6 ms·

What happens when you have no affordable housing in cities is an impossible situation for low-wage workers. All the jobs are in the city, all the homes are out

by habosa 10y ago

What happens when you have no affordable housing in cities is an impossible situation for low-wage workers. All the jobs are in the city, all the homes are outside the city, and the cost of traveling back and forth is very high relative to the pay. Also you need socioeconomic diversity to have all of the things that make up a high-quality urban or suburban life. You need doctors, lawyers, and bankers but also bartenders and cashiers. If you only have one or the other, it won't be a very enjoyable place to live. Building affordable housing can achieve this type of diversity, whereas a free market approach will likely do the opposite.

rdtsc 10y ago
What can happen is the for the counties / cities to provide subsidized housing for those making below a certain age and working in that country / city. I have seen this happen and lived next to a community like that. It was a peaceful and nice place, well maintained without the associated stereotypes for a such a community. It was mostly taxi drivers, service workers, construction, recent immigrants and so on.
shuw 10y ago
If there's a scarcity of bartenders or cashiers, then their wages will go up until that scarcity is filled.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- habosa 10y ago
  In a theoretical economy, maybe. In reality you'll have a small increase in wages, but likely business owners being chronically short staffed, going out of business, or choosing not to start a business. Even if wages to go up perfectly like in an econ textbook, that will increase the cost of goods and services which may not matter much for the wealthy residents but will make the city much less attractive for visitors/tourists and cut into the elevated wages. Remember, workers are consumers. There's also the issue that raising wages will not fix the problem if landlords capture the wage increase by raising the price of housing. It's all about buying power, the absolute numbers mean nothing. The free market can't solve all of our problems, and even if it could housing in particular is too important to wait on supply and demand forces to fix everything. Moving has very high material/time/emotional costs and humans need uninterrupted housing to maintain a decent life.
- Eupolemos 10y ago
  Unless there exists _any_ kind of unemployment - in that case people will travel for a ridiculous amount of time just to have a job, thus ruining their chances of a decent private life. Things do not just adjust themselves as in the theories, weaker people are just squeezed harder. When they can't be squeezed any more, things _may_ change - but when is that? The working poor are a pretty good example of this.
- Kurtz79 10y ago
  This is the theory, the practice is that there will never be scarcity since if the real alternative for these people is unemployment, they will still accept punishing conditions (long commutes, long hours and barely making the ends meet). It's one of the cases where the market is working as expected (low wages since the offer is high), but it doesn't really translate in benefit for (some of) the people involved.
nradov 10y ago
I don't believe any of the numbers I see about bartender incomes. A woman I know was a part-time bartender in an affluent urban area. She regularly took home several hundred $ in cash tips per night. And that income wasn't reported or taxed. In my experience most bartenders aren't doing it as a full-time long-term career. So it's unreasonable to expect such jobs to pay a living wage.
- csydas 10y ago
  I think all experiences on this will be highly variable for virtually every aspect ofyour experience. If they're receiving tips, they are supposed to report it; not doing it isn't a fringe benefit, it's just the government electing not to pursue the matter. Likewise, some bartenders will pull hundreds based on location, their appearance, their social skills. Others will either get no tips or very few for a whole night. Some bar tenders wil work high volume bars at clubs and process hundreds of sales a night with minor tips. Others will work a bar in a restaurant or a hotel and get maybe a few customers a night. There really isn't a blanket understanding of bar tender wages simply because it's incredibly dependent on factors outside of the work itself. Whether or not it's a long term career is kind of irrelevant; I don't think too many people go into bar-tending with the idea that this is it for their life, it tends to be a failback when other options just don't pan out. Regardless of how long they do it, while they're doing it, if a city wants to have these workers and bars as part of a city life, they should probably make an effort to ensure that the workers have a place to live and can eat at least, else they will have to leave by necessity. Like, the idea of a career job versus a non-career job seems very arbitrary here; the expectation of a living wage is kind of basic for work - it's why most people do the work thing. Sometimes it's labor of passion, but a lot of times, it's "I can do this and someone is willing to pay me for it."

by habosa 10y ago

rdtsc 10y ago

What can happen is the for the counties / cities to provide subsidized housing for those making below a certain age and working in that country / city. I have seen this happen and lived next to a community like that. It was a peaceful and nice place, well maintained without the associated stereotypes for a such a community. It was mostly taxi drivers, service workers, construction, recent immigrants and so on.

shuw 10y ago

If there's a scarcity of bartenders or cashiers, then their wages will go up until that scarcity is filled.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
habosa 10y ago
In a theoretical economy, maybe. In reality you'll have a small increase in wages, but likely business owners being chronically short staffed, going out of business, or choosing not to start a business. Even if wages to go up perfectly like in an econ textbook, that will increase the cost of goods and services which may not matter much for the wealthy residents but will make the city much less attractive for visitors/tourists and cut into the elevated wages. Remember, workers are consumers. There's also the issue that raising wages will not fix the problem if landlords capture the wage increase by raising the price of housing. It's all about buying power, the absolute numbers mean nothing. The free market can't solve all of our problems, and even if it could housing in particular is too important to wait on supply and demand forces to fix everything. Moving has very high material/time/emotional costs and humans need uninterrupted housing to maintain a decent life.
Eupolemos 10y ago
Unless there exists _any_ kind of unemployment - in that case people will travel for a ridiculous amount of time just to have a job, thus ruining their chances of a decent private life. Things do not just adjust themselves as in the theories, weaker people are just squeezed harder. When they can't be squeezed any more, things _may_ change - but when is that? The working poor are a pretty good example of this.
Kurtz79 10y ago
This is the theory, the practice is that there will never be scarcity since if the real alternative for these people is unemployment, they will still accept punishing conditions (long commutes, long hours and barely making the ends meet). It's one of the cases where the market is working as expected (low wages since the offer is high), but it doesn't really translate in benefit for (some of) the people involved.

nradov 10y ago

I don't believe any of the numbers I see about bartender incomes. A woman I know was a part-time bartender in an affluent urban area. She regularly took home several hundred $ in cash tips per night. And that income wasn't reported or taxed. In my experience most bartenders aren't doing it as a full-time long-term career. So it's unreasonable to expect such jobs to pay a living wage.

csydas 10y ago
I think all experiences on this will be highly variable for virtually every aspect ofyour experience. If they're receiving tips, they are supposed to report it; not doing it isn't a fringe benefit, it's just the government electing not to pursue the matter. Likewise, some bartenders will pull hundreds based on location, their appearance, their social skills. Others will either get no tips or very few for a whole night. Some bar tenders wil work high volume bars at clubs and process hundreds of sales a night with minor tips. Others will work a bar in a restaurant or a hotel and get maybe a few customers a night. There really isn't a blanket understanding of bar tender wages simply because it's incredibly dependent on factors outside of the work itself. Whether or not it's a long term career is kind of irrelevant; I don't think too many people go into bar-tending with the idea that this is it for their life, it tends to be a failback when other options just don't pan out. Regardless of how long they do it, while they're doing it, if a city wants to have these workers and bars as part of a city life, they should probably make an effort to ensure that the workers have a place to live and can eat at least, else they will have to leave by necessity. Like, the idea of a career job versus a non-career job seems very arbitrary here; the expectation of a living wage is kind of basic for work - it's why most people do the work thing. Sometimes it's labor of passion, but a lot of times, it's "I can do this and someone is willing to pay me for it."