The fact that people dump their sewage into the creek instead of paying for proper sewage treatment/disposal suggests that there's something desirable to _them_ to do the easier and cheaper thing. Of course! The problem is externalities.
Dumping sewage into a creek is an externality that is bad.
Someone preferring to live in a suburb does not mean they're generating externalities at that level.
The very reason I pushed back on the comment was because of this black and white thinking.
Saying
> The fact that people dump their sewage into the creek instead of paying for proper sewage treatment/disposal suggests that there's something desirable to _them_ to do the easier and cheaper thing. Of course!
seems condescending to me. As though "those" people don't have the character or moral rectitude to live in the city. Maybe I'm reading in more than you intended.
They are, but those externalities are simply not as straightforwardly obvious.
I'm not arguing there are no externalities (there are externalities in just about every choice we make). I just haven't been convinced that there are common egregious externalities at the level of dumping raw sewage into the creek.
GP is suggesting that we start to perceive extremely damaging low-utilization, ponzi-style suburban development in a similar manner.
The point is that the premise of the counter-example is flawed. People do prefer to have their waste carried away cleanly when they can afford it.
