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I live in my car: Parking lots open for those who can afford a car but not rent
- foehrenwald 3y agohttps://archive.ph/WWQ0K https://archive.ph/WWQ0K
- gnarlouse 3y agoSomething ironic about this article being behind a paywall
- throwaway290 3y agoThere's a difference between getting paid for what you didn't make (land) or for what you did make (journalism).
- brookst 3y agoBad analogy. Journalists are to facts as landlords are to land.
- zvmaz 3y agoJournalists put in labor, as you probably do to put food on the table.
- brookst 3y agoLandlords put in capital and labor. Practically nobody rents bare unimproved land.
- throwaway290 3y agoYeah of course, they put their precious sweat and blood into going to the bank to show that they own land to get some credit so they can hire people to do the rest But that's the minority anyway, those who were born into rent extracting elites need to not lift a finger.
- brookst 3y agoYour anger is blinding you to reason. I’m fine hating on landlords, but a paywall in front of an article is literally exactly the same thing: a way for a corporation to extract rent.
- throwaway290 3y agoI'm not angry, I'm just ridiculing your inconsistent or communist beliefs. People being paid for results of their labor is fundamental. Company makes you pay for access to their work in order that they get paid and continue doing that work. Land is not result of anyone's work.
- throwaway290 3y agoBad analogy. Not only land is finite, journalists are not keeping you from accessing facts. I have accessed many a fact today and not one journalist tried to extract rent from me imagine that
- brookst 3y agoI’ve walked many thousands of miles on land where nobody tried to extract rent. It is when you try to move into a building that someone wants rent. Just like when you want to benefit from someone’s work to convert mere facts into a story.
- throwaway290 3y agoYou can take facts that you learned without any journalist trying to extract rent from you and turn them into a story, sell that story and be rich. You can also take facts from paywalls article and use them to write a story, same thing.
- potatopatch 3y agoFacts are basically incapable of having the market dynamics of land, even with a total draconian rework of IP law.
- gnarlouse 3y agoAnd the article is about an individual who, due to a mounting debt burden, cannot afford either. This is the irony to which I refer. But I can see your perspective, too.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoIts a different kind of tragedy. Subs like this encourage siloization. That $26/month is only efficient if you read NYT pretty regularly (at the expense of reading stuff from other outlets), not if you read an article or two every month.
- jacknews 3y agoIt's a pretty sad situation that people can't afford 'rent'. But in fact 'rent' means to tear, split, rip, etc, and that's exactly what it is. People who 'own' land, ripping money from people who don't. But, land is common heritage like air and water, it belongs to us all, and individuals should not be able to own it, or at least not to own and 'rent' it. Rent is a ripoff, by nature, and in it's very name.
- betaby 3y agoHousing build, say, in 1920 is now illegal to build but is perfectly legal to live in. Building codes and restrictions are policy failure (in Canada definitely so).
- happytiger 3y agoNobody ever blames the building codes until the either educate themselves or try to build a house. Then you realize just how difficult it is to build. It takes just as long as the build sometimes and costs thousands and thousands upfront just to get to the point where you can start. We need a streamlined process that allows standardized housing to be built with minimal upfront costs and on small affordable lots. ADUs are up to 1200sq feet — for most people this is a whole dang house not an accessory dwelling unit. Want to see how easy improvement could be made? Imagine if you could write off 50-70 percent of the total cost of an ADU over 15 years as long as it’s rented out to no more than 3 tenants during each year — and eliminated the ability of cities and counties to block their development as long as they fit on the lot. You’d have a massive increase in affordability in just a few short years. It’s the laws and the zoning that are the problem. You’re spot on.
- betaby 3y ago> Nobody ever blames the building codes until the either educate themselves or try to build a house. I built more than one house, not alone of course.
- happytiger 3y ago
- zbrozek 3y agoPeople need a place to live that's close-enough to where they work. Folks highly value shelter as a means of improving their chances of survival. Yet we broadly refuse to dismantle a century of ever-tightening restrictions on what can be built nor simplify or eliminate processes that slow down and drive up costs for the little that's legal. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/20/housing-shortage-cities-build-more/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/20/housing-s...
