ZeroZeroZero Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 Massive population centers such as LA and NYC are kept afloat by central planning, but in the absence of the state will they decay and collapse? If large cities are incapable of sustaining themselves without central planning shouldn't anti-statist promote ideas such as de-urbanization and neo tribalism?
MrCapitalism Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 I promote the privatization of centrally planned infrastructure.
Magnus Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 Without the developers, road construction companies and utilities conspiring (under the guise of the State) to control the layout of urban spaces, cities would certainly still exist, and probably be a lot more dense. They would most likely resemble the kind of walkable configurations we see in what's left of medieval and early modern cities. I'm not sure about skyscrapers, since they are virtually a completely statist phenomenon. Modern antiseptic practices and technology, the removal of beasts of burden, and clean lighting/heating fuels would solve about 98% of the problems that occurred in the pre-industrial cities.
dsayers Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 Massive population centers such as LA and NYC are kept afloat by central planning, Source? Anybody in those places in a position of "authority" persistently victimize those not in "authority." I understand that this is the result of coercion, not the central planning. But this statement suggests these cities are kept afloat when they are cesspools. They are pre-Detroit Detroits.
ZeroZeroZero Posted February 13, 2014 Author Posted February 13, 2014 Source? Anybody in those places in a position of "authority" persistently victimize those not in "authority." I understand that this is the result of coercion, not the central planning. But this statement suggests these cities are kept afloat when they are cesspools. They are pre-Detroit Detroits. I'm not suggesting they aren't cesspools; cesspool isnt even a good enough word to describe these places. What I'm asking is wouldn't they become worse if the state was eliminated? Without the developers, road construction companies and utilities conspiring (under the guise of the State) to control the layout of urban spaces, cities would certainly still exist, and probably be a lot more dense. They would most likely resemble the kind of walkable configurations we see in what's left of medieval and early modern cities. I'm not sure about skyscrapers, since they are virtually a completely statist phenomenon. Modern antiseptic practices and technology, the removal of beasts of burden, and clean lighting/heating fuels would solve about 98% of the problems that occurred in the pre-industrial cities. A great solution but wouldn't it be more economically feasible to just abandon cities all together? A few acres of land can often be cheaper than an NYC apartment, not to mention cleaner air and less light pollution.
Magnus Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 A great solution but wouldn't it be more economically feasible to just abandon cities all together? A few acres of land can often be cheaper than an NYC apartment, not to mention cleaner air and less light pollution.Some occupations are more feasible in an urban environment. There were some short-lived pockets of freedom in Europe throughout the medieval and early modern period, and they resulted in quickly-built cities. With modern technology, urban life is far easier. I don't see why a city wouldn't be economically viable in a freer society. Urban physical space would look far different, of course, and be more livable.
Alan C. Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 ...wouldn't they become worse if the state was eliminated? At first, yes. The problem is not the market. The problem is that the municipal services that support those areas are largely State-controlled monopolies. Single points of failure are a disaster waiting to happen. Every time there is a ferocious storm, hundreds of thousands of people go without electricity (sometimes for weeks). Sometimes they can't get potable water. The market makes life better. The State gets in the way.
dsayers Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 Detroit got better thanks to free market entrepreneurs once the state was effectively defunct. Not saying it's the ideal example, but this is why it's more important to ask, "what would *I* do?" than it is to ask what would happen. Because what will happen is what people make happen. We'd have a lot more of that now, but as Mr. Chapman pointed out, the state pushes out competitors. When you're hungry, you grab something to eat. We're naturally born empirical problem-solvers. You take away the coercive central planning and you suddenly get many more, better ideas that will compete until the best answer surfaces. If that happens to be a voluntary central system, hey, I'm all for voluntary solutions.
