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The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

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Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#491

Post by nbenitezl »

saiya-jin wrote: post #333
armchairhacker wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve literally seen this same exact comment many, many times except with different locations. Eastern Mass, New York, Ontario, Britain, and even starting to hear it from suburban areas. The exact same concepts: cheap grandfathered lease, hoping the landlord doesn’t cancel, can’t afford rent despite making >100k, “luxury apartments”, empty apartments, illegal renting (e.g. AirBnB) and shadiness.

Practically every single capital is like that these days. People of all nations can copy paste same rant and it would be 100% valid. This is how it is, too much buying power with new generation of higher level office workers compared to blue collar ones, on top of financial speculation with either prices skyrocketing, or airbnbs. Let's not forget there is more and more of people in general, and more and more coming f…

Reason how this happens worldwide may be that 70% of world population is projected to be living in big cities by next decades.

I mean, tendency is that most people want to live in the big city, sometimes as necessity (can only find a job there) sometimes as a preference (better services, etc.) the result is traffic jams and expensive real state.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#492

Post by borski »

keepquestioning wrote: post #484
hepinhei wrote: post #279

What this article does not say is that the prime Minister has 6 houses... So he is benefiting from this ( https://www.cmjornal.pt/politica/detalhe/antonio-costa-tem-c... ) We are living more and more in a world where people work but are not able to live with dignity

We need a cap on property ownership for those in the political class. That's the key to fairer policies.

Is it fair to prevent wealthy people from going into politics? Does a politician have to be poor or middle class, or not own homes? At what point do the restrictions begin to become 'unfair'? Some people are born with wealth, which under this system would put them at a disadvantage in politics...fair?

Fair always has two sides, and it's "impossible" to come up with a perfectly fair system.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#493

Post by mistermann »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #354
jollybean wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well #1 is not 'straightfoward' fixes at all. Massive Real Estate buildouts are 'gigantic' industrial projects. A 'straight forward fix' is to ban foreign ownership of homes and AirBnB. Poof. Now, I wouldn't support that, but it would be 'straight forward'. #2 is reasonable. #3 is a big glib tough. "Hey, everyone should just get a raise!", if it were only that easy!

> Poof This has pretty much already been done in Vancouver, which has layers of Foreign Buyer Taxes, Speculation Taxes, Empty Home Taxes and strict Airbnb regulation. It absolutely did not make the problem go 'poof.' All these things were well worth doing and helped in various ways, but it remains that the core underlying problem is that there's not enough homes for everyone and scarcity ensures high rents and high p…

There's been nothing even remotely close to a ban, and it's highly uncertain the degree to which the new rules are even enforced. As with most things, Canadians are expected to Trust The Experts....and trust them they do!

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#494

Post by Bakary »

darth_avocado wrote: post #476
alberth wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gentrification > I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive … Rents in the city have skyrocketed, we'd have a hard time finding anything I know this comment won’t be received well, but aren’t you describing gentrification & how you participated (maybe unknowingly) in what has caused prices to skyrocket. And you’re now complaining because s…

Gentrification is an overblown concern. No one has the right to live in a specific area. Migration is human tendency. Just like poor people have a right to move from a rural area to a city in search of better employment opportunities, people with money have right to move to cheaper locations to get a better bang for their buck.

There's nothing overblown about being forced out of a neighborhood you've lived in all of your life. Now the problem is reaching epic proportions all over the world.

I also do not understand how the second sentence and the last aren't a direct contradiction of each other.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#495

Post by SyzygistSix »

subsubzero wrote: post #171

This sounds like what happened in the SFbay area(south bay/pennisula), I grew up there and it used to be a great place to live, center left politics, lots of families and a diverse set of industries with many middle class opportunities. right around 10-15 years ago things started to change dramatically for the worse, housing and costs everywhere skyrocketed, homeless population exploded, politics veered hard left. Mo…

Hard left politics would build housing or pass legislation/policies that encouraged it rather than preserve the wealth of already wealthy property owners through discouraging new building.

There is more to left politics or even sane politics than being socially very liberal.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#496

Post by derefr »

ginja wrote: post #412
arinlen wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Old people own most of the real estate and don't care much about workers. Lisbon's local government is renowned for being the largest property owner in the country, with over 60% of Lisbon's real estate owned by the city.

> over 60% of Lisbon's real estate owned by the city I'm from Lisboa and this can't be true unless you're using some very strange definition of real estate. What's your source for this?

Maybe counting unimproved land?

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#497

Post by inawarminister »

darth_avocado wrote: post #476
alberth wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gentrification > I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive … Rents in the city have skyrocketed, we'd have a hard time finding anything I know this comment won’t be received well, but aren’t you describing gentrification & how you participated (maybe unknowingly) in what has caused prices to skyrocket. And you’re now complaining because s…

Gentrification is an overblown concern. No one has the right to live in a specific area. Migration is human tendency. Just like poor people have a right to move from a rural area to a city in search of better employment opportunities, people with money have right to move to cheaper locations to get a better bang for their buck.

Not so when it involves crossing country lines.

A country should focus on its citizens first, foreigners second.

Then again EU is an unique experiment as it is.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#498

Post by borski »

kaashif wrote: post #335

This article makes me realise how fortunate I am to be the children of immigrants. My parents are very family oriented and were somewhat upset when I left my home country (which isn't my parents' original home country) for greener pastures, but if there's one thing immigrants understand, it's that if things are hard, you should move to where things aren't hard! I'm sure the author has their reasons or whatever, but w…

This was the comment I came here to post. The son of Ukrainian/Belarusian Jewish immigrants, family was and is everything to us; but immigrating, while "hard" is still sometimes the right thing to do.

I have yet to meet the child of a Jewish family who does not intimately understand this, given how frequently those families often had to move, while staying extremely close.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#499

Post by confidantlake »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #453
42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can also put in place policies to increase native population growth.

No one has found or discovered such policies that work across-the-board.

I think the housing crises has caused a lot of it. I am trying to have kids in my mid 30s, in large part because it took that long until I was financially stable. I can't even imagine what it must be like for a non software engineer.

Maybe a lower population -> lower housing prices -> easier to start a family will cause some sort of equilibrium.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#500

Post by Bakary »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #457
stuaxo wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does this end? A planet full of empty "luxury apartments" and most of us homeless?

If history tells us anything it's rich people's heads on pikes and shit ton of strife.

With virtualized currency and literal microwave pain rays, I don't see this remaining the norm for every boom and bust cycle.

There will soon come a time where revolt is no longer possible.

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