- teddyh 3y agoHow would the latter help with the former?
- zbrozek 3y agoBy making more supply (housing units) available in greater variety, at lower cost, and more quickly we can drive down their price and make it possible to satisfy more demand. Unfortunately a lot of folks think that housing doesn't follow the same simple economic rules that we've observed for all other physical goods. So they don't allow supply and we continue to spiral deeper and deeper into a housing crisis. If housing were abundant, we wouldn't be reading articles about the rise of living in cars.
- teddyh 3y agoI’m not sure; every time we allow people to build more unconstrained, what gets built is luxury housing and upscale office buildings. This is obvious; given a choice, this is what nets the most profit.
- zbrozek 3y agoIn a functional market where demand signal drives production the value of a thing declines as it ages. Japan has this figured out. Tokyo is relatively affordable because it is possible to build just about any form of housing anywhere. Further, there isn't unlimited demand at every price point. When you constrain supply to the point that high-end demand can consume more than total possibly supply, of course builders only build to the high end of the market. Finally, we've made the high end of the market the only thing which can possibly pencil out by driving up costs. Planners demand low floor area ratios, high parking rates, articulated facades, parks dedications, high impact fees - that money ultimately comes from the buyer or the renter. So by making those demands you price out increasingly large portions of the population.
- hoppyhoppy2 3y agoGift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/realestate/car-homeless-rent-debt-mortgage.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4kw.RT8j.cPD4qx0Tm9eY&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/realestate/car-homeless-r...
- thatwasunusual 3y agoCapitalism at its best.
- gtsop 3y agoNo I really believe it can get better than this. For instance, since the demand for such parking spaces will go up businesses will pop up that will charge you a "small fee™" to live there, replacing a huge rent with an "affordable" rent. More lots will be built, eventually leading to luxury/tourist parking lots appearing which will create a dynamic similar to airbnb but for parking lots, eventually leading to the separation of nice parking lots for digital nomads/tourists that are too expensive for regular working people and dumpster parking lots on the other hand that are affordable. Trust in capitalism, it gets better
- CodeNest 3y ago[flagged]
- chiefalchemist 3y agoWe should be embarrassed. And someone (i.e., so called leadership) should be held accountable. To top it off there's a rung or two below this. That is, people who can't afford a car and/or food. And yet the lede story out of Washington DC for the past two to three weeks concerns the Speaker of the House and how that is crippling the legislative process. Who know it could get worse? Next we'll be back to budget and debt ceiling circus. And so on... We taxpayers should be furious. Oh wait! Plenty - and growing - already are!!
- throwaway6734 3y agothe biggest drag on the west right now is the excessive amount of resources that we allocate to the elderly. We funnel capital from young people to old to pay for drastically increasing healthcare costs while putting forward minimal effort to ensure young people can start families. Anecdotally, my family's health insurance (early 30s, 1 child; mostly paid for by my employer; 2k a month) costs more monthly than our mortgage (1600 a month). Not to mention the money that we pay into social security and Medicare.
- Turing_Machine 3y agoHmm... seems to me that the solution to that would be for you to just pay the elderly back all the money they spent on your support, infrastructure, and schooling. Would you be willing to do that?
- renewiltord 3y agoI suspect that would come out cheaper, actually. The fact that the government will fund all old age care means that old age care is where the market is. Hence the famous Alzheimer’s drug with the amyloid plaque business. So you end up with spiraling costs. And I believe if we just buy back their other stuff we could easily come out ahead.
- Turing_Machine 3y agoDon't forget the interest for x years, where x is your current age. You probably think student loans are bad. Student loans aren't in it. It now costs around $300,000 to raise a child to age 18, and that's just out-of-pocket expenses by the parents. That doesn't count all the schools and societal infrastructure that are paid for either by taxes on the parents (and non-parents!) or by direct payments. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/cost-raising-child-calculator/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/cos... Also don't forget that you, too, will be old. A lot sooner than you probably think.
