Jeffery Tompkins

An underreported aspect of why we can’t just build things like we used to is laborers get paid way more now than they did before. This is a good thing! but also a byproduct of a reduced federal state in lieu of higher wages, courting social costs onto individuals post-Nixon. This was part of a general pivot to neoliberalism hence higher wages but lower social coffee capacity. Folks pushing for higher state capacity should also understand that in the absence of social benefits afforded by higher taxes (and thus lower wages) is a reduced financial capacity for infrastructure and reduced cost feasibility due to way higher labor cost. doing big projects cheaply has become a thing of the past. I assume once someone has higher wages they are less wont to take lower pay, so we should not assume greater state capacity for improvements come from state-backed investments alone. Given the paradigm of higher wages and lower state capacity, I believe the future of things like neighborhood infrastructure improvements is hyperlocal and consists of municipalities letting residents and neighbors crowdfund or source their own investments. we’re seeing this with bus benches, shelters, and tactical urbanism project. the biggest hurdle for cities would be to get out of the way here, allowing incremental improvements to be made while fighting the urge to overregulate or refuse to permit. For example, I like to plant trees in our neighborhood. I also have the ability to pay for nice street trees. assuming I call before I dig and check for ideal spots, I should be able to plant these without hindrance from the city. With the rise of the anti-property tax movement, things like hyperlocal economic improvement districts or BIDs or crowdfunded street trees will be the move.

Every single one of the 15 fastest-growing US major metropolitan areas is in the Sunbelt. All 15 are also in a state Trump won. Only 5 are in swing states. Dallas and Houston added an entire Wyoming's worth of people.

The US lets people sell their blood plasma, creating a multibillion-dollar industry (70% of global supply, 62.5M liters donated, $6.2B in exports) that saves countless lives and gives Americans a safe way to make a little cash (thus reducing their use of payday loans). Cool.