation is a history of people moving east to
| west to new opportunity (both 100s of years ago to farm the
| land, extract resource and displace native peoples, and today
| to move to high productivity jobs near low cost housing in
| sunbelt cities), as well as people moving south to north to
| flee the Jim Crow south and a rentier economy based on the
| dispossession of black farmers. It should be easier to move, we
| should reintroduce the modern equivalent of "boarding houses",
| and the lowest tier of housing in urban centers should be much
| less expensive.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| There was zero assistance in the past to help people move to
| areas with perceived better opportunity. Why should there be
| now?
| rgblambda wrote:
| >>we should reintroduce the modern equivalent of "boarding
| houses"
|
| In Ireland, this is called co-living, and has faced such
| backlash that new co-living developments have been
| effectively banned.
| derriz wrote:
| That's a very weird equivalence. I really can't see how
| living in a boarding house is anything like co-living?
|
| A boarding house is generally someone's primary residence
| where the owner lets out one or two spare bedrooms to
| lodgers and often provides them with meals and the like.
| They were mainly used by the transient, single and/or poor.
| Boarding houses hardly exist any more in the west. The
| classic boarding house owner was a widow back in the day
| when employment opportunities for elderly women were fairly
| bleak.
|
| Co-living has grown in the last decade in many wealthy
| western cities and provides accommodation which is
| somewhere between staying in a motel and renting a studio
| apartment. It's generally more expensive than renting a
| studio - because of the flexibility - and typically targets
| visiting professional workers or wealthy students.
| rgblambda wrote:
| I see co-living as a natural
| progression/commercialization of boarding houses. Maybe
| I'm completely wrong on that. But I see the Wikipedia
| article on co-living gives boarding houses as the origin
| of the concept.
|
| >>and typically targets visiting professional workers or
| wealthy students.
|
| I believe the official reason for the ban was that co-
| living developments were crowding out all other types of
| housing, forcing people outside of those two categories
| to rent them.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| That's a real bummer, but keep in mind by American
| standards plain old "apartments" are radical enough.
| threwawasy1228 wrote:
| It isn't a lack of incentive to move it is a lack of ability.
| Think about what it realistically costs to move to NYC right
| now, first months rent, last months rent, deposit, and even
| then most rentals aren't even on the market unless you pay a
| broker several thousand. The majority of people in rural
| america surveys can't handle a 400 dollar emergency let alone
| the cost to move to a large metro.
|
| And before you say "well they can get the money to attempt a
| move by selling their family property", realise what you are
| saying. Sell dilapidated rural property to whom exactly? How
| does that happen?
|
| Unless you have grants of approx 15-30k to bring people to
| cities I don't think it is even possible. And what cities would
| even want this to happen enough to participate? Probably places
| like Cleveland? Detroit? Out of the frying pan into the fire I
| suppose.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Well there are two ways to move. One is to move businesses to
| the people or two, pay people to move.
|
| Cities are no panacea either. Expensive and lots of competition
| for jobs. If you have multi-generational land bought and paid
| for then your expense can be quite low.
|
| Now America has a unique suburban landscape that could be
| leveraged to great effect. Essentially pull people closer to
| the cities. Then you can develop a central village in each of
| the suburbs.
|
| That and high speed internet for remote work.
| ubertoop wrote:
| > it recently announced that state clinics would no longer hand
| out contraceptives or offer vasectomies
|
| What a backwards and ill informed way of handling a declining
| birth rate. We should not be promoting accidental births, but
| instead doing everything we can to ensure couples live in a world
| where they WANT to bring another life into it.
|
| - Good pay
|
| - Safe neighborhoods
|
| - Balance work/life
|
| - Assurances of healthcare for themselves and their family
|
| - Hope that the future will be even better than the already
| wonderful, today.
|
| Very few of these things are true for the average worker these
| days. Often in the US, if you want to have kids, you are writing
| off your ability to ever retire.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| > instead doing everything we can to ensure couples live in a
| world where they WANT to bring another life into it.
|
| Neither of those suggestions actually increased birth rates,
| individually or in aggregate. Pretty sure many Scandinavian
| countries tried all of those, and it had little to no impact on
| their birth rate.
|
| Do you have any source to show improvements to birth rate?
