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> But there are tons of available houses in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx that are plenty affordable. The other day I saw a house for sale in a decent part of

> But there are tons of available houses in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx that are plenty affordable. The other day I saw a house for sale in a decent part of Queens for $240k - definitely affordable for middle class. Do you have kids? Because this glib reaction signals that you don't, or you'd be aware that the areas you are touting as affordable have terrible public schools. That's why they're relatively cheap. That, and the hour-plus commutes (each way) to where most middle-class jobs are.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> terrible public schools There are affordable parts of Long Island and Connecticut with great public public schools less than an hour from Manhattan by train. We've grown accustomed to overporting our post-war suburban archetype of what a "middle class" family "deserves," i.e. lots of bedrooms, garages and lawn space, while diminishing previously (and still!) common practices like having roommates when young, not owning a car, et cetera.
- gaius 10y ago
  Right. People expect to skip straight from 22 or even 18 to a late-20s or early-30s level of "stuff" and general lifestyle, without paying their dues in the middle. It's called a "property ladder" for a reason.
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    Those 'entry-level' houses are being bought up by idle capital and rented on AirBnB.
    - stale2002 10y ago
      The entry level houses aren't even being built in the first place.
      - alistairSH 10y ago
        That's true in my area. While there is plenty of construction, the land is too valuable for entry-level homes. If it's zoned for SFHs, the market will tolerate a 3000sqft+ mini-mansion with a high level of finish. If it's zoned for THs, they'll be 4 stories with an elevator. Condo development caters more to rich retirees than young professionals. The underground parking at the nearest high-rise is full of $100 cars.
  - rdlecler1 10y ago
    It's less of a ladder than a Ponzi scheme. In SF housing prices have grown at a compound growth rate of 6% for over 50 years. Older generation squats on property paid for by debt, low taxes, and then retires at 60 -- all paid for by a younger generation that doesn't have jobs and can't afford housing.
    - dragontamer 10y ago
      > In SF housing prices have grown at a compound growth rate of 6% for over 50 years. When a good chunk of those years had interest rates in the 10%+ range, and when the years that were lower than 10% ended with "The Housing Bubble Pop" and "Great Recession", that 6% compounded growth is actually kinda awful. In any case, compound growth is the center of most economies. Being the owner of things entitles you to profits, be it in stocks, bonds, or real estate. The "buying on debt" depends on the rate that you got in at. If you're complaining that people in the 1970s were able to get 15% mortgages to earn lol 6% on Real Estate, then I don't think you fully appreciate the history of Stagflation and the 80s bond market. --------- All in all, housing prices have rose because interest rates have fallen. More people can afford a house when mortgages are at 4% instead of at 15%, and the price of homes go up to compensate.
      - shostack 10y ago
        Surely refinancing impacts this equation some though, right?
        dragontamer 10y ago
        Yeah, go spend 3% of the loan amount to purchase a new 30-year loan, instead of paying off the house you already have... stay on debt perpetually. Unless rates drop dramatically in a short-period of time (like in 2012), refinancing opportunities are rare. From the 1980s, you wouldn't have had a refinance opportunity until the mid 90s.
      - rdlecler1 10y ago
        Housing is only a good financial investment if supply outstrips demand. The high cost of housing is less a function of low interest rates than zoning laws that restrict new development.
  - albedoa 10y ago
    This is either some thinly veiled Millennial shaming or just pure ignorance. After you read the other replies to your comment, read this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13292046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13292046
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- schoolsman 10y ago
  > There are affordable parts of Long Island and Connecticut with great public public schools less than an hour from Manhattan by train. Nonsense. I'm a New Yorker. You literally CAN'T get to DOWNTOWN Manhattan from any part of Connecticut in under an hour. The first metro-north stop in CT (Greenwich, which, BTW, is NOT affordable to live near) is over 40 minutes from Grand Central at the best of times. And then you have to change to the subway to get downtown. Nuh-uh. An hour each way is not happening. I'm not sure what your point was about suburban deserts (in the sense of things deserved,) but the point of the article is that even with things like not owning a car priced in, housing (in cities with jobs) is still unobtanium for people in the hole between section 8 and tech salaries, who didn't already buy their homes when they were cheaper. Editorializing a bit, this sucks in the long-term. The upper east side of manhattan west of park, which was expensive before "gentrification" was a word, shows what this leads to: a limestone-clad desert made of vertical money and not much else.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    > You literally CAN'T get to DOWNTOWN Manhattan from any part of Connecticut in under an hour I live in Midtown. This time of year, I can't get downtown in less than an hour :). It's reasonable for a productive person to demand any two of: space, a great location and disposable income. My household of two chooses to enjoy our neck of Manhattan. We make do with like 400 square feet. If we had kids we would need to live in a city we get to enjoy less frequently or commute from the suburbs. Neither is particularly appealing to me, but I've heard kids are nice. > "gentrification"...leads to a limestone-clad desert made of vertical money and not much else Gentrification can lead to density in addition to urban deserts. Ironically, activists seem to prefer restricting housing supply. That means the latter.
