I'm pretty sure they don't think that far ahead. Profit now, die later.
America’s Cities Are Unlivable. Blame Wealthy Liberals. (NYT Opinion)
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I'm pretty sure they don't think that far ahead. Profit now, die later.
I'd say liberal empathy is broader and well-rounded. Republicans are historically more generous from a charitable perspective, but more limited in their scope.
Also, the leadership in California is potently left and continues to exacerbate the housing crisis and has for a few years. That extends beyond wealth, and it's why us on the left, and hoping to own a house in the future, are frustrated.
It's hard to just blame the wealthy because in NYC half the population seem like NIMBY minded people. Thankfully we get way more building approvals here regardless of the people speaking out against it.
unfortunately we still have a housing crisis and a homeless problem
A lot of us make good salaries - most tech workers making 100-150k now are of millennial age. The problem is that the jobs are in expensive cities so to own property we need a spouse/partner with a similar salary, low student loans, and a lot of saving. And giving up a good location and move further away from the city centers.
Also, it seems because of how hard it seems to own property, there's a self-fulfilling property where well-off millennials assume they can't afford a house ever so they spend their money on travel/experiences.
I dunno if I'd say we have a housing crisis but we definitely have a homeless problem that wont be solved because no neighborhood will allow a homeless shelter to be built. The push back against those is just too aggressive.
We don't have a "crisis" in NYC just yet like in other cities but almost all new developments are for wealthy people or well-paid office workers who will split rent and live in the city for 5-10 years before moving back to the suburbs. Poorer folks who don't own or have rent control are definitely moving further away from their jobs every year.
Most people are poorer, but there is more money in the country than ever. As long as we continue to treat housing as an asset the problem is just going to get worse.
I am morbidly curious what's going to happen a decade from now when the boomers start dying off or moving to retirement homes en masse. I could totally see the floor falling out of the housing market and the millennials once again being left holding the bag.
One big problem we have is that homeless shelters are filled with working families who got priced out of the market. We have the affordable housing program but a majority of Black and Latino people in that city don't qualify for it which in turn begs the question how affordable is it really? And another question is are we really building enough of it? Where we build it matters too. Building a luxury apartment complex in Brownsville even with 30% affordable unit is gonna have a radically different impact on that market than building the same in somewhere like idk Forrest Hills?
Yeah that's true, and it's not helping with white people Christopher Columbusing neighborhoods like Bedstuy. We still have time to turn things around before it gets out of hand though, and I hope we do.
I agree, and even those who may qualify to enter the program don't get placed in affordable housing for years. This is one area the city should be using it's economic weight in, I doubt any of the major developers in the city will stop building skyscrapers if the city demands more affordable housing be placed in them.
Yea I definitely understand that, but the same thing happens in other large cities independent of political alignment. This is a wealth retention issue/factor. All of these people are effectively just looking after their property values. I can understand it from the standpoint of people going hey, I just bought this house for 500k. Now it's worth 400k because the supply in the area went up and there's cheaper or low income housing etc. Which makes it less desirable. But at the same time something has to change. Personally I'm for expanding housing. The same thing happened near me and I was A Ok with it. The only issue is it pushed people in my area out of the school district they were in/the close school. Now they have to travel like 15 miles out of the way. Which I think is problematic and could have been handled better. But largely it worked out just fine. And the value hits we're only temporary.
Same here in LA. It seems that both the rich and poor alike fall or back so much NIMBY bs it's amazing.
Maybe not in the west by itself. Luckily for those who already own such forms of equity, western Millennials don't only have each other to compete with for properties, they have the entire planet.
This technically isn't a problem that only affects Millennial's, but in reality the logistics are far more stacked against them.
When I bought my first house, most of what is now the global-investor class of China for example did not effectively exist in any way meaningful to me as a western consumer, the wealth of the eastern bloc was still mostly sequestered as well.
Love this. Thanks.
His Wiki article states:
"Politically, Ochs described himself as a "left social democrat"[1]"
Sounds right up my alley with both his political disposition and his protest song style of folk music.
I have to agree with you here. I cant imagine living somewhere so populated
An interview with the author.
The solution is what? Build more houses? Now more people move in and we still need more houses.
The idea is more supply would drive the prices down which means people won't be priced out as fast/can find something in their price range. Then you build some shelters to take in and rehabilitate the homeless or whatever and presto!
That said I'm skeptical of the entire thing because it's too "if the market was optimal instead of distorted it wouldn't be bad" for me.
My wife doesn't like urban living but when we visited Tokyo holy moly she fell in love with it and asked me Why can't LA be like this and all I said "because western people don't wanna live like this :-(".
When the cost to build new housing in the places is less than half of the market price but developers aren't building, that argument holds water.
Chicago is and always has been a microcosm of American class and race stratification writ large.
It does if you consider your market models "true" and reality to be "distorted" but it may just as well be your models that are "distorted" and reality "true".
