6 ms·

Oceans and islands, sure, but suburbs? Can one not morally choose to live, grow wealth, and pay taxes in one town instead of another? Is this escaping one's soc

Oceans and islands, sure, but suburbs? Can one not morally choose to live, grow wealth, and pay taxes in one town instead of another? Is this escaping one's social responsibilities? And while "white flight" due to bona fide racism certainly has happened, it seems like a low-resolution take to frame all such choices that way today.

mushbino 4y ago
Yes, one option is saying "Whelp, we created a lot of problems for certain people, but it's time to look forward and move on."
- moduspol 4y ago
  Is "we" white people? Or voters? I grew up in a fairly rural area, but I've lived close to a big city for the last few years. Am I also morally in the wrong by choosing to leave? How many months of living as a white person in a city does it take before we're morally culpable for everything that happened there? Is it just white people or other groups you don't see as privileged? And it's really missing the elephant in the room to not acknowledge that these cities still have significant tax bases and revenues they benefit from, yet voters near-monolithically support the same candidates and policies that contribute to many of the worst problems. Being a "good" white person by shoveling more tax money into the system that's continuously affirmed by voters and leading to bad outcomes seems emphatically less moral.
  - mushbino 4y ago
    Generally speaking, if you're going to live in a community you should take an active part in actually trying to make it better for everyone and do things for those who need help in that community. If you don't want to do that then, in my opinion, it's better to leave than just sit around and complain hoping someone else will take care of problems. In my experience, San Francisco is a great example of this. A huge part of the population, many of them new, just complain incessantly without putting in any amount of effort to make it better. They'll vote and complain online and feel like they did their duty. It was by far my least favorite thing about the city and one thing keeping me from moving back.
oh_sigh 4y ago
Especially when literally the exact opposite is viewed as racism too: white people moving to where black people live is deemed gentrification and also bad.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Especially when literally the exact opposite is viewed as racism too: white people moving to where black people live is deemed gentrification and also bad. No, gentrification is rich people moving to where poor people live and pricing existing residents out (often, leading to landlords evicting existing residence to remodel or sell units to a new class of residents). Because of racial wealth distribution, it often has a racial/ethnic dimension, but that's not the essence of gentrification.
  - dhzhzjsbevs 4y ago
    Keyword: deemed.
  - oh_sigh 4y ago
    That may be the official definition of gentrification, but in practice, you will be called a gentrifier if you move to a predominantly black neighborhood and have the same wealth as all of your black neighbors but are white instead of black.
    - not2b 4y ago
      If so, you will be labeled incorrectly.
      - oh_sigh 4y ago
        "Please stop mansplaining to me"
    - mushbino 4y ago
      I strongly disagree. It's generally more of a class thing than a race thing, in my experience. I've lived in and been to many areas that are mixed race and the same income level and never had a problem. Once I started making more money and moved into an "up and coming" neighborhood, I was certainly seen as a gentrifier. Truth is I was and am. I get along well with everyone now because I've actually made an effort to be a good neighbor, reach out, and generally be a part of the community.
aluminum96 4y ago
I think the point is that white Americans fled the suburbs in the 70s in order to avoid paying urban taxes and living in racially diverse areas, while still using urban services and relying on the economic activity in urban centers. This led directly to urban decay; i.e. the New York budget crisis of the 70s.
praxulus 4y ago
It's definitely immoral for a city to have laws that make it impossible for working class people to live there (e.g. a suburb with moderately expensive land that bans multifamily housing and has large minimum lot sizes). Whether it's immoral on an individual level to move to such a city is debatable. It's not unreasonable to want to raise your children in a community with low crime and good schools. On the other hand you could argue that choosing to move to a city with immoral laws is itself a way of supporting those laws, and in doing so you become partially responsible for their outcomes.
- moduspol 4y ago
  > It's definitely immoral for a city to have laws that make it impossible for working class people to live there (e.g. a suburb with moderately expensive land that bans multifamily housing and has large minimum lot sizes). "Working class" is your designation, but I don't think anyone is entitled to live in any specific place (especially when they don't currently live there). Even drawing the line at the city level is arbitrary--should every neighborhood have all social classes of people mandated for living in it? Every apartment building? I just fundamentally disagree that laws reducing population density are inherently immoral simply because they might become desirable places to live that make it more expensive to live there. > On the other hand you could argue that choosing to move to a city with immoral laws is itself a way of supporting those laws, and in doing so you become partially responsible for their outcomes. Who's morally responsible for the laws and policies resulting in high crime, bad schools, rampant homelessness, and high taxes endemic to urban areas (at least in the US)?
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    > Who's morally responsible for the laws and policies resulting in high crime, bad schools, rampant homelessness, and high taxes endemic to urban areas (at least in the US)? You have a lot of options. You could blame the voters for electing the folks who make the laws. You could blame the politicians, since they frequently do things the voters wouldn’t know about or approve of. Since unintended consequences are a thing, maybe nobody is to blame. Some theorize that a society where poor people live all together in one area while the middle class and rich live somewhere else naturally leads to those kinds of problems.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
Well, suburbs are actually pretty interesting, more interesting is that you might've skipped over the fact I gave explicit examples where white flight has contributed to politically changing to be against public services that benefit society simply because they had to share it with black people. When a suburb becomes an island to retreat, and the populace there is established in order to maneuver against broader social support is it really that different than a single wealthy person leaving to an island and not paying taxes? Additionally, not evaluating how this phenomenon affects today is quite strange. Redlining (the refusal of offering financial services to neighborhoods of black or brown people) is something that's being discovered as still happening as recently as a few years ago.
- moduspol 4y ago
  > Well, suburbs are actually pretty interesting, more interesting is that you might've skipped over the fact I gave explicit examples where white flight has contributed to politically changing to be against public services that benefit society simply because they had to share it with black people. I touched on it. That's where I acknowledge it happened, but that it'd be a low-resolution view to apply it to everyone today. Unfalsifiable claims of racism are... unfalsifiable. > When a suburb becomes an island to retreat, and the populace there is established in order to maneuver against broader social support is it really that different than a single wealthy person leaving to an island and not paying taxes? Yes. Disliking high crime, bad schools, chronic homelessness, high taxes, and an unwillingness to acknowledge the policies that contribute to them is different from hiding wealth to avoid social responsibilities. Your argument seems to be based on the premise that city governments are always doing what is good, moral, and effective for the best of society. They're not, though, and that's why people move elsewhere. Sometimes (shocker) there's more to it than racism and white supremacy. > Additionally, not evaluating how this phenomenon affects today is quite strange. Redlining (the refusal of offering financial services to neighborhoods of black or brown people) is something that's being discovered as still happening as recently as a few years ago. It's illegal and wrong, and anyone who does it should be punished severely. But it does not imply that someone today choosing to move to the suburbs is making an immoral decision.