    - mildbow 10y ago
      Trying not to be uncharitable here, but, if you live in Midtown, then why are you making assertions about Connecticut? Apparently you know your comment wasn't too truthful which is why you backed off with "I live in Midtown [..even so..] I can't get downtown in less than an hour". So, what exactly was the point of your comment? Also note: household of 2 is not a household when talking about middle-class income. Why? Well, household of 2 adults is basically the best case scenario financially (both have jobs without additional dependents). As a anecdote/data point: even making >300+k with both parents working still is a drag in NYC when you have 2 kids, regardless of what BS you hear online.
- closeparen 10y ago
  >We've grown accustomed to overporting our post-war suburban archetype of what a "middle class" family "deserves," i.e. lots of bedrooms, garages and lawn space, while diminishing previously (and still!) common practices like having roommates when young, not owning a car, et cetera. "People's lives are too good, we need to make them worse." What's your angle? What do you gain from advocating against mobility and personal space? Are you upset because you didn't have these things, and don't want "undeserving" people to have them? Or do you just want us all to live in worse conditions for the fun of it? I genuinely can't understand what moves someone to push for "people should not have their own bedrooms or time-efficient commutes."
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    > What do you gain from advocating against mobility and personal space? What works in the suburbs isn't sustainable in cities. Suburbia is built for personal spaces. It's terrible, however, at supporting the rich social fabrics densely-packed humans spontaneously weave. (There's also the problems of commute and it's environmental impact.) City-centre richness is a direct product of density. If everyone gets large, personal spaces you're back to suburbia and all its disadvantages. Living in a city means accepting less personal space in exchange for the benefits of density. The only alternative is to have fewer people with more personal space, which means rationing or auctioning off that limited housing as well as a less "city-like" urban core.
    - closeparen 10y ago
      >If everyone gets large, personal spaces you're back to suburbia and all it's disadvantages. This is true on the x-y plane but not the z-axis. We can have substantially more sqft available per sqft desired in the same land footprint by building up, which is currently heavily regulated or outright illegal.
      - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
        I support more density, but the relationship between density and personal space isn't side-stepped by building up. You're just adding a vertical commute component. It's better than yards and boulevards, but a building of three-bedroom apartments to the edge of space will have a different human dynamic from one with mostly one-bedrooms.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  What are the affordable parts of Long Island or Connecticut that are affordable and close to Manhattan? The parts of Connecticut that are suburbs close to NYC are known for being where the rich people live. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Coast_(Connecticut) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Coast_(Connecticut)
ghaff 10y ago
By and large Manhattan public schools are nothing to write home about either. The same is true of someplace like Cambridge where the high school is ranked pretty far down in state rankings. Public schools in cities are mostly fairly poor by objective measurements, even when they serve very high cost neighborhoods.
paulddraper 10y ago
> the areas you are touting as affordable have terrible public schools. The K-12 school situation doesn't make them not affordable. It makes them less desirable, but cddotdotslash already pointed out that it's the desirable parts of the city that are unaffordable.
jimlawruk 10y ago
Right. It also seems like school districts in these high priced cities are either really, really good, or really, really bad. It is harder to find a "middle" of the road school district.
vostok 10y ago
Do you have kids? Because this glib reaction signals that you don't because the schools in most expensive areas are terrible too.
yardie 10y ago
I think I know this area you are talking of. And if there is a house there for 240k then it is definitely not a decent neighborhood. There are areas of Queens which are very industrial and you can get a house for cheap, next to a superfund site.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  If we bring manufacturing back to America, we can build more factories by cities and create more superfund sites, which will employ even MORE people (assuming the EPA isn't dissolved) AND create more affordable housing!
smileysteve 10y ago
> terrible public schools Sooner or later, society will have to realize that white/middle class flight is a direct cause of terrible public schools; and that by reversing the trend these schools will become less terrible.
- throwit542 10y ago
  White/middle class kids aren't magic pixie dust that you can just sprinkle on schools to make them better. https://spottedtoad.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/middle-class-kids-arent-magic-pixie-dust/ https://spottedtoad.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/middle-class-ki...
creepydata 10y ago
I went to terrible public schools in a very poor neighborhood yet I came out just fine. I really think people put much too much emphasis on "good schools" as if they are magic, I think home environment matters much much more.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

