What About A Maximum Occupancy For Cities..?

I've been doing little surveys amongst people i speak to, and this is another concept that seems universally permissible and yet never talked about..

I live near Seattle most of the time.. i've lived in a small town called Carnation since 2002 and seen it go from being a "cow town" to being a "cow town with hundreds of tech-workers moving into housing development within a very short amount of time" and it's getting crazy folks..

The infrastructure around Redmond and Bellevue have somewhat kept up with the rate of growth, but now Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and the rest have a TON of people coming in needing a place to live, and suddenly the rural towns don't seem as far away as they used to..

My point is this: Why has there never been law made around having a "maximum occupancy for cities"..? If you only have a finite system of roads and resources, why do people allow housing developments and dense housing to be stuck in every spare 5 acre lot..? If people want to live in a dense city, that's fine, but at this point it seems like it's spreading like a virus. Traffic is INSANE, even in the rural areas, and honestly the system is probably just going to break within a year if it continues at this rate. My girlfriend and i would love to live out in the area we grew up, but there's no social system for rewarding those who want to stay in an area.. You would think people who contribute and cultivate to a community would be the people we would want to stick around, but it seems to just come down to who has all the green paper with the pictures of the right presidents on it.. this is a societal structure of the insane and it baffles me that certain simple ideas are just left off the map entirely..

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Interesting concept. I like the idea of upgrading infrastructure before allowing X amount of people.

a reply to: HyphenSt1

My point is this: Why has there never been law made around having a "maximum occupancy for cities".

Because cities will never cap themselves from taxing people and things.

Ain't ever going to happen.

More people more taxes.

originally posted by: HyphenSt1
I've been doing little surveys amongst people i speak to, and this is another concept that seems universally permissible and yet never talked about..

I live near Seattle most of the time.. i've lived in a small town called Carnation since 2002 and seen it go from being a "cow town" to being a "cow town with hundreds of tech-workers moving into housing development within a very short amount of time" and it's getting crazy folks..

The infrastructure around Redmond and Bellevue have somewhat kept up with the rate of growth, but now Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and the rest have a TON of people coming in needing a place to live, and suddenly the rural towns don't seem as far away as they used to..

My point is this: Why has there never been law made around having a "maximum occupancy for cities"..? If you only have a finite system of roads and resources, why do people allow housing developments and dense housing to be stuck in every spare 5 acre lot..? If people want to live in a dense city, that's fine, but at this point it seems like it's spreading like a virus. Traffic is INSANE, even in the rural areas, and honestly the system is probably just going to break within a year if it continues at this rate. My girlfriend and i would love to live out in the area we grew up, but there's no social system for rewarding those who want to stay in an area.. You would think people who contribute and cultivate to a community would be the people we would want to stick around, but it seems to just come down to who has all the green paper with the pictures of the right presidents on it.. this is a societal structure of the insane and it baffles me that certain simple ideas are just left off the map entirely..

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You already have that to some degree. It is called the free market. As more people want to move into an area, home values tend to go up especially if the city is geographically limited so that supply cannot exceed demand. At some point, cost get too high and people decide the area isn't worth it and the move elsewhere.

When governments try to artificially restrict growth, they also contribute to high cost of living as well. Take Portland for example. Their anti-growth policies have caused the city to become extremely expensive because development cannot keep up with demand.

a reply to: HyphenSt1

I thought people wanted more freedom, not government restrictions on where we can live. Do we really trust the current political parties to write laws that limit citizens from living in the cities of their choices? I'd imagine that either party would manipulate their "population restriction codes" to limit the demographics that typically vote against them. There's no way that would end well.

Even if we ignore the possibility of politically motivated limits, does this population limit take into account the people who live outside of the cities but commute to work or college? Or take into account tourists? They still use the infrastructure even though they don't live there. Leaders in large cities typically like an influx of new people because of the larger tax base and the new money coming in (incoming investments, entrepreneurs, tourism, etc). The increasing population provides a constant supply of labor for any existing industries, and it typically also increases property values for landlords and property owners.

For example, my Mom bought her current house for less than $90,000 in 1999. But over the last 3-4 years, her subdivision has had a large boost in new residents and in economic development. The houses are now selling for $300,000 and more. Not only is that good for the homeowners and developers, but it's also great for the city because property taxes are increasing like crazy.

originally posted by: HyphenSt1

Why has there never been law made around having a "maximum occupancy for cities"..? If you only have a finite system of roads and resources, why do people allow housing developments and dense housing to be stuck in every spare 5 acre lot..?
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we are a growth based economy, putting limits on growth in a growth based economy means economic destruction......

but its true we cant expect to have rapid growth forever, and its for that reason our economic system has been universally criticized for so long as being a ticking time bomb, eventually the growth will slow and the bubbles will pop.

What would the process be to track people? Do you have any idea how many illegals (undocumented citizens) live in the major cities?

How about having a maximum capacity for a country and send all blah, blah blah.

Cities are the most efficient way for a lot of people to live together. If you spread them all out, the logistics of hauling all the necessary food, water, gas, electricity, building materials, etc., would skyrocket.

Don't worry momma-nature is taking care of that.
Have you seen the new statistics for male fertility?

I've been hounding our geneticists for years to come up with a reversible agent that could do the same.
Looks like creation couldn't wait & is taking matters into it's own hands.

K~

Several cities here in Arizona charge impact fees on every new building permit issued. They can be as high as $5,000 per residential permit and $20,000 for a commercial permit. These are for the impact continued development brings. Things like roads and infrastructure.