Worldbuilding Realism Consultation Thread Mk. 4

[Costa Fierro]

With regards to Tel Aviv and Ramallah, I think it's mainly where foreign embassies are located, not government offices. The Israeli Parliament is not that far outside of Jerusalem.

[Taviana SSR]

How to create incentives to keep people from moving from the villages to big cities, thereby creating a housing shortage?

(Other than building more houses in the big cities and forcing them to stay rural)

[The Akasha Colony]

How to create incentives to keep people from moving from the villages to big cities, thereby creating a housing shortage?

(Other than building more houses in the big cities and forcing them to stay rural)

Jobs are the biggest reason why people move to cities. Because cities have much greater job availability and a broader diversity of jobs. There's not much you can do in a village, basically just farm and maybe operate the local general store or supermarket.

There isn't much that can be done about this though. You can't create the same diversity of jobs in the countryside without turning those villages into cities themselves.

Housing shortages are hardly the major issue though.

[Gallia-]

How to create incentives to keep people from moving from the villages to big cities, thereby creating a housing shortage?

Require internal passports and visas for movement. Deny anyone with a peasant background for jobs or labour positions in cities. Bar anyone who employs peasants with passport issued after a certain date from membershpi in the Communist party and have the police bust up factories that use peasant labour. Arrest factory managers who disobey this for being capitalist roaders and have them prepare a self-criticism before being shipped to labour camps for laogai. Execute the most egregious offenders by guillotine.

So basically Operation Wetback with more red dye.

[Crookfur]

How to create incentives to keep people from moving from the villages to big cities, thereby creating a housing shortage?

(Other than building more houses in the big cities and forcing them to stay rural)

You could invest heavily in rural transport and communications infrastructure and attempt to use incentives for creating businesses in rural areas to drive job growth.

From what folks have seen in remote parts of the UK this does have a limited success rate in stabilising rural populations although the main beneficiaries are middle class types who have been successful in the cities and/or have already established skills that can be used from anywhere digitally connected. Such types do create jobs in the areas they escape to but these tend to be few in number and limited to service level work that doesn't pay enough to buy a house in the rural property market that the escapees have over heated.

[Kazarogkai]

How to create incentives to keep people from moving from the villages to big cities, thereby creating a housing shortage?

(Other than building more houses in the big cities and forcing them to stay rural)

One potential way is via the creation of factories within said rural regions. Each village gets it's own factory which may or may not be government owned, though a cooperative could work. Said factory should be able to employ the majority of people within said village thereby creating an economic reason to stay. Mix that in with support for small businesses to prevent the destruction wrought by the likes of Walmart on mom and pop stores resulting in the gutting of main street and rural infrastructure projects and you got yourself a plan. People want foremost security and good pay. Everything else is auxiliary. "Diversity of jobs" is at the bottom of the heat except gay ass millennials I guess.
'
That or you could do the Khmer rouge route of depopulating the cities and turning everyone into "old men" so to speak.

[The Akasha Colony]

One potential way is via the creation of factories within said rural regions. Each village gets it's own factory which may or may not be government owned, though a cooperative could work. Said factory should be able to employ the majority of people within said village thereby creating an economic reason to stay. Mix that in with support for small businesses to prevent the destruction wrought by the likes of Walmart on mom and pop stores resulting in the gutting of main street and rural infrastructure projects and you got yourself a plan. People want foremost security and good pay. Everything else is auxiliary. "Diversity of jobs" is at the bottom of the heat except gay ass millennials I guess.
'
That or you could do the Khmer rouge route of depopulating the cities and turning everyone into "old men" so to speak.

That doesn't actually stop job loss though because it sort of ignores how jobs work. It's convenient to say "lol gay ass millennials" but urbanization has been a thing for centuries. It's a far cry from the rise of avocado toast and the collapse of Applebee's.

People move to cities because cities offer a growing job market, which is necessary to support a growing population. John might be able to get a stable job at the local auto factory, but where do his kids work? Unless the factory keeps expanding, there won't be any more jobs for the new generation once they come of age. And for the factory to keep expanding, either the government subsidies will have to keep growing or actual demand for the products produced will have to keep growing. The former requires ever more money to be invested, and the latter simply cannot be guaranteed. Meanwhile, service sector employment has significantly increased over time, and this type of employment is dominant in cities. There are more jobs in large cities even when accounting for the larger pool of applicants.

Beyond this, cities have always been culturally dominant and this has attracted generations of younger people to them. With the rise of mass media, it has become easier than ever for impressionable youths to develop an envy of the fashionable urbanites and their fast lifestyles. They also see all the higher-earning doctors and lawyers and bankers and other white collar workers making pots of money for work that seems easier than toiling away in a factory. It certainly seems more glamorous than being the guy that bolts tires onto Ford Fiestas, even if factory work might seem more stable. Absent government intervention, there are probably more factory jobs in the city anyway.

This obviously doesn't apply to everyone and not every youth yearns for the city. But far more country boys yearn for the city than urbanites yearn for the countryside. And so the population transfer has a strong net gain for cities.

