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Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

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Re: Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

#101

Post by 4death4 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99
4death4 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual 0th law of economics is the law of decreasing marginal utility. You can't expect specialization and productivity to increase indefinitely as density increases. Clearly, we're at an inflection point. How can people specialize and be productive if they can't even afford a place to live?

The actual zeroth law would be a corollary of the second law of thermodynamics: scarcity. > Clearly, we're at an inflection point This has been claimed repeatedly throughout history. Without knowledge of the future, it is impossible to know whether we are at an inflection local or global. With resepct to any American city, we know we are far from the inflection point because we have counterexamples abroad.

> With resepct to any American city, we know we are far from the inflection point because we have counterexamples abroad.

Such as? There are very few places in the world that match the productivity of the U.S. I don't think Luxembourg counts as a counterexample, for instance (population 640K). Singapore, maybe, but its population is under 5.5 million.

Re: Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

#102

Post by buzzert »

mplewis wrote: post #92
YiraldyGuber wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

Diversity means you are allowed to peacefully exist without someone wanting you dead for your identity.

This bigoted, and frankly deranged misconception about small towns perfectly explains why someone would rather live in squalor and complain rather than move to a small town.

Re: Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

#103

Post by [deleted] »

4death4 wrote: post #101
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual zeroth law would be a corollary of the second law of thermodynamics: scarcity. > Clearly, we're at an inflection point This has been claimed repeatedly throughout history. Without knowledge of the future, it is impossible to know whether we are at an inflection local or global. With resepct to any American city, we know we are far from the inflection point because we have counterexamples abroad.

> With resepct to any American city, we know we are far from the inflection point because we have counterexamples abroad. Such as? There are very few places in the world that match the productivity of the U.S. I don't think Luxembourg counts as a counterexample, for instance (population 640K). Singapore, maybe, but its population is under 5.5 million.

[deleted]

Re: Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

#104

Post by tropicalbeach »

markwkw wrote: post #50

I sometimes wonder how people managed in the 19th century. Many went from villages to increasingly crowded cities. With no savings, minimal or no education. Industrial production was ramping up, but with crazy demands on workers, long hours, no safety standards. Couldn’t get a mortgage and wait for a nice corporation to build an apartment for you. Couldn’t look for a place in suburbs (how would you commute). Somehow…

They were just less sheltered. I mean many people in countries across the world live in worse conditions.

To be honest most people in America have become so comfortable that they just look for problems to make there lives seem harder than they really are now days.

I would be willing to bet people were also happier back then too.

Re: Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

#105

Post by greenhexagon »

markwkw wrote: post #50

I sometimes wonder how people managed in the 19th century. Many went from villages to increasingly crowded cities. With no savings, minimal or no education. Industrial production was ramping up, but with crazy demands on workers, long hours, no safety standards. Couldn’t get a mortgage and wait for a nice corporation to build an apartment for you. Couldn’t look for a place in suburbs (how would you commute). Somehow…

If you're genuinely curious, I'd highly recommend the book "The Road to Wigan Pier" to get an understanding of working class life was like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Re: Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

#106

Post by financltravsty »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #82
4death4 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do cities have all the opportunity? Most likely because the capital owning class lives in cities and has been systematically draining wealth from more rural areas via globalization and the erosion of workers' rights. I'm not saying young professionals need to concern themselves with such lofty ideals, but I do think it's a valid to question why there are only a few pockets of opportunity left in the country.

But why do cities have all the opportunity? This is an overstatement. In large parts of Midwest United States (and Canada), you can be middle class by farming. That is "opportunity" -- not amazing, but a good, middle class life in a small, safe town. Also, it is easy to own your home in a farming community -- much easier than large city or suburbs. It would better to ask why do cities have so much more opportunity in…

As soon as your middle-class farmer children finish high school they will be 1 of 3 (descending, from most likely to least):

- Leaving for the big city/college

- Staying in your small town, but slowly becoming helpless as they fall into bad crowds, bad habits, or both

- Staying in your small town, but successfully continuing the way of life

It is unsustainable in its current form, unless you inoculate your children against modern ideas and technology (like the Amish) or make it more desirable for people to stay. I will point to European villages as a counter example. And then I will point to: lack of cultural homogeneity, the tenuous nature of living in the United States without a stable and growing source of income, and a lack of spiritually-enriching outlets as reasons why people move out of small U.S. towns towards cities.