> terrible public schools There are affordable parts of Long Island and Connecticut with great public public schools less than an hour from Manhattan by train. We've grown accustomed to overporting our post-war suburban archetype of what a "middle class" family "deserves," i.e. lots of bedrooms, garages and lawn space, while diminishing previously (and still!) common practices like having roommates when young, not owning a car, et cetera.

gaius 10y ago
Right. People expect to skip straight from 22 or even 18 to a late-20s or early-30s level of "stuff" and general lifestyle, without paying their dues in the middle. It's called a "property ladder" for a reason.
- wavefunction 10y ago
  Those 'entry-level' houses are being bought up by idle capital and rented on AirBnB.
  - stale2002 10y ago
    The entry level houses aren't even being built in the first place.
    - alistairSH 10y ago
      That's true in my area. While there is plenty of construction, the land is too valuable for entry-level homes. If it's zoned for SFHs, the market will tolerate a 3000sqft+ mini-mansion with a high level of finish. If it's zoned for THs, they'll be 4 stories with an elevator. Condo development caters more to rich retirees than young professionals. The underground parking at the nearest high-rise is full of $100 cars.
- rdlecler1 10y ago
  It's less of a ladder than a Ponzi scheme. In SF housing prices have grown at a compound growth rate of 6% for over 50 years. Older generation squats on property paid for by debt, low taxes, and then retires at 60 -- all paid for by a younger generation that doesn't have jobs and can't afford housing.
  - dragontamer 10y ago
    > In SF housing prices have grown at a compound growth rate of 6% for over 50 years. When a good chunk of those years had interest rates in the 10%+ range, and when the years that were lower than 10% ended with "The Housing Bubble Pop" and "Great Recession", that 6% compounded growth is actually kinda awful. In any case, compound growth is the center of most economies. Being the owner of things entitles you to profits, be it in stocks, bonds, or real estate. The "buying on debt" depends on the rate that you got in at. If you're complaining that people in the 1970s were able to get 15% mortgages to earn lol 6% on Real Estate, then I don't think you fully appreciate the history of Stagflation and the 80s bond market. --------- All in all, housing prices have rose because interest rates have fallen. More people can afford a house when mortgages are at 4% instead of at 15%, and the price of homes go up to compensate.
    - shostack 10y ago
      Surely refinancing impacts this equation some though, right?
      - dragontamer 10y ago
        Yeah, go spend 3% of the loan amount to purchase a new 30-year loan, instead of paying off the house you already have... stay on debt perpetually. Unless rates drop dramatically in a short-period of time (like in 2012), refinancing opportunities are rare. From the 1980s, you wouldn't have had a refinance opportunity until the mid 90s.
    - rdlecler1 10y ago
      Housing is only a good financial investment if supply outstrips demand. The high cost of housing is less a function of low interest rates than zoning laws that restrict new development.
- albedoa 10y ago
  This is either some thinly veiled Millennial shaming or just pure ignorance. After you read the other replies to your comment, read this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13292046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13292046
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
schoolsman 10y ago
> There are affordable parts of Long Island and Connecticut with great public public schools less than an hour from Manhattan by train. Nonsense. I'm a New Yorker. You literally CAN'T get to DOWNTOWN Manhattan from any part of Connecticut in under an hour. The first metro-north stop in CT (Greenwich, which, BTW, is NOT affordable to live near) is over 40 minutes from Grand Central at the best of times. And then you have to change to the subway to get downtown. Nuh-uh. An hour each way is not happening. I'm not sure what your point was about suburban deserts (in the sense of things deserved,) but the point of the article is that even with things like not owning a car priced in, housing (in cities with jobs) is still unobtanium for people in the hole between section 8 and tech salaries, who didn't already buy their homes when they were cheaper. Editorializing a bit, this sucks in the long-term. The upper east side of manhattan west of park, which was expensive before "gentrification" was a word, shows what this leads to: a limestone-clad desert made of vertical money and not much else.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  > You literally CAN'T get to DOWNTOWN Manhattan from any part of Connecticut in under an hour I live in Midtown. This time of year, I can't get downtown in less than an hour :). It's reasonable for a productive person to demand any two of: space, a great location and disposable income. My household of two chooses to enjoy our neck of Manhattan. We make do with like 400 square feet. If we had kids we would need to live in a city we get to enjoy less frequently or commute from the suburbs. Neither is particularly appealing to me, but I've heard kids are nice. > "gentrification"...leads to a limestone-clad desert made of vertical money and not much else Gentrification can lead to density in addition to urban deserts. Ironically, activists seem to prefer restricting housing supply. That means the latter.
  - mildbow 10y ago
    Trying not to be uncharitable here, but, if you live in Midtown, then why are you making assertions about Connecticut? Apparently you know your comment wasn't too truthful which is why you backed off with "I live in Midtown [..even so..] I can't get downtown in less than an hour". So, what exactly was the point of your comment? Also note: household of 2 is not a household when talking about middle-class income. Why? Well, household of 2 adults is basically the best case scenario financially (both have jobs without additional dependents). As a anecdote/data point: even making >300+k with both parents working still is a drag in NYC when you have 2 kids, regardless of what BS you hear online.
closeparen 10y ago
>We've grown accustomed to overporting our post-war suburban archetype of what a "middle class" family "deserves," i.e. lots of bedrooms, garages and lawn space, while diminishing previously (and still!) common practices like having roommates when young, not owning a car, et cetera. "People's lives are too good, we need to make them worse." What's your angle? What do you gain from advocating against mobility and personal space? Are you upset because you didn't have these things, and don't want "undeserving" people to have them? Or do you just want us all to live in worse conditions for the fun of it? I genuinely can't understand what moves someone to push for "people should not have their own bedrooms or time-efficient commutes."
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  > What do you gain from advocating against mobility and personal space? What works in the suburbs isn't sustainable in cities. Suburbia is built for personal spaces. It's terrible, however, at supporting the rich social fabrics densely-packed humans spontaneously weave. (There's also the problems of commute and it's environmental impact.) City-centre richness is a direct product of density. If everyone gets large, personal spaces you're back to suburbia and all its disadvantages. Living in a city means accepting less personal space in exchange for the benefits of density. The only alternative is to have fewer people with more personal space, which means rationing or auctioning off that limited housing as well as a less "city-like" urban core.
  - closeparen 10y ago
    >If everyone gets large, personal spaces you're back to suburbia and all it's disadvantages. This is true on the x-y plane but not the z-axis. We can have substantially more sqft available per sqft desired in the same land footprint by building up, which is currently heavily regulated or outright illegal.
    - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
      I support more density, but the relationship between density and personal space isn't side-stepped by building up. You're just adding a vertical commute component. It's better than yards and boulevards, but a building of three-bedroom apartments to the edge of space will have a different human dynamic from one with mostly one-bedrooms.
nommm-nommm 10y ago
What are the affordable parts of Long Island or Connecticut that are affordable and close to Manhattan? The parts of Connecticut that are suburbs close to NYC are known for being where the rich people live. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Coast_(Connecticut) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Coast_(Connecticut)

