Republicans and Democrats say they will help the economy in different ways. Republicans say that they will reduce taxes and decrease government regulations, while Democrats say they will increase taxes for the wealthy. However, this article says that we should focus more on what is happening in the cities than increasing or decreasing taxes to grow the economy. Metro areas in the U.S. hold 83 percent of the population and the 100 largest metro areas hold 69 percent of all jobs and are responsible for three-quarters of the nation's GDP. If we want to grow our economy, we should start looking into our cities and their productivity. How do we do this? According to case studies, we should look to encourage cities to become bigger and more dense. Looking into transport, if more people lived closer and in the city, transportation on the mass transit systems would increase, saving people from driving into the city. This would increase the productivity of the transit systems, as well as reducing travel times, fuel consumption and road accidents. We can also look at technology, and how this could also change the transportation and many other things to help the cities be more productive. The author was reinforced with this idea after he saw a route map of a low income worker in Atlanta, who takes a two hour journey to work that has 118 bus stops and a nine-minute train ride.
Does this sound like a realistic idea for the future?
Does this sound like a realistic idea for the future?
I agree with this article! Almost all the things we discussed in class pertaining to increasing standard of living can be tried out in the city. Improved infrastructure(like you mentioned above), allocation of capital, building human capital can all be executed in a city. It makes sense to begin with the city because it has such a high concentration of people.
ReplyDeleteImproved infrastructure is long overdue in the US. This will help improve productivity and will put more people to work, which can help with wages. During the recent political debates, many candidates have brought up spending plans that will be used to improve infrastructure. It will be interesting to see how the next President responds and what he/she will do in order to improve the current state of infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteProductivity is one of the most important features in increasing income as we learned in class, so improving infrastructure in cities is probably key in solving problems of lower productivity due to transportation inefficiency (i.e traffic jams, faulty roads).
ReplyDeleteA more stable infrastructure is incredibly important, however unrealistic. American's are very content with having a lot of room, that's why hummers and mansions exist. For that matter that's why suburbs exist, we left the city in pursuit of the American dream. I don't imagine us changing for efficiency's sake.
ReplyDeleteA more stable infrastructure is incredibly important, however unrealistic. American's are very content with having a lot of room, that's why hummers and mansions exist. For that matter that's why suburbs exist, we left the city in pursuit of the American dream. I don't imagine us changing for efficiency's sake.
ReplyDeleteI believe this does sound like a realistic idea for the future. A good portion of the current economic plans from Presidential nominees focus on taxes, which seems to me like a temporary bandaid. However, actually aiming to increase productivity and efficiency in the main powerhouses of this country (large urban communities) can provide sustained growth for the future and allows us to actually grow the economy, rather than just making it seem like it's growing. More people should be talking about ideas like this rather than temporary fixes to a problem which reemerges every decade.
ReplyDeleteSince I live in Atlanta I hear about the rumors all the time, my father works in the city and instead of dealing with the traffic he uses MARTA the train service provided, he also works for the EPA so he is trying to stay eco-friendly
ReplyDeleteSince I live in Atlanta I hear about the rumors all the time, my father works in the city and instead of dealing with the traffic he uses MARTA the train service provided, he also works for the EPA so he is trying to stay eco-friendly
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