Essentially, there is an optimum distance from the urban nucleus, depending on that urban area’s population size, where a convergence of steady income, family life, amenities, and living enjoyment make settling down there the most logical choice.
I definitely see the common sense there. It’s sometimes nice to live in a city when you’re young and you want to see many things and be at the centre of the action, but when you have a family, wife, children, a dog, other considerations take precedence.
Not personally familiar with the U.K., but in the U.S., if we were to add the caveat for age, this broadly corresponds to real estate values and demographics. In most U.S. cities, there is a dense core of major regional commercial, institutional, health, educational, cultural and recreational facilities together with a few neighborhoods that cater to young adults, then an inner-city "donut" of industrial and lower-income neighborhoods, sometimes including remnants of working class strongholds, then outside of this you get a ring of affluent, family-oriented suburbs, safe, with good schools, very auto-oriented, large lots, and then outside of that it starts to transition to a fringe of semi-rural, lower-income areas inclusive of trailer parks, truck stops, and agricultural uses. The only broad exception is that U.S. cities are also oriented towards the northwest breeze, with affluent neighborhoods generally stretching out to the north and west of the downtown in a continual line, and lower-income neighborhoods doing the same to the south and east.
So the three graphs in figure 2. Everything gets better further away. The income graph could be read as 'things are cheaper in the country'. ('cause you don't have to pay people as much.)
I'm going to be consciously inflammatory: this will go away if you're control for age, marital status and some indicator of children...in Tokyo (if they had Tokyo data). In London add that one other factor that "distance" is meant to cover for.
I would be curious to see a study on satisfaction levels of whites plotted against ethnic composition. I don’t think many people would enjoy living in south London.
It makes sense to me. Who cares if you're in a rural village surrounded by vast green space if the only place to live is a cramped high-rise apartment? If somehow it were affordable to have a suburban-US-style house and yard in the middle of a dense, bustling city (perhaps your ancestral family home has been grandfathered in as a result of some arcane law), why should the city's overall bustle and density depress your fertility?
The latter situation is, of course, not something that really happens, but the rural high-rise is something that has been engineered by governments from time to time.
Essentially, there is an optimum distance from the urban nucleus, depending on that urban area’s population size, where a convergence of steady income, family life, amenities, and living enjoyment make settling down there the most logical choice.
I definitely see the common sense there. It’s sometimes nice to live in a city when you’re young and you want to see many things and be at the centre of the action, but when you have a family, wife, children, a dog, other considerations take precedence.
https://www.redfin.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Aggregate-Value-Urban-Class-1024x768.png
The vast majority of real estate value creation occurs in the suburbs.
I would guess that WFH / 3 days in office will move the center of gravity from inner suburbs to outer suburbs.
Not personally familiar with the U.K., but in the U.S., if we were to add the caveat for age, this broadly corresponds to real estate values and demographics. In most U.S. cities, there is a dense core of major regional commercial, institutional, health, educational, cultural and recreational facilities together with a few neighborhoods that cater to young adults, then an inner-city "donut" of industrial and lower-income neighborhoods, sometimes including remnants of working class strongholds, then outside of this you get a ring of affluent, family-oriented suburbs, safe, with good schools, very auto-oriented, large lots, and then outside of that it starts to transition to a fringe of semi-rural, lower-income areas inclusive of trailer parks, truck stops, and agricultural uses. The only broad exception is that U.S. cities are also oriented towards the northwest breeze, with affluent neighborhoods generally stretching out to the north and west of the downtown in a continual line, and lower-income neighborhoods doing the same to the south and east.
So the three graphs in figure 2. Everything gets better further away. The income graph could be read as 'things are cheaper in the country'. ('cause you don't have to pay people as much.)
Oh, we move to cities for jobs and people.
Aren't people actually moving away from cities? My understanding is that everyone and their mother wants to move outta there.
I'm going to be consciously inflammatory: this will go away if you're control for age, marital status and some indicator of children...in Tokyo (if they had Tokyo data). In London add that one other factor that "distance" is meant to cover for.
I would be curious to see a study on satisfaction levels of whites plotted against ethnic composition. I don’t think many people would enjoy living in south London.
Emil, did you see this argument that high-rise housing is uniquely bad for fertility?
https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=21734#more-21734
It makes sense to me. Who cares if you're in a rural village surrounded by vast green space if the only place to live is a cramped high-rise apartment? If somehow it were affordable to have a suburban-US-style house and yard in the middle of a dense, bustling city (perhaps your ancestral family home has been grandfathered in as a result of some arcane law), why should the city's overall bustle and density depress your fertility?
The latter situation is, of course, not something that really happens, but the rural high-rise is something that has been engineered by governments from time to time.