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| All those things are themselves good, and unplanned families
| are not good.
|
| Falling population is good, working shortages will increase
| the demand for automation and result in worker dignity. We
| simply need a fuck-ton of immigration to amortize things a
| bit, until we get to post-scarcity post-growth steady state
| in 2100.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| So I don't think any of the above directly increases birth
| rate, but the one thing that people seem to be in agreement
| on is cheap/free daycare.
|
| Evidence from Quebec suggests that compared to Ontario, the
| birth rate has increased because of subsidized day care.
| https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/daycare-difference-quebec-
| fert...
|
| The correlation here at least makes sense, because child-
| caring is time intensive. So you need one parent to stay at
| home, or go part-time, or pay out the nose for a
| nanny/unsubsidized spot, at least in the US.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| None of those things have prevented people from having kids
| before. In fact they are mostly inversely correlated.
| chaostheory wrote:
| The issue is that male fertility and testosterone keeps falling
| consecutively every year in developed countries. We don't know
| why. If I were to guesss, it's due to the use of plastics with
| our food. Even without extremes of temperature, research has
| found that plastic will leech synthetic hormones like BPA
| (synthetic estrogen) and BPS. This is making its way into almost
| all of our food and drink
|
| On the bright side, the threat of overpopulation is lessened
| apsec112 wrote:
| The vast majority of fertile-age, opposite-sex couples can
| conceive fairly quickly if they try, and people in the upper
| half of the global income distribution now have access to
| medical care if they run into any issues. Infant mortality is
| also way down compared to past centuries.
|
| https://www.parents.com/getting-pregnant/trying-to-conceive/...
| chaostheory wrote:
| The data in this Parents article is really out of date
|
| I can't find the white papers I want to cite but here's a
| better article, even though it's also older
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2018/10/19/us-
| fertilit...
|
| Even accounting for social (contraception and abortion) and
| economic changes, fertility has gone down in developed
| countries
| Aerroon wrote:
| It's not just about the ability to conceive though.
| Testosterone is a hormone that has very wide ranging
| effects.[0] The regulation of sex-drive alone could have an
| impact on the fertility rate.
|
| [0] https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-
| matters/underst...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I think this overthinks the situation. Kids are an
| expensive luxury in first world countries, which many can't
| afford and a proportion who can don't want them.
|
| At the same time, in environments with easy access to
| contraceptives and where women are educated and empowered,
| the fertility rate falls without fail (per Our World In
| Data).
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
| Angostura wrote:
| I think even with reduced sex drive, the chances are that
| you would still be able to have sex successfully at least 3
| times in your fertile life.
|
| The "issue" - and lets face it, a gradual, managed decline
| in population is _just_ what the Earth ordered - is that we
| have collectively decided we would like fewer kids and are
| deploying birth control.
| lisper wrote:
| > On the bright side, the threat of overpopulation is lessened
|
| That's a significant bright side. Personally, as someone who
| enjoys spending time in nature, I would _much_ rather deal with
| the problems of underpopulation than overpopulation.
| convolvatron wrote:
| seriously - what is the problem with 'underpopulation'?
|
| just the fact the the financial system is structured around
| infinite growth?
| lisper wrote:
| Yep, that's pretty much it. But don't underestimate the
| difficulty of solving this problem. The entire structure of
| human society currently rests on this assumption.
| Discharging it is not easy.
| frabbit wrote:
| So you discount the idea that when people have the choice not
| to have large numbers of children (good healthcare to provide
| for old age, easily accessible contraception) they prefer to
| have fewer children?
|
| Also, the central premise of the article seems to be in
| dispute:
|
| _Professor David Coleman from the University of Oxford said:
| 'Much has been written about the 'Death of the West', with its
| threatened demise reportedly due to the low level of
| reproduction in Western countries. We show that this so-called
| decline has been exaggerated and trends in European fertility
| have been misunderstood._
|
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150427211644.h...
| chaostheory wrote:
| I can't find the white paper, but the decline in fertility
| rate takes into account social changes such as contraception.
| In fact, if I remember it correctly, social changes masked
| the decline
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I think issues are a lot less complex than you think.
|
| From anecdata, it simply looks like the burden of government,
| extended family, and increasing QOL costs, is much greater than
| ever on childbearing age men & women, for those living in
| developed countries. For example, men and women only started to
| take 10-30 year debt to buy a house, or to become a nurse...in
| the last 50 or so years.
|
| Thus, there are far fewer resources (including testosterone!)
| for child-rearing.
|
| Take for example what psychologists say about males being less
| fertile when they make less money than their partners, for
| example.
|
| Not having an opinion on whether this is good or bad. It just
| seems to be true.
