The future is dense, walkable cities.

[TrailerHitch]

A whole house for $500k!?

Condos in my urban neighborhood start at $1,000,000. Houses are $2-4M and we’re not even in the fancy part of LA.

Housing in LA is stupidly expensive.

2500 square feet raised ranch with a full basement. 32x30 pole barn. 6 acres of land, some wooded, and some just let to go back wild for the bees, butterflies, and other creepy crawlies.

 

[TrailerHitch]

Your home price dick is definitely bigger than his.

With no more square feet and less land and the added bonuses of overcrowding, high crime and smog.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Housing in LA is stupidly expensive.

2500 square feet raised ranch with a full basement. 32x30 pole barn. 6 acres of land, some wooded, and some just let to go back wild for the bees, butterflies, and other creepy crawlies.

I can walk to buy fresh sushi or wagyu filet mignon.

 

[TrailerHitch]

I can walk to buy fresh sushi or wagyu filet mignon.

I can walk out to my orchard and pick fresh peaches, cherries and apples. Or my garden and pick tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and more. Just down the road are free range eggs for $3 a dozen. I can buy 1/4 Angus beef or a full pig locally raised.

I don't eat sushi and never had wagyu beef so I'm not missing anything.

 

[Chernosoth]

Most college towns will lose their colleges and return to previous small town status, but with college infrastructure. And then later they'll repopulate as people move out of cities to be closer to farms, if the towns are in sustainable farming areas.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

L.A. is getting a new rapid transit corridor!

They’re putting in dedicated bus lanes along Vermont for the 2028 Olympics. Eventually it will probably turn into light rail to tie into the existing rail network.

 

[TrailerHitch]

L.A. is getting a new rapid transit corridor!

They’re putting in dedicated bus lanes along Vermont for the 2028 Olympics. Eventually it will probably turn into light rail to tie into the existing rail network.

Perhaps that will actually be built instead of lining corrupt politicians pockets like the other amazing California rail project.

 

[Chernosoth]

Home prices are insanely high now in suburbs and cities. LA condo buyers spend millions on crap. And then whooosh, whole neighborhoods burn down. My home's value more than quadrupled in 16 years. It didn't become 4 times better. It's well built, but still showing its age. New construction is even more expensive, for shinier but much crappier houses with all kinds of shortcuts under the shine. When all that crap falls down and we don't have the resources to rebuild that much, what's left standing will be more crowded.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Perhaps that will actually be built instead of lining corrupt politicians pockets like the other amazing California rail project.

The D Line subway extension is on track for its 2028 completion date.

Ride the D!

 

[dmallord]

I can walk to buy fresh sushi or wagyu filet mignon.

Those ain’t ‘merican foods, Bubba. Fresh fried Perch or slow simmered pot roast with ‘tators, carrots, and some beef broth maybe try walkin’ for some ah that?

I knew a girl named Sue or maybe it ws a guy? Don’t recall one name Sue she.

And… don’t 'go waggin’ u' finger back at me, sugar… I’m just messin’ here.

Eat what you want… I’lll take Sue for .

 

[Chernosoth]

Does anyone have a list of which cities have walkable futures? I see many that will be vastly reduced or abandoned, for various reasons: lack of water, polluted water, rising sea level, etc. Many cities grew during the car age with car-centric urban planning. They are basically suburbs within city limits. Electricity will become too expensive for air conditioning. Southern cities can't keep their current populations without AC.
The cities that survive are likely to be on the Great Lakes and major rivers, particularly the Ohio and Mississippi.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Those ain’t ‘merican foods, Bubba. Fresh fried Perch or slow simmered pot roast with ‘tators, carrots, and some beef broth maybe try walkin’ for some ah that?

I knew a girl named Sue or maybe it ws a guy? Don’t recall one name Sue she.

And… don’t 'go waggin’ u' finger back at me, sugar… I’m just messin’ here.

Eat what you want… I’lll take Sue for .

If I want pot roast with potatoes and carrots I’ll make it at home!

I’ll just walk to the Persian market for the veggies and get the pot roast from the kosher butcher. Fresh baked bread from the bakery up the street.

Or maybe I’ll walk to the Japanese market and buy ingredients for a Japanese curry. While I’m there I can pick up a cheesecake next door for dessert, or fresh cream puffs.

There’s also the three burger joints and the two taco stands. The two ramen shops. The three Chinese restaurants.

Unfortunately our deli closed so I have to drive if I want pastrami, rye bread or kreplach.

 

[TrailerHitch]

The D Line subway extension is on track for its 2028 completion date.

Ride the D!

Not one foot of track has been laid for newscum's high speed rail. That has now exceeded $100 billion in costs.

 

[Chernosoth]

I can walk to buy fresh sushi or wagyu filet mignon.

