Earlier quoted context omitted.
Housing is cheap in West Virginia because it's currently experiencing the largest population exodus in the US. https://apnews.com/article/al-state-wire-west-virginia-lifes...
West Virginia didn’t outlaw new housing like Portland did. American cities largely rejected supply and demand over the last decades, as land-owning interests found alliance, variously, with renting incumbents and the economically naive. Charleston didn’t make better policy than Salem; it simply didn’t pass the bad ones.
The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression
701–710 of 1001 posts
Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression
#702Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have an external garage building that I'd love to turn into a small ADU, but it's not allowed in my area. Additionally, if you look at historical cheap rentals of the past, you see things like tenement buildings, which were arguably horrible, but provided a cheap alternate to homelessness. You can also see examples of what low rent places look like today in Asian countries, such as Hong Kong tiny apartments. Many o…
In 2010, I had a $600/month rental with a kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, in apartment washing machine/dryer and a fairly large walk-in closet. With 13 years of inflation, that'd be $850/month. That apartment now goes for over $1200/month (Almost certainly hasn't been renovated). [1] The issue is oligopolies. Few large businesses that own the majority of available rentals and thus can set prices to whatever…
The 2 bedroom apartment I rented in college (ended around 2013/2014) was $719/mo. It is now $1699/mo.
It wasn't exactly in a nice area, either. Recently the news caught a story about somebody's drug dealer setting off fireworks in his apartment, which I suppose is pretty exciting if not in the worst ways.
Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression
#703Some good commentary in this thread, however one topic thats never raised in the topic of affordable housing is fast cheap public transit. I could never imagine being able to buy a house in London. but the train network makes it possible to live in a more affordable neighbourhood and commute as needed. In the US we seem to think that cities can continue to have affordable housing in the most desireable areas. this is…
I've been told since childhood that the main obstacle to inexpensive public transit in the the majority of US is racism - keep those people in their neighborhood . I've never done any sort of research or anything, and even though it's depressing, it sounds plausible.
Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression
#704Earlier quoted context omitted.
Public transit is much safer than driving in your car. Someone skipping fare does not compare to even a light fender bender.
> Someone skipping fare This, obviously, isn't what raises fear in people. "Safer" for some statistics, like a car crash, but also much less safe for things like getting stabbed, spit on, confronted. Sure, it's somewhat rare on public transport, but they're exactly zero in my car, at freeway speeds. edit: A quick google search shows two stabbings, one slit throat, and a page full of fights, in my area, over the last…
That's basically nothing next to car accidents. Car accident injuries can be pretty gruesome. Maybe the fundamental change that is needed is awareness of the risks of driving and the yearly death/mutilation toll in each community. (And the awareness that bigger and bigger SUVs with higher and higher bumpers is a zero-sum game.)
Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression
#705Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
The most intriguing thing about boomers is that they all believe exactly the same things.
I know you're being sarcastic, but my point is that the boomer everyone hates seems to be an elusive thing to me. I don't think a generation of mostly working class people orchestrated an economic downturn for their own benefit. I think we'd all do the same thing were we to have the same opportunities.
A lot of obvious priorities today were likely non-obvious before, too.
There's immense risk in assuming people are stupid. In identifying their stupidity, you're likely imagining your own knowledge or intelligence. There's a very good chance that it's all illusory or at least very incomplete. Also, consider that when you analyze another person's failure and find solutions, it doesn't mean you wouldn't have failed in the same way they did under the same circumstances.
I know where I live a lot of bad decisions were made around resource extraction for example. Logging was booming and many people became quite wealthy from it. You could earn enough to buy a home and pay it off in ten years, sometimes less! That's crazy today. And we say, man, those idiots, how could they not know logging would collapse? How could they not know it would harm the environment so much? They obviously didn't care, they just wanted money for themselves. I was one of those people.
But then I dug into the research and history of the industry, only to discover that concerns around monoculture forestry, forest hydrology, watershed preservation, and the myriad other concerns are actually fairly recent. The best early work I could find on monoculture forestry in coniferous forests was from the 80s; by that point it was way too late. We're already reaping what that sewed. Modern forestry practices are informed by this research though, and our practices are actually far better than they were. As for hydrology, I found some work that would be considered high quality and relevant today, but it too was from the late 80s. Prior to that, we simply didn't know with certainty that cutting swaths of forests would impact the local climate in the way it does, or that there would be broad repercussions for biodiversity, river morphology (this research is particularly recent).
