61–70 of 166 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At $15/hour, that security guard is probably close to double the income people living in trailer parks earn.
Adjusted for cost of living, that security guard is poorer than the person living in a trailer park or very close to it. There's been a large rise in people living in campers in California due to high rents.
Having spent a decent amount of time in one of these myself, I much prefer the term "trailer park" to "mobile-home community". The article uses the term interchangeably, but they explain this important detail themselves: "The homes in the park are not as portable as its name implies; they’ve been placed on foundations, and their hitches have been removed." In my experience, in older parks especially, there is no way…
The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.
The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.
The oddest part about it is how much of a mess the Bay Area is. Typically you’d expect centers of wealth to be excessively clean, filled with expensive architecture and monuments, etc. to the point of being boring. Dubai, for instance. Somehow SV just decided to not bother with that at all.
Genuine question - when you're in the bay, do you spend time in any of the following: Pac Heights / Presidio Heights / Seacliff / Woodside / St. Helena / West Palo Alto / Stanford's Campus / Saratoga?
I think the reason you have the perception that you do is that the bay area is one of the least tourist-friendly locations in the world, frankly because the class you talk about loathes outsiders.
EDIT: A great microcosm of this is Sand Hill Road. Looks like less than nothing from the street, but it's home to some of the most expensive and nicest office real estate in the world. Apple HW stands out as another great example.
The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.
The United States is the land of high variance. We let people crash and burn, but we also let people soar. A society that permits the former is unremarkable — letting people suffer is the default in poverty, and most countries are relatively quite poor. But the latter, letting the tall poppies stand proud with not much more than heckling for their height, is something special, and it's a big part of how we've become…
What worries me however is how there are more and more laws and regulation to not let people crash and burn - like forcing people to have health insurance. Stupid code for building houses - etc
EDIT: and I'm not being sarcastic. I admire how by taking the correct decision to apparently sacrifice the poor, we have made the pie bigger for everyone including the poor (unfortunately, as noted by a comment below about Des Moines, building code is quickly changing that)
Having spent a decent amount of time in one of these myself, I much prefer the term "trailer park" to "mobile-home community". The article uses the term interchangeably, but they explain this important detail themselves: "The homes in the park are not as portable as its name implies; they’ve been placed on foundations, and their hitches have been removed." In my experience, in older parks especially, there is no way…
The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.
I suspect we gutted our middle class with globalization. Any jobs that could be exported overseas for cheaper were, and management was rewarded for saving investors so much money by outsourcing those jobs. If we had a stronger collective identity (as with many European countries) we might've felt a kinship or patriotic duty to protect those jobs or otherwise redistribute the wealth garnered by outsourcing. And I'm no…
It's not about middle class. In other rich countries, everyone, incl. the lower class, can afford to live in apartments, and doesn't have to resort to living in trailers.
The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.
I suspect we gutted our middle class with globalization. Any jobs that could be exported overseas for cheaper were, and management was rewarded for saving investors so much money by outsourcing those jobs. If we had a stronger collective identity (as with many European countries) we might've felt a kinship or patriotic duty to protect those jobs or otherwise redistribute the wealth garnered by outsourcing. And I'm no…
The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The United States is the land of high variance. We let people crash and burn, but we also let people soar. A society that permits the former is unremarkable — letting people suffer is the default in poverty, and most countries are relatively quite poor. But the latter, letting the tall poppies stand proud with not much more than heckling for their height, is something special, and it's a big part of how we've become…
So true. This is why the US is so much better than Asia. What worries me however is how there are more and more laws and regulation to not let people crash and burn - like forcing people to have health insurance. Stupid code for building houses - etc EDIT: and I'm not being sarcastic. I admire how by taking the correct decision to apparently sacrifice the poor, we have made the pie bigger for everyone including the p…