The transistor as seen from 1953; the shifting South Asian monsoon; Noah Smith against NIMBYism; Dan Davies, Ethan Mollick, Daniel Bessner, & Stuart Buck...
I can see why the Stuart Buck piece interested you. Industrial research labs are a part of your recipe for modern economic growth. One of the unintended consequences off breaking up the Bell system in the Eighties was kneecapping Bell Labs. It is an interesting question whether Nokia, Samsung, and TSMC would be as pivotal in telecoms today, if Bell Labs had somehow been preserved as the national treasure it was.
The business at substack about writers being able to limit postings to paid subscribers only has existed since I set up That's Another Fine Mess three years ago. It's how I keep the bullshitters at bay. So this "new" announcement is BS. I'll bet you a year's free subscription to TAFM (which doesn't participate in Notes, since if I wanted to fuck around in Twitter I'd go there, not here) that Substack has done this because Notes has already "gone south" like Twitdom. And their "offer" to let writers "invest" in Substack (at the high price point now, rather than the price the other insiders got) is also bullshit.
Do not trust these Silly Con Valley otherwise-unemployables, whether they are fucking up FleeceBlock, or Twitter or Substack or You Name It, further than you can see any of the little con artists with your eyes closed.
The problem with Noah Smith's views on gentrification is that they are at odds with everyone's experience. He may be right that gentrification doesn't raise rents, though I've yet to see any convincing research on this. The truth is that there are usually other forces involved that raise rents, but those forces result in gentrification and result in people living in an area being priced out. Arguing that umbrellas don't cause rain is correct, but if you see everyone outside walking around with umbrellas up, then the odds are it is raining.
Much of the problem flows from central place theory. Businesses want to locate in areas with suitable resources such as a market for their product, skilled workers, raw goods suppliers and appropriate regulation. Once the nucleus forms, locating one's business elsewhere turns out to be more, not less, expensive. If the business sector is growing for any number of reasons, then rents are going to rise in certain areas for the same reason economic growth causes inflation.
In the short and medium runs, it doesn't matter how much new housing is built. New housing costs more than old housing, and no profit making enterprise is going to build new housing unless it can get suitably higher rents or prices for it. We've seen this in Seattle and Austin, both booming cities with lots of new housing. (Granted, I could only see six operating cranes from my hotel window in Seattle last week, so perhaps things are slowing a bit.)
Smith is a good writer and often insightful, but he is not a particularly good observer. There's a reason people think that luxury development causes high rents. That's what people experience. If a luxury development is going up nearby, you should be reviewing your options rather than waiting for your eviction or non-renewal notice just as surely as you should expect to get deal with rain if you see umbrellas out.
I can see why the Stuart Buck piece interested you. Industrial research labs are a part of your recipe for modern economic growth. One of the unintended consequences off breaking up the Bell system in the Eighties was kneecapping Bell Labs. It is an interesting question whether Nokia, Samsung, and TSMC would be as pivotal in telecoms today, if Bell Labs had somehow been preserved as the national treasure it was.
The business at substack about writers being able to limit postings to paid subscribers only has existed since I set up That's Another Fine Mess three years ago. It's how I keep the bullshitters at bay. So this "new" announcement is BS. I'll bet you a year's free subscription to TAFM (which doesn't participate in Notes, since if I wanted to fuck around in Twitter I'd go there, not here) that Substack has done this because Notes has already "gone south" like Twitdom. And their "offer" to let writers "invest" in Substack (at the high price point now, rather than the price the other insiders got) is also bullshit.
Do not trust these Silly Con Valley otherwise-unemployables, whether they are fucking up FleeceBlock, or Twitter or Substack or You Name It, further than you can see any of the little con artists with your eyes closed.
The problem with Noah Smith's views on gentrification is that they are at odds with everyone's experience. He may be right that gentrification doesn't raise rents, though I've yet to see any convincing research on this. The truth is that there are usually other forces involved that raise rents, but those forces result in gentrification and result in people living in an area being priced out. Arguing that umbrellas don't cause rain is correct, but if you see everyone outside walking around with umbrellas up, then the odds are it is raining.
Much of the problem flows from central place theory. Businesses want to locate in areas with suitable resources such as a market for their product, skilled workers, raw goods suppliers and appropriate regulation. Once the nucleus forms, locating one's business elsewhere turns out to be more, not less, expensive. If the business sector is growing for any number of reasons, then rents are going to rise in certain areas for the same reason economic growth causes inflation.
In the short and medium runs, it doesn't matter how much new housing is built. New housing costs more than old housing, and no profit making enterprise is going to build new housing unless it can get suitably higher rents or prices for it. We've seen this in Seattle and Austin, both booming cities with lots of new housing. (Granted, I could only see six operating cranes from my hotel window in Seattle last week, so perhaps things are slowing a bit.)
Smith is a good writer and often insightful, but he is not a particularly good observer. There's a reason people think that luxury development causes high rents. That's what people experience. If a luxury development is going up nearby, you should be reviewing your options rather than waiting for your eviction or non-renewal notice just as surely as you should expect to get deal with rain if you see umbrellas out.