Amazon is ruthless for some product categories, with a lot of competition and thin margins.
For you a healthy margin might be 3$-6$, for others they're happy with 1$... and Amazon puts pressure for cheaper and cheaper prices to make their users happy, but they refuse to cut their margins :P
Have you tried living in the dense cities like Mumbai, India or Manila, Philippines? It's quite clear that with population density, trash output also increases and is harder to manage. By experience, it's not a pleasant way to live or for the environment. It's a lot dirtier.
> Have you tried living in the dense cities like Mumbai, India or Manila, Philippines?
I've lived in Hong Kong, which is a similar order of density, and which I loved; it was a feeling of being vibrantly alive that's hard to duplicate in a more spread-out environment. Also spent a decent amount of time in Mumbai and enjoyed that - though I might not have if I were one of its poorer residents. Would it be worse than being poor in a village? Not sure.
> It's quite clear that with population density, trash output also increases and is harder to manage.
You're saying that 10 people per km2 produce more trash each than 5 people per km2? What's the mechanism at work there? I'd think denser cities means smaller houses and therefore less room for spurious stuff.
And worse for the people who live there. I get anxiety just thinking of living in a dense city. Everyone I know who left a dense city never wants to go back - they talk like people who suffered from Stockholm syndrome and were now freed.
And that doesn't even touch the economics: For the most part cities make money by services and not by physical items. Services are very lucrative, so on paper cities make tons of money. But they don't make anything people need to live.
Virtually every single thing people buy in a city comes from outside the city. It's not a lifestyle that everyone can adopt. For the most part there's a balance, with some living in a city and some rural - but people should be extremely cautious about any kind of policy that can mess with that balance.
First, no one can force you or anyone else to live in a dense urban area. In fact, the denser the urban core the more less dense options right outside the city core for people such as yourself. Second, you are in the minority. Dense cities are dense for a reason: far from being anxiety-provoking, many people find urban areas very desirable place to live.
I left the city for the country and ended up clawing my way back in. Cities, especially dense, walkable ones, are wonderful. Better still if they remove cars.
> Everyone I know who left a dense city never wants to go back
Okay. I don't know who you know but it doesn't sound like the people that I know.
> And worse for the people who live there. I get anxiety just thinking of living in a dense city.
After having lived in some small towns, I get anxiety thinking about not living in a big city. Different strokes. As it turns out, most people in most countries do choose to live in cities.
Lawns are a Veblen good, like Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior handbags. That we don't see them as ostentatious the same way is a matter of culture. By all means, people should live where they want to live; urban, suburban, rural. But let's be honest about things.
Lawns are a place where I play, or my kids play. Or where I go to just sit and enjoy nature. They are also decoration (flower bed for example) to make my surroundings more pleasant which helps my mental state.
If your lawn is a Veblen good you are doing it wrong.
People enjoy their Louis Vuitton handbags, also improving their mental state. So the fact that you enjoy your lawn doesn't make it any less of a luxury good. Not faulting you for having one, we humans like our luxuries. Let's just understand that's what they are. Like BMWs and Rolexes.
That's not what Veblen is. A Veblen is better the higher the price, and that is not correct for lawns. A lawn doesn't get better if the cost of the lawn is higher.
A lawn is better simply for existing, which makes it a standard good.
Veblen is that the demand is higher the higher the price, instead of the opposite, but instead of getting hung up on wether or not it's a Veblen good, my larger point is that lawns are luxuries like BMWs and Rolexes. Nice if you can afford them but recognize that we've normalized being extra in this way.
Obviously. And my opinion is lawns are expensive designer patches of dirt. Like a Rolls Royce or a Bentley. Really nice, and there's a whole industry surrounding them, and a whole lot of culture surrounding having one but ultimately problematic for society if everyone has to have one of their own. Which comes to the part where there are facts. A house with a lawn takes up more space than the exact same home without a lawn. Adding the lawn increases the footprint of a house which increases size and drops population density, which makes services more expensive because things are simply further apart. No one has to agree with my opinion that lawns are a luxury good, but it is very expensive for everyone to think they want one.
