quick question wrote:
Rural2urban wrote:
This guy has it totally wrong. I grew up in a town of 200 people. High school class of 45. The entire county didn't have a stoplight or franchise. Currently, I live in a metro of 6ish million.
I can definitely say city people are boring. They are all too specialized and afraid to not be perfect. Plus, everything in Cities takes 2-3 times as long to get done so they can't physically be involved in as many activities, get as much done, or have as diverse experience.
American cities, save but a few, are all terrible drosscapes of car centric urbanism. This makes everybody act like they have no time and are always rushed because they are all terrified of the amount of time consumed to travel from one thing to the next. This creates a false sense of speed/intellectualism.
Few city people accomplish the same as rural residents. For example, my father ran a business, was a fire fighter, managed a farm, member of a dozen community organizations that met regularly, and was home for dinner nearly every night. Plus in his spare time was a scout leader, blacksmithed, and helped run his father's business. That's not possible in a city.
Why are salaries higher in urban centers if the people there are so much less productive?
I think the guy you're responding to was referring to overall productive lives, not job productivity.
First of all, jobs in the city are going to require working 10-12 hours per day rather than the normal 8.
Second of all, they require a commute even if you live in the city. In my city, if you live 3 miles from work the bus ride will be 30 minutes on average. And that's the ride itself. The time it takes you to
(i) Ride the elevator down the main floor of your apartment
(ii) Walk to the bus stop
(iii) Wait for the bus (which almost never comes on time)
(iv) Board the crowded bus
(v) Ride the bus to the bus stop closest to work
(vi) Unboard the bus
(vii) Walk from the bus stop to your work's building
(viii) Walk from the entrance of your work's building to your office
will be more like 60 minutes. One way. So that's 2 hours of commuting every day.
Already, that's 12-14 hours per day centered around work. You're either going to have to sacrifice on sleep or sacrifice on doing things outside of work.
Are salaries higher on average? Not necessarily. In my parents' blue collar town, the median household income is $77k while in my city the median household income is $70k. The respective median home prices are $200k versus $700k. The median home in my city is a shanty. Think about that.