> Oh, and hand-wringing about changing demographics and culture is not helping. Change happens. Integration is necessary.
Culture matters to a lot of people. Why do you like one town versus another? Maybe the weather, maybe the jobs, but probably also because of the people, the shops, the architecture, the parks, etc. The later are all a function of culture.
Some of the most unique cities are ones with a strong identity. If you take an agricultural town with lots of great festivals, open space and farm to table restaurants and basically make it an affordable housing suburb for the nearby big cities, it's not an easy win/win. You'll need to take that open space and popup some fast food restaurants to feed the demand. Something is lost culturally in that process and it's worth examining rather than saying it's inevitable or necessary.
Culture is made of and by people, and when those people are spending four hours in their cars every day getting to and from work or working themselves to the bone with multiple jobs just to afford a place to live, you're going to have a whole lot less of it.
Fetishizing yesterday's culture is a poor substitute.
Culture matters to a lot of people. Why do you like one town versus another? Maybe the weather, maybe the jobs, but probably also because of the people, the shops, the architecture, the parks, etc. The later are all a function of culture.
Some of the most unique cities are ones with a strong identity. If you take an agricultural town with lots of great festivals, open space and farm to table restaurants and basically make it an affordable housing suburb for the nearby big cities, it's not an easy win/win. You'll need to take that open space and popup some fast food restaurants to feed the demand. Something is lost culturally in that process and it's worth examining rather than saying it's inevitable or necessary.