mushbino 4y ago

Yes, one option is saying "Whelp, we created a lot of problems for certain people, but it's time to look forward and move on."

moduspol 4y ago
Is "we" white people? Or voters? I grew up in a fairly rural area, but I've lived close to a big city for the last few years. Am I also morally in the wrong by choosing to leave? How many months of living as a white person in a city does it take before we're morally culpable for everything that happened there? Is it just white people or other groups you don't see as privileged? And it's really missing the elephant in the room to not acknowledge that these cities still have significant tax bases and revenues they benefit from, yet voters near-monolithically support the same candidates and policies that contribute to many of the worst problems. Being a "good" white person by shoveling more tax money into the system that's continuously affirmed by voters and leading to bad outcomes seems emphatically less moral.
- mushbino 4y ago
  Generally speaking, if you're going to live in a community you should take an active part in actually trying to make it better for everyone and do things for those who need help in that community. If you don't want to do that then, in my opinion, it's better to leave than just sit around and complain hoping someone else will take care of problems. In my experience, San Francisco is a great example of this. A huge part of the population, many of them new, just complain incessantly without putting in any amount of effort to make it better. They'll vote and complain online and feel like they did their duty. It was by far my least favorite thing about the city and one thing keeping me from moving back.

oh_sigh 4y ago

Especially when literally the exact opposite is viewed as racism too: white people moving to where black people live is deemed gentrification and also bad.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> Especially when literally the exact opposite is viewed as racism too: white people moving to where black people live is deemed gentrification and also bad. No, gentrification is rich people moving to where poor people live and pricing existing residents out (often, leading to landlords evicting existing residence to remodel or sell units to a new class of residents). Because of racial wealth distribution, it often has a racial/ethnic dimension, but that's not the essence of gentrification.
- dhzhzjsbevs 4y ago
  Keyword: deemed.
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  That may be the official definition of gentrification, but in practice, you will be called a gentrifier if you move to a predominantly black neighborhood and have the same wealth as all of your black neighbors but are white instead of black.
  - not2b 4y ago
    If so, you will be labeled incorrectly.
    - oh_sigh 4y ago
      "Please stop mansplaining to me"
  - mushbino 4y ago
    I strongly disagree. It's generally more of a class thing than a race thing, in my experience. I've lived in and been to many areas that are mixed race and the same income level and never had a problem. Once I started making more money and moved into an "up and coming" neighborhood, I was certainly seen as a gentrifier. Truth is I was and am. I get along well with everyone now because I've actually made an effort to be a good neighbor, reach out, and generally be a part of the community.

