Re:Shanghai sets population at 25M
by nawitus on Tuesday December 26, 2017 @05:08AM
(#16007967)
As long as people are migrating, people are voting with their wallets that a city "crumbling under poor infrastructure" etc. is better than whatever place they're migrating from.
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Re:Shanghai sets population at 25M
by Al-Khwarizmi on Tuesday December 26, 2017 @05:20AM
(#16007997)
It's better for them individually, and under the current conditions. That doesn't mean that changing the conditions (e.g. by some measure that reduces population of the largest cities) cannot bring a situation where the average person ends up better. In ML terms, the local gradient may be leading you to a local optimum.
By the way, individual people aren't good at all at evaluating invisible, long-term costs like that of pollution and its health risks.
But people already in that city can't vote with their wallets to stop the immigration.
They can vote by moving to another place?
Or they can vote in government that would put population cap...
Maybe. But that would mean people with lower standards replace people with higher standards. I don't think it's the right direction.
people are voting with their wallets that a city "crumbling under poor infrastructure" etc. is better than whatever place they're migrating from
I don't think that's true, because of imperfect information. A person living in a remote rural location may believe that they can can have a better life in a city, then make the journey at a high price (relative to their own resources) then arrive and find that it's not what they expected and they have no way to get home. I will wager a significant proportion of those impacted by this policy fall into that category.