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Comment Threads

• David L commented on Strong and Stable!
  Still, I wonder if there is a way to make smaller towns workable. Distributed manufacturing and work-from-home could help. (That said, big chunks of the middle of this country just seem miserable to live in.) Speaking as someone who grew up just outside of a middling sized town. Town of 32K. County of 52K. This was as of the 1950, 1960, and 1970 census records. And now it's smaller. And a bigger town is 3+ hour drive at 70mph away. There are 4 larger cities but when I was growing up they were 4 or 5 hours away. Lots of...
• Retiring commented on Strong and Stable!
  Paul Krugman wrote a thoughtful piece on why small cities fall prey to gambler's ruin. And while a big, diversified city can afford a lot of dead ends, a smaller city can’t. Some small cities got lucky repeatedly, and grew big. Others didn’t; and when a city starts out fairly small and specialized, over a long period there will be a substantial chance that it will lose enough coin flips that it effectively loses any reason to exist....
• JohnS commented on Strong and Stable!
  Retiring @ 1705: Paul Krugman wrote a thoughtful piece on why small cities fall prey to gambler's ruin. And while a big, diversified city can afford a lot of dead ends, a smaller city can’t. Some small cities got lucky repeatedly, and grew big. Others didn’t; and when a city starts out fairly small and specialized, over a long period there will be a substantial chance that it will lose enough coin flips that it effectively loses any reason to exist. Raises some interesting questions. The Emily Badger piece he's thinking about prompts me to wonder. If the larger cities...
• Troutwaxer commented on Strong and Stable!
  Essentially it's a matter of prioritizing one of two things; your ideals or your progeny. A better way to express the problem might be to differentiate between culture and genes. Some of us think America lies in the culture, and we believe in fairness, lots of rights for everyone, and as much tolerance as possible. We're the Liberals. Other of us believe that American is somehow genetic. They're the idiots, or to use our polite words, the Conservatives. Relating that back to Krugman's thinking, if you live in a small town you can gamble on making it an enlightened place...
• Damian commented on Strong and Stable!
  I've mentioned the Texan singer/songwriter James McMurtry here before, and I do kinda think his song Copper Canteen talks directly to this sentiment. For general entertainment I'll also leave this here....