aluminum96 4y ago

I think the point is that white Americans fled the suburbs in the 70s in order to avoid paying urban taxes and living in racially diverse areas, while still using urban services and relying on the economic activity in urban centers. This led directly to urban decay; i.e. the New York budget crisis of the 70s.

praxulus 4y ago

It's definitely immoral for a city to have laws that make it impossible for working class people to live there (e.g. a suburb with moderately expensive land that bans multifamily housing and has large minimum lot sizes). Whether it's immoral on an individual level to move to such a city is debatable. It's not unreasonable to want to raise your children in a community with low crime and good schools. On the other hand you could argue that choosing to move to a city with immoral laws is itself a way of supporting those laws, and in doing so you become partially responsible for their outcomes.

moduspol 4y ago
> It's definitely immoral for a city to have laws that make it impossible for working class people to live there (e.g. a suburb with moderately expensive land that bans multifamily housing and has large minimum lot sizes). "Working class" is your designation, but I don't think anyone is entitled to live in any specific place (especially when they don't currently live there). Even drawing the line at the city level is arbitrary--should every neighborhood have all social classes of people mandated for living in it? Every apartment building? I just fundamentally disagree that laws reducing population density are inherently immoral simply because they might become desirable places to live that make it more expensive to live there. > On the other hand you could argue that choosing to move to a city with immoral laws is itself a way of supporting those laws, and in doing so you become partially responsible for their outcomes. Who's morally responsible for the laws and policies resulting in high crime, bad schools, rampant homelessness, and high taxes endemic to urban areas (at least in the US)?
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  > Who's morally responsible for the laws and policies resulting in high crime, bad schools, rampant homelessness, and high taxes endemic to urban areas (at least in the US)? You have a lot of options. You could blame the voters for electing the folks who make the laws. You could blame the politicians, since they frequently do things the voters wouldn’t know about or approve of. Since unintended consequences are a thing, maybe nobody is to blame. Some theorize that a society where poor people live all together in one area while the middle class and rich live somewhere else naturally leads to those kinds of problems.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago

Well, suburbs are actually pretty interesting, more interesting is that you might've skipped over the fact I gave explicit examples where white flight has contributed to politically changing to be against public services that benefit society simply because they had to share it with black people. When a suburb becomes an island to retreat, and the populace there is established in order to maneuver against broader social support is it really that different than a single wealthy person leaving to an island and not paying taxes? Additionally, not evaluating how this phenomenon affects today is quite strange. Redlining (the refusal of offering financial services to neighborhoods of black or brown people) is something that's being discovered as still happening as recently as a few years ago.

moduspol 4y ago
> Well, suburbs are actually pretty interesting, more interesting is that you might've skipped over the fact I gave explicit examples where white flight has contributed to politically changing to be against public services that benefit society simply because they had to share it with black people. I touched on it. That's where I acknowledge it happened, but that it'd be a low-resolution view to apply it to everyone today. Unfalsifiable claims of racism are... unfalsifiable. > When a suburb becomes an island to retreat, and the populace there is established in order to maneuver against broader social support is it really that different than a single wealthy person leaving to an island and not paying taxes? Yes. Disliking high crime, bad schools, chronic homelessness, high taxes, and an unwillingness to acknowledge the policies that contribute to them is different from hiding wealth to avoid social responsibilities. Your argument seems to be based on the premise that city governments are always doing what is good, moral, and effective for the best of society. They're not, though, and that's why people move elsewhere. Sometimes (shocker) there's more to it than racism and white supremacy. > Additionally, not evaluating how this phenomenon affects today is quite strange. Redlining (the refusal of offering financial services to neighborhoods of black or brown people) is something that's being discovered as still happening as recently as a few years ago. It's illegal and wrong, and anyone who does it should be punished severely. But it does not imply that someone today choosing to move to the suburbs is making an immoral decision.