| chaostheory wrote:
| The lowered fertility rate accounts for economic and social
| factors. This is biological and it started in the 1950s. It
| was masked by social changes starting in the 1960s
| driverdan wrote:
| This is false. Birth rates are down because people are choosing
| to have fewer children, not because something is preventing
| them from having children they want.
| huitzitziltzin wrote:
| >We don't know why. If I were to guesss, due to the use of
| plastics with our food.
|
| What evidence do you have to dismiss the (IMO much, much more
| plausible) idea that it's just men becoming more sedentary,
| moving and exercising less?
|
| Also... I agree w/ one of the other commenters that declining
| testosterone does not appear to be an obstacle to couples
| intentionally trying to conceive, so I would be very hesitant
| to (essentially) blame plastic in food for declining
| population.
| bordercases wrote:
| Because there are residual differences in testosterone for
| the intergenerational comparisons after controlling for
| physical activity.
| huitzitziltzin wrote:
| > after controlling for physical activity
|
| You say that like it's easy to do. It's not. That's not
| directly measurable, certainly not across generations. It's
| only barely become measurable in the past five or six
| years.
|
| How would you go about getting this information in the
| 1970's? Self-reported data would be the best you can do.
| Getting actual measurements of that information is
| something which (I suspect) is not available at a large
| scale beyond a few years of data. Whether it is (even now)
| linked to measurements of testosterone at a large scale is
| doubtful.
|
| I doubt that there is high-quality data on actual physical
| activity at a large scale at all, let alone linked to
| measurements of hormone levels from any of the 1990's,
| 1980's, 1970's, ... etc. It will only get much much harder
| going back.
|
| So "controlling for" physical activity is a non-trivial
| task in the very best case.
| camgunz wrote:
| This is a popular theory but, plastics and other hormone
| disrupters are everywhere, including places with high birth
| rates and strong machismo cultures. The controlling variable is
| women's rights and their ability to control their bodies. The
| sooner we can internalize that fewer women are choosing to have
| children, and when they do they choose to have fewer, the
| sooner we can start to make social and policy changes to
| address it.
| trhway wrote:
| >testosterone keeps falling consecutively every year in
| developed countries. We don't know why.
|
| the more developed the society is the less valuable are the
| testosterone benefits like the ability for heavy physical work
| in harsh conditions, etc. and the less tolerance the society
| has for the testosterone driven behavior - thus natural
| selection drives testosterone down. For example when you have a
| car accident, display of rage would put you in a losing
| position in US where you just need to exchange insurance info,
| and your higher muscle mass and hand-to-hand combat skills
| decide nothing, whereis for example in Russia the rage is a
| synergetic addition to the metal tire tool in you hand
| displayed as a credible threat. Another correlation which would
| suggest why testosterone would be selected out from government
| and management positions in developed societies:
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/kykl.12169
|
| " To measure testosterone exposure, we apply the facial width-
| to-height metric (fWHR) - a standard proxy widely used in the
| psychological literature - and look at a sample of Russian
| regional governors. We find a positive relationship between the
| fWHR of the governor and the level of repression in his region.
| "
| throwaway8822 wrote:
| Please stop repeating the "testosterone==aggressiveness"
| falsehood. There isn't a 1:1 correlation. Humans are way more
| complex than that.
|
| > thus natural selection drives testosterone down
|
| Also you are implying that natural selection is currently
| existing in human society. It does not.
|
| ...and that such selection works so fast that it changes
| human genome within a generation of two. This is simply
| impossible.
| trhway wrote:
| >Please stop repeating the "testosterone==aggressiveness"
| falsehood. There isn't a 1:1 correlation.
|
| i didn't say "==". I stated "->", i.e. positive causality
| from testosterone to aggressiveness (The opposite is
| obviously not true as evidenced by aggressiveness without
| testosterone, say in women).
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/#:~:te
| x....
|
| "Atavistic residues of aggressive behavior prevailing in
| animal life, determined by testosterone, remain attenuated
| in man and suppressed through familial and social
| inhibitions. However, it still manifests itself in various
| intensities and forms from; thoughts, anger, verbal
| aggressiveness, competition, dominance behavior, to
| physical violence. Testosterone plays a significant role in
| the arousal of these behavioral manifestations in the brain
| centers involved in aggression and on the development of
| the muscular system that enables their realization. There
| is evidence that testosterone levels are higher in
| individuals with aggressive behavior, such as prisoners who
| have committed violent crimes."
|
| >Also you are implying that natural selection is currently
| existing in human society. It does not.