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- mupuff1234 3y agoYou have to give it up to our feudalistic lords, they managed to develop a system that succeeds in preventing the peasants from uprising.
- RyanAdamas 3y agoI live in my car. It's awesome. Oddly enough, I live in an even older Ford Fusion and it's really easy. Spend time at the Library, Starbucks and get a gym membership for showering. I work full-time and don't dick around with washing dishes or anything. Got an inverter and think of my car as a generator with wheels. I took out my front passenger seat so I can lay down to sleep. Made it through the summer in the south and it was pretty bad, but you sleep while your body sweats and you deal with mosquitos and flies on the regular.
- deebosong 3y agoHow long do you envision yourself doing this? What would be some nice-to-haves, and what would drastically increase your experience of living in a car? What are some unavoidable extremely difficult realities that come with this lifestyle?
- RyanAdamas 3y agoAs long as possible. Heading south for the winter so I can continue. A lot of money would be nice lol, but I wouldn't mind getting a Master's Degree and having a remote job, upgrading to a van and living in national forests and visiting family/friends; as opposed to hanging out in Walmart parking lots and yelling at loud birds (which is mostly just for fun). Unavoidable realities include, bathroom availability, no privacy, and little control (outside of moving) over neighbors in parking lots and weather conditions; which affect the mood more than you would think - rain is a real bummer in the heat.
- deebosong 3y agoAppreciate you sharing insights. Hope you can reach your goals soon. In light of the manageable struggles, the image of you yelling at birds made me chuckle real good.
- forward1 3y agoFor a single hard-working person, it can actually be a healthy and productive environment. I lived in my car at a FAANG parking lot when I started my career there. The money I saved and instead invested ensured my ability to afford a nice home in a good area for the family which I eventually started, and to lead the life I wanted to. It was a deliberate sacrifice, and it kept me hyper-focused on career and personal growth. But I do think being laid off and ending up in the same circumstances would produce a different perspective on the living arrangement. My point is, one's attitude and outlook on life is more important than the material foundations to it.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoWorking remotely from a small RV is a life goal of mine. Or maybe a dream...
- hipadev23 3y agoWhat’s stopping you? A brand new trailer is around $20-30k, and brand new motorhome is $40-50k. Used obviously much cheaper. Starlink is $150/mo and full-hookup campgrounds with long-term rates are $600-1500/mo.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago> What’s stopping you? That is an excellent question.
- HelixEndeavor 3y ago[flagged]
- inemesitaffia 3y agoYes, everyone richer than you is too rich
- scarecrowbob 3y agoI've been spending a lot of time sleeping in my truck. I have an apartment in Colorado's western slope (and a community of folks I love out there) but I've been doing a lot of sound-guy gigs in the front range, 7 hours away. TBH, I prefer to stay in my truck than be put up in a hotel room (which happens about 1/3 of the time on these gigs). I don't have to share it with coworkers and it's very comfortable. To be clear, that situation is way different than if I didn't have a place to go back to for a while. It's also way different in that I get paid really well for the work, and a lot of it is festival stuff where there are a lot of traveling folks anyhow. Most of the places I have been just feel so horrifically insecure. If I had to rate most of the places I've slept in the last 80 or so nights in my truck, the primary axis would be "how secure do I feel about not getting kicked off this spot". Followed shortly by "how secure do I feel about not getting robbed/shot/etc". I have only been rousted once, and that was because I was in a ski resort lot in Utah (I had a 3-day pass and was on my way to a gig). And that guy told me where in the little town I could park without getting hassled. So I might just be overly worried about getting kicked. I have a nice truck with window-less topper, so it is hard to tell there is anyone sleeping in it anyhow. After the last week of chilling in an industrial park near Denver (near a company I work for's warehouse) I spent last night on FS land near Colorado Springs, and it was super nice to not have to worry about getting asked to leave and to know that I more or less have a right to be on that land, as much as any other person here. All that is to say that I find this situation much easier in the west, where there is a whole lot of BLM/Forest Service land; having clearer ideas about safe places to stay is probably the best thing that would help folks who are wanting to live in vehicles. Maybe the article says that, but I don't have access.
