Terrible Idea: Get Us All Into Cities

People are fleeing big cities for…anything but.

That gave city-dwelling Adam Kotsko on Twitter an idea.

“In discussions of reducing car dependency, one often hears, “what about people in remote urban areas?” And my gut is—people shouldn’t be living there in the first place. The solution is to give them generous grants to relocate among other humans.”

Sounds like a cool dude. Knows where people ought to live, wants to rescue them from flyover country, also known as the “District Formerly Represented by Liz Cheney”

Quick question: is there any amount of “grant” that would cause you to move to Chicago? That’s where “writer/teacher/translator” Adam lives.

He goes on:

“But what if they like living in remote rural areas?” Sorry, you can’t always get what you want. A lot of people would like to live in dense, transit-rich settings but can’t—either because they can’t afford it or it simply doesn’t exist where they are”.

Later he admits that all this Maoist relocation stuff may sound “harsh”. No, it sounds dumb.

I feel like you have to use your “reading to kindergarten” voice here: if everyone lived in cities, what…would…we…eat? Anyone? Raise your hand!

All Adam’s num-nums like soy milk, edamame and the like come from rural.

Or are we going to stop eating, along with all of the other freedoms that seem to chafe these pajama boys?

Seriously, does he think his foodstuffs just come from Favor or Uber Eats? It’s like when you ask a toddler where eggs come from and he says, “the store”.

(Here’s an alternative idea.

If cars are the problem, you could ban them in cities. Or, as Kotsko would say, in “dense, transit-rich settings”. Why do they need their Beemers and Priuses, when there’s buses, rail, food delivery, walkable shopping? Let’s get his car off the road, and let you keep yours. NO, I don’t want to do this, but aren’t those the cars hardest to justify, by his measure?)

Needless to say, he got blasted in the Twitterverse, and didn’t like it. To be fair, though, we were a mostly rural country for the first roughly 150 years, and have been majority urban for about the last 100, give or take. Things like the Electoral College and equal-apportionment of Senators exist because the framers knew there’d be tension and conflict based on where, and how, Americans lived.

Historically, the whole reason we went “to town” was for a better life, and now, that’s why we’re leaving. The “alabaster cities” that drew people in the past have become dystopian hellholes, governed by Adam Kotsko-approved liberals who only want to police pronouns, not crime.

The migration of the American peoples over 250 years is a story of fascinating and mostly rational decision-making.

That’s one of many good reasons we don’t forcibly or coercively  relocate people.

Americans know what they’re doing.

This post was edited after a reader perceptively pointed out that, while I had labeled Adam Kotsko a “neoliberal” from a cursory read of his Twitter bio, he actually opposes “neoliberalism”. So, instead I’ll just go with his idea is Maoist, elitist and terrible.