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> People who own single family homes at the kinds of locations where developers are eager to build apartment buildings are among the wealthiest and most powerfu
by jjav 5y ago
> People who own single family homes at the kinds of locations where developers are eager to build apartment buildings are among the wealthiest and most powerful ever to have lived.
This is about as far from true as it can get.
Ordinary working class people who just happened to buy a cheap house in a place that many decades later became a hot-spot of real estate development.. are still ordinary working class people. Often very poor, even.
- closeparen 5y agoI’m sympathetic to the view that having millions of dollars “doesn’t count” when they’re all tied up in living in an ordinary home. But then we would have to apply the same cost of living adjustment to tech workers, which most people think is ridiculous. (“I’m not rich, you see, there is no money left after I have spent it all.”) They have the option to walk away with millions. They choose not to. That is a form of spending. These millions are both absolutely larger than what “high income” workers can accumulate, and from a higher-class source (investment and politics vs. labor).
- colinmhayes 5y ago> are still ordinary working class people I don't agree. If you own an asset worth a million dollars you are not working class. You may choose to work, but you are not forced to. IMO working class means you need to work to live. Choosing not to sell you home is not being forced to work in order to afford necessities.