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> Economic segregation is not a net societal ill, in fact it's the primary driver for many people to increase their fortunes (myself included) so they can escap
by TulliusCicero 2y ago
> Economic segregation is not a net societal ill, in fact it's the primary driver for many people to increase their fortunes (myself included) so they can escape the crime and blight that comes from lower class people.
Thank you for admitting what so many NIMBYs won't: that they're pro-segregation.
And let's be clear, calling it economic segregation isn't an exaggeration. The zoning that the US typically has is a form of gated community living enforced by the government. It's designed to separate where people live by class, and people like this poster are entirely for it.
Also:
> Economic segregation is not a net societal ill
It is, actually, because it tends to limit social mobility.
People having enormous advantages or disadvantages because of their starting social class is less than great for society. Obviously we can't really eliminate all of that sort of thing, but we definitely don't want the government explicitly pursuing policies to encourage social stratification.
- MisterTea 2y ago> Thank you for admitting what so many NIMBYs won't: that they're pro-segregation. Yeah lets go around accusing people of being segregationists because they worked hard to make a better life. Jerk.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoWhat do you mean accuse? OP said themselves that they are pro segregation. " Economic segregation is not a net societal ill"
- TulliusCicero 2y agoYou seem to be very confused. The person I responded to literally called their own position segregation: > Economic segregation is not a net societal ill They also said their position was classist: > My reply might seem incredibly classist, because it is. Maybe the real jerk is the person who didn't read the replies and threw out insults anyway? In any case, it is literally segregation, just by economics instead of by race. Why am I a jerk for accurately labeling something? If you call people in favor of separate schools by race pro-segregation, does that make you a jerk for "accusing people of being segregationists"?
- MisterTea 2y agoThis isn't some racist ideology we're talking about. My overall takeaway from the GP isn't that they are in favor of IMPOSING segregation but that people naturally self segregate according to social strata which influences behavior. Seeing how the GP escaped poverty I can understand their take - they put in the effort to escape while their peers did not. Their peers stay angry and frustrated which leads to taking it out on people around them creating a dangerous and unhealthy environment. So it's hard to look back and care about them when they seemingly don't care about themselves or worse, actively make things worse for others. So of course you're going to stay far away from them and prefer they stay far the hell away from you.
- secstate 2y agoBut they don't just self segregate. The law is wielded as a weapon for economic segregation which makes the escape the GP was able to accomplish exceedingly difficult. Also, you are insinuating that they escaped by dint of personal effort alone, when I suspect they had their own luck and privileges (as did I) in finding themselves no longer living in poverty. The biggest problem with this entire thread is that it paints a black and white picture of the situation. As though by building more housing the only possible outcome are poor people doing drugs next to my kids' school. Guess what, there's already people doing drugs next to my kids school, even in "nice" neighborhoods. This is not black and white. You don't have to pull someone down to raise others up. I'm sorry the GP (and it seems you, via defense) believe that their escape means they are better than those who could not "care about themselves" enough to better themselves. What a sad state of mind.
- tristor 2y ago>As though by building more housing the only possible outcome are poor people doing drugs next to my kids' school. Guess what, there's already people doing drugs next to my kids school, even in "nice" neighborhoods. Yes, that is pretty much the only outcome of putting "affordable housing" in higher class neighborhoods. Also, if there's people doing drugs next to your kid's school, you aren't in a nice neighborhood. The SF Bay Area, almost entirely, is a shit hole, and it has colored the view of a lot of people to have a defeatist attitude about what you can afford in this country and what is expected and acceptable to expose your family to. I don't live in the Bay Area and I never will, in part exactly because I refuse to expose my family to what it means to live there. > This is not black and white. It's pretty binary. "Affordable housing" automatically means bringing social ills, and if you are positioning it in higher class neighborhoods, you are necessarily bringing that neighborhood down, intentionally. > You don't have to pull someone down to raise others up. That's exactly my point, unfortunately you seem not to understand your own statement because your are advocating a position that drags down anyone who managed to make it into a decent neighborhood, in order to raise up those in "affordable housing". I'm not saying we shouldn't build more housing, or that it shouldn't be affordable, but it definitely does not need to be in the high end neighborhoods. This entire sub-thread is a response to someone saying the only reason that people who live in high end neighborhoods don't want "affordable housing" is because it will make their property values go down in an abstract sense. Well, of course it makes abstract property values go down, because the concrete is that you go from a neighborhood where you can let your kids play in the park and walk to school to a situation where you need a bodyguard to go to the gas station. Just be honest about your position. The drive to put "affordable housing" in nice neighborhoods is not about making more housing or making it affordable, it's about trying to punish people you see as undeserving of their wealth by forcing them to "face reality" and live in the same circumstances as poor people. It's an intentional attempt to drag people down, for the sake of dragging them down.
- tristor 2y agoLet's be clear, many folks in this country are perfectly happy to make the world more equal by dragging others down rather than lifting others up. If there's no way to escape the ills of humanity, it means you're stuck in a situation where the next generation cannot be assured of a better life. The aspiration of the American Dream is very much about escaping all the antisocial behaviors which dominate the lower class and having a prosperous life where you can raise a family that has a better life than you yourself had. It's segregation by dollars, not by any immutable characteristic, and I do not see that as morally wrong in any way. I will not sacrifice my children on the altar of economic mobility. I dragged myself out of poverty to make a better life for my family, and others can do the same. The US has some of the highest economic mobility of any society in the world, partly because we segregate based on dollars rather than on immutable characteristics. If that makes me a NIMBY, so be it.
- TulliusCicero 2y ago> Let's be clear, many folks in this country are perfectly happy to make the world more equal by dragging others down rather than lifting others up. Yes, we can see that here. It's unfortunate that you've taken that position. > It's segregation by dollars The government intentionally separating people by socioeconomic class for something as fundamental as where you live -- which also controls which school your kids go to -- is fundamentally wrong. And the biggest reason why some schools are so shit is precisely because of economic segregation. Concentrating the most impoverished means concentrating people with the most social problems too.
- tristor 2y ago> Yes, we can see that here. It's unfortunate that you've taken that position. I am not taking that position at all. I don't know what your position is, but you've implied in your replies to me that you /do/ take this position, however. Forcing my kids to go to school with lower class children is not going to make the world a better place, it's going to force my children to be exposed to violence, drug use, promiscuity, and reduce their relative aspirations. When I was growing up, the school I went to had almost nobody from its graduating class that made it out and built a decent living. Many folks scrape by working menial retail and service jobs well into their 40s, and consider that a win because they weren't part of the much larger cohort that ended up dead, in jail, or in other dire circumstances which was the expected outcome in the community I came from. Those folks who scrape by considered themselves successful because they're alive, without any felony convictions or addictions to hard drugs, the bar of their relative aspirations is significantly lowered by the circumstances they grew up around. I didn't drag myself out of that situation in order to see my children put back into it, because you think that averaging out the results of the students is an improvement by dragging down my kids to make up for the difference. I struggled to ensure I could build a family that had a better life than I did, and I don't see anything problematic about that at all. Taking that away on some spurious beliefs that this will enrich the lives of the very same people who are actively engaging in antisocial behaviors is ludicrous, and it's exactly the type of authoritarian leftist nonsense that Americans by-and-large reject wholesale that has helped make this the country with the greatest social and economic mobility and the highest levels of overall prosperity.