> But we still want the convenience of walking down to their neighborhood store, so we've constructed an entire economic system built on shipping things in disposable boxes around the globe and getting them to people's doorsteps within two business days.

1. Generally they don't come from across the globe to your doorstep after your order, but from a nearby fulfillment center.

2. Getting things quickly from online shopping is just as nice in cities (actually nicer, because you can get a broader variety of goods quickly) as in suburbs.

Where, pray tell, does the fulfillment center receive them from? Shipping happens regardless (I know my local hardware store doesn't make vacuum cleaners), but the waste of individual boxes and delivery for every single item on demand is obscene.

You're right that it's just as nice in cities, if not nicer. But that doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make it not a maladaptation within our economic system.

> You're right that it's just as nice in cities, if not nicer. But that doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make it not a maladaptation within our economic system.

Also, please note... a frequent mistake in economics is to conflate positive statements ("Ordering online causes additional emissions and use of cardboard and packaging products") with normative statements ("it is wrong to waste cardboard and emit carbon for the convenience of online shopping"). Every agent in the economic system has their own normative beliefs and utility function. Hume showed us you can't get to the normative statement through positive observations.

> "Ordering online causes additional emissions

Am I missing something? Isn't it significantly more efficient for a van/truck to follow a computer optimized route to deliver 100s-1000s of orders per tank of gas than me driving to and from Home Depot to buy one thing?

In isolation on one purchase, yes. But much like the introduction of credit cards, it's made consuption frictionless and so more purchases are being made than might otherwise would have been. Also, packaging from shipping, facilitating for returns (depending on retailer)

> Am I missing something? Isn't it significantly more efficient for a van/truck to follow a computer optimized route to deliver 100s-1000s of orders per tank of gas than me driving to and from Home Depot to buy one thing?

Maybe, maybe not. Packaging takes energy. This alone tends to mean the breakeven distance is many miles-- very rural and low density suburban may come out slightly ahead, but most other uses don't.

But beyond that, the trend for e-commerce is many small orders and individual boxes and more trips, while the typical person taking a single purpose trip to Home Depot will buy more. (Or-- has an urgent need for something that can't be satisfied soon enough by e-commerce).

> Hume showed us you can't get to the normative statement through positive observations.

Hume and I disagree :-)

The original comment was a normative one: I think our current scheme is wrong, in a moral sense. I think it's also wrong in an economic sense, but that's just a cherry on top.

> I think our current scheme is wrong, in a moral sense

If we had, say, 1000x the resources that could be used without too adverse of consequences, would it still be wrong in your eyes?

Or are you saying that you don't believe that the resource use is justified within our current constraints?

The latter. But that's one among many sufficient reasons: I also think it's indicative of an economic and social policy that encourages civic alienation and delocalization.

The more snappy way of saying it: we're maximizing short term advantages (any plastic crap I want in 48 hours, shareholder value) at the cost of long term advantages (cities and towns worth living in, a sense of community rooted in part in supporting local businesses, not needing surveillance in every aspect of our lives because we've automated out the tacit security of being around other humans.)

Is it always wrong to prioritize a short term advantage over a long term advantage?

> cities and towns worth living in

Like-- this is something America has really just not understood how to do. It doesn't have much to do with e-commerce (which is still popular in places that do know how to do it).

> a sense of community rooted in part in supporting local businesses

Sometimes having a strong local business is great. But in the best case, you're limited by the tastes and curation choices of a small number of vendors-- you lose the value of the long tail. And in the worst case, you find yourself beholden to an actively exploitative and/or hostile supplier.

> not needing surveillance in every aspect of our lives because we've automated out the tacit security of being around other humans

We're personally safer and more secure in our effects than in any time before in US history (well, the best point was a decade ago, but still-- we're about the same as then). It has nothing to do with surveillance or e-commerce, and only minimally has to do with suburbia vs. city living.

In the end, I think you've just got "this feels wrong to me". I bet I could look at a choice that you've made and I'd recoil from it as wasteful and repugnant, too.

P.S. Thank you for indulging me in this conversation. I'm going to be teaching AP Microeconomics for the first time next year, and as much as anything I'm practicing being the devil's advocate.

> Is it always wrong to prioritize a short term advantage over a long term advantage?

Nope! But I think this is an instance where the long term advantage is much more "important" (morally, sociologically) than the short term one. You're welcome to disagree, naturally, but I think there's a growing sociological/sociopolitical consensus that our current mode of life and consumption is overwhelmingly unsustainable.

You're completely right that this just isn't something the US is good at, full stop. But I see the proliferation of delivery as part-and-parcel of the problem, rather than an unrelated phenomenon that somewhat ameliorates local issues. In other words: e-commerce thrives because we've economically primed it to thrive via other bad social and economic decisionmaking.

> But in the best case, you're limited by the tastes and curation choices of a small number of vendors-- you lose the value of the long tail. And in the worst case, you find yourself beholden to an actively exploitative and/or hostile supplier.

