Regarding your last point, back when my political views were "evolving", I had thought about if, instead of handing foreigners diplomas and kicking them out of the country as fast as possible, we should do the opposite: have student visas require that the recipient stay in the US at least five years after graduation, and then fast-track them through the permanent residency -> citizenship pipeline. It made no sense to me why we'd educate someone to get a degree in chemical engineering, possibly from a rival nation, and then send them back to where they came from. We should "brain drain" other countries, not the other way around.

Those foreign students usually pay for the education they receive, they might not be willing to do so (or as much) if there are strings attached. Besides, I don't think any country should aim on brain draining any other country, that kind of selfishness will be counterproductive long-term. Who knows, might be what we're seeing right now (the US self-sabotaging). Karma's a bitch.

I like the idea of incentivizing people to stay, but I don’t know how we could “require” it. I don’t want the U.S. to implement exit visas or egress control.

Maybe this could be done with a different mechanism like an incentive to stay or an escrow deposit that you get back once you’ve met the requirements.

I think a streamlined path to real citizenship would be an incredible incentive for a lot of people.

That seems like a pretty good idea that’s worth trying.

I think the current logic is that foreign students pay the full unsubsidized sticker price, so it’s basically a profitable transaction.

I think the world would be better on the whole if such people returned home and improved their countries. The US cannot brain drain the entire world for its own benefit.

Show me these magical cities where an extra $750/mo in rent lets you both move from the suburbs to downtown, and increase your sq footage!

Certainly! Here’s my source: https://youtu.be/kYLPUsn0X

The top 5 or 10 of these you’re basically getting close to equivalent square footage or better once you replace your vehicle spending with housing spend.

Well, the video isn't available. And it's a big ask to make way out there claims and then expect people to watch whatever that video was to fully understand whether the claims are true or not. This is basically asymmetric warfare in trolling.

"Here's my wild claim, to verify it go spend your time watching a video!"

I saw the video a few days ago. It uses some napkin math but the author does at least use a spreadsheet / toy model to arrive at their conclusions.

Ohhh okay ty "throwaway920102" will take your word for this.

Was trying to be at least a little helpful "irl_zebra", not to suggest the video was sufficient evidence.

Ray is a reasonably well-known current/former professional city planner who does look at data to make his content.

The videos he makes do sometimes use napkin math but in the way a city planner does napkin math - with data.

They also don’t claim to be a comprehensive study and each video is accompanied by a pretty thorough disclaimer on what methods are being used.

Odd and unfortunate that this one was taken down.

Interesting, I have never seen CityNerd take a video down. I’ll summarize it below my next couple of paragraphs.

Criticizing a source for being in video format and therefore taking time to digest is an invalid criticism. If I linked you a scientific study you’d still have to take time to read it to properly evaluate it. Just because a source in video form doesn’t make it not a source, and it’s not asymmetric trolling warfare. I’m literally just providing a source that aligns with my perspective and opinion, and trying to have a good faith discussion.

I will also point out that every YouTube video provides a full automated transcript on the desktop version of YouTube.

The gist of the video was that some selected American cities presented in a “worst to best” list have an interesting effect going on where people who live in suburban car-dependent areas can potentially live in their metro area’s most walkable neighborhoods with rich urban fabric without sacrificing a lot of square feet or potentially even gaining more space in their home by removing the cost of owning a car and putting that into their rent instead. Ray Delahanty, a (former?) professional city planner, ran through some data on this based on median rent in various neighborhoods and an assumed TCO of personal vehicle ownership of around $750 a month. Metro areas like New York City fared poorly but others presented an interesting trade-off potential.

Obviously, it was something of a simplified discussion that doesn’t take into account every life factor that determines whether car ownership is a requirement, but he is a guy who lived without a car in Las Vegas of all places, so I think the general point was to present a thought experiment on what kind of lifestyle you can get if you change your perspective to consider the idea of ditching your car entirely and no longer pay the very high average costs that Americans incur to own, operate, store, and maintain their vehicles.

Seriously, delusional take. I live in Manhattan and I’m considering a move to Westchester (large suburban county just north of NYC). Average cost per sq foot to buy in Manhattan is about $1500, and it’s about $400 in Westchester. That’s before you touch the other differences in cost of living (taxes, childcare, groceries, etc).

Manhattan is not one of those areas, and is actually one of the worst on the list. Mostly this applies to a lot of smaller cities, here’s my source:

https://youtu.be/kYLPUsn0X3E