The Euro-Americans Are Coming To Get You

Via Yglesias, this piece in The Weekly Standardis hilarious:

Given their contempt for much of the country, it is not surprising that Euro-Americans seek inspiration from abroad. For many, European cities, with three times the density of their American counterparts, are to be hailed as role models. New urbanists like Roberta Brandes Gratz look across the Atlantic and see our urban future. Americans, she concludes, "want what Czechs have," that is, highly concentrated, expensive cities of apartment-renters like picturesque Prague.
...
Euro-American politics do not work in aspirational cities. Where and when such policies do become influential, companies, entrepreneurs, and individuals will seek their future elsewhere, in places where they don't have to subsidize fancy nightclubs, art galleries, gay bars, and yuppie lofts, or pay the freight for inefficient public-sector bureaucracies. If the contagion takes over Phoenix, these restless Americans will move further out, into the unregulated exurbs or deeper into the hinterland, to Boise, the Salt Lake Valley, or beyond.

My take: I wish it were true! Imagine if we could combine the style, culture and beauty of Paris with the job opportunities in Boston and New York! I would move in a flash!