>which makes services more expensive because things are simply further apart
So does adding sewer, water and electricity too. And think of all the density we could get if could get rid of inner walls and stuff people together into one room per house? It doesn't make these items "luxury" for most people in the US though.
Having a large expansive lawn with rocky features, rare plants, water features, and fish, while being perfectly manicured attached to an estate is a way better lawn than a 12x20 green rectangle in the front of a suburban home's lot.
My wife and I bought a house a in the suburbs and both of us badly want to move back. So now know someone who left a dense city and wants to go back. Being able to walk places is a luxury we won't overlook again.
Suburbs are the worst of both worlds. Urban areas are super convenient, rural areas are super private, and suburban areas are typically neither.
I grew up in a city, and I am not a city person. I love living in the boonies (I live on an 80-acre farm surrounded by farms and forests that are even larger), and even so, I would rather live in a dense urban area than in the 'burbs.
I currently have a shorter commute to the local shops and supermarket (8 minutes) than many people have in the suburbs. It's hard to imagine giving up privacy for an even worse commute.
I'd say that density is generally a good thing, IMO. The more people live in a place, generally access to things is more convenient, commutes are shorter, etc. Low density generally means sprawl.
Higher density cities are the ecologically least damaging mode of housing and provide more of what makes cities great: more people doing interesting things, more opportunities for interactions, education, access to health care, etc.
Now there are plenty of people who don't want that, but then they don't want to be in an urban environment at all. So I'm not saying it's winning for every person. But on a continuum from ultra-rural to ultra dense I think a graph of "quality of life for residents-by-choice" would be a saddle curve. Less dense cities, and most suburbs (by the US definition) are neither fish nor fowl.
You are right that the bicycle community does itself no favors with some of our behavior. We are working on it. I think the bigger issue I raised was about the Busses.
I am not sure there is anything that can be worked on ...
As a driver who lives in a very popular biking environment (and who has given some careful thought to the issues and has taken his own turns being a biker) I am increasingly convinced that riding a bike and driving a car on the same roads are fundamentally antagonistic behaviors.
I find that unfortunate, but I think it might be the case.
If that's true, then in Manhattan the cars should go. Even as a pedestrian it is frustrating to wait for cars at the end of every short block. I'm not sure how gridlock is helping anyone, they should just ban anything that isn't commercial or a taxi from most of the city. If you want to live in Manhattan and own a car, fine, just don't bring it in.
Yes, there don't seem to be good solutions. I don't want to get run over by a car, or have a car cut in front of me and turn into my path of travel, so sharrow/striped bike lanes aren't great. But in all of the separated bike lanes in NY, you have pedestrians cutting across them at all times, frequently hidden behind cars or behaving in erratic unpredictable manners, so these lanes aren't too good either. Granted, in a separated bike lane I'm more worried about killing a pedestrian that jumps in front of me, and less worried about my own health as I am in a sharrow/striped bike lane.
I think you have some good points in there. I agree that in general i dont like the idea of enforcement as the best solution. Rather good civic planning can make many of these problems go away.
I certainly am physically able to ride around cars etc. But if we want the cities of america to evolve in terms of density etc then we need infrastructure designed so that a grandma on a tricycle feels comfortable enough riding to the store instead of taking a taxi. Its certainly done in other countries.
If there is video evidence of the offence that can be brought to court, is this a concern for you?
If there is a chronic disregard for particular laws due to the fact they cannot be enforced on a large scale by humans, then what do you propose as a solution if we're discarding video surveillance?
> If there is a chronic disregard for particular laws due to the fact they cannot be enforced on a large scale by humans, then what do you propose as a solution if we're discarding video surveillance?
I see your point... cameras everywhere to catch all the non-violent drug offenders then?
