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Comment by anonymous5133 | Hacker News Reader

Agree. I think a better solution is to simply get employers to relocate to locations where land is cheap. People are going to go to where they can get work. If the employers relocate then it has the added benefit of people being able to find work in areas where land is cheap. This also puts pressure off of the dense metropolitan cities.

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People have been gravitating to bigger cities, and one factor that's driving it is two earner households. It used to be that if the husband had to move for a new job, he'd pick up the family and go. This is much less possible than before, since the wife needs to find a job too. If both of them work in specialized occupations, only big cities are likely to have appropriate jobs for both. This makes land in larger cities at an increasingly large premium.

Can you connect the dots for me? Why is the prevalence of two-earner households driving the gravitation towards bigger cities?

Here is one perspective on "why urbanization" - https://graylinegroup.com/urbanization-catalyst-overview/

I thought she put it well enough to understand, but here's another stab at it:

Fifty years ago, if the husband gets a job offer in a town of 10,000 people with one main employer, he'll take it and relocate the family there. It doesn't matter that there's no career prospects for the wife, because she isn't likely to be working in a career job.

Today, the husband (or wife) gets the same job offer, but the family doesn't take it because the other spouse works in public relations (or whatever) and there are no good jobs of that type in the small 1-industry town.

Most of the people who move to cities seem to be single and young when they do. It doesn't seem so much about couples per say - but just individuals in general who want better job mobility.

As I said, it's one factor, and as harmegido said, it creates a movement towards big cities, but probably equally importantly, prevents movement to small cities, since if either partner gets a hot offer in a small town, it's much harder to accept if it means that the other partner's career opportunities are diminished.

Anecdotally, it seems to me that couples, particularly those that have kids are more likely to move outside of cities and accept a longer commute to live in larger or safer homes ore better schools. Not that they move to small cities per say - but it seems they are more likely to do so than single individuals.

That's fascinating and seems to make a lot of sense. Do you know if this theory has ever been followed up with empirical data?

Thanks!

Places where land is cheap have bad transit and low population density. That's both bad for network effects and bad for the environment.

Like Detroit?

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