The agglomeration effect means people move to jobs, jobs move to people. You build ever more, you attract ever more. Until the agglomeration effect is reversed -people and jobs move to new, empty locations- you will never build enough.
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What an interesting perspective.
aug 26, 2025, 1:34 am • 0 0 • view
Yeah that's the deal. Cities are never "finished."
aug 25, 2025, 5:55 pm • 3 0 • view
No, that is not the deal. When cars were invented and people moved to suburbs, houses in many city centers suddenly became cheap and there were a lot of empty buildings in central locations. That isn't great either but it shows that you can relieve pressure by countering the agglomeration effect.
aug 25, 2025, 6:14 pm • 0 0 • view
And then what happened?
aug 25, 2025, 6:17 pm • 0 0 • view
For a while this went well, the empty city centers gave young people a chance to build a future there until they could afford bigger houses in the suburbs. But then the agglomeration effect catched up because there was not enough investment on the edges of the agglomeration/new locations.
aug 25, 2025, 6:38 pm • 0 0 • view
Okay so what needs to happen now?
aug 25, 2025, 6:40 pm • 0 0 • view
Don't just focus on building more, make sure the center moves to the edge of agglomerations or to entirely new locations. Instead of more and more people fighting for a small expensive place close to the center, make sure there are new centers.
aug 25, 2025, 6:48 pm • 0 0 • view
Why is this preferable to densifying existing cities?
aug 25, 2025, 6:52 pm • 0 0 • view
It is not about building or not building or densifying or not, it is about seeing this trend where villages and cities and entire states and countries are sucked empty by the few most successful centers, where things get extremely crowded and expensive, which is not the optimal outcome.
aug 25, 2025, 10:59 pm • 0 0 • view
Why is that not the optimal outcome?
aug 25, 2025, 11:10 pm • 0 0 • view
I described that earlier.
aug 25, 2025, 11:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Outer edges often need densifying but generally densifying is much slower, the building process is more expensive, it happens on more expensive land, it makes land even more expensive (the paradox: more supply, higher prices) you get more traffic, air pollution, noise, less gardens and green spaces.
aug 25, 2025, 7:02 pm • 0 0 • view
this is the exact reason I hate master planned communities.
aug 25, 2025, 6:28 pm • 2 0 • view