The first leads to unstable communities. The second leads to subconscious unease and anxiety. The last leads to a restlessness which to leads to various mental ailments like consumerism, that can only be fulfilled by staying on the hedonic treadmill.

I posit that it is not cities that have all the opportunities, but that it is small communities that lack them.

Re: Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

#107

Post by financltravsty »

freetime2 wrote: post #49

This is actually a really bizarre concept to me. To me, the reason to divorce someone would be that you are so incompatible that you can't bear to live with them. And this would come after a period of separation where you test out the waters and make sure that divorce is definitely the correct path forward. If you still get along well enough that you can live together peacefully, you might as well just stay married!

You would be flabbergasted to know the lifetimes of Las Vegas weddings.

Re: Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

#108

Post by financltravsty »

kredd wrote: post #35
timeagain wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: living alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. A good roommate is as hard to find as a romantic partner, but living with people you like is one of the greatest joys of life.

Sometimes we joke with my old roommate (we live by ourselves, on different sides of the country) how both of us would absolutely move into a 4-bed apartment and be roommates again. We had a very good thing going on for 6 years, but I guess, gotta do the grown up stuff and live alone. It's not serious at all, since we both enjoy our solo-life, but also...

You could always finance a multiplex, if everyone involved is serious about it.

Re: Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

#109

Post by paulmd »

4death4 wrote: post #63
slymon99 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cities have jobs. Cities have opportunity. Cities have diversity. Why should we expect, encourage, or even desire that young people sacrifice economic and social opportunity and mobility? Why is the response to high housing cost in cities lecturing "current generations" about their choices? There are glaringly obvious problems in many of our cities that make housing so expensive. Is it so outrageous to try to solve t…

But why do cities have all the opportunity? Most likely because the capital owning class lives in cities and has been systematically draining wealth from more rural areas via globalization and the erosion of workers' rights. I'm not saying young professionals need to concern themselves with such lofty ideals, but I do think it's a valid to question why there are only a few pockets of opportunity left in the country.

Eh. Largely society transfers money from urban areas to subsidize rural ones. Thousands of miles of road and power and other services to sparse populations would not be sustainable without these transfers. And far from everyone who lives out there is a farmer, plenty of people just live on a mountain somewhere, 30 miles from the nearest grocery store, I remember this doing some driving in the Santa Barbara mountains.

Re: Housing costs are so high that divorced couples are still living together

#110

Post by paulmd »

slymon99 wrote: post #74
4death4 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do cities have all the opportunity? Most likely because the capital owning class lives in cities and has been systematically draining wealth from more rural areas via globalization and the erosion of workers' rights. I'm not saying young professionals need to concern themselves with such lofty ideals, but I do think it's a valid to question why there are only a few pockets of opportunity left in the country.

Exactly what wealth are cities draining from rural America? Is it possible there's a simpler explanation? That the economy of the twenty-first century is dominated by information and technology, and that these demands are better matched to the agglomeration affects of true urban density, where the best and brightest can learn from each other?

The simple explanation is that many of these communities are the proverbial railroad towns that the train no longer stops at. Their key industries have dried up, and the infrastructure costs are unsustainable for the remaining population and economic activity.

The US overbuilt in rural areas during the late 1800s and early 1900s as the railroads pushed west, others had a major industry that has dried up, and a lot of these areas just aren’t sustainable anymore. But America doesn’t have a system for handling de-ruralization gracefully, you still have to deliver power and phone regardless of whether someone wants to live in the middle of Wyoming. We rarely ever rip up a road, etc. Infrastructure is a one-way ratchet.

On top of that most of americas infrastructure is aging in general and we have a general crisis of insufficient revenue to maintain let alone fully replace it. Everything is built on the assumption that it will catch traction and grow, and when it shrinks then there’s no money to maintain or replace it. This is a general crisis across our whole infrastructure - even apart from de-ruralization we’d have overbuilt infrastructure in most places relative to sustainable revenue.

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