It’s funny how as we increase a nations gdp, and general wealth, we commodify everything. day care, dog walkers, psychical activity, etc and then we have to go back and do all this market research and artificially recreate what was holistic about the more rural way of life.
It does and it doesn't. Walking a mile used to be nothing. Now it's a social status signifier, being able to afford to be able to use your own legs to go places. Even at that, most who do probably still spend more time paying to go to some gym.
True. I grew up in the country, along a busy road. I never walked or biked anywhere, and it was very isolating. Moving to a city that had quiet residential streets, wide sidewalks, and actual bike paths was a game changer for me.
I wonder how much damage that did to me, to have that lack of physical activity during my formative years.
It's not like those things weren't all getting done before. They just didn't generate commerce and didn't generate GDP. GDP goes up because of commodifying all those things. It's not clear if it's actually more efficient this way though.
GDP doesn't represent much about output so much as how much money people pay for what outputs. It follows directly from this that if you want to increase GDP, you start commodifying activities that previously were not measured in economic terms, e.g. childcare, art, etc.
I live in the most urban environment that exists in my country and get significantly more physical activity than the car-dependent rural dwellers in my family. As it is, I am almost 40 and have never owned a car, cities are great.
It’s funny how in a society everything gets commodified to the point of commodifying what you previously got (for free) as a side-effect of the typical lifestyle? I don’t think that’s “funny” as in ironic or puzzling—I think it’s entirely freaking predictable.
Be right back. I just have to look for a completely quiet treadmill for the open office where I spend my life.
I’d like to see a study like this for young kids. Anecdotally, I ran through the woods until I went to college and stress about the urban life I’m providing for my kids
It might depend on what you mean by urban. Are there a lot of places your kids can walk to from your residence? I'm thinking of schools, parks, stores, etc. or are you in a place where they really have to be driven everywhere?
This is broken at the top and bottom. Your elected representatives don't know that a bicycle network even exists. Safer roads for cars are their only transportation priority.
I'm confused. Usually a "natural experiment" is a chance event that affects some random subset of a population. Here, they seem to be using "natural experiment" to refer to the event that someone decides to move to a different city. But obviously the subset of people in Amarilllo, TX who decide to move to New York, NY are going to be somewhat different than the subset who don't. So isn't this confounded?
It's really strange that they just jump into the paper and keep saying "natural experiment" over and over again without any justification that they actually have one. They do eventually get to this in the "Selection effects in relocation and mobile app usage" section, but I think they really downplay the seriousness of the issue.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 25.5 ms ] threadThere really is no free lunch!
I wonder how much damage that did to me, to have that lack of physical activity during my formative years.
Be right back. I just have to look for a completely quiet treadmill for the open office where I spend my life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bicycle_Route_Sy...
It's really strange that they just jump into the paper and keep saying "natural experiment" over and over again without any justification that they actually have one. They do eventually get to this in the "Selection effects in relocation and mobile app usage" section, but I think they really downplay the seriousness of the issue.