"The theory is sound, it's reality's fault for not conforming to it."
There is no evidence people stop moving, or having children because of housing, they just sacrifice more to be where they want to. We can tell by looking at other countries that this is an American zoning problem, cities in Asia have far more density and far more affordable housing because they built and lot and continue to build. In fact we've seen confirmation of this fact from cities like Seattle in which rents started to go down as a result of a glut of building.
Except that we have working models in reality that actually work. Meaning that it's something specifically wrong with the governance in these places leading to markets that don't work.
Prices in Seattle flatlined because the market couldn't bear any higher prices. Prices are still increasing sharply in the broader region (driven by demand coming from Seattle). Building more apartments has been a good thing though.
Also your two points are contradictory. "People don't stop having children, they just sacrifice more". I definitely know people who have put off (sacrificed) having children due to increasing cost of living.
It's also just incorrect to say people don't stop having children, the birthrate in the US has been declining for years. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/us/us-birthrate-decrease.html?searchResultPosition=1
This is true of developed nations across the world. General economic prosperity creates declining birth rates. While it's probably true the costs of housing and childcare in the US further depresses birth rates, it is not the main cause and is just an "unfortunate" coincidence.
Not saying you're wrong just wanted to point this out.
I live in the Bay Are but rarely get to go to SF. The other day I was walking through a wealthy neighborhood and saw a sign in someone's window "Biden 2020: Four Years of Decency!" or some other such nonsense. It's telling when a left-leaning person thinks "decency" is the main thing lacking in the current administration. Like everything would be fine if Trump just acting respectfully.
Dont you think people are kinda gaming the system here? When people are treating housing as capital investments and they protect that investment by effectively lobbying for policy that favors them resulting in an under-supplied market then that indicates to me that housing-as-investment is a huge factor into the housing crisis.
A wonky example to illustrate this is in NYC where I live DeBlasio campaigned on income equality and social issues as a candidate for mayor including desegregating NYC schools. After he was elected he punted on this issue saying "we have to protect the investments of families who moved into a certain neighborhood so their kid can go to a certain school." Like, that's whole fucking reason why the schools are segregated lol. He then moved on to trying to make the nyc specialized high schools more diverse but then said it's out of his hands to do anything substantive on that front but that's neither here nor there. It's political will but these politicians are yielding to the power of their constituents who don't want their investments fucked with.
Yes, the problem is people gaming the system to inflate property values (on top of the xenophobia, the economic side is what makes it a winner even in liberal areas.) That's the heart of the problem and why measures keep failing, especially in California with its stupid referendum example.
I'm glad you finally agree that housing should not be commodified and that we should expropriate vacant homes from the wealthy and give them to those in need.
As your hero and influence said, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
Property will inevitably be commodified. How you work within that inevitability matters. Just taking mansions and giving them away doesn't solve the fundamental problem, which is a lack of non-mansions being made.
The fundamental problem is that people don't have homes. There are plenty of homes for the homeless but for some reason, these homes ain't being made available. Shucks and darn.
When you have solutions that work without going full "take homes from people because you actively want to take stuff", driving right past those solutions says everything.
I don't want to actually take stuff. I'm not a capitalist, Kirblar, I'm not a thief.
You, on the other hand, the shit you say speaks volumes.
But Tokyo is one of the most expensive town in the world and house prices are also incredibly high. Per square feet, Japan is crazy.
I don't know if lumping Libertarians with Liberals is the right thing to do, but since they end up being Democrats when elected, then I suppose that's unfortunately correct.
I definitely want to see a bill like SB 50 or something more aggressive pass in California.
I definitely want to see a bill like SB 50 or something more aggressive pass in California.
At some point your market solutions will have to wrestle with the problem of "how do you get people to give up the stuff they want and the expectations they have", like lawns, quiet neighborhoods, not being around poor people, etc. And the answer is inevitably some variant of "with the force of law", but with an eye towards making sure the current socio-economic stratification is maintained to some arbitrary extent because the currently wealthy deserve to maintain their wealth more than the needy deserve to have aid, any other outcome would be "unfair".
Also it's not like Hong Kong, a shining beacon of the merits of market balances for housing, isn't facing its own unique humanitarian crisis:
"Yes the cage apartments are bad but it's better than living on the streets, the market works!"
Also it's not like Hong Kong, a shining beacon of the merits of market balances for housing, isn't facing its own unique humanitarian crisis:
"Yes the cage apartments are bad but it's better than living on the streets, the market works!"
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The price for a 2-bedroom apartment is still far, far below similar areas in the US.
Not true.
Maybe the price per apartment is below, but the price per square foot is way higher (the average apartment is smaller in Tokyo than in the average big US city). Tokyo is the second most expensive city in the world in terms of housing: https://www.forbes.com/pictures/mhj45eddhg/1-hong-kong-china/