Some places have been rich elite enclaves and other places ghettoes for pretty much the whole history of human civilization; its pretty clearly already the case now (and not just between widely geographically separated areas like San Francisco and Grover, NC; its true within cities like San Francisco -- or any other city of substantial size anywhere in the world.)
A flat national BI doesn't create that problem, it just fails to completely eradicate it (it likely does reduce it by reducing overall income inequality, so, as far as the issue is even relevant, its one in favor of adopting BI, not against it.)
People move to cheaper parts of the country all the time, to fit their budget. I don't know why this would be any different.
If you want to live some place forever, buy the property. Buying and renting each have risks. Buying risks that you will lose your initial capital, but you get to live there. Renting risks that you might have to leave the property, but the landlord absorbs the risks of the property value declining.
We can't really have effective policy if someone experiencing some kind of risk vetoes it.
If I live in a mansion in that Grover, NC, would you say that my expenses were high so I deserve more basic income?
High prices are the market telling you to consider looking someplace else to live.
This is how the good ideas of progressive intellectuals get destroyed: other progressives want to weigh them down with all sorts of other social engineering baggage. (Conservative intellectuals have good ideas that get destroyed by other conservatives, too.)
Those kinds of decisions alienate voters and, as a result, are desperately avoided by congress critters.
Good hack.
>> some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic income ghettos.
This is basically the direction we're already headed in already.
> This is basically the direction we're already headed in already.
A flat basic income would make this better not worse, as there would be more money available serving the needs of people in these poorer areas.
The people living primarily off BI (that is "the poor") would likely continue to be segregated, to a certain degree, both physically and socially from those more well-off. But that's not an effect of BI, that's true of the poor now and basically for all of human history.
The net result will probably be higher costs of living everywhere, but in the US there is so much space that the effect is diluted.
Add to that the ability to grow food for oneself, and I bet we see lots of people move somewhere they can rent a home with a large garden, and turn their basic income into a small scale farm with extra earned income at local farmers markets. As that money moves around in a community, even if %40 of every pay cycle is extracted by walmart, the local economy has people who have time to build small bussinesses. Now a mom and pop store doesn't have to support the family, it just has to pay the rent on the store and bring in enough extra money and or good will/personal satisfaction that mom and pop keep it running.
"Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is enough to live comfortably on"
would mean a different value in San Francisco than in Grover, NC.
If the government adjusted the basic income to account for regional cost-of-living, I imagine it would be popular to maintain a fake residency in an expensive area while actually living somewhere cheaper.
If the basic income wasn't adjusted for different areas, you would probably see some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic income ghettos.