WorBlux Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 I'm not suggesting they aren't cesspools; cesspool isnt even a good enough word to describe these places. What I'm asking is wouldn't they become worse if the state was eliminated? A great solution but wouldn't it be more economically feasible to just abandon cities all together? A few acres of land can often be cheaper than an NYC apartment, not to mention cleaner air and less light pollution. No, http://www.amazon.com/The-Voluntary-City-Community-Society/dp/1598130323 A few acres of land in the middle of nowhere affords far fewer opportunities to ply advance professions and trades, and fewer opportunities of social connection. Sure you could subsistence farm, but that's really, really hard work.
JamesP Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 That's a really good question. There are costs and benefits to making infrastructure more dense and centralized, just as there are to making infrastructure more sparse and spread out. One thing we can be certain of is that there is an awful lot of development that goes on that is driven by the state. I don't know about whether cities will decay and collapse without the government, mostly because cities are decaying and collapsing with the government. It's kind of hard to make the case that things will be worse, especially when cities get worse as you increase coercive government within them.
Mike Fleming Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 I thin people will continue to congregate together in at least relatively large numbers. But I also think there will be natural limits on that. What those will be will depend on the area in large part. I also think with more and more areas of the world becoming developed, if there were less restrictions placed on people moving, I think it is likely that we might end up a bit more spread out. Especially with the dawn of the internet and it's decentralized nature there won't be as much need to stay in a large population centre.
st434u Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 The main method by which the State drives more people into mega urban cities than would otherwise be there is by taxing everyone in the country, and then spending a lot more in the cities. Then in the natural process of people seeking profits and larger incomes, they move into the cities more, chasing all that tax money, often without even noticing it (because there's more money circulating in cities thanks to the State) The State in turn benefits because when people are concentrated in a metropolitan area, it's easier to keep tabs on them, keep them under control, and tax them. I think without the State, cities would definitely still exist, but there would be a lot more people spread out in different towns, etc.
_LiveFree_ Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 Large population centers will still exist but they will mostly be commercial and industrial. Businesses that require large real estate and resources like water and power will want to share the burden of producing those resources with other business. For instance, it would be cheaper to build one large water purification plant that services a district of manufacturers than it would be for each manufacturer to build their own. Lower resource users like residential areas would naturally spread out. So you wouldn't have large sprawling metro areas like NYC, LA, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, etc. There would be very dense commercial areas (but not as large as what we see today), but people would live everywhere else. Think of a black hole in space. Small compared to the size of other celestial objects, but extremely dense. When there is a monopoly on water and power distribution, transportation, land ownership, and civil services like security and fire protection, humans will naturally gravitate toward the location of this monopoly. It's cheaper to do so. Hence, massive ugly sprawling metropolitan areas. Specifically in America, it will last as long as America keeps pointing its guns at other countries. Once the guns are overtly pointed at American citizens, it will no longer be cheap to live in cities and people will flee them. That's when the bill for living this way will come due.
tasmlab Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 In describing theories of chaos/complexity, NYC's food supply chain is often cited as an example of an unplanned system that functions really well. I've heard there's not even four days worth of food on the island at any given point. There are a lot of aspects of large cities that are not centrally planned.
J-William Posted February 15, 2014 Posted February 15, 2014 In describing theories of chaos/complexity, NYC's food supply chain is often cited as an example of an unplanned system that functions really well. I've heard there's not even four days worth of food on the island at any given point. There are a lot of aspects of large cities that are not centrally planned. That's a great point, people starved in the large cities of Russia after the communist revolution because the previously functioning supply chains were broken by state controls on voluntary interactions. The worst part was that the soviets then continued the mass starvation by trying to replicate in a planned violent way what had been working... Anyway, to your point... I think Shanghai is utterly amazing, the average person there is much poorer than the average New Yorker, yet they are still able to get enough to eat, and the whole city is so active... though a bit shitty in many ways. I just imagine if everyone were allowed to trade with others for mutual benefit, in five years it would be the most amazing place.
ribuck Posted February 15, 2014 Posted February 15, 2014 Ayn Rand's first novel, "We The Living", is a compelling story of the decline of the city of St Petersburg after it succumbed to communism. One by one, the mechanisms that maintained the city were extinguished by the state. It'sa very readable novel (and much shorter than her later novels).
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