View Single Post
Old 11-25-2014, 12:06 PM   #22 (permalink)
niky
Master EcoModder
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Philippines
Posts: 2,173
Thanks: 1,739
Thanked 589 Times in 401 Posts
RE: Land:

In monetary terms, given the huge difference in land prices between urban areas and extra-urban areas... a lot of poor, landless people in the cities out here in the third world actually do make enough every year to buy land in rural areas.

They don't, because rural land is worthless. Farming on a small scale does not bring you enough money to afford the trappings of modern life, or the ability to afford modern health care and other amenities.

-

Shocking to you, those images may be... but guess what? Our governments relocate those urban poor back to the provinces... give them plots of land to till and hoe... and within a year, they're back in the city, picking through garbage, living in shanties and begging on the streets.

Why?

Because picking trash for recycling pays much more money than harvesting rice. And it pays faster, too.

Because they don't want to live the idyllic lifestyle of loincloth-clad rainforest tribesmen who die in their twenties and thirties.

And because they've been there, done that, and, as bad as life on the urban fringe may be, their alternatives are much worse.

-

This is NOT to say that their living situation is anywhere close to ideal or even acceptable.

This is to say that they find themselves in this niche of human ecology simply because this horrible environment can actually support life, so people migrate to it to live.

Quote:
Originally Posted by basjoos View Post
The original designation of "worlds"

1st world - developed capitalist countries
2nd world - developed communist (socialist) countries
3rd world - undeveloped countries no matter what form their government is.
Developed socialist country? Well, that does accurately describe the United States, right?

Last edited by niky; 11-25-2014 at 12:14 PM..
  Reply With Quote