City Revival Thread

[Crawford]

Make Puerto Rico a state, and it will be one of the fastest-growing states, and achieve considerable prosperity. It will basically be the new Florida.

But as long as it has its current status, it will essentially be a third-world country.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Make Puerto Rico a state, and it will be one of the fastest-growing states, and achieve considerable prosperity. It will basically be the new Florida.

But as long as it has its current status, it will essentially be a third-world country.

Why would that change their massive demographic and economic issues? Their economic productivity would magically increase? Would they be less dependent on federal social welfare? Would their TFR rise from the abyssal 0.9 back to 2.0?

I guess that's a very American exceptionalism view, to believe being part of the US will make all the problems away. Aside their generous welfare state granting a good standard of life for the islanders, Puerto Rico is today one of the most dysfunctional countries in Latin America. No real economy, world's worst demographics and free access to economic powerhouses on US mainland.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Why would that change their massive demographic and economic issues? Their economic productivity would magically increase? Would they be less dependent on federal social welfare? Would their TFR rise from the abyssal 0.9 back to 2.0?

I guess that's a very American exceptionalism view, to believe being part of the US will make all the problems away. Aside their generous welfare state, granting a good standard of life in the island, Puerto Rico is today one of the most dysfunctional countries in Latin America.

Maybe what Crawford means is once it's a state there will be a massive influx of mainlanders who essentially gentrify the entire island?

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Maybe what Crawford means is once it's a state there will be a massive influx of mainlanders who essentially gentrify the entire island?

I doubt it. Puerto Rico is always be "foreign" and Americans usually don't feel confortable in foreign environments.

It's still a very urbanized crowded island, and I don't see the appeal to a huge number of Americans to settle there. Heck, Americans even flee from parts of their own country when it gets too "foreign" (California, Miami region, specific neighbourhoods in most metro areas).

And either way, young Puerto Ricans (which are becoming a "rare species") will always find better professional prospects in New York, Philadelphia, Miami or whatever the place.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Why would that change their massive demographic and economic issues? Their economic productivity would magically increase? Would they be less dependent on federal social welfare? Would their TFR rise from the abyssal 0.9 back to 2.0?

Yes.

Millions of mainland Americans would move to Puerto Rico, obviously. It has better weather than Florida, and much nicer scenery.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

I doubt it. Puerto Rico is always be "foreign" and Americans usually don't feel confortable in foreign environments.

You mean like Hawaii? A state that was almost entirely "foreign" until relatively recently?

Puerto Rico is much more accessible to population centers, so would probably be far more "gentrified".

[Acajack]

I've been thinking about this thread and the California Dream thread, and one question pops up for me: do people follow the economy or does the economy follow the people?

It's a bit of both, but I would argue that if corporate power starts to sour on Sunbelt places due to cataclysmic event, social unrest, poor governance, etc., this might lead to population growth in other parts of the U.S. more to the north, simply due to more job opportunities opening up there.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yes.

Millions of mainland Americans would move to Puerto Rico, obviously. It has better weather than Florida, and much nicer scenery.

I'm pretty sure this will not happen, otherwise we would already have some evidences today.

Originally Posted by Crawford

You mean like Hawaii? A state that was almost entirely "foreign" until relatively recently?

Puerto Rico is much more accessible to population centers, so would probably be far more "gentrified".

I don't think 200,000 or so White Americans, a big chunk of them linked to the US military presence qualifies as a good example of Americans willing to move to a foreign setting.

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In any case, I don't think you are fully grasping how bad is the state of things in Puerto Rico. Not even Scranton or Youngstown or Flint or Wheeling metro areas have ever faced such massive population drop as Puerto Rico did within a 20-year period.

[bossabreezes]

I tend to agree with Crawford in that Puerto Rico would end up attracting a good amount of mainland US residents (and probably lots of stateside Puerto Ricans) if it were turned into a state. However, it might never get there as Yuri has mentioned as well.

It might not be a bad thing environmentally if the island had less people. Also, although they have great weather generally, it sits in one of the most hurricane prone areas of the Atlantic/Caribbean basin, and that's likely to become a larger problem each year.

[Handro]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yes.

Millions of mainland Americans would move to Puerto Rico, obviously. It has better weather than Florida, and much nicer scenery.

I'd move there in a heartbeat. Miami doesn't attract me as a city even if its weather does. San Juan on the other hand...

[eschaton]

Realistically speaking, there's no barrier other than psychological stopping mainlanders from moving to Puerto Rico right now that statehood would change. There's free movement, after all, and they use U.S. Dollar as currency. And it's not like statehood would stop people there from using Spanish as their primary language, which is probably the biggest hesitation that many have.