This is true, and it's part of the tradeoff. But I'll note: in sufficiently dense cities, this collapses back in on itself. From my apartment, I can walk to my choice of a dozen independent grocers, hardware stores, &c.

And it's not as if Amazon doesn't reflect this as well: my understanding is that much of the current Amazon experience is sifting through rebrands of the same basic product (especially in the context of consumer electronics, where it's all the same IC/SoC in a different plastic case). If that isn't an exploitation of diminished choice, I don't know what is!

> We're personally safer and more secure in our effects than in any time before in US history (well, the best point was a decade ago, but still-- we're about the same as then). It has nothing to do with surveillance or e-commerce, and only minimally has to do with suburbia vs. city living.

Absolutely right again. I should have said "the perception of safety," which perversely has tracked against actual safety. I lay a lot of the "blame" for that at the feet of forces that encourage civic alienation (again, car-centric living, decline of local businesses, &c.).

> I bet I could look at a choice that you've made and I'd recoil from it as wasteful and repugnant, too.

I'm positive that you could! That's why I'm trying to avoid an individual critique, as such -- I don't blame people living in suburbs, or for shopping on Amazon, or for driving everywhere. The economic incentives are all right for those things, and I have my own economic incentives that push me to do things that are absolutely wasteful and repugnant. The critique instead is directed as the incentive structures themselves which, if we can collapse or undermine them, will hopefully result in better human action without the stress and tears of a blame session.

(I also appreciate your indulgence. I definitely started out with some extra snark, and the fact that you tolerated it is a testament to fairness and levelheadedness when you could have rightfully ignored me.)

> Where, pray tell, does the fulfillment center receive them from? Shipping happens regardless (I know my local hardware store doesn't make vacuum cleaners),

Yes, the steps before are very similar to fulfillment centers vs. to distribution centers servicing retail and to individual retail stores (not quite the same-- you need somewhat more fulfillment centers). It's just the last step from the fulfillment center to your house that are different.

> It's just the last step from the fulfillment center to your house that are different.

Right. It's that last step I'm criticizing. But even the former deserves some amount of attention, given the scale and proliferation of disposable consumption that Amazon has encouraged.

> Right. It's that last step I'm criticizing.

OK, then mentioning across the globe was not core to your argument (and thus I picked at it).

> Where, pray tell, does the fulfillment center receive them from? Shipping happens regardless (I know my local hardware store doesn't make vacuum cleaners)

Yes, exactly -- the shipping happens regardless. It's certainly more efficient to ship 20 of each widget to a store than it is to ship 20 widgets to 20 homes, though. But then people have to get to the store to buy those widgets, and often they will drive to get there (not everything is going to be available within walking distance).

> but the waste of individual boxes [...] is obscene.

Yes, this is bad. Personally I try to mitigate this by batching my purchases so more things arrive per box (admittedly, sometimes I don't do this), but some shippers will still break up a single order into multiple boxes spread over several days, which sucks. I do occasionally end up with an item that's shipped directly in its own packaging (that is, no extra box around the item, and it arrives in the same box that I would have picked up off a store shelf), but this is pretty rare, and of course there are many items where this wouldn't work (and would be more wasteful, not less).

> But that doesn't make it right

I'm curious as to how you're defining "right" and "wrong" here, and it does feel like some of your argument is based on "this feels icky and anti-social", and not entirely on objectively-bad externalities. I think the transportation aspect of these deliveries is a bit overblown, as transportation has to happen regardless, and people driving to a store to buy things is probably not much better (and is sometimes worse) than a box truck or van stopping door-to-door to drop things off (walking to a store would be the ideal, but I suspect this wouldn't replace as much driving or online ordering as we'd expect, even in places where it's possible). The packaging waste is definitely a consideration, but I've seen this getting better over time, with more reusable/recyclable paper products being used, and less plastic. We still have a ways to go here, though. To be clear: I do agree with you that much of this is objectively worse than visiting a store to make the same purchase, but I think calling it "obscene" is an overreaction.

> but some shippers will still break up a single order into multiple boxes spread over several days, which sucks.

I'd almost swear Amazon does this maliciously. One item per box.

Unless you have a small delicate item and a large heavy item, in which case they put them in the same box with no void fill.

Usually doesn't obviously damage the small delicate item, but I have to wonder if it's subtly damaged, etc, for the experience.

I don't think the urban/suburban divide really covers it, though. I live in a city, in a neighborhood with an okay amount of local retail, but I still order a lot of stuff online and have it delivered.

I usually get my groceries delivered. It saves me an hour of driving to the grocery store, shopping, paying, driving home, and making several trips up and down four flights of stairs to bring the items home. I'm totally happy to pay a delivery charge and a tip to not have to deal with that. Yes, I do walk to the local grocery if I just need a couple items, but I usually do a larger delivery grocery order around once a month.

Neighborhood stores can't stock everything, especially in a city where space is expensive. Looking through my last 3 months of Amazon orders (24 orders), I see only three items that I could have gotten by walking somewhere locally, and they were all things that were part of a larger order that was mostly stuff I could not get locally. And that's just Amazon; I definitely have purchases from other online retailers over the past three months, and for the most part I'd guess they're all things I couldn't get within walking distance either.

