@Noflaps
I wanted to share an interesting video with you that's somewhat related to the topic at hand (at least the part 1:12 to 7:09, the rest is pretty much off topic).
It explains why entire exurbs of single family homes can be "rationally" built in remote places (emitting tons of CO2 due to concrete alone), even though nobody will conceivably ever want to live there. And even if anybody ever lived there, they would need one or more cars to do basically anything they need to do in their daily lives (because there's basically nothing around that's accessible on foot or by bike).
That's not the fault of the (potential) inhabitants, it's the fault of the people who planned and built this neighbourhood. No, scrap that, it's not even their fault (they just were tasked and they delivered), it's the fault of the banks that financed the whole project so they could turn all of these vacant houses into mortgages to be bundled up in bonds that they could then sell for way more money than their "investment". Alongside derivatives like credit default swaps (CDS), collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and synthetic CDOs which allowed for speculation on these mortgage bonds far beyond the actual value of the underlying mortgage loans.
This wasn't some niche phenomenon in the late 2000s, it was happening on a huge scale and eventually lead to the worst financial crisis in the last 90 years. It's very succinctly explained in the beginning of this video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g&t=72s
It also speaks to this specific point you're making:
> The people ACTUALLY tasked with powering cities, and with regulating those people, are generally far from foolish and uninformed.
I might even grant this point in its entirety. I just dispute that this fact necessarily leads to rational outcomes that benefit society (or humanity) as a whole. The 2007-2008 financial crisis is a great example of that. Regulations imposed by informed and sensible people (that were unfortunately not motivated by the greater good and often had undisclosed conflicts of interest) lead to disaster for tens of millions of people. In the US alone 8.6 million people lost their job. Among countless of other consequences which I'm sure you're aware of.
By the way, I saw that you answered me in December, but you deleted your previous post before I could find the time to read and respond. I'm sorry I was very busy!
If you don't want to get into this month old discussion again, no worries. In that case, sorry for the ping, just ignore it. Have a good day!
I wanted to share an interesting video with you that's somewhat related to the topic at hand (at least the part 1:12 to 7:09, the rest is pretty much off topic).
It explains why entire exurbs of single family homes can be "rationally" built in remote places (emitting tons of CO2 due to concrete alone), even though nobody will conceivably ever want to live there. And even if anybody ever lived there, they would need one or more cars to do basically anything they need to do in their daily lives (because there's basically nothing around that's accessible on foot or by bike).
That's not the fault of the (potential) inhabitants, it's the fault of the people who planned and built this neighbourhood. No, scrap that, it's not even their fault (they just were tasked and they delivered), it's the fault of the banks that financed the whole project so they could turn all of these vacant houses into mortgages to be bundled up in bonds that they could then sell for way more money than their "investment". Alongside derivatives like credit default swaps (CDS), collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and synthetic CDOs which allowed for speculation on these mortgage bonds far beyond the actual value of the underlying mortgage loans.
This wasn't some niche phenomenon in the late 2000s, it was happening on a huge scale and eventually lead to the worst financial crisis in the last 90 years. It's very succinctly explained in the beginning of this video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g&t=72s
It also speaks to this specific point you're making:
> The people ACTUALLY tasked with powering cities, and with regulating those people, are generally far from foolish and uninformed.
I might even grant this point in its entirety. I just dispute that this fact necessarily leads to rational outcomes that benefit society (or humanity) as a whole. The 2007-2008 financial crisis is a great example of that. Regulations imposed by informed and sensible people (that were unfortunately not motivated by the greater good and often had undisclosed conflicts of interest) lead to disaster for tens of millions of people. In the US alone 8.6 million people lost their job. Among countless of other consequences which I'm sure you're aware of.
By the way, I saw that you answered me in December, but you deleted your previous post before I could find the time to read and respond. I'm sorry I was very busy!
If you don't want to get into this month old discussion again, no worries. In that case, sorry for the ping, just ignore it. Have a good day!