[trainsarebetter]

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.

There really is no free lunch!

[potato3732842]

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.

[trainsarebetter]

That’s my point really, we just commercialized everything, and introduced a bunch of extra steps. Could argue it enabled us to scale and handle very large amounts of people residing together.

[jerlam]

Rural doesn't mean walkable, unless you mean either pre-automobile or physical jobs.

[jewayne]

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.

[throwanem]

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.

[footy]

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.

[bracketfocus]

That probably means you are an outlier.

One thing I see, is that people in urban environments typically opt-in to exercise (like voluntarily going on a run). Whereas those in more rural areas have more physical demanding jobs and responsibilities.

I’m an urban-based desk jockey who exercises a lot but it doesn’t really compare to my more rurally-based friends who are on their feet working blue collar jobs 5 days a week.

[keybored]

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.

[keybored]

It’s funny how people think history is such a railroaded farce of “more progress more better” that when people get obese due to driving too much then that’s just the oopsie-doopsie irony of progress “backfiring”. No free lunch. I guess it’s easy to sell people on whatever is the status quo when all they can imagine is a straight line either regressing or progressing.

[uoaei]

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.

[abdullahkhalids]

The places that they see people walking the most are places like New York or San Fransisco. In what way are these places rural?