The thing is that wealth is so poorly distrubuted that you wouldn’t even need to touch that percentage.
There are already enough companies not paying the tax they owe and ultra-rich laundering their hoarded assets.
We’re all very fortunate, but to help put it into perspective Elon Musk earns the equivelant of an annual salary EVERY MINUTE. And depending on how you calculate it or who you listen to that salary is probably more than yours or mine. EVERY MINUTE.
The word ‘inequality’ doesn’t even start to scratch the surface.
It reminds me of the climate crisis - it’s down to us normal folk to recycle our plastic bags whilst mega corps generate unimaginable amounts of waste. It’s drop in the ocean stuff. There is already more than enough wealth on the planet for everyone, there are just a handful of people that have most of it.
It’s the equivelant of wandering into the jungle and finding that one of the monkeys has 4000 bananas whilst the other monkeys go hungry. It’s sick, and stupid - but the target remains the monkey with 4000 bananas, not the handful that have 3.
Because that’s where the work is. I’m lucky to be able to work remotely but 99% of the jobs I come across are based in London, which is where my office is.
And that’s not an easy problem to fix - it’s a byproduct of efficiency. If I wanted to start a marketing company it would certainly cost me less to do so in Bognor Regis but then all of my clients are in London. There’s also no Univeristy there, so I would need to attract a workforce, rather than take advantage of one that’s already there.
Edit: Oops I take it back, just in case I’ve offended any Regis grads
Oh ok. I stopped going over there since Steve’s Meat Market closed.
I nearly gagged the other day when I heard on NPR that Ridgewood was voted 4th coolest neighborhood in the world by some unknown authority…
I’m near Fort Greene park myself and as much as it’s changed in the last 10 years it hasn’t changed as much as other neighborhoods likely due to the cap on development here.
To add to @natehorn’s answer, speaking specifically from an American perspective:
–Cities tend to have more progressive social policies and a larger safety net, which make them safer for marginalized people and the poor/working class
–Art and entertainment industries are heavily centralized in the cities. If you want to work “in the business” (session work, production, etc) and are not already established, you almost have to move there to get noticed
–Perhaps specific to America only, cities are one of the vanishingly few places with good public transportation and walkable areas. I live less than half-an-hour from Atlanta, and there are not enough sidewalks to get me to any necessity nor enough bussing to reliably get me around. If I didn’t have a car or couldn’t operate one, I’d be SOL
I was born in the city, grew up in the city, met my wife and got married in the city, had a kid in the city, who now has friends and a life in the city. I love London and I’ve never wanted to leave, but the cost of living makes it tempting. This is my home, and unfortunately it’s been almost completely ruined by outside interests. Even the culture has been diluted, packaged up and sterilised to make it more palatable for wealthy tourists; we’re riddled with malls and ‘boxpark’ style destinations where there used to be actual authentic things happening in art, music, food and so on.
You’re rent stabilized in Fort Greene? That sounds pretty sweet. Fort Greene is probably my favorite Brooklyn neighborhood. My wife lived there when she moved to NY about 15 years ago, but got priced out. When we walk around, she always comments that it hasn’t changed very much, and she finds that comforting.
Ridgewood seeems pretty nice. Does that mean Bushwick is “over”?
For marginalized ppl and students I completely understand the reasons and I wouldn’t disagree with the other points largely either.
I just wanted to hear about the main motivations for holding on to living in big cities people have.
Just in case it becomes too difficult to live in metropolises I’d like to point out that moving into a small town might surprise you positively big time.
This of course depends heavily of the specifics. Some of them are just dreadful hahaha.
Speaking as a child who grew up as a member of the “rural poor”, there are a number of advantages to being “urban poor”, like public transport, libraries, social services, broader job opportunities, even simple stuff like kids having access to parks and play areas. All we had was farmers’ fields, many of which would result in us being chased off by farmers.
Basically, rural poverty is worse than urban poverty.
Despite the cost etc., I think elderly people in big cities in the US have a higher quality of life. My Mom who is getting up there in age lives in a small town in NJ, can’t drive at the moment, etc. and is very isolated. Thankfully she has a small grocery store she can walk to but that isn’t the option for many of the elderly here. Due to Walmart and other big box stores a lot of small towns in the US barely have any retail businesses.
Sunset Park is the only neighbourhood on this list that surprises me (with respect to competition). We lived at 12th and PPW for a year so I understand it for the Slopes and Windsor Terrace. We very nearly ended up in Fort Greene. Red Hook I have less experience with, because it’s such a pain to get to. I wouldn’t expect as much difficulty in Borough Park, Kensington, Flatbush. It wouldn’t have made sense for my partner’s commute (back when she was commuting) but I might have liked to live in Queens, in Jackson Heights.
So say you’ve lived in the same part of East London all your life, just like you parents, their parents etc.
Location and identity can be powerfully tied together. Many people might feel a certain sense of belonging to an area that transcends economic realities.
Then imagine being told you have to move to Luton or some other shithole because there’s not enough high rise flats for all them Oligarchs to invest in or whatever. I’d imagine you’re going to be a little unhappy.
That was an article by TimeOut, so basically a promotion for their services. Ridgewood because they couldn’t say DUMBO where their Market complex is (unlike for Lisbon where they chose Cais do Sodre for that reason) and Greenpoint/Williamsburg would have been too obvious. They might have gotten away with Bushwick, but Ridgewood is more likely to be novel for the non-New-Yorker.
For me the funny part was that my Toronto nabe, Dundas West (Little Portugal), is 12th on the list, and if I turn my head to the left as I sit here eating breakfast and posting, I see the mural they used to illustrate the choice in their article. Same calculus, though. The Annex, Little Italy, Queen West would be obvious, but the next layer out works for their purposes. (This is a nice neighbourhood, though.)
Dumbo really had a cool moment it somehow went from Kings of New York seediness to being a generic tourist destination seemingly overnight. I had a booth at a flea market there for 5 years or so and saw hundreds of people taking the same selfie of the bridges and Manhattan skyline behind them every single weekend.
