carapat_virulat

This seems like a very interesting subject but the analysis seems very one-handed. You can't just project like that, remove current regulations and expect the city to remain the same except for all the economical growth. Would people with money actually stay there or would those cities turn into a unbreathable bee-hives from which people would flee as soon as they had any money to do it?

It would be interesting to see comparison inside the same country of cities with harsher versus lighter regulations and how they actually evolve economically and socially. Maybe it's not even possible to remove certain regulations in western cities without committing political suicide and having them removed once the next major comes to power.

Passion is just an easy term to romanticize and build narratives around that makes you feel warm inside when you read about it. Chances are that most of the great programmers you ever meet followed a sensible schedule, slept well at night, didn't disassemble any electronic device in their childhood to see how it worked and lived a pretty average middle class life without any huge sacrifice required to achieve success.

Chances are you won't read about that because it would make for pretty boring stories. Regular, progressive learning doesn't sound as cool as caffeine fueled 4-day programming sprees.

Then again, people with a truly passionate temperament exist, which is usually great to have around and brighten the mood, but doesn't tell much about actual programming skills.