(edit: I don't mean to say no one could see any issues with it; there was clearly concern and that's why there was research into the matter. What I mean is that the data wasn't compelling or commonplace such that people could look at forestry and say with certainty what the outcomes would be. We've continued to do the same thing with agriculture; even today we seem to eternally hope the consequences of the pressure we put on our ecosystems won't cause too much damage to keep carrying on... But we know it's causing damage nonetheless. It'll take more data and more damage before people stop and say shit, I guess we better slow down!)
So maybe the best question we can ask ourselves is not what the "boomers" did wrong, but what are we doing wrong today? How are we letting down our future children and grand children? What can we do to be more cautious, and what can we do to buffer them from our mistakes?
There's far too much effort put into blaming rather than living our values and making things better.
Phew, what a vent.
Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression
#706Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The issue is that a sizeable underclass is being created that have no wealth, not least because what wealth they did have has been funneled to the very wealthy. This has happened in all of the industrialized world, and it's happening very quickly right now. The reasons you mention are very US-specific, but the funneling happens everywhere, usually by more traditional means such as rents and taxes. Yes, taxes are gr…
> The reason for this massive wealth distribution is the inflationary monetary system Inflation serves to reduce wealth (if just stuffed under the mattress), and encourages investment (to beat inflation). The real problem is that wealth begets wealth - if left to it's own devices the capitalist system will ensure wealth becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The only way this can be counter-balanced is with g…
I'd argue government is just the same. If you look at who holds office right now, it's predominantly the older generation [0]. They achieved that by becoming career politicians. Deng Xiaoping introduced capitalism which lifted generations of people out of poverty [1]. It has a good track record of doing that. The rich companies lobby the government to make competition for the little guy impossible and solidifying their concentration of power -- crony capitalism. I do think there should be a push and pull, but both sides are human and power hungry.
[0] https://theconversation.com/politicians-are-getting-older-sh... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/20/world/deng-xiaoping-a-pol...
Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression
#7072015:
Millennials: The rent is too damn high!
Boomers: Stop whining, you entitled babies! I bought my first house when I was still in high school! You just need to work!
2023:
Boomers: The rent is too damn high!
Millennials (and Gen-Zers?): Ok, boomer. Just stay away from TikTok.
Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression
#708Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. I don't ever mind public transport. I have used public transport in multiple areas of the planet. There are two quips: 1. You have to be there in someone else's time. You can't have 5 or 10 or 30 minutes if something comes up. 2. What you say. I don't want to rub my body with people who are wearing dirty clothes, smell, and has god-knows-what liquid on their clothes who might choose to cough without using th…
> 1. You have to be there in someone else's time. You can't have 5 or 10 or 30 minutes if something comes up. There's this cool thing you can do in the 21st century where if you go into Google maps, or Apple maps, or any other map app, you can check how long it takes to get to your destination > 2. What you say. I don't want to rub my body with people who are wearing dirty clothes, smell, and has god-knows-what liqui…
Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression
#709Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Can you do the dirty job of recreating the housing market, and cite your sources in what amounts to a blog post?" Sure. Let me get right on that, after I get elected to be a Congresscritter.
Can you at least try it locally on a small scale first? Also, what do you mean by de-profit-ize housing? Do plumbers and tradesmen no longer get to profit from building homes? Surveyors? Architects? Electricians? Financiers? How do you get homes built if no one is allowed to profit from their trade?
Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression
#710Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm responding to OP's comment on eminent domain. Eminent Domain in the US is a de facto nonstarter based on past recent litigation. The HDB programs in both SG and HK were able to succeed thanks to strong eminent domain laws by governments not immediately beholden to public sentiment. It was the right call, but one that can't be done in the US circa 2023. Also, Coldstone was after the Malayan Emergency and after SG…
It was just after the insurgency ended but there was definitely a massive pushback on anything even slightly communist/socialist running through both countries that still exists to this day. Singapore was a very new country at the time and despite the split with Malaysia the two were pretty much in lockstep and highly integrated on issues like the emergency/civil war. Both countries were basically expecting it to bre…