4 ms·

A lot of what you're saying rings true to me. There are basically two 'tracks' of things that people use in life. Material goods like food, water, entertainme

A lot of what you're saying rings true to me. There are basically two 'tracks' of things that people use in life. Material goods like food, water, entertainment, etc are getting cheaper and cheaper all the time. On long enough time scales this is true compared to wages. For the most part even the worst of jobs is sufficient to pay for that sort of thing. I can't speak about healthcare as that's a particularly American problem. But housing - that's literally an issue across the spectrum. It feels like every 'class' of person has basically taken a step down or two if you compare generation to generation. The upper-middle are looking at just about being able to afford starter properties in major cities. The middle class who would 30 years ago be settling down in suburban detached homes with kids are in pokey flats or sharing houses with other professionals. Below that you have stuff like crappy flat shares, unofficial bunking up, or homelessness - to be honest looking at what graduates are doing I can't even imagine what say, a supermarket worker does if they don't have family.

kgwgk 7y ago
> But housing - [...] The middle class who would 30 years ago be settling down in suburban detached homes with kids are in pokey flats or sharing houses with other professionals. Real estate goes through cycles shorter than 30 years and it was not more expensive in 2012 than in 1990.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  In the US, we've torn down about a million SROs in recent decades and largely zoned out of existence the creation of new Missing Middle Housing. This trend likely was worse in 2012 than in 1990. We have a very serious housing supply issue in the US because while our housing supply has increasingly concentrated on the direction of upper class nuclear family, our demographics have gone in the opposite direction and moved away from that. We have a lot more small households (childless couples, single adults) and essentially no housing designed for them. Instead, we now default to expecting young adults to rent a home designed for a family and get roommates to fill the extra bedrooms and divide up the rent. It's quite the serious problem and it's maddening to continue to see comments that act like there is no housing crisis. I have repeatedly had people tell me that the high cost of housing has nothing to do with homelessness, never mind that I can cite sources that show a very strong correlation.

kgwgk 7y ago

> But housing - [...] The middle class who would 30 years ago be settling down in suburban detached homes with kids are in pokey flats or sharing houses with other professionals. Real estate goes through cycles shorter than 30 years and it was not more expensive in 2012 than in 1990.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
In the US, we've torn down about a million SROs in recent decades and largely zoned out of existence the creation of new Missing Middle Housing. This trend likely was worse in 2012 than in 1990. We have a very serious housing supply issue in the US because while our housing supply has increasingly concentrated on the direction of upper class nuclear family, our demographics have gone in the opposite direction and moved away from that. We have a lot more small households (childless couples, single adults) and essentially no housing designed for them. Instead, we now default to expecting young adults to rent a home designed for a family and get roommates to fill the extra bedrooms and divide up the rent. It's quite the serious problem and it's maddening to continue to see comments that act like there is no housing crisis. I have repeatedly had people tell me that the high cost of housing has nothing to do with homelessness, never mind that I can cite sources that show a very strong correlation.