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On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

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Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#91

Post by Mauricebranagh »

dagw wrote: post #40
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #20

I have a possibly stupid question... Parts of america have really really high housing costs... like really high... and a bunch of people want to live there, and a lot of people there are poor (atleast compared to housing prices). Why the hell do you still build single family houses, or one/two floor buildings in areas where you need to fit a bunch of people (eg. both photos in the article)? I'm from a former socialis…

But places like san francisco? That, I don't get. Short answer. The people who already live there don't want to be neighbors with those sorts of buildings and any politician that suggests it will be voted out of office.

A counterpoint - You then get jerry built high rises built to minimum standards and smaller rooms which leads to tragedy's like Grenfell tower.

Also with covid and the rise of home working you know what people realy realy want? a second room for an office and a Garden (Yard).

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#93

Post by olalonde »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #20

I have a possibly stupid question... Parts of america have really really high housing costs... like really high... and a bunch of people want to live there, and a lot of people there are poor (atleast compared to housing prices). Why the hell do you still build single family houses, or one/two floor buildings in areas where you need to fit a bunch of people (eg. both photos in the article)? I'm from a former socialis…

> Why the hell do you still build single family houses, or one/two floor buildings in areas where you need to fit a bunch of people (eg. both photos in the article)?

Mostly bad regulations like rent control and zoning.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#94

Post by TulliusCicero »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #20

I have a possibly stupid question... Parts of america have really really high housing costs... like really high... and a bunch of people want to live there, and a lot of people there are poor (atleast compared to housing prices). Why the hell do you still build single family houses, or one/two floor buildings in areas where you need to fit a bunch of people (eg. both photos in the article)? I'm from a former socialis…

This question was made for me.

It's not the market; obviously there's demand for higher density housing, and were it allowed, people would make more of it. It's almost always local regulations that make producing such housing difficult, or more commonly, flat out impossible.

Most American residential land is zoned for exclusively large single family homes in big lots. This is true even in most major metro areas. You can read a little bit about this here in this article that compared American zoning with Japanese zoning: https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning...

The gist of how it got this way is: racism and classism. The racism used to be more relevant, these days the classism is. You see, if you require that to live in a neighborhood, you must be able to own or rent a property with a minimum amount of land, it's easy to keep out people of lesser economic resources. A poorer family that might be willing to live an apartment in a nicer area will find that no such housing exists there, and being unable to afford a full house, they are excluded, hence the term 'exclusionary zoning'. This also has the effect of keeping those poor kids out of local schools.

So yeah, it's economic segregation that America pretends doesn't count as segregation somehow, even though the effects are plain as day.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#95

Post by LandR »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #20

I have a possibly stupid question... Parts of america have really really high housing costs... like really high... and a bunch of people want to live there, and a lot of people there are poor (atleast compared to housing prices). Why the hell do you still build single family houses, or one/two floor buildings in areas where you need to fit a bunch of people (eg. both photos in the article)? I'm from a former socialis…

In your first phot, In my country those sort of buildings would be viewed very negatively, many would expect the people in them to be poor, lower-class, living off benefits etc. There are lots of stereotypes about the sort of people that live in those type of buildings.

People would NOT want that sort of building near their home worried it would lead to more crime, lower property prices etc.

Now, your last modern building. People would pay a small fortune to live in something like that in a trendy area in a city...

They would probably be classed as luxury apartments, come with a large rents or buying costs.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#96

Post by marktangotango »

EliRivers wrote: post #69

The car. As he says, the car. The goddamned car. Every time you get into it, hoping that it will start. And not just when it's been sat outside your house for a while. When you stop for petrol (gas), or in the car park after buying food, sitting behind the wheel and hoping it starts again. The restrictions that get placed on you when you just can't rely on the car always starting. For your life, a mostly-starts car i…

Dude this is so true, in the US reliable transportation is so important. Particularly given the abysmal, non existent public transportation in the majority of the country. Having an unreliable car is a major source of stress for a lot of people.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#97

Post by irjustin »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #8
ImaCake wrote: post #7

>while it’s normal to put down a month or two worth of rent as a security deposit, it’s much less normal to get it back This looks insane to an Australian. I have moved house 4 times in the past 5 years and I have never not got all of my bond back. Some states here have a rule that the bond money is held by the state so that the landowner doesn't just take that money for themselves. How can the poor ever break the cy…

I don’t know the statistics, but I live in the US, and had rented for 10+ years with 5 of 6 different landlords in 3 cities, and I always got my deposit back, and I don’t know anyone who was stiffed either. But I wasn’t staying in the worst places, but not the best either. One was an informal cash transaction rental from a Craigslist ad and it worked out.

Stay in a slum and you'll find those who are more than happy to break the rules if they know they can.

You probably have the mental fortitude to figure out how to fight back on your own. To read the docs, know your position, agreements, and how to take a landlord to court to win.

In low income, people don't know their rights nor do they ever believe that the system could ever be on their side. And, they're not unjustified in that thinking.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#98

Post by data_ders »

The car talk resonated with me. I'm always irked to hear someone bragging about their Volvo that's lasted them 20 years or whatever. To me, there's nothing to be proud of, you bought a luxury car and likely had it maintained by a trained mechanic regularly.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#99

Post by wizzwizz4 »

Aunche wrote: post #49
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value, not demand. A nurse who helps stop 50 people from dying each week is doing very valuable work, but a talented lawyer helping to defeat valid class-action lawsuits (negative value work) is probably paid more.

Value is relative to the labor pool. If you hired me to inject vaccines instead of a nurse, after some light training I might be able to stop 40 people from dying every week rather than 50. That doesn't mean I would be 80% valuable as a nurse. I'd be providing negative value because there are plenty of nurses who are also willing to do the same job. Also, if you consider class action lawsuits as overall positive valu…

By “negative value“ I mean “the world would be better off if nobody did that”, not “negative relative to the counterfactual where you didn't do it”. The latter is good for individual decision-making, but it isn't very good for accurately compensating value contributed… unless we have some variety of UBI, but regardless, that's no longer capitalism; it's an inverse job auction.

> Also, if you consider class action lawsuits as overall positive value

I don't. But the vast majority of class action lawsuits I've seen have been valid, and the vast majority of class action lawsuits have paid out nowhere near enough to even discourage the behaviour, let alone compensate the victims. With a good class-action lawyer, class-action lawsuits just reduce your profit margin slightly, as a cost of “doing business”.

I can't imagine how you could think that I think that, unless we're working off drastically different models of how the world works.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#100

Post by fallingfrog »

The whole car section brings back memories of when I used to drive a car with one flat tire, but I would pump it up with a foot pump on the way out every morning and it would stay inflated just long enough to get to work, then the same on the way back. I used to get stressed out waiting at red lights, thinking, that air is leaking out..
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