ghaff 10y ago

By and large Manhattan public schools are nothing to write home about either. The same is true of someplace like Cambridge where the high school is ranked pretty far down in state rankings. Public schools in cities are mostly fairly poor by objective measurements, even when they serve very high cost neighborhoods.

paulddraper 10y ago

> the areas you are touting as affordable have terrible public schools. The K-12 school situation doesn't make them not affordable. It makes them less desirable, but cddotdotslash already pointed out that it's the desirable parts of the city that are unaffordable.

jimlawruk 10y ago

Right. It also seems like school districts in these high priced cities are either really, really good, or really, really bad. It is harder to find a "middle" of the road school district.

vostok 10y ago

Do you have kids? Because this glib reaction signals that you don't because the schools in most expensive areas are terrible too.

yardie 10y ago

I think I know this area you are talking of. And if there is a house there for 240k then it is definitely not a decent neighborhood. There are areas of Queens which are very industrial and you can get a house for cheap, next to a superfund site.

seanp2k2 10y ago
If we bring manufacturing back to America, we can build more factories by cities and create more superfund sites, which will employ even MORE people (assuming the EPA isn't dissolved) AND create more affordable housing!

smileysteve 10y ago

> terrible public schools Sooner or later, society will have to realize that white/middle class flight is a direct cause of terrible public schools; and that by reversing the trend these schools will become less terrible.

throwit542 10y ago
White/middle class kids aren't magic pixie dust that you can just sprinkle on schools to make them better. https://spottedtoad.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/middle-class-kids-arent-magic-pixie-dust/ https://spottedtoad.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/middle-class-ki...

creepydata 10y ago

I went to terrible public schools in a very poor neighborhood yet I came out just fine. I really think people put much too much emphasis on "good schools" as if they are magic, I think home environment matters much much more.