|
| natural selection never stops. Some people naively think
| that the "fittest" necessarily means
| strongest/healthiest/etc. which is just not the case.
|
| So, then it comes to the drivers, one can say that societal
| natural selection is less "natural" (in that very naive
| understanding of it) and more like selective dog breeding
| and similarly it works very fast. Add to that the positive
| feedback between testosterone production and testosterone
| style behavior - ie. the more testosteronish style behavior
| of an individual causes more testosterone production in his
| body and vise versa (that famous barn swallow experiment
| where they painted the male bird chests dark to fake high
| testosterone characteristic or the article referred above:
|
| "Several field studies have also shown that testosterone
| levels increase during the aggressive phases of sports
| games. In more sensitive laboratory paradigms, it has been
| observed that participant's testosterone rises in the
| winners of; competitions, dominance trials or in
| confrontations with factitious opponents.").
| ardy42 wrote:
| > But what does population decline look like on the ground? The
| experience of Japan, a country that has been showing this trend
| for more than a decade, might offer some insight. Already there
| are too few people to fill all its houses - one in every eight
| homes now lies empty. In Japan, they call such vacant buildings
| akiya - ghost homes.
|
| > Most often to be found in rural areas, these houses quickly
| fall into disrepair, leaving them as eerie presences in the
| landscape, thus speeding the decline of the neighbourhood. Many
| akiya have been left empty after the death of their occupants;
| inherited by their city-living relatives, many go unclaimed and
| untended. With so many structures under unknown ownership, local
| authorities are also unable to tear them down.
|
| It doesn't help that the Japanese have a strong bias against
| old/used homes, so land with a home on it is worth less than a
| vacant lot (because you have to factor in the cost of demolishing
| the existing home). I'm speculating, but that would probably also
| lead to houses that aren't built to last, and thus fall into
| disrepair more quickly.
| jgilias wrote:
| The effects of climate change absolutely have to be taken into
| account when modelling population dynamics around the world, but
| this is almost never done.
|
| I would really like to see a model that as a minimum includes the
| effects of all of the following:
|
| * Water stress
|
| * Effects of a prolonged forest fire season in Southern Europe
|
| * Temperature increases
|
| * Climate change effects on coastal communities
|
| Also ease of migration between places should be taken into
| account. The population models I see usually are limited to
| "birthrate in this country is projected to be this number,
| therefore population is projected to change in this way". Which
| seems to be much too simplistic to me.
| onethought wrote:
| Prolonged forest fires in Europe??? Is that a thing? I've heard
| of Australia having insanely massive fires (easily bigger than
| all of Southern Europe) and west coast US having smaller but
| more intense fires. Where are the fires in Southern Europe?
| coryrc wrote:
| prolonged _season_
|
| Greece
| jgilias wrote:
| Google 'forest fires Portugal'.
|
| I mentioned Southern Europe not because I would think that
| the fire problem there is more dire than in Australia or
| California but because the effects on international migration
| would likely be different. Affected people in Portugal have a
| very easy time moving to a different European country and
| Portugal itself is quite small. So, whereas one could argue
| that forest fires in the US are unlikely to affect the
| population dynamics of the US taken as a whole, they are in
| fact likely to affect population dynamics of Portugal. With
| people first moving to the coastal areas and Lisbon, and
| afterwards many moving further to some place like Germany or
| Scandinavia.
| m23khan wrote:
| being a wealthy country often means:
|
| nuclear families + rise in dual income households = greater GDP =
| greater inflation = push for knowledge economy = loss of
| unionized workplaces = reduced workplace benefits such as defined
| benefit pension = increase scrutiny of worker = more educated
| workforce = more competition at workplace = greater time
| commitment towards work and self knowledge upgrade = greater
| demands for expensive leisure activities
|
| Not against any step of the process that I listed above. I am
| just stating the societal transformation as I see it for any xyz
| country out there that becomes wealthy over time.
|
| However, this model ultimately ends up treating children and
| sometimes marriage (And even romantic relationships to an extent)
| as shackles and hurdles on the road to success. And for those who
| still want to get into relationship and have kid(s) unfortunately
| means you have to work and save for a lot longer time before
| making it economically feasible to have kid(s).
|
| While this may still work out in case of males, for females,
| unfortunately, the more they wait to have kids (hey, I am not
| saying anything against this -- it is their body and their choice
| and their is nothing wrong with this and yes, all the power to
| them -- I get that, thx) - the more likely they won't have as
| many kids as in previous generations (Due to their biological
| clocks).