[Yuri]

It’s quite obvious we won’t see millions of Americans deciding to live in highrises of a random Latin American country, specially in a place with massive economic challenges, specially as there’s nothing stop them to do it now, and there’s nothing pleasant about living in a place hemorrhaging people. If we had so many Americans wanting to live in such setting, they would also have plenty of options in Mexico or Panama or Dominican Rep or Bahamas.

Puerto Rico has became a demographic nightmare coupled with an economic one. Thinking of it rebounding is like arguing Detroit will start to grow as fast as Dallas tomorrow.

[edale]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

It’s quite obvious we won’t see millions of Americans deciding to live in highrises of a random Latin American country, specially in a place with massive economic challenges, specially as there’s nothing stop them to do it now, and there’s nothing pleasant about living in a place hemorrhaging people. If we had so many Americans wanting to live in such setting, they would also have plenty of options in Mexico or Panama or Dominican Rep or Bahamas.

Puerto Rico has became a demographic nightmare coupled with an economic one. Thinking of it rebounding is like arguing Detroit will start to grow as fast as Dallas tomorrow.

Honestly you sound like you have no clue what you're talking about. You've already admitted that you've not been to PR, so why continue talking about something you're ignorant about?

PR's population has been declining for a while, but it really sped up after Hurricane Maria. Just like New Orleans post Katrina, there was an immediate and large exodus from the island to the mainland US. There's no reason to think all of those people will stay in the mainland. I'm friends with a guy who migrated from San Juan to NYC where he went to culinary school and became a chef. He made some decent money in NY, and moved back to PR a few years later to be a chef at a very nice restaurant in San Juan. It's not a very uncommon story, and movement to and from the island has basically always existed.

PR does face some very real challenges, for sure. They actually were very successful at attracting US companies to open plants and offices in San Juan and the US government offered tax incentives for companies to locate there. Unfortunately, those tax incentives were allowed to expire in 2006 (thank you Bush) and since then, the island has lost nearly 40% of its manufacturing base. This is a political problem that would have not happened had PR been a state. Because it's a political issue, that means it could be fixed relatively easily, too.

Check this article for some information: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/here...s-economy.html

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Realistically speaking, there's no barrier other than psychological stopping mainlanders from moving to Puerto Rico right now that statehood would change. There's free movement, after all, and they use U.S. Dollar as currency. And it's not like statehood would stop people there from using Spanish as their primary language, which is probably the biggest hesitation that many have.

If you look at what happened in other states like New Mexico, Louisiana or Hawaii, statehood would have a linguistic impact - though it would be over the medium and longer terms that it would play out.

Unless they wanted to diverge significantly from the way things have been done before, and allow stuff like the public school system to continue to have Spanish as the main teaching language.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by edale

Honestly you sound like you have no clue what you're talking about. You've already admitted that you've not been to PR, so why continue talking about something you're ignorant about?

PR's population has been declining for a while, but it really sped up after Hurricane Maria. Just like New Orleans post Katrina, there was an immediate and large exodus from the island to the mainland US. There's no reason to think all of those people will stay in the mainland. I'm friends with a guy who migrated from San Juan to NYC where he went to culinary school and became a chef. He made some decent money in NY, and moved back to PR a few years later to be a chef at a very nice restaurant in San Juan. It's not a very uncommon story, and movement to and from the island has basically always existed.

PR does face some very real challenges, for sure. They actually were very successful at attracting US companies to open plants and offices in San Juan and the US government offered tax incentives for companies to locate there. Unfortunately, those tax incentives were allowed to expire in 2006 (thank you Bush) and since then, the island has lost nearly 40% of its manufacturing base. This is a political problem that would have not happened had PR been a state. Because it's a political issue, that means it could be fixed relatively easily, too.

Check this article for some information: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/here...s-economy.html

I guess you are too emotionally attached to this subject as your angry response shows.

Population decline is a thing since early 2000's which is a very bad signal, regardless. As I mentioned, even Rust Belt metro areas tend to be flat rather than downright fall.

And immigration aside, Puerto Rico has today the lowest TFR in the world and its natural growth had plunged in a way unseen anywhere in the world. From 59,000 births registered in the island in 2000 to 20,000 in 2019. In the 1Q 2020 keeps plunging, indicating 17,000/18,000 births in the year, for 31,000 deaths. That will be by far the worse ratio in the world.

