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Reno Nevada is a little infamous for it's strips of shabby motels leftover from the 50s and 60s when it was a Mecca for people to get a quick marriage or divorc

Reno Nevada is a little infamous for it's strips of shabby motels leftover from the 50s and 60s when it was a Mecca for people to get a quick marriage or divorce. The matrimony industry is gone but the motels are still here. People in town hate them because they are old and run down and ugly and occupied by our seedier citizens. They attract drugs and prostitution, as you might imagine. Everyone wants to get rid of them, and indeed three or four were razed this last summer. But as the story points out, shitty old motels are an important rung on the ladder between homelessness or living in a shelter, and being able to afford one or two thousand dollars to move into an apartment. This year our little "angel tree" that exclusively services those old motels has over 160 kids on it. I hate to think where those kids would be without the old motels. Tearing them down does not make the problem go away. It makes it worse.

barry-cotter 9y ago
> Tearing them down does not make the problem go away. It makes it worse. The problem these people are trying to solve is not that those children are trying to solve is not that those people are living in a crap situation, it is that those people are living near them. See NIMBY, banning Single Room Occupancy hotels, minimum lot sizes, maximum occupancy, minimum square footage, etc. Middle class people ban choices they wouldn’t make, news at 11.
- mjevans 9y ago
  It isn't just the middle class. The wealthy don't want anyone (relatively) worse off living next to them either. One of the points I think a home (or apartment, etc) should make is keeping unwanted noises on one side of it's walls. Outside noises out, inside noises in. It very much annoys me how easy it is for the un-thoughtful to make the lives of those around them hell.
  - jaggederest 9y ago
    One of the things I (probably incorrectly, but) happily spent money on over the last couple years was putting soundproof windows. I think having better sound isolation in apartments would make them substantially more liveable, and it's not comparatively expensive versus many other upgrades you can make to multi-family housing.
  - barry-cotter 9y ago
    No, it isn’t just the middle class. The rich don’t make other people’s preferred choices illegal though because they can afford to live somewhere they don’t have to deal with them. The middle class make those choices illegal, the rich buy their way out of dealing with them.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > The rich don’t make other people’s preferred choices illegal though because they can afford to live somewhere they don’t have to deal with them. While they can afford to do that, they can also often afford to buy the laws in the place they prefer to live for reasons other than the pre-existing laws, and they often do so instead of relocating.

barry-cotter 9y ago

> Tearing them down does not make the problem go away. It makes it worse. The problem these people are trying to solve is not that those children are trying to solve is not that those people are living in a crap situation, it is that those people are living near them. See NIMBY, banning Single Room Occupancy hotels, minimum lot sizes, maximum occupancy, minimum square footage, etc. Middle class people ban choices they wouldn’t make, news at 11.

mjevans 9y ago
It isn't just the middle class. The wealthy don't want anyone (relatively) worse off living next to them either. One of the points I think a home (or apartment, etc) should make is keeping unwanted noises on one side of it's walls. Outside noises out, inside noises in. It very much annoys me how easy it is for the un-thoughtful to make the lives of those around them hell.
- jaggederest 9y ago
  One of the things I (probably incorrectly, but) happily spent money on over the last couple years was putting soundproof windows. I think having better sound isolation in apartments would make them substantially more liveable, and it's not comparatively expensive versus many other upgrades you can make to multi-family housing.
- barry-cotter 9y ago
  No, it isn’t just the middle class. The rich don’t make other people’s preferred choices illegal though because they can afford to live somewhere they don’t have to deal with them. The middle class make those choices illegal, the rich buy their way out of dealing with them.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > The rich don’t make other people’s preferred choices illegal though because they can afford to live somewhere they don’t have to deal with them. While they can afford to do that, they can also often afford to buy the laws in the place they prefer to live for reasons other than the pre-existing laws, and they often do so instead of relocating.