|
| Of course, it is always going to be down to individual will power
| and personality, but I am stating from common person's
| perspective.
| sjg007 wrote:
| I remember when the big tech companies started offering an egg
| freezing benefit in addition to IVF. I hope they also offer
| flexible work for new moms and dads as well.
|
| But the US as a whole needs to do better, we are way behind the
| curve.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| When my first was born there was no paternity _or_ maternity
| leave. Apparently it was unpaid FMLA or use your PTO.
| Thankfully it was "unlimited" PTO and I've not yet
| encountered any shadow limits. (Though did have to get VP
| approval for 15 consecutive days.)
| ACow_Adonis wrote:
| for those outside the US, based on my quick google: PTO
| means "paid time off" and FMLA I think means "family and
| medical leave" (the abbreviation is for the family and
| medical leave ACT). FMLA provides provisions to take UNPAID
| leave. PTO seems to cover both holidays and paid sick
| leave.
|
| Please correct me if I'm wrong any US person.
|
| I'm guessing from the context of getting VP approval for 15
| days compared to my wife who took off a year in approximate
| half-pay through various combinations of annual leave,
| maternity leave, and long service leave and gov payments
| that the talk of not bumping into shadow limits has to do
| with cultural expectations of how much leave you'll take
| and that you'll be soon back to work rather than actually
| they're being no shadow limits. By which I mean my wife's
| actual case would so obviously hit up against any shadow
| limit that practically no one would try it on, but I'm
| happy to be educated on that too...
|
| For context, I managed to take 3 months off on about half
| pay through similar leave gymnastics...
| pylua wrote:
| Many places are still like this . I had to use pto in
| addition to working 60hours when I got back after one week
| for the birth of my son. I ended up leaving this job due to
| the stress on my marriage and health . Unfortunately many
| people do not have that privilege
| nerdponx wrote:
| No reason knowledge workers can't or shouldn't unionize!
| [deleted]
| silentnight wrote:
| " being a wealthy country often means: nuclear families"
|
| nah, thats usually the case in poor countries. nuclear,
| religious, and and obedient wife.
| monocasa wrote:
| I think they're saying nuclear families rather than multi
| generational households.
| silentnight wrote:
| considering divorce rates in developed countries i believe
| they're wrong
| m23khan wrote:
| I was talking with specific regards to couples living
| together -- not about single/divorced/widowed folks.
|
| And yes, I was referring to nuclear families being the
| norm in wealthy countries as opposed to multi-
| generational housing arrangements found typically in less
| developed countries.
| Frost1x wrote:
| >However, this model ultimately ends up treating children and
| sometimes marriage (And even romantic relationships to an
| extent) as shackles and hurdles on the road to success.
|
| And not just shackles in the traditional sense. Having children
| compounds matters because wealth and competitive advantage is
| largely about relative values.
|
| If it becomes the norm that, defying economic pressures,
| everyone has children, culture in a democracy can force
| societal change in policy and business to make these conditions
| reasonable. On the other hand, in a highly competitive labor
| market, it's a chosen competitive disadvantage to have a child.
| Less time to devote to work, higher comp needed to support them
| and the family, etc. You're at a disadvantage to your peers
| that can sacrifice their personal lives more easily than a
| responsible parent can.
|
| Case in point, I've done a large amount of contractual work. I
| have a friend who works in the same ecosystem and they've had
| to pass up on opportunities to work a bit of overtime that
| helped me solidify a future business relationship and contract
| by being there to deliver when they needed it. My friend on the
| other hand has a family and simply couldn't put in the extra
| hours in the short turnaround requested. The bias went towards
| me, the one with flexibility (no children but relationship with
| working professional who understands) to grasp these
| opportunities. That person shortly after had difficulty finding
| a new contract while I had a solid portfolio to work from. I
| don't like the idea because I'd like to have kids in the near
| future but it's quite clear you suffer a huge blow
| economically, in ways often seen and unseen, at least in the
| US.
| hyper_reality wrote:
| The article notes that in South Korea, "from next year, cash
| bonuses of 2m won (PS1,320) will be paid to every couple
| expecting a child, on top of existing child benefit payments".
|
| These cash awards for having children being paid by developed
| countries are laughably far too little, too late in their
| intention. Looking at the issue in financial terms, having a
| child and bringing them up well is an enormous cost both in money
| and time. The most significant being the opportunity cost of at
| least one parent's ability to participate economically being
| severely reduced for years. Brian Tomasik estimated that having a
| child may cost over $300k when measured in those terms, although
| there is some USA slant in his analysis (https://reducing-
| suffering.org/the-cost-of-kids/).
