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> I don't think that renting housing at a market rate, and letting those who can't afford it become subhuman, is a sensible model for an economy. I disagree. T

> I don't think that renting housing at a market rate, and letting those who can't afford it become subhuman, is a sensible model for an economy. I disagree. The entire urbanization movement took place because housing became less and less affordable in rural areas, where the vast majority of the population was living. That push into urban areas, and everything that went along with executing that growth, brought us the best economic times we've ever seen. Housing became less and less affordable in rural areas because the people weren't needed there anymore. If we had provided some model to allow people to stay where they really wanted to, which, for most people, is close to friends and family, despite the lack of need for them the economy would have cratered. We are entering a similar time for dense urban areas, where there are more people than there is need for them to be there. The best thing for the economy is to have them leave to where they are now needed in 2019. However, we can agree that, generally speaking, people don't like to move. They prefer to stay close to friends and family. That is the issue upon us, balancing the needs of the economy and the needs of the humanities.

maxerickson 7y ago
Didn't rural living become relatively less attractive more than it became unaffordable? Like, people weren't driven off by land prices, they just went to work in cities because the income was much more attractive.
- esotericn 7y ago
  The term "unaffordable" I think is too general here. The parent post seemingly defines it based on mortgages and income multipliers. It assumes this model of people having to trade labour for their housing, in money, incrementally per week/month/whatever, rather than having absolute (ish) dominion over a bit of land and then trading their labour for objects to put on that land (e.g. maintenance of the property). In that sense, if a home in a rural area costs $5000, it might "unaffordable" if there are no jobs nearby and we assume the person starts with zero capital. I would expect the model for most _actually_ rural living (aside from people buying holiday homes or whatever) would be that the property is owned outright. Affordability concerns then come from things like being able to run a car, health insurance, etc.
- randomdata 7y ago
  Sure. We may talk like it is a binary issue, affordable or unaffordable, for simplicity, but reality is a spectrum. There are people who can easily afford to live somewhere, there are also people who can afford to live there but are on the cusp of it being unaffordable, and there are those who truly cannot afford it. Colloquially we may refer to those who are only the cusp of unaffordable as being among those who are actually in an unaffordable situation. Nevertheless, no matter how you want to categorize things, it remains that some simply could not afford to live in rural areas. Along with the urbanization movement came the growth of farms. If you have a parcel of land that an actual farmer wants to grow his farming business with, how are you going to compete if all you have a lowly job in town with no particular need for that land beyond wanting to live there? He wants and needs it a lot more than you do. It's not a whole lot different today. A single plot of farmland will sell for well over a million dollars these days. Unless you have significant wealth behind your name, how would you ever begin to afford that, unless you actually have plans to farm it and can roll the cost as a cost of doing business? To simply buy the property to live on? Not going to happen.
esotericn 7y ago
> The best thing for the economy The best thing for _the people_ is to structure the economy around them, not the opposite. I stated nothing about urban vs. rural living, more the ownership structure. Renting as an issue, not urban as an issue. Though it may well be, yes.
carapace 7y ago
Hang on, the problem Goodman has is not that she's not needed where she is: she has a job. Her problem is that there are literally no houses there that she can afford to rent or buy.
- esotericn 7y ago
  The free market 'economy' answer to this is that if she can't afford to rent a house or flat, she's not needed. Absurd? Of course. If that were true, then there would be no supermarkets or corner shops or petrol stations or chicken shops or.... etc, in the entirety of London, a city of 10 million. Because no-one wants them right, there's no demand, the workers aren't needed. Hang on...
  - randomdata 7y ago
    1. Why is that absurd? A company that can only find customers for a widget at $1, that costs $2 to make, continuing to produce that widget because it is 'needed' is the only absurd idea I see here. Clearly the widget isn't needed, even if people are willing to buy it at below cost of production. Doing a job that costs more to do than what is paid back in compensation is no different than our hypothetical widget. 2. Most people in low-wage jobs are subsidized by someone else with a higher income (spouse, parent, etc.). They don't need high wages in order to afford to live. Thanks to that subsidization, they can afford to work for much less than someone who would have to live unsubsidized, while still maintaining a comfortable lifestyle. Those who are not fortunate enough to be subsidized have to compete against them. The mere fact that there is competition means that someone is going to lose, which means someone isn't needed. 3. Price is, as always, a function of supply and demand. If more people were needed for the jobs you mention than is currently being supplied, price would fundamentally rise, shrinking the affordability gap that exists for those who are unsubsidized in low-wage jobs. The jobs are low-wage quite simply because there are more people willing and able to do the job than there are jobs. Which, again, means that people aren't needed. Finally, this is not an all or nothing situation. Not needing some people does not equate to not needing all people. The role of the economy, and price by extension, is to find that balance.
- randomdata 7y ago
fiblye 7y ago
>However, we can agree that, generally speaking, people don't like to move. I don't think that's the problem. I think most people who are capable of packing up and moving for better job opportunities will take the chance. The problem is people who are struggling to pay rent can't afford to move. They especially can't afford to move across a state, or worse, to different states. This problem is compacted by the fact that most of these desperate people, like the woman in the article, are making money below a living wage and would likely be moving to a job that pays the same or less. What struggling people like to do has zero meaning here. The problem is what they can do. They're not Berkeley grads who get to make a half dozen phone app startups, get millions in investments, blow it all on downtown SF office space and beer fountains and write a top blog post on HN about their journey and learning from their failures. They're people working day and night to live in a run down shack that has electrified water and costs a thousand fuckin bucks a month. Something is very wrong with rent in America. Prices aren't correlated to value or demand anymore. People say rent control measures are bad because they discourage further development, but we already have a problem where those who can refuse to build new homes. Those who already own homes and rent them out prefer to leave them empty and to rot than to accept the fact that their shithole isn't worth what they think it is and rent should drop. They know that eventually someone desperate enough will be swindled and forced to pay their absurd prices, only to be kicked out onto the streets because they can't afford the ridiculous price and maybe some other desperate sucker will take their place eventually. Sure, maybe people could move to far rural communities where rent is cheaper. While their rent may be cheaper, they may also have zero income due to lack of employment. Farms are being consolidated into megaoperations and the number of necessary staff drops. Getting into a city to work is unreasonable since commutes can take hours, and that's not to mention having to do shopping/cooking/whatever with whatever time isn't left. I feel like we're reaching a point where we need to offer two options: landlords can offer their properties are a price that average people in that region can afford, or the government can seize unused properties in order to solve the homeless crisis. People will say that nobody will want to build new apartments in a world where that's true, but that's already our problem. Laws are made to punish the homeless in America and it's clearly not working. Punish those who cause homelessness and something is going to change.
- esotericn 7y ago
coldtea 7y ago
>I disagree. The entire urbanization movement took place because housing became less and less affordable in rural areas, where the vast majority of the population was living. That push into urban areas, and everything that went along with executing that growth, brought us the best economic times we've ever seen. For people living homeless in horrid conditions it's not "the best times", it's worse than their ancestors making their living in rural areas... >The best thing for the economy is to have them leave to where they are now needed in 2019. The best thing for the economy is to see people advocating the above go broke and homeless themselves. That would give some perspective to advocate better policies...

