Rather than pushing others down, they pull others up by creating jobs and demand.

It takes two people to create a job: one to offer the position, and one to accept it. Otherwise, the job hasn't really been "created." Proponents of trickle-down theory usually seem to ignore this fact.

Meanwhile, those who offer the positions are greedy and are always trying to pay as little as they can get away with, so I wouldn't consider them to be any more virtuous than those who accept the positions.

Gmail is very effective at filtering spam out of e-mail. Maybe Google should use the same technology to filter spam business listings out of Google Maps.

The real problem is not energy generation, but energy storage.

Very little storage is needed to prevent blackouts, as long as the price of electricity is never set below market equilibrium. Unless you can think of a good reason why you would want to set the price below market equilibrium?

When you dictate the how and not just the what, you are correct that often "everything looks the same and ends up less efficient than it could be."

When every insurance company is doing it, they will all continue to keep the premiums of bad drivers higher than those of good drivers so that the reward is worth the risk.

Why would they reduce your premiums when they could increase their profit instead?

Because that would drive away the good drivers and leave the insurance company covering only the bad drivers.

The poor tend to be the source of their own pollution moreso than suffering other people's pollution.

Why is that relevant in any discussion about whether the rich should pay their fair share for the pollution they cause?

Also, in the US at least, the poor do not pay their medical bills.

Again, not relevant, unless you are arguing that welfare should pay the poor's medical bills and not those who injure the poor.

Yes, it will mean their electricity is turned off...

Or they spend the day at the mall or the library on hot days. Back in the first half of the 20th century before residential air conditioners, air conditioning was a big selling point for movie theaters.

...and their ability to own a car- the one sense of freedom they might have a connection with...

In your neighborhood, can you buy a gallon of milk without driving to the store in a car? Have you ever done so? If not, you are a slave to your car, not the other way around.

The soccer mom will make two and three trips instead of one round to get the gang to their sports, music, and such because that SUV is no longer within their price range to operate.

Why drive at all when you can bike everywhere? Oh that's right, because we've made the streets faster for cars and more dangerous for bicyclists, and pushed destinations farther apart and harder to get there by bicycle in order to make room for parking. We've taken away our freedom in order to give ourselves the perception of freedom. Isn't that ironic?

you don't care if the poor are poorer as long as you can make the rich less rich.. Do I have it summed up right?

I don't think paying the poor's medical bills and lost work days will make them poorer. Nor will keeping schoolchildren healthy and able to attend classes keep them from achieving their full potential.

The fact of the matter is that we do not have the capabilities to use wind and solar for our electrical demands and there isn't sufficient storage to compete with other methods. If we could, it would be online right now without governments mandating it.

Or it would be online right now if externalities and other market failures were corrected.

More like it will allow the misfortune (probably poor) to be able to afford the products and services you just made super expensive.

Who is more likely to be injured by pollution, the poor or the rich? (The poor, because they tend to live in dirtier areas.) And therefore who stands to gain the most, relative to their discretionary income, from recouping the medical costs and lost sick days from that pollution? (Also the poor, because they have little to no discretionary income.)

So you are correct that it will raise prices, but it will also provide the poor with two benefits. Two for the price of one is a good deal, don't you think?

Of course the rich will complain about paying the full societal cost of their lifestyle because they won't see as much benefit in it as the poor, but I wouldn't worry too much about them being able to afford it. By the way, are you rich?

And no, wind and solar are not there- neither is storage capabilities.

Not much energy storage is needed to prevent blackouts, even with intermittent sources such as wind and solar, as long as electricity is always priced at market equilibrium to prevent blackouts. And since pricing something below market equilibrium is never a good long-term strategy, there's no technical reason why wind and solar cannot provide most of the nation's needs.

If it pollutes just shut it down.

You pollute. Where's your "off" switch?

Once you've realized that there's no way to completely eliminate pollution, and that markets work most efficiently when negative externalities are internalized into prices, the solution becomes obvious: charge the polluters for the damage they cause, and give the revenue to those injured by pollution. This will give polluters the proper incentive to curb their emissions and it will pay the medical costs and lost sick days of those injured by pollution, all without harming the economy.

A longer street frontage requires more asphalt and concrete and buried infrastructure than a shorter street frontage...

That is nonsense.

Do the math if you don't believe me. Show your work.

People with more expensive property do not use the fire department more or the police more just because it is more expensive.

Ask an insurance company whether more expensive properties are more expensive to insure than cheaper properties.

Either way, the problem with the article is that a city is not supposed to be making a profit off the people.

The word "profit" is not mentioned anywhere in the article.

But most strikingly, the cost of living is much higher in the so called profitable one. The average cost per square foot of residential space in the profitable one was $350/sq ft. All the others ranged between $89/sq ft and $113/sq ft. That's not how it should be-

So you agree that urban areas should stop subsidizing the less urban areas?

In a system with a property tax their is disincentive to improve you property.

That's only when the property tax is based on the assessed value of the property instead of the property's burden on infrastructure and city services.

That's one reason among many why taxes should be replaced with user fees whenever it's practical to do so.