|
| Now, Tomasik does mention that having children cannot be judged
| economically, it's a special and important experience that you
| can't place a price on. On the other hand, there's no denying
| that raising a child in today's world is simply unthinkable for
| many young adults who are struggling with insecurity in housing,
| careers, and a bleaker outlook on the future. Many commodities
| are historically cheap today but property is extremely less
| affordable, and most prospective parents would rather delay
| having children until they can achieve career stability and
| afford a reasonably-sized house, which is happening very late in
| life (if at all) compared to previous generations.
|
| If governments were really serious about reversing the decline in
| birth rates, they should be looking at pursuing better policies
| for ensuring more people can afford a home, or providing free
| childcare at scale - tackling the underlying societal reasons why
| this trend is occurring rather than adding a hopelessly
| insufficient cash bandaid. Furthermore, a cash bonus creates a
| perverse incentive where some people may grab the short term
| reward without necessarily considering the long term sacrifice
| involved in having kids.
| tartoran wrote:
| Also a lot of pressure is being put on being a child in SK so
| no wonder people refuse to have children and put them through a
| torturous schooling system.
| Chyzwar wrote:
| I do not think it is money. My parents were much poorer but
| decided to have three children. This global utopia where there
| is so much to do, experience visit and see. For many
| millennials and Z gen Netflix is more interesting that having a
| child. It does not help that there are extremely high
| expectation for being an parent.
| [deleted]
| jefftk wrote:
| Because a lot of the cost is opportunity cost, in monetary
| terms it will be higher for richer families.
|
| For example, if the lower earning parent decides to stay home
| with the kids, that "costs" $15k/y if their take-home pay
| after tax is $15k, vs $100k/y if it's $100k.
| mykowebhn wrote:
| Although I have no issue with the gist of what you wrote, I
| wouldn't classify South Korea as a developing country.
| hyper_reality wrote:
| That was a typo, I fixed it, thank you.
| tsss wrote:
| There is no problem here. We should be happy that this
| unsustainable all-consuming population growth is slowly coming to
| an end. Not having children is by far the best thing you can do
| for the environment and the world as a whole.
| firecall wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Dispassionately, we have to accept that we cannot bring the
| entire planet up to western standards of living and life
| expectancy.
|
| The planet cant support it, based on our current technology and
| practive. Unless something changes in how we manage the planet,
| we'll end up destroying it.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| A gradual decline in human population is surely a good thing? The
| change in demographics will cause problems. But significantly
| less than the problems caused by unending population growth,
| which could lead to rampant climate change, environmental
| collapse, mass migration and war.
|
| Also different countries are in different situations. The rich,
| ageing countries can allow immigration from poorer countries
| whose populations are still growing.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I have one friend who has a PhD in Future Studies. He said
| there are benefits to a slow population decline and the
| downsides are completely manageable.
|
| It's very hard to convince leaders of that though. You'll
| notice the conclusory comment in the FA, 'Falling fertility
| rates have been a problem in the world's wealthiest nations -
| notably in Japan and Germany - for some time.' Most will skip
| right past that nodding their head despite the author providing
| zero evidence or support for that.
|
| I think part of that is people associate population decline
| with places that suffered some economic insult and lost
| sustainability. Mill closed everyone scattered to the winds
| kind of thing. That's not the same thing as declining
| fertility.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| It's a problem for governments because it will expose the
| ponzi-scheme nature of their social welfare programs.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Things can be good on net but still have severe downsides you
| can't just ignore, and I think that's the case here. You're
| brushing a whole lot under the carpet with "will cause
| problems": falling populations mean that _everything_ which
| relies on a demographic pyramid-- pensions, socialized health
| care, saving for retirement via the stock market, spending on
| municipal infrastructure-- falls apart. You can 't just brush
| that off.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I think that is quite manageable, if the decline is gradual.
| Especially if there people in other, less demographically
| challenged countries, that are willing to emigrate.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Yes, and technology will be able to do a lot more good in
| the world once we have the labor shortages to justify
| further automation.
|
| Increasingly over the last 40 years in the developed world,
| in a general labor and supply glut, the only reason to
| automate is to fuck over your precarious workforce more
| than your competitor. That sucks for the regular workers
| and automaters alike, and I can't wait for it to change.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| When the black death killed swathes of Europe's peasants,
| the survivors were able to demand much better working
| conditions from their overlords. But I guess that is only
| going to happen with a declining population if there are
| enough jobs that robots and AI can't do.