- mrj 3y agoShe's been struggling with bad debt since 2001! I read this and can't help wondering _why_ she's still paying debt. Her credit score is already bad and not going to improve by paying off debts (it'll still be on her history, anyhow). I feel like she's too honest and hard working to consider bankruptcy, but she's trapped in a cycle where earning a salary isn't enough to live. Isn't that what bankruptcy is for? We purposefully don't have debtor's prison. The founders didn't want debts to take a person's life. Here clearly is a person giving their life for their debt.
- gtsop 3y agoNot an expert (also not american) but your reasoning sounds too simple to me. If everyone could "just" go bankrupt then why would anyone pay debts at all?
- mrj 3y agoI didn't say it was simple.. but over two decades of struggle seems more than enough experience to justify it.
- jnovek 3y agoBankruptcy essentially makes you a financial pariah for 7 years; e.g. landlords can (and do) deny housing applications over past bankruptcy.
- ajuc 3y ago> If everyone could "just" go bankrupt then why would anyone pay debts at all? Because you lose reputation and assets. It's completely fucked up that companies can bakrupt any time, but people can't. It helps nobody that people are stuck as modern slaves in barely survivable conditions. It's insane that people like you consider this better than the alternative.
- bayouborne 3y agoAbout 15 years ago I had a roommate who, 8 months after successfully filing for bankruptcy in Ga, was offered a credit card with a $700 credit line - unsolicited. She was shocked. It seems that in the perverse world of credit, someone who owed ~$12k but is now 'debt free' as a result of bankruptcy, looks good to some credit outfits. Odd.
- thelastgallon 3y agoThese people should be paid, they have a low carbon footprint. Instead of carbon credits, its so much beneficial to pay people directly for living a low carbon footprint lifestyle. When we have autonomous cars, I expect this to increase, probably even become the dominant lifestyle. You sleep in your car, car takes you to your favorite scenic spot. By the time you wake, your car is already at gym or work (if work has bathrooms, unlikely). Then it drives you to work, takes you to favorite healthy eating places and takes you back 'home'. Cars will be built with specific features to make this a bit more comfortable. But, of course, there will be in-app payments. Want a pillow - purchase $2.99/hour. BMW is already doing this. [1] Homes become so costly that most can't afford them. The super rich will own all of them (directly or indirectly via luxury cruise lines) and they are all available on airbnb. People rent these homes for a few days, because they have to share pics on instagram. Home stay is just like going on a cruise. You'll own nothing and be happy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_happy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_ha... [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/2/21311332/bmw-in-car-purchase-heated-seats-software-over-the-air-updates https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/2/21311332/bmw-in-car-purcha...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- TotalCrackpot 3y agoWe have to eliminate economic rent from society.
- throwaway749 3y agoSimilarly to a sibling poster, I also live in my car. It's a $3000 hatchback. I work full time and my income is in the 95th percentile nationwide, so while I appreciate the savings, it is not a major factor. I decided to try it this summer and continued, among others, for the following reasons: - I wanted to try something I haven't done before - My former house didn't qualify for a residential parking permit. I found it annoying that all residents aren't equal in this regard - Coping with the death of a close relative who had been homeless by choice for decades - It makes it easier to reach my financial goals - I learn a lot of things I wouldn't learn otherwise and get to explore my surrounding area; it's been easier to avoid dull stereotype so far (but I realize that even this could become repetitive, at which point I will likely find something else to entertain myself)
- throwaway749 3y ago- my commute is a 100m walk, effectively turning the corporate office into my home office - I enjoy spending the saved commute time outside in the nature I just wish I had a bigger car that would accommodate a bike