maxerickson 7y ago

Didn't rural living become relatively less attractive more than it became unaffordable? Like, people weren't driven off by land prices, they just went to work in cities because the income was much more attractive.

esotericn 7y ago
The term "unaffordable" I think is too general here. The parent post seemingly defines it based on mortgages and income multipliers. It assumes this model of people having to trade labour for their housing, in money, incrementally per week/month/whatever, rather than having absolute (ish) dominion over a bit of land and then trading their labour for objects to put on that land (e.g. maintenance of the property). In that sense, if a home in a rural area costs $5000, it might "unaffordable" if there are no jobs nearby and we assume the person starts with zero capital. I would expect the model for most _actually_ rural living (aside from people buying holiday homes or whatever) would be that the property is owned outright. Affordability concerns then come from things like being able to run a car, health insurance, etc.
randomdata 7y ago
Sure. We may talk like it is a binary issue, affordable or unaffordable, for simplicity, but reality is a spectrum. There are people who can easily afford to live somewhere, there are also people who can afford to live there but are on the cusp of it being unaffordable, and there are those who truly cannot afford it. Colloquially we may refer to those who are only the cusp of unaffordable as being among those who are actually in an unaffordable situation. Nevertheless, no matter how you want to categorize things, it remains that some simply could not afford to live in rural areas. Along with the urbanization movement came the growth of farms. If you have a parcel of land that an actual farmer wants to grow his farming business with, how are you going to compete if all you have a lowly job in town with no particular need for that land beyond wanting to live there? He wants and needs it a lot more than you do. It's not a whole lot different today. A single plot of farmland will sell for well over a million dollars these days. Unless you have significant wealth behind your name, how would you ever begin to afford that, unless you actually have plans to farm it and can roll the cost as a cost of doing business? To simply buy the property to live on? Not going to happen.