| pharke wrote:
| Less demographically challenged countries are not a
| renewable resource. The chickens will come home to roost at
| some point. Sure you can bet on someone else doing the work
| to mitigate that problem but _a lot_ of people are doing
| just that and leaving these problems untended and unsolved.
| Progress and easy living are not inevitable, everyone has
| to put the work in for things to continue improving.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >Less demographically challenged countries are not a
| renewable resource.
|
| At the moment, poor people who are prepared to migrate to
| richer countries to get a chance at a better life are
| very much a renewable resource. They just keep coming.
| Hopefully we will move to a fairer world where this isn't
| the case, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| A 25% decline in the human population is completely irrelevant
| compared to the economic growth which is raising 6 billion
| people from a near-subsistence existence into the middle class.
| Losing a few million British people is completely irrelevant as
| Nigeria and its 150mm people enter the developed, high-energy,
| economy.
|
| The solution to climate change is a technological restructuring
| of human carbon usage patterns. Not fewer humans.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| A 25% decline in population across all the richest countries
| would be highly significant. But it won't be enough if people
| in developing countries start consuming more and more.
| Hopefully their populations will also start to level off and
| then decline as they become richer.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| For the most part they already are.
|
| Nigeria has gone from 7 to 5 since 1980, and Ethiopia from
| 7 to 4. Which is not declining, but certainly progress.
| India went from 5.5 to 2.2, nearly replacement. Bangladesh
| went from above 6 to 2.04. The Phillipines in particular
| shows a dramatic decline from 7.15 in 1960 to 2.58 today.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Is that annual % population growth?
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| No, it's not a good thing. Humans are apparently the only
| species capable of observing itself or the universe. The more
| people, the better, we just need to ramp up space exploration.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I would think 5 billion people living in some sort of balance
| with the environment would better be able to explore space
| than 50 billion people living in some sort of
| environmental/climate hellscape.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Also it is so energy intensive to get someone off the planet
| that space exploration is not going to be a viable way to
| control the earth's population any time soon.
| [deleted]
| markvdb wrote:
| Latvia went approximately -30% in 30 years, from 2.66 _10^6 in
| 1990 to 1.894_ 10^6 in 2020. Further decreases are expected to
| bring this to under 1.5*10^6 in 2050.
|
| These numbers are massive, _and_ they underestimate the change in
| the countryside and smaller cities. Many don't even bother
| unregistering from their native country when emigrating. There is
| also massive internal migration of youth to the capital Riga.
| That's the main reason the capital's population is more or less
| stable...
| newdude116 wrote:
| Lets worry about Corona and protect the >70year old childless
| boomers.
|
| https://twitter.com/bleppyman/status/1351286077823324160
| djohnston wrote:
| This seems like great news. In the face of our collective
| inability to do anything about climate change, if we could cut
| our current population by 2100 it might help with the crop
| failures and such.
| grapecookie wrote:
| People choosing not to replace themselves is a strong indicator
| that we are failing to thrive.
| lanevorockz wrote:
| As The Guardian always have an addiction for pushing a narrative.
| In the real world, population is still growing by 80 million per
| year and the plateau is calculated at 20 billion.
|
| The fact is that the poorer a country is, the more likely is for
| families to have more kids to raise their chances in life.
| Population in western world is certainly declining and relying on
| immigration to keep numbers sustainable.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > and the plateau is calculated at 20 billion.
|
| According to who? Hans Rosling famously[1] didn't think so.
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Neither does the UN:
|
| > _The UN projects that the global population increases from
| a population of 7.7 billion in 2019 to 11.2 billion by the
| end of the century. By that time, the UN projects, fast
| global population growth will come to an end._
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth
| asebold wrote:
| I think a lot of people expect the rise in working from home to
| fix this problem but it's more than that. Rural areas need access
| to affordable broadband internet, and more industries need to
| embrace remote work. I think an overall decline in population is
| good but the remaining population needs to be properly dispersed
| to see any real benefit from it. And that's going to require
| intentional support and intervention from government.
| Someone wrote:
| That would only move the problem of "there are too many houses"
| to cities or suburbs, not solve it.
|
| Also, I don't think empty houses are the main problem. An older
| population costs more and pays less taxes.
|
| So, if one keeps current infrastructure spending, budget
| deficits will increase, and government debt will go up.
|
| And if the population shrinks, government debt per capita will
| go up even more.