[Gallia-]

Turn every city into a tank factory. The subsequent drop in standard of living will result in a bounce-back within two or three generations that will create positive population growth again. Helps avoid the inevitable Korea syndrome. Otherwise, you can make jobs and increase urbanization all you want, but it doesn't matter because the population will be actively aging and shrinking for most people for reasons beyond our understanding.

[Kazarogkai]

Turn every city into a tank factory. The subsequent drop in standard of living will result in a bounce-back within two or three generations that will create positive population growth again. Helps avoid the inevitable Korea syndrome. Otherwise, you can make jobs and increase urbanization all you want, but it doesn't matter because the population will be actively aging and shrinking for most people for reasons beyond our understanding.

Religion could help I guess with the population growth problems. Evangelicals and Mormons make far more children than their non-counterparts and said children for the most part generally stick to said religion. Said groups are now some of the fastest growing in america, just have them increase in numbers and your going somewhere.

Also you should tell my family about your population theories, most of the women have 4-5 kids on average with my mom being regarded as a weirdo for only having 3. meh.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Turn every city into a tank factory. The subsequent drop in standard of living will result in a bounce-back within two or three generations that will create positive population growth again. Helps avoid the inevitable Korea syndrome. Otherwise, you can make jobs and increase urbanization all you want, but it doesn't matter because the population will be actively aging and shrinking for most people for reasons beyond our understanding.

Religion could help I guess with the population growth problems. Evangelicals and Mormons make far more children than their non-counterparts and said children for the most part generally stick to said religion. Said groups are now some of the fastest growing in america, just have them increase in numbers and your going somewhere.

Also you should tell my family about your population theories, most of the women have 4-5 kids on average with my mom being regarded as a weirdo for only having 3. meh.

It was pretty obvious you were r-selected

How to create incentives to keep people from moving from the villages to big cities, thereby creating a housing shortage?

(Other than building more houses in the big cities and forcing them to stay rural)

Completely forgo industrial civilization

[Gallia-]

Completely forgo industrial civilization

Not a terrible idea, TBF. Industrial, mechanized civilization seems to be an unintentional suicide machine on a titanic scale. For it to be otherwise would require severe long-term thinking on part of Humanity I guess. You'd need to invest in artificial birth before EROEI gets too low and it becomes impossible to do anything cheaply, at least. If you can secure birth rates before people start successfully lobbying for immediate, alternative uses of energy you're probably fine in the long-run since you would at least always have an expanding working population and increasing tax revenues. You would at least avoid the demographic collapse facing mechanized civilizations in the real world.

[Austrasien]

High IQs are maladaptive. It is being selected out.

[Gallia-]

High IQs are maladaptive. It is being selected out.

From the mechanized civilization to the MBA civilization.

[Bears Armed]

In some places & times, the main factor limiting urban growth was disease rather than government policy: It wasn't that people didn't move from villages to cities, it was that people died more quickly in cities so that the immigration only stabilized or slowly increased the urban population levels. For example, there was quite a lengthy period in RL during which London's death rate exceeded its birth rate.

[Purpelia]

Another factor was that agriculture was simply not as mechanized as it is today and therefore relied far more heavily on manual labor. And this in turn created a hefty incentive for rural populations to have many children. Farm jobs that today are done with a tractor used to be done by hearing your pack of 7-16 year olds out into the field and telling them that they'll get no supper until they are done.

[Kazarogkai]

In some places & times, the main factor limiting urban growth was disease rather than government policy: It wasn't that people didn't move from villages to cities, it was that people died more quickly in cities so that the immigration only stabilized or slowly increased the urban population levels. For example, there was quite a lengthy period in RL during which London's death rate exceeded its birth rate.

Hence why it is all the more fascinating that shit holes like Angkor could support a population of nearly a million during that time period despite the fact that European cities could barely do the same in the same time period.

[Austrasien]

European cities were fairly small between the collapse of the Western Empire and the Renaissance because were were not the administrative centers of large polities. Their economies were generally organic, they had some specific industries they excelled in, and they traded with the rural estates around them.

Cities in Asia and other parts of the world could grow very large because of the constant inflow of crops paid as taxes to the central government, which administered from cities, from the countryside.

[Questers]

It was pretty obvious you were r-selected

This is my absolute favourite post in NS of all time.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

Do private investigators / detectives exist in your nation? What jobs do they usually get? (e.g. investigating insurance claims, solving cold cases to get rewarded, investigating cheating or whatever else people hire PIs for these days, etc.) Are they authorized/certified by your government or a private body/association? Do they have any special powers or obligations compared to regular citizens?

In RN, PIs take the form of private firms or individual persons which can be hired by private individuals, businesses or even the government for a variety of tasks.

Most commonly, they investigate insurance claims or are hired when an individual or business is dissatisfied with the quality or speediness of an official police investigation.

As far as skiptracing or solving cold cases goes, there is some overlap with the profession of bounty hunter, in which case the firms or individuals may be both a PI and a bounty hunter.

