3 ms·
I saw some article yesterday about this palatial new high school in Texas and the headline was something FREEDOM and TEXAS... but being in the Northeast, one of
by bentt 3y ago
I saw some article yesterday about this palatial new high school in Texas and the headline was something FREEDOM and TEXAS... but being in the Northeast, one of the biggest differences between here and there is the labor pool. In Texas, there is a near limitless supply of immigrant labor. Mexicans have built so much of California and Texas. They should get credit for what they've accomplished.
If you want to see the opposite of that, come to Vermont. Even if we can get a building approved there's nobody around to build it, and even if there was the cost of their labor is beyond the economic capacity of the region. The sooner we start issuing work visas for construction, the faster we will get out of the housing crisis.
- prepend 3y agoI’m fairly certain construction in New England has a lot of Latin American labor involved. Or at least this is based on looking at the construction crews I saw working around New York City and Boston the last times I was there over the past few decades.
- bentt 3y agoSure, the major metro areas eat up whatever supply of cheaper immigrant (read: LatAm) labor is available. They're not making their way into the rest of the region... ironically, because there's nowhere to live!
- bdcravens 3y agoWhen I bought my new home last year in a suburb northwest of Houston, all of the workers I've seen, both during construction and during warranty work, have almost all been Hispanic. Texas is a red state of course, and there's a lot of irony in how proud Texans are of their Tex-Mex cuisine and low housing prices.
- HPsquared 3y agoThat would explain low prices in Texas... how about California?
- bentt 3y agoCalifornia also has really strong labor unions which may lock out some immigrant laborers. It's hard to say. It's a multifactor problem.
- OrwellianChild 3y agoCalifornia likely has more stringent seismic regulations as well, while much of Texas is sitting on bedrock. Matt Risinger (TX builder with a YouTube channel) decries homes sheathed in nothing more than cardboard, so other building code items may also be more lax in Texas.