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I think there’s a little more nuance to what happened in echo park. Echo Park lake has always had some homeless people living there, but it was nowhere close to

I think there’s a little more nuance to what happened in echo park. Echo Park lake has always had some homeless people living there, but it was nowhere close to 200 prepandemic. There was also some attempt to relocate everyone, it’s the city of LA so obviously no one really trusted them. But it’s weird to me see a public park that’s meant to be used by everyone taken over and then when it’s taken back. LA is destroying informal housing?

sombremesa 5y ago
> it’s weird to me see a public park that’s meant to be used by everyone taken over That's what a majority of urban poor in India live on - public/unclaimed land (i.e. informal housing). They're not counted as homeless as a result, unlike in LA. That's how LA can appear to have a comparatively larger homeless population, even if it's a lot smaller in reality. In India this type of housing is illegal and can be destroyed by the government, but that rarely happens because the situation can be leveraged for votes (there's a lot of poor people). Yay democracy.
- Talanes 5y ago
  >but that rarely happens because the situation can be leveraged for votes (there's a lot of poor people) There's a massive difference hidden in that statement alone. Here the politicians just assume those people aren't voting.
- captain_price7 5y ago
  I'm hesitant to call the slum population "homeless". We have people in the parks, footpaths too, and that's very different from people living in many of these slums. Here are a few facts: some of these slums are 100+ yrs old. A lot of them have "permanent" homes, something lot harder to uproot than tents. And lastly, if the government attempted to destroy them, it won't be just poor people, almost entire society will be outraged. Something similar happened here in Dhaka.
  - sombremesa 5y ago
    That they are 100+ years old doesn’t change the fact that that they remain illegal (and thus available for political leverage).

sombremesa 5y ago

> it’s weird to me see a public park that’s meant to be used by everyone taken over That's what a majority of urban poor in India live on - public/unclaimed land (i.e. informal housing). They're not counted as homeless as a result, unlike in LA. That's how LA can appear to have a comparatively larger homeless population, even if it's a lot smaller in reality. In India this type of housing is illegal and can be destroyed by the government, but that rarely happens because the situation can be leveraged for votes (there's a lot of poor people). Yay democracy.

Talanes 5y ago
>but that rarely happens because the situation can be leveraged for votes (there's a lot of poor people) There's a massive difference hidden in that statement alone. Here the politicians just assume those people aren't voting.
captain_price7 5y ago
I'm hesitant to call the slum population "homeless". We have people in the parks, footpaths too, and that's very different from people living in many of these slums. Here are a few facts: some of these slums are 100+ yrs old. A lot of them have "permanent" homes, something lot harder to uproot than tents. And lastly, if the government attempted to destroy them, it won't be just poor people, almost entire society will be outraged. Something similar happened here in Dhaka.
- sombremesa 5y ago
  That they are 100+ years old doesn’t change the fact that that they remain illegal (and thus available for political leverage).