Than you start to talk about "tax incentives", which reinforces my point the island economy is completely dependent on its colonial status, a historical relic, not working as a proper stand-alone economy. As result of this bizarre artificial economic model, we have this unprecedent mass immigration coupled with the worse births minus deaths in the world, emptying the island in an incredibly fast pace.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Honolulu too. And it's much wealthier and with better landscape.

Puerto Rico is more problematic than Detroit city proper since the 1970's. It's helpless, I guess the island will eventually be returned to the wilderness.

Honolulu is not remotely Latin and has more ties to the Far East than any other region. Hawai'i is shockingly poor outside the touristy areas as well.

[edale]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

I guess you are too emotionally attached to this subject as your angry response shows.

Population decline is a thing since early 2000's which is a very bad signal, regardless. As I mentioned, even Rust Belt metro areas tend to be flat rather than downright fall.

And immigration aside, Puerto Rico has today the lowest TFR in the world and its natural growth had plunged in a way unseen anywhere in the world. From 59,000 births registered in the island in 2000 to 20,000 in 2019. In the 1Q 2020 keeps plunging, indicating 17,000/18,000 births in the year, for 31,000 deaths. That will be by far the worse ratio in the world.

Than you start to talk about "tax incentives", which reinforces my point the island economy is completely dependent on its colonial status, a historical relic, not working as a proper stand-alone economy. As result of this bizarre artificial economic model, we have this unprecedent mass immigration coupled with the worse births minus deaths in the world, emptying the island in an incredibly fast pace.

Educate yourself on the history of PR. Google is free my dude.

Also, extreme events can lead to drastic statistics. Covid hit and the US GDP shrunk by 30%. Katrina hit and New Orleans basically had a population of 0 for a while. PR has had several huge events hit it recently- some political, some environmental. The rural parts of the island are declining in population rapidly, same as what's happening in rural Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan. The good news is, San Juan is a large city that can accommodate rural migrants. There is impressive infrastructure in San Juan, a booming tourism industry, a large university...it's not some backwater. I believe with proper investment and leadership, PR can and will bounce back.

btw, tax incentives are used by literally every state in the union to attract companies. Texas is famous for trying to poach companies from Northern states by dangling all sorts of incentives. As a territory rather than a state, PR has limited capacity to create its own incentives, and was thus very reliant on the Federal incentives that were in place for many years. They're at a competitive disadvantage because their fate is largely up to the whims of our Federal government, who often couldn't give less of a shit about them. See Trump flippantly throwing out paper towels to people whose homes were destroyed by Maria as example 1a of an administration who couldn't care less about PR.

[benp]

Originally Posted by Handro

I'd move there in a heartbeat. Miami doesn't attract me as a city even if its weather does. San Juan on the other hand...

It is part of the US - what's to stop anyone from moving there today?

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by edale

The rural parts of the island are declining in population rapidly, same as what's happening in rural Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan. The good news is, San Juan is a large city that can accommodate rural migrants.

Wrong. No other US state or metro area or anywhere in the globe experienced such drop in the population. Puerto Rico went from 3.725 million (2010) to 3.193 million (2019) and San Juan MSA from 2.350 million to 2.023 million. -16% and -16% respectively. Nothing to do with rural emigration as you are claiming.

Again, no MSA or state in the US has ever registered something close to it any time in history. Detroit MSA, between 2000-2010, with the 2008 crisis, fell -3.3% (5 times smaller than PR or SJ), which it was worse decade history, beating the horrible 1970's and 1980's.

And that is only one side of the story: Number of births in Puerto Rico fell from 60,000 to 20,000 from 2000 to 2019. Even if people stop to leave the island in droves (and there is no sign of it), population will keep falling very fast as by 2022 there will be two deaths for each one birth. Forget Japan, Bulgaria or Ukraine. There is nothing in the world as bad as this.

[Northern Light]

May I suggest the thread is wandering a bit OT?

Then, may I hypocritically note the projected impacts of climate change on PR?

From this report: https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/20/

Under the Intermediate-Low, Intermediate, and Extreme scenarios, relative sea levels are projected to rise by about 0.8 feet, 1.2 feet, or 2.8 feet (24 cm, 37 cm, or 84 cm), respectively, by 2050 across the region compared to levels in 2000 and by about 1.6 feet, 3.6 feet, or 10.2 feet (0.5 m, 1.1 m, or 3.1 m), respectively, by 2100 (Figure 20.6).38 Additionally, the region may experience more than the global average increase under the higher scenarios in response to changes in the Earth’s gravitational field and rotation due to melting of land ice, ocean circulation, and vertical land motion.

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401,145 people (11.5% of Puerto Rico’s total population) live in areas subject to inundation, and 56,114 people live in areas susceptible to storm surge