Fat and muscle are separate tissues because they do separate jobs. Marbled fat indicates a cow with very poor fitness. Maintaining that poor fitness is very labor intensive. Wagyu beef looks likely to disappear with cars and other luxuries of the industrial age. We can achieve the same taste of fat mixed in with the meat by grinding the meat. We can have wagyu sausage and burgers for a tiny percentage of the labor of raising wagyu cattle. With milkshakes.

 

[TrailerHitch]

Fat and muscle are separate tissues because they do separate jobs. Marbled fat indicates a cow with very poor fitness. Maintaining that poor fitness is very labor intensive. Wagyu beef looks likely to disappear with cars and other luxuries of the industrial age. We can achieve the same taste of fat mixed in with the meat by grinding the meat. We can have wagyu sausage and burgers for a tiny percentage of the labor of raising wagyu cattle. With milkshakes.

Oh my GOD!!! Did you just call out BSG for her snootiness about wagyu beef?

 

[RoryN]

Oh my GOD!!! Did you just call out BSG for her snootiness about wagyu beef?

^^^
BSGDS case = severe.

 

[Chernosoth]

Oh my GOD!!! Did you just call out BSG for her snootiness about wagyu beef?

Her situation is worse than snootiness. Much of what she wants is necessary and inevitable, but she can't see beyond the partisan version of what she wants. There are conclusions she could easily reach if she steps outside her echo chamber. That probably won't happen until the echo chamber becomes ashes. When she realizes she should have left California, she may be far too late.

 

[TrailerHitch]

Her situation is worse than snootiness. Much of what she wants is necessary and inevitable, but she can't see beyond the partisan version of what she wants. There are conclusions she could easily reach if she steps outside her echo chamber. That probably won't happen until the echo chamber becomes ashes. When she realizes she should have left California, she may be far too late.

I agree that her staunch partisan view blocks any other opinion.

As for California it is no longer on my list for even a visit. It is a clear example of what corruption and lunatic liberal policies create.

 

[MajorRewrite]

That probably won't happen until the echo chamber becomes ashes.

The Dystopian Lunatic is afraid of his own shadow, so for the last 10 years he’s been predicting the world will end in two weeks.

 

[Chernosoth]

The Dystopian Lunatic is afraid of his own shadow, so for the last 10 years he’s been predicting the world will end in two weeks.

You're stuck in a false dichotomy of eternal progress or instant doom. You fail to see what is happening in the world as thoroughly as you fail to comprehend my posts.

The whole West Coast is in economic decline, with climate change delivering an extra steeltoed boot in the ribs. The situation is better in other parts of the US. Texas is booming, so it will probably go the California route of decline in 20 years. The Rust Belt is probably starting a longer and slower period of recovery. Tennessee could be anywhere on a spectrum between those possibilities.

 

[MajorRewrite]

The whole West Coast is in economic decline

It’s not. Try again, Dystopian Loon.

 

[TrailerHitch]

It’s not. Try again, Dystopian Loon.

I would tend to disagree with the major corporations and oil companies abandoning california.

 

[MajorRewrite]

I would tend to disagree with the major corporations and oil companies abandoning california.

Bluster isn’t the same thing as facts. Show us some data proving that the economy of the “whole West Coast” is in decline.

For the record, the economies of California, Oregon and Washington are growing, as they have forever.

 

[AnomalyLady]

Bluster isn’t the same thing as facts. Show us some data proving that the economy of the “whole West Coast” is in decline.

For the record, the economies of California, Oregon and Washington are growing, as they have forever.

I looked this up on Copilot. The data centers do not make up as much of the GDP growth I expected in those 3 states.

What percentage of GDP growth is data centers?​

No state publishes a clean “data centers as % of GDP growth” figure. But we can infer:

California​

• GDP ≈ $3.9 trillion.
• Data centers contribute billions, not tens of billions.
• Likely well under 1% of total GDP, but growing fast.

Washington​

• GDP ≈ $700 billion.
• Cloud computing (AWS, Azure) is huge, but data centers alone are a small subset.
• Likely 1–2% of GDP if including hyperscale operations, but still not a primary driver.

Oregon​

• GDP ≈ $320 billion.
• Data centers are proportionally more important than in CA, less than in WA.
• Likely 1% or slightly more of GDP.

These are inferences, not official numbers, because states do not break out “data centers” as a standalone NAICS category.

 

[Chernosoth]

The west coast's decline is in the lives of people living there. Corporate profits can be ignored. Corporations are not people. Small towns all over Oregon are struggling to cope with falling or stagnant income, unemployment, homelessness, and petty crime. The big cities of the west coast are notoriously worse. That could be its own thread. All three states have very high taxes because they are trying to maintain previous levels of bureaucratic staffing while people who can leave are leaving. They must squeeze more money out of the people who haven't left yet. I know because I was there. I will probably go back to visit family this year.