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The death of partying in the USA

derekthompson.org

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Re: The death of partying in the USA

#131

Post by bradlys »

atonse wrote: post #90
hnpolicestate wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You correctly blame corporate buy up of real estate as a problem but nobody ever cites upper income new immigrants as a problem. Where I live the only people purchasing $600k - $1 million residential properties are newly arrived Chinese, Eastern European, South Asian and Arab immigrants. Makes for a very angry native population who are being pushed out of the places they were born for new arrivals. We'll never be abl…

Are you claiming that they’re already well to do (by American standards) when they arrive? I can’t count a single immigrant in my network that was rich by American standards (which makes them filthy rich by most other nations standards) and then chose to move here. Sure my sample size is probably 30 families (across a dozen countries) but that’s not nothing. Every single one built their net worth here. Meaning that o…

Where do you live? If you’re in SV or NYC, extremely easy to meet these rich families.

If you’re meeting someone who has a Masters or PhD from a US university and came from another country - often their family is well off. Certainly better off than a typical middle class family in the US that can’t pay for college for their own kids and aren’t even paying international rates.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#132

Post by esseph »

luckydata wrote: post #39
carl_dr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the graph shows this was happening way before COVID. The internet and how that has changed how people relate is much more likely the reason.

in my opinion the largest effect is how we build cities. Having to drive everywhere and the separation between commercial, residential and industrial areas of american cities is very clearly a driver of this isolation.

Maybe.

But everybody hates everyone else online.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#133

Post by bombcar »

taeric wrote: post #76
jppope wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally valid observation, but things definitely changed. Neighbors don't know each other as well, so the grandma keeping an eye out the back window doesn't exist anymore. It was a village watching the kids before, its not that way now.

I suspect they didn't know each other that well back in the day, either. We just tell ourselves that they did. When we've lived in apartment complexes, as an easy example, there were a lot of people we didn't know. We just also got to know a few that we would see on a regular basis, as well.

Before universal A/C you were basically forced out of doors in many parts of the USA.

This, over time, leads to familiarity with those around you.

Now most people would be highly suspicious if you sit in your front yard.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#134

Post by bradlys »

lr4444lr wrote: post #6

The parental part bears special mention. My spouse and I find that we are overwhelmingly the ones calling to organize playdates rather than vice versa. I'd like to think it's not that my kids are poorly socialized or misbehave - they've always received glowing reports at school. I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents, and there is also a class list whe…

Why do the kids need play dates? When I was a 7, you’d just talk to the kids down the street. I knew several kids within a few blocks of where I lived.

It seemed like a really far distance that I went to see people but now I realize I never went more than a quarter mile from home to see someone. There were just a lot of families in my area that had kids.

Of course, that’s not true in a lot of the areas I’m in now. My friends experience the same where it’s hard to meet people who have kids of similar age. There might be 50 homes and only 1-2 will have kids near the same age. Many won’t have any kids at all.

Thinking back on it, it was surprising how many kids there were near me near my age growing up compared to now.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#135

Post by DidYaWipe »

hnpolicestate wrote: post #82
DidYaWipe wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You correctly blame corporate buy up of real estate as a problem but nobody ever cites upper income new immigrants as a problem. Where I live the only people purchasing $600k - $1 million residential properties are newly arrived Chinese, Eastern European, South Asian and Arab immigrants. Makes for a very angry native population who are being pushed out of the places they were born for new arrivals. We'll never be abl…

Yeah, that's a good one too. I remember reading that China was allegedly trying to curtail this by limiting money movement out of the country for large transactions, but we all know that the people with that kind of money will find a way (if those "efforts" were even really being made).

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#136

Post by lr4444lr »

lawlessone wrote: post #12
lr4444lr wrote: post #6

The parental part bears special mention. My spouse and I find that we are overwhelmingly the ones calling to organize playdates rather than vice versa. I'd like to think it's not that my kids are poorly socialized or misbehave - they've always received glowing reports at school. I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents, and there is also a class list whe…

>I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents Yeah if i was a kid i'd be mortified at having to do this.

My kids asked for them. They are under 10. (They asked me to write down my number to give to their friends. Business card is just as good.)

We don't have a landline, and there's no way in hell they're getting their own phones at that age.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#137

Post by arp242 »

roadside_picnic wrote: post #77
sokoloff wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. About 2/3 of households in the US own the home they live in. Renting is the minority, not the majority.

Thank you for mentioning this! There's this weird, persistent meme that large corporations are buying up all the housing and nobody owns homes anymore, which is fundamentally not supported by the data. There are shifting trends in generational home ownership rates, but these are still just initial trends we're seeing. If you look at the data [0] owner occupied has gone down from the 2000s housing bubble, but in the g…

I don't know about the United States, but in (parts of) Europe it is the case. "Nobody owns homes any more" is an exaggeration of course, but things are not alright in the housing market, in part because private corporations are buying up quite a large percentage of the housing stock to rent. I think in Ireland it's about half.

Like I said, I don't know about the US. It's a big place and you're probably taking too much of a "grand scheme of things" view here. Aside from geographical diversity, total % of home ownership doesn't change that fast – lots of older people already own homes, their children often inherit those homes. Houses aren't like hotdog sales and numbers change slowly.

What matters more is how much does an average 25 or 30 year old pay in housing costs? What hope does someone with a decent (but not exceptionally well-paid) job have of purchasing a house? A single % of home ownership across the entire population doesn't really capture that. Doubly so for such a large country as the US. I'm sure there are affordable homes out in the sticks, but also ... no jobs. That might work for the remote software dev, but not everyone is a software dev.

In Ireland the total housing ownership has fallen, but not dramatically. However, the reality for people not already having a home is quite bleak. Buying a house now is significantly more expensive than it was a decade or two ago, as is renting. I could buy an apartment on my own ten years ago with a salary that really wasn't all that great. I'd have no hope today. My rent today is about three and a half times what it was 15 years ago. There is a generation of working 20 and 30-year old who are still living at home because they can't really afford to move out.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#138

Post by lr4444lr »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #38
lr4444lr wrote: post #6

The parental part bears special mention. My spouse and I find that we are overwhelmingly the ones calling to organize playdates rather than vice versa. I'd like to think it's not that my kids are poorly socialized or misbehave - they've always received glowing reports at school. I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents, and there is also a class list whe…

There’s no way to say this without coming across as extremely rude, but… > I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents If this isn’t the only thing you/your kids do that’s well outside typical social norms, that’s probably the reason nobody else is inviting them. This is almost on the level of parents accompanying their adult kids to job interviews and then…

As I posted above, my kids literally asked for them. They are both under 10, and don't have their own phones.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#139

Post by InitialLastName »

lr4444lr wrote: post #136
lawlessone wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents Yeah if i was a kid i'd be mortified at having to do this.

My kids asked for them. They are under 10. (They asked me to write down my number to give to their friends. Business card is just as good.) We don't have a landline, and there's no way in hell they're getting their own phones at that age.

This is something I think about with my kids when they get to that age. I was calling my friends (on their landlines, using our landline) regularly by then, talking to their parents en route to getting them on the phone, and arranging visits. My kids won't grow up in a world where that's something that happens, and I'm not sure how to support their social independence in a world where (as you say) it seems nigh-on-negligent for them to have their own phones.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#140

Post by BobaFloutist »

iwontberude wrote: post #115
floatingtorch wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it’s surprised me how this meme was everywhere in the comments while the data does not support it. I’d bet it’s splashy headlines in news outlets. Important to correct it so that policy is focused on what’s most effective.

Blackrock sounds scary

People absolutely also conflate it with Blackstone and even Blackwater.
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