Certification is not mandatory to legally trade as a PI business - however, government certification for PIs exists and is considered a badge of quality/professionalism, with practically most serious firms and individual PIs being certified. This doesn't grant the holder any special privileges other than being allowed to display their certificate - on the other hand, they may be required to take over police cases when requested for a pre-determined fee or even pro-bono "in a state of emergency". In reality, certified PIs tend to develop better relations with law enforcement and the government in general, which can aid them in their undertakings. Certified PIs must undertake a background check before being issued the certificate and may get their certificate revoked if convicted or suspected of a crime, on a case by case basis, especially if the crime relates to their job (e.g. using illegal spying methods, such as trespassing), in which case they also accept that sentencing may be harsher compared to a non-certified PI. Depending on the breach of the terms (e.g. refusing to accept police cases for the pre-determined fee or pro-bono "in a state of emergency") under which the certificate was issued, the breaching firm or individual may face revocation of said certificate and/or additional penalties, financial or in extreme cases, criminal.

[The Islands of Versilia]

What exactly would a good compromise between autocracy and democracy be?

[Prosorusiya]

Has anyone ever run a General Aviation airport here on NS? Debating putting Nazran to work at that since it appears to have a smaller terminal than Nalchik, though it's a toss up in that regard as both are quite small.

Also thinking about changing my airlines routes to better match what they would have been under the old Aeroflot lines, with flight between Moscow and Tsblisi, Georgia... and possibly also down to Armina. Does anybody know if the old Moscow-Iran line of Aeroflot's stopping in Armenia was just a fuel stop, or a connecting flight?

I haven't gotten much response from the storefront, I should probably push my services more...and I am thinking of making chartering Tu-154s my central bisuness there, since I already have some fleet-sharing agreements with other airlines which I think I could expand upon. Thoughts?

[Castille de Italia]

What exactly would a good compromise between autocracy and democracy be?

An oligarchy. Power is consolidated into a small group of people, usually non-elective. Russia's oligarchs are made of the heads of multinational petroleum, mining, and natural gas consortiums and wield significant power in Putin's regime, whereas the Apartheid-era South African government was an elective white minority in power.

[The Islands of Versilia]

What exactly would a good compromise between autocracy and democracy be?

An oligarchy. Power is consolidated into a small group of people, usually non-elective. Russia's oligarchs are made of the heads of multinational petroleum, mining, and natural gas consortiums and wield significant power in Putin's regime, whereas the Apartheid-era South African government was an elective white minority in power.

I see. Thank you.

[The State of Monavia]

An oligarchy. Power is consolidated into a small group of people, usually non-elective. Russia's oligarchs are made of the heads of multinational petroleum, mining, and natural gas consortiums and wield significant power in Putin's regime, whereas the Apartheid-era South African government was an elective white minority in power.

I see. Thank you.

There are several possible answers to this question; unfortunately you were not very specific about what exactly you are trying to achieve. Most of the forms that work well (especially for large and populous countries) use a federal form of organization. You can take a top-down approach like the Roman Empire (the emperor appoints the governors, who in turn appoint local officials) or a bottom-up approach like the early American republic (have the state legislators elect federal senators and restrict voting rights to a narrow sliver of the population). In either case, you need to make two structural decisions:

1. Divide the citizenry into upper and lower political classes (e.g. patricians and plebeians) and place much more power in the hands of the former than the latter.

2. Establish a stratified hierarchy within the government ruling over the citizenry and make sure the head of government is either hereditary, elected by a small council of elites, or takes power some other way. In a compromise between autocracy and democracy, the leader should have full executive power (at the very least the ability to unilaterally veto laws without being overridden, at most the ability to legislate by decree with minimal risk of being overridden).

[The Islands of Versilia]

I see. Thank you.

There are several possible answers to this question; unfortunately you were not very specific about what exactly you are trying to achieve. Most of the forms that work well (especially for large and populous countries) use a federal form of organization. You can take a top-down approach like the Roman Empire (the emperor appoints the governors, who in turn appoint local officials) or a bottom-up approach like the early American republic (have the state legislators elect federal senators and restrict voting rights to a narrow sliver of the population). In either case, you need to make two structural decisions:

1. Divide the citizenry into upper and lower political classes (e.g. patricians and plebeians) and place much more power in the hands of the former than the latter.

2. Establish a stratified hierarchy within the government ruling over the citizenry and make sure the head of government is either hereditary, elected by a small council of elites, or takes power some other way. In a compromise between autocracy and democracy, the leader should have full executive power (at the very least the ability to unilaterally veto laws without being overridden, at most the ability to legislate by decree with minimal risk of being overridden).

Well, the basic overview of the current political system is that of a Parliament, with a lower house of elected MPs and the upper house consisting of senior doctors, scientists, military generals and other highly skilled people. The members of the upper house are handpicked by the Wuthjun, the supreme leader of sorts. New members can also be voted in by current members. It is not hereditary, and is more skill and profession based than bloodline or 'nobility'. The Wuthjun has supreme power, but the Prime Minister commonly acts when the Wuthjun is not available and is more of a fallback leader.