Comment by aurizon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aurizon | Hacker News Reader

This is a complex problem rooted in the inexorable rise in property values that required 2 working to maintain a household by rent or purchase. In addition, automated food gathering and preparation in fast food style meant that there was not much of a saving by making your own meals at home. People grabbed takeout to save $$ as well as time. We see delivered food, ready to cook at home is dying - defeated by delivered take out food - it has tried and failed to get much traction. Now we have fast food container based takeout becoiming a run away success. 100 containers, parked in industrial areas, all over the place, equipped with food preparation and coooking gear and 50,000 foam plastic takeout clamshels all cooking the same menu, internet connected, orders accrue and are filled by the closest container. A mix of delivered and picked up food. No cash transactions - all debit or card based = nothing to rob and containers have good security. All driven by economics, customers as well as cookers are happy. The only problem is ease of new entries so there are so many container kitchens that many starve. Locals can limit numbers with the right laws.

> This is a complex problem rooted in the inexorable rise in property values that required 2 working to maintain a household by rent or purchase.

Inexorable? Various cities have managed to prevent this phenomenon. Zoning is the root of the issue, but now everyone views their house as their primary investment and they'll fight to protect the eye-popping growth they've seen in their property value.

It's inexorable due to increasing urbanization.

More people want to live next to more people.

No. Many people want to live somewhere they can get decent Internet connectivity and public services, and probably also some job they can survive off of.

Neither are present in many rural areas and the amount of investment needed especially for infra to catch up is enormous - too much for governments facing a tax competition to rock bottom.

IDK about what level of "public services" are needed, but rural or rural-ish locations often have broadband connectivity, and are arguable easier to earn a living wage due to the low cost of living.

I lived in Provo (college town, 50 miles south of Salt Lake City) a few years ago. Had Google Fiber, lots of jobs, and houses for <$200k.

People want to live next to other people.

I grew up in Orem. Provo is not small or an example of most rural towns. Provo is incredibly progressive given the local church culture and university. I live in rural Iowa and broadband internet and the issue of low-education and long standing segregation have caused exactly the same issues of a depressed economy in our 5,000 people community. The laws of small numbers make it very difficult to succeed in big numbers capitalism.

Unless it's immediately adjacent to other communities, 5,000 total population is indeed very rural. I've also lived in Belfair, WA which is <4,000 and isolated. [1].

The fiftieth largest high school stadium in Texas seats more than 2x that number. [2]

Yellowstone National Park staffs that many people during the summer. [3]

So, yeah, that's small.

I understand why actually rural communities are popular for only a few people. But there's a lot that available between 10 people/sqmi farmland and NY/LA/DC/SF/Chicago metro area. Yet, big cities are still exploding. Because people like them.

[1] https://suburbanstats.org/population/washington/how-many-peo...

[2] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-high-school-...

[3] https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/parkfacts.htm

  the amount of investment needed especially for infra to catch up is enormous

Only if you see hardwire (e.g.fiber) as necessary. 4+G provides sufficient speeds now.

Much of the third world skipped ISDN/DSL/etc and went straight to mobile for data.

5G maybe, I can still see and feel the latency issues on German Telekom LTE network.

Any 4G/5G tower worth its salt requires digging for a fiber uplink, and that "long haul" is the expensive thing. The difference between linking up a cell tower and a village is not much.

So allow for greater density.

Yes, the selfish nature of man at it's worst...

If you don't want junk food, you can enjoy simple healthy meals at home for cheaper than delivery. Even if you get your groceries delivered. But people like junk food

This.

In addition, I often see people propagate the myth that eating healthy costs more, which couldn't be further from the truth.

The reality is that meal preparation and home cooked meals from basic ingredients are some of the healthiest things people can eat, assuming they understand basic concepts such as macro-nutrients and how they relate to body composition.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com