esotericn 7y ago

> The best thing for the economy The best thing for _the people_ is to structure the economy around them, not the opposite. I stated nothing about urban vs. rural living, more the ownership structure. Renting as an issue, not urban as an issue. Though it may well be, yes.

carapace 7y ago

Hang on, the problem Goodman has is not that she's not needed where she is: she has a job. Her problem is that there are literally no houses there that she can afford to rent or buy.

esotericn 7y ago
The free market 'economy' answer to this is that if she can't afford to rent a house or flat, she's not needed. Absurd? Of course. If that were true, then there would be no supermarkets or corner shops or petrol stations or chicken shops or.... etc, in the entirety of London, a city of 10 million. Because no-one wants them right, there's no demand, the workers aren't needed. Hang on...
- randomdata 7y ago
  1. Why is that absurd? A company that can only find customers for a widget at $1, that costs $2 to make, continuing to produce that widget because it is 'needed' is the only absurd idea I see here. Clearly the widget isn't needed, even if people are willing to buy it at below cost of production. Doing a job that costs more to do than what is paid back in compensation is no different than our hypothetical widget. 2. Most people in low-wage jobs are subsidized by someone else with a higher income (spouse, parent, etc.). They don't need high wages in order to afford to live. Thanks to that subsidization, they can afford to work for much less than someone who would have to live unsubsidized, while still maintaining a comfortable lifestyle. Those who are not fortunate enough to be subsidized have to compete against them. The mere fact that there is competition means that someone is going to lose, which means someone isn't needed. 3. Price is, as always, a function of supply and demand. If more people were needed for the jobs you mention than is currently being supplied, price would fundamentally rise, shrinking the affordability gap that exists for those who are unsubsidized in low-wage jobs. The jobs are low-wage quite simply because there are more people willing and able to do the job than there are jobs. Which, again, means that people aren't needed. Finally, this is not an all or nothing situation. Not needing some people does not equate to not needing all people. The role of the economy, and price by extension, is to find that balance.
randomdata 7y ago

fiblye 7y ago

>However, we can agree that, generally speaking, people don't like to move. I don't think that's the problem. I think most people who are capable of packing up and moving for better job opportunities will take the chance. The problem is people who are struggling to pay rent can't afford to move. They especially can't afford to move across a state, or worse, to different states. This problem is compacted by the fact that most of these desperate people, like the woman in the article, are making money below a living wage and would likely be moving to a job that pays the same or less. What struggling people like to do has zero meaning here. The problem is what they can do. They're not Berkeley grads who get to make a half dozen phone app startups, get millions in investments, blow it all on downtown SF office space and beer fountains and write a top blog post on HN about their journey and learning from their failures. They're people working day and night to live in a run down shack that has electrified water and costs a thousand fuckin bucks a month. Something is very wrong with rent in America. Prices aren't correlated to value or demand anymore. People say rent control measures are bad because they discourage further development, but we already have a problem where those who can refuse to build new homes. Those who already own homes and rent them out prefer to leave them empty and to rot than to accept the fact that their shithole isn't worth what they think it is and rent should drop. They know that eventually someone desperate enough will be swindled and forced to pay their absurd prices, only to be kicked out onto the streets because they can't afford the ridiculous price and maybe some other desperate sucker will take their place eventually. Sure, maybe people could move to far rural communities where rent is cheaper. While their rent may be cheaper, they may also have zero income due to lack of employment. Farms are being consolidated into megaoperations and the number of necessary staff drops. Getting into a city to work is unreasonable since commutes can take hours, and that's not to mention having to do shopping/cooking/whatever with whatever time isn't left. I feel like we're reaching a point where we need to offer two options: landlords can offer their properties are a price that average people in that region can afford, or the government can seize unused properties in order to solve the homeless crisis. People will say that nobody will want to build new apartments in a world where that's true, but that's already our problem. Laws are made to punish the homeless in America and it's clearly not working. Punish those who cause homelessness and something is going to change.

esotericn 7y ago

coldtea 7y ago

>I disagree. The entire urbanization movement took place because housing became less and less affordable in rural areas, where the vast majority of the population was living. That push into urban areas, and everything that went along with executing that growth, brought us the best economic times we've ever seen. For people living homeless in horrid conditions it's not "the best times", it's worse than their ancestors making their living in rural areas... >The best thing for the economy is to have them leave to where they are now needed in 2019. The best thing for the economy is to see people advocating the above go broke and homeless themselves. That would give some perspective to advocate better policies...