Regarding (1), what I disagree about is that people concentrating in high-wage areas would increase productivity or average incomes, because I don’t think the reason wages there are high is mainly because wealth is produced there. My view is that wealth is concentrated there by ownership of assets elsewhere, and sometimes control of deliberately maintained chokepoints (eg Apple’s app store) for other parts of the economy. I do not acknowledge (3) and I’m not sure why you think I do.
The evidence is simple : if companies “close to the money” paying more for services (financial, software, etc) were getting less value per dollar than getting those services elsewhere, over time they will be outcompeted and lose to companies that hire remote workers from cheap areas or on site workers from cheap areas.
That’s like saying “fish don’t have worms because fish without worms would outcompete the ones that have worms”. But in reality, most fish have worms.
Any reforms or fixes need to patch all of capitalism, zoning policy is completely unrelated.
My view is that because of inefficiencies of the current system, the actions of YIMBY activists are counterproductive. I don’t aspire to patch all of capitalism, just to convince some people not to spend their limited efforts on actively making things worse because they imagine an idealized system that’s easier to understand than what exists.
I might point out that in a communist system, the local committees in tier 1 cities refusing to allow enough housing would be replaced. You see what China does in those cities, it’s build build build.
The situation in China is different in more ways than that, so it’s hard to make such direct comparisons.
Regarding (1), what I disagree about is that people concentrating in high-wage areas would increase productivity or average incomes, because I don’t think the reason wages there are high is mainly because wealth is produced there. My view is that wealth is concentrated there by ownership of assets elsewhere, and sometimes control of deliberately maintained chokepoints (eg Apple’s app store) for other parts of the economy. I do not acknowledge (3) and I’m not sure why you think I do.
That’s like saying “fish don’t have worms because fish without worms would outcompete the ones that have worms”. But in reality, most fish have worms.
My view is that because of inefficiencies of the current system, the actions of YIMBY activists are counterproductive. I don’t aspire to patch all of capitalism, just to convince some people not to spend their limited efforts on actively making things worse because they imagine an idealized system that’s easier to understand than what exists.
The situation in China is different in more ways than that, so it’s hard to make such direct comparisons.