|
| If their population really halves, I think many countries will
| have to make hard choices as to which villages or even cities,
| and roads leading into them, to abandon.
|
| I can't find it now, but I remember some people arguing Japan
| should do that with Fukushima after the tsunami.
| asebold wrote:
| Not at all. Cities are crowded af. With more of the
| population dispersed, we can redesign urban life with more
| living space, create more parks, support more robust urban
| farming, etc. Cities wouldn't look the same as they do today,
| but I think that's a good thing.
| dasudasu wrote:
| > _A vision of the future, perhaps, in a post-peak world: smaller
| populations crowding ever more tightly into urban centres. And
| outside, beyond the city limits, the wild animals prowling._
|
| That seems inevitably tied to the increasing specialization and
| efficiency of agriculture. What was the original reason for
| humans to spread out in rural area, if not to get some farming
| land for yourself? Economic activity isn't much tied to land use
| anymore. It's seems hard to fathom any reason why would humans
| just go back to rural areas if not for some unforeseen technology
| to make this sensible, considering all the advantages living
| close to large metropolitan areas provide - and no, WFH isn't it.
| enkid wrote:
| Some people like living in nature. With utilities already built
| out or alternatives like solar power for electricity and
| starlink for internet, people could untether themselves from
| urban areas all together.
| [deleted]
| frabbit wrote:
| Dark skies, peace, quiet. All these make me enjoy being away
| from conurbations. I especially dislike the lack of darkness in
| winter.
| anewaccount2021 wrote:
| A future rural home will have off-grid power (solar + power
| wall), off-grid internet (starlink) and off-grid water is
| already solved. Why again do I need to be packed and stacked?
|
| And why do we keep talking about urban life as aspirational?
| Many of those currently leaving SF and NYC are wealthy enough
| to move on a whim. These aren't flights of desperation. Why are
| wealthy people leaving?
| jacobolus wrote:
| > _Many of those currently leaving SF and NYC are wealthy
| enough ... Why are wealthy people leaving?_
|
| Maybe you have noticed a worldwide event this past year that
| temporarily impedes many of the activities people moved to SF
| and NYC to enjoy?
|
| But anecdotally, most of the people I know who have left SF
| in the past several years were not especially wealthy (by SF
| standards at least) and have growing children. (This is a
| biased selection, since I spent lots of time at the
| playground.) The reasons for leaving included: rent-
| controlled apartment felt too small but moving to a market-
| rate bigger apartment was unaffordable; child care was too
| expensive compared to free help someplace else from
| grandparents / extended family; parents wanted their children
| to experience a suburban childhood similar to their own;
| parents didn't want to send their children to schools
| alongside poor children, but couldn't afford or didn't want
| to pay for private school, so preferred to move to a less
| economically diverse school district; parent's temporary city
| job finished, and the newly found job happened to be
| somewhere else.
|
| The wealthier families I know have been less likely to move,
| since they either have a big enough home or can afford to
| move to one; can afford to pay for nannies etc., or can
| afford to have one parent stay home; can afford private
| school if they want; have more permanent jobs or an easier
| time finding a new job in the same area; ...
| anewaccount2021 wrote:
| So you follow your initial argument that the exodus is
| covid-driven with a list of reasons not related to covid at
| all. So, we agree? People who are moving are those who can
| afford to.
|
| And if you knew how SF schools worked, you wouldn't have
| written your last sentence. You leave SF schools to
| _escape_ diversity - its a lottery system.
| jacobolus wrote:
| The people I know who have left specifically due to Covid
| are young professionals, either single or childless
| couples. Yes, they could easily afford to move.
|
| > _You leave SF schools to escape diversity_
|
| That is exactly what I said. This gets euphemistically
| phrased as "The test scores are too low. I don't want my
| kid at a failing school."
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Interestingly enough, the opposite trend can also be
| observed.
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113236377590902105
|
| "I don't want my child to be in an overly competitive
| environment."
| marcinzm wrote:
| The vast vast majority of people who leave SF or NYC move to
| either the suburbs or other (cheaper) cities. Neither option
| is rural by any stretch of the imagination. Humans are social
| animals and most enjoy spending time with other humans that
| share interests with them which is much easier in urban
| environments.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| This is not true and the preference for urban environments
| is a modern phenomenon. The Romans for example thought
| cities were disastrous and that any self-respecting citizen
| would live in a suburban or rural area.
|
| I see no reason why remote work and self-driving cars can't
| chip into the urbanization trend.
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