This sounds great, but what are the "costs" on the other side? How does one balance out the economics of this sort of housing situation versus amenities supplied by a community in terms of culture, health, health care, interaction, etc.? Is there a maximum on a curve to be found here? Certainly in some places one is going to overpay for this basket of goods (perhaps San Francisco?) where in others one may underpay. Does it have anything to do with the lifecycle of cities and their governments? If so, how much?

The Left’s Covid failure. (2021, November 23). UnHerd. https://unherd.com/2021/11/the-lefts-covid-failure/

Milkman, K. L., Beshears, J., Choi, J. J., Laibson, D., & Madrian, B. C. (2011). Using implementation intentions prompts to enhance influenza vaccination rates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(26), 10415–10420. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1103170108

Mair, S. (2020). Neoliberal economics, planetary health, and the COVID-19 pandemic: A Marxist ecofeminist analysis. The Lancet Planetary Health, 4(12), e588–e596. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(20)30252-7

The basic economics of this system would indicate (especially as classes become larger and larger) that more careful consideration of choice, economics, accessibility, availability, etc. on a larger institutional level creates larger marginal gains for those in the class. If a staff librarian, teacher, or someone else within the system does the leg-work up front and does it well, then the dozens or even hundreds of students in the course don't need to spend (read: waste) their own time re-inventing the proverbial textbook wheel once they're in the class.

Portions of the situation here make me wonder if we might pull a page from Dr. Peter Pronovost's playbook in the health care space and create a simple checklist of what to do when planning for textbooks and readings. Checklists that include things like:

• will the texts actually be used?
• will they be primary to the subject or are they supplementary?
• What are their prices?
• Are alternate materials available?
• Are older editions available?
• are public domain or open web versions available?
• are there copies in the library? reserves? pirated versions? pre/post prints?
• etc.

Once such a checklist is available, institutions should require that it be available along with syllabi and other course listings.

cross references:

• https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist
• https://laparoscopy.blogs.com/outcome/ItsTheOutcomeDocs/Peter%20Pronovost%20Protocol.pdf

Lancet, T. (2020). Research and higher education in the time of COVID-19. The Lancet, 396(10251), 583. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31818-3

van Binsbergen, J. H., & Opp, C. C. (2020). The Effectiveness of Life-Preserving Investments in Times of COVID-19 (Working Paper No. 27382; Working Paper Series). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w27382

Goldstein, J. R., & Lee, R. D. (2020). Demographic Perspectives on Mortality of Covid-19 and Other Epidemics (Working Paper No. 27043; Working Paper Series). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w27043

Dave, D. M., Friedson, A. I., Matsuzawa, K., McNichols, D., & Sabia, J. J. (2020). Did the Wisconsin Supreme Court Restart a COVID-19 Epidemic? Evidence from a Natural Experiment (Working Paper No. 27322; Working Paper Series). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w27322

Knittel, C. R., & Ozaltun, B. (2020). What Does and Does Not Correlate with COVID-19 Death Rates (Working Paper No. 27391; Working Paper Series). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w27391

The Lancet. (2020). The gendered dimensions of COVID-19. The Lancet, 395(10231), 1168. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30823-0

Hall, K. S., Samari, G., Garbers, S., Casey, S. E., Diallo, D. D., Orcutt, M., Moresky, R. T., Martinez, M. E., & McGovern, T. (2020). Centring sexual and reproductive health and justice in the global COVID-19 response. The Lancet, 395(10231), 1175–1177. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30801-1