My neighborhood shines when it comes to restaurants, bars, parks, and personal services (hair cuts, mani/pedi, that sort of thing). A good variety of groceries are available within walking distance, and even some more exotic stuff (there's a high-end cake bakery a couple blocks away, for example), but otherwise most regular purchases aren't easily fulfilled with a short walk. Most of those other purchases would require a 45-60 minute bus ride, or a 15-20 minute drive (with no guarantee of finding what I want). And if I need to do that, I'll probably just order it online instead.

I do agree that the situation isn't ideal. I generate a lot of cardboard and paper recycling waste, though fortunately not that much plastic. I'm not sure about fuel usage: if I have to drive somewhere to buy something, it might be a wash compared to a delivery vehicle bringing it to me. And the package theft problem (and the "solutions") we've created for ourselves is ridiculous.

>> People want to live in suburbs, where their residences are separated from commercial areas. This starves city and town centers, leaving only big businesses that are capable of thriving on high volume sales.

What are you supposed to do really? I grew up in an urban environment (NYC) and embraced urban living. The reality was that it wasnt sustainable w/o being a multi-millionaire. I'll give real examples.

I take a 20min subway/bus to a store purchase a terracotta planter, or perhaps a box of cat litter. You then have to carry that 5 or 10 pound item. You realize the subway isnt working, today. You need to take an express subway. Now you have to switch trains but you realize the escalator and elevator also isnt working. So you drag it up the stairs, across the tunnel, and back down the other side. You could hitch a ride on a friend's car, but there is congestion pricing, or a $11 toll on the tunnel, and throw in another $40 for parking. These things used to work in the 1990s, also in the 2000s, but eventually things all failed in a big way (and the failure of public transport was a big part of it.)

Good luck if you are disabled, or have knee problems, or have a baby+stroller also.

I tried really, really hard to live in an urban environment, but it was eventually a failure. I now live in the suburbs. We order cat litter and have it delivered to our doorstep.

No, i dont want to live in the suburb. But I cannot afford to live in the city. If I could freely take cabs everywhere like a multi-millionaire I would live in the city. Short of that, i didnt see much option to stay.

People say crazy things like "oh you should just bike everywhere." OK, how does my mom with osteoporosis bike? How does a disabled person bike? Where on the bike do you place the 10lb cat litter box?

Cat litter is just one aspect.

I am very definitely not a multi-millionaire, and I've lived in NYC nearly my entire life. It's a big city and things certainly vary by availability, but there's a pet store 4 blocks from my apartment (in a not especially dense, mostly residential neighborhood).

What you're describing is the pathological case. The similar pathological case for the suburbs is a 20 minute trip to Costco, only to get stuck in an extra hour of traffic, do your shopping and return home, only to realize you forgot the one thing you really needed. That, like yours, is a real example (from the few years I spent in college, in a suburban area).

(For what it's worth, I agree completely about disabilities, and it's shameful that NYC has continued to ignore basic accessibility needs in the subways. That being said, the NYCT buses are pretty great about accessibility, and serve a corresponding demographic.)

>> What you're describing is the pathological case.

I have both children and happened to have a knee injury for several years. That turns a huge number of seemingly normal things into "pathological cases." Ever try bringing a stroller up and down a subway stairwell? Ever try bringing a stroller into a usually crowded bus? Ever try literally anything mass transit related with a child or knee injury? I dont think children are that uncommon here. Sure, if I had a full-time nanny that would solve the problem, but then as I said, its all easy with money.

Also, not sure if you live in the wealthier areas of NYC (read: those with multiple subways), but things magically become easier and easier in wealthier areas. Now try living in a neighborhood with a single train line. Now see what happens when the train just randomly starts skipping your stop all the time and going express. Poor-people problems.

Groceries with a child...not hard. Groceries in the winter with a child? Hard. Groceries in the rain with a child? Hard. Possible, of course, but its also possible to live in a tent in the forest.

At some point, practical starts to overtake merely possible. Interestingly in the suburbs, all these things are possible for those on mere mortal salaries. Hence, despite literally having "NYC" in my username I no longer live in NYC.

Finally. Suppose I did get a stuck in traffic job for an hour with a baby in tow on the way to Costco...it isnt really the end of the world...you turn on the radio and spend the time. Its not like its freezing and i'm standing on a subway platform praying the next train is not going to skip my stop while my baby cries from weather exposure or while my knee gives in.

The reality is all mid-big US cities need:

- 100x more livable sqft, so it can be affordable for everyone.

- 3000sqft condos that rival lux family homes in the suburbs for space.

- All building should become mixed use. Parking underground, retail on street level, offices on the first N floors of the building, and residential higher up for the views.

- More vertical green space on the buildings.

- More horizontal green space between the buildings.

I'm also partial to building walk/bike ways above current roads such that roads are covered / "underground" i.e. don't cause noise or pedestrian deaths. Retail would be located where people walk.