3 ms·

The question is, can we, as a country, afford "a lot of buyers" wanting a single-family home, as far as construction costs, infrastructure costs, replacements c

The question is, can we, as a country, afford "a lot of buyers" wanting a single-family home, as far as construction costs, infrastructure costs, replacements costs, transportation costs, etc. go? A lot (most?) of suburban sprawl was financed. A lot (most?) of it reaches varying degrees of insolvency over time. Maybe it's a luxury we can only afford if we cut back in other areas. Maybe a lot of the deficiencies we see in society are caused in part by how much money we shovel into the expensive version of this basic need that was chose.

Gormo 2y ago
I think something is seriously wrong if "we as a country" is a relevant unit of analysis w/r/t specific individuals and organizations making specific decisions in relation to local contexts. Whether the construction costs, infrastructure costs, financing costs, etc. are affordable and worth paying is a matter that properly should only be answered by the specific individuals and organizations involved, with aggregated metrics only being relevant to analyzing results. If considerations involving those costs are directly involving people outside the local context, something is seriously broken. All of these costs should ultimately be the responsibility of the home buyer, directly or indirectly.
- underlipton 2y ago
  No. We live in a society.
  - Gormo 2y ago
    Nope. We are a society by virtue of the specific relationships we negotiate with each other as individuals, at all levels of formality and scale. We don't "live in" a society construed as some separate entity. And there is no meaningful social context that encompasses everyone, everywhere without regard for the specifics of their individual circumstances. Trying to approach complex social questions by using a Katamari-Damacy-style blob of everything rolled together as your unit of analysis is a sure-fire way of making those questions incomprehensible and intractable.

Gormo 2y ago

I think something is seriously wrong if "we as a country" is a relevant unit of analysis w/r/t specific individuals and organizations making specific decisions in relation to local contexts. Whether the construction costs, infrastructure costs, financing costs, etc. are affordable and worth paying is a matter that properly should only be answered by the specific individuals and organizations involved, with aggregated metrics only being relevant to analyzing results. If considerations involving those costs are directly involving people outside the local context, something is seriously broken. All of these costs should ultimately be the responsibility of the home buyer, directly or indirectly.

underlipton 2y ago
No. We live in a society.
- Gormo 2y ago
  Nope. We are a society by virtue of the specific relationships we negotiate with each other as individuals, at all levels of formality and scale. We don't "live in" a society construed as some separate entity. And there is no meaningful social context that encompasses everyone, everywhere without regard for the specifics of their individual circumstances. Trying to approach complex social questions by using a Katamari-Damacy-style blob of everything rolled together as your unit of analysis is a sure-fire way of making those questions incomprehensible and intractable.