Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

[BRUTE]

So in some way incorporating a sense of responsibility to care for those who cared for you as a youngster and feeling shame if you let them down by not caring back for them seems to be a part of the solution space that works in Eastern civilizations but lacks the same degree of power in urbanized Western Civilization.

and sub-urbanized. brute thinks that space is a legitimate factor here - most families in Asia seem to live very close together. it's not as easy to "escape" from the family as it is in the West. young humans live at home much longer, often until marriage or even after.

[Riggerjack]

@ slow traveler,

We discussed urban efficiencies in forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/viewto ... =13&t=9251

Being closer together causes initial build costs to be lower, but logistics of working around all those people causes maintenance of urban and suburban infrastructure to be much higher. This is perfectly clear if you look at costs and benefits of local government.

But I can only speak to US cities, only having experience in the US.

All of your examples of efficiency were based on cash costs of hiring people to do things for you. This seems more a matter of your arbitrage than urban efficiency, but I don't know enough about it to say one way or the other.