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Housing where? Is housing for me in Malibu a human right? There's plenty of places to live in Texas for basically nothing. I'm honestly trying to take this ser

by scoofy 7mo ago

Housing where? Is housing for me in Malibu a human right? There's plenty of places to live in Texas for basically nothing. I'm honestly trying to take this seriously, but I really can't square the problem of location and utility. On of the reasons why West Virginia has such a low homeless rate is just that mobile homes and manufactured housing is pretty much legal in many areas around the state. One of the reasons why California is so expensive is that those types of inexpensive housing options are effectively illegal statewide.

watwut 7mo ago
> There's plenty of places to live in Texas for basically nothing. What are the employment options there? If I move to a cheap house somewhere where there are no jobs for me, I just moved somewhere where I cant afford.
- zozbot234 7mo ago
  You can always work full remote. Or maybe you're an elderly retiree.
  - TimPC 7mo ago
    Elderly retirees seldom move. They’ve long paid off their mortgage and we keep property taxes extremely low so they are pretty much immune to the cost of housing. Once you put down roots in a community it’s hard to leave.
    - angmarsbane 7mo ago
      They also usually don't want to leave their established doctors. This is actually one of the reasons why we need mixed-housing options within neighborhoods so that elderly people can downsize into more manageable one and two bedroom apartments, condos, or duplexes etc without having to leave the neighborhood. Downsize into housing stock without stairs, without a large yard to upkeep, downsize into something smaller that would be more affordable to adapt for someone aging in place.
- scoofy 7mo ago
  >If I move to a cheap house somewhere Again, I'm not trying to be difficult here, but "where" is "somewhere." There are jobs in Austin, San Antonio, Kerrville, Marfa, and El Paso. They might not all be for me, but they exist in all these places. Where you live and what your commute is, again, is not exactly something that's particularly trivial to define. At what point should I start looking in San Antonio rather than Austin? These are hard questions. This is what I mean when I ask whether I have a right to housing in Malibu? At what point should I be expected to just move to East LA? At the end of the day, housing in Austin is relatively inexpensive. There are real options below $300K. Living in SF, it's pretty astounding that that's even possible within the city limits, much less at reasonable commuting distances. I certainly think incentivizing subsidized low income housing is worthwhile, and I think even incentivizing builders to just target the low income price points is also worthwhile. I just think that focusing on subsidizing the lowest income folks, rather than letting markets actually work for most people has been shown to trivially fail in CA where I live at actually accomplishing anything. A lot of "ugly" 5-over-1's have been built in Austin, and it's working to keep the place affordable for working class people. I'm absolutely fine with that.
  - miyoji 7mo ago
    > At the end of the day, housing in Austin is relatively inexpensive. There are real options below $300K. This is so insanely out of touch. Most people will never be able to afford a house over $200k, even in Austin. I live here, you apparently live in California. As a resident, let me tell you that Austin is not affordable, and definitely not "inexpensive". Housing here is relatively inexpensive compared to the most expensive metros in the world, it's not relatively inexpensive compared to the US housing market, or more relevantly, the Texas housing market. This isn't the Bay Area, it's the middle of Texas. > A lot of "ugly" 5-over-1's have been built in Austin, and it's working to keep the place affordable for working class people. Austin isn't affordable for working class people and it hasn't been for a long time, so no, those new constructions aren't keeping it affordable, they've just stopped the insane rent increases that were coming every year for more than a decade. A living wage in Austin for a single person is $100,000, for a family it's $200,000, and that is well above the median household income of ~$90,000. Working class people are well below the median and aren't making $90,000 per year. These numbers are from an article in our local newspaper from this week. [0] [0] https://www.statesman.com/news/local/article/austin-cost-of-living-salary-breakdown-22062775.php https://www.statesman.com/news/local/article/austin-cost-of-...
- vel0city 7mo ago
  > Texas led the nation in job creation in 2025, adding more nonfarm jobs than any other state and setting multiple employment records https://www.wfaa.com/article/money/business/everything-bigger-in-texas-including-job-growth/287-52c4f3e9-094c-4d39-ae89-ae7ae8b8dc35 https://www.wfaa.com/article/money/business/everything-bigge... As someone who has lived here for a long while, it seems like there are lots of jobs in a lot of industries here. We're not all oil riggers and cowboys.
FuriouslyAdrift 7mo ago
Yeah seriously... when I was dirt poor and hurting, I moved to Shreveport and was able to get by on minimum wage. There's plenty of places in the Deep South where one may live a decent life for moderate wages. Not everyone gets to live the life of Riley.

by scoofy 7mo ago

watwut 7mo ago

> There's plenty of places to live in Texas for basically nothing. What are the employment options there? If I move to a cheap house somewhere where there are no jobs for me, I just moved somewhere where I cant afford.

zozbot234 7mo ago
You can always work full remote. Or maybe you're an elderly retiree.
- TimPC 7mo ago
  Elderly retirees seldom move. They’ve long paid off their mortgage and we keep property taxes extremely low so they are pretty much immune to the cost of housing. Once you put down roots in a community it’s hard to leave.
  - angmarsbane 7mo ago
    They also usually don't want to leave their established doctors. This is actually one of the reasons why we need mixed-housing options within neighborhoods so that elderly people can downsize into more manageable one and two bedroom apartments, condos, or duplexes etc without having to leave the neighborhood. Downsize into housing stock without stairs, without a large yard to upkeep, downsize into something smaller that would be more affordable to adapt for someone aging in place.
scoofy 7mo ago
>If I move to a cheap house somewhere Again, I'm not trying to be difficult here, but "where" is "somewhere." There are jobs in Austin, San Antonio, Kerrville, Marfa, and El Paso. They might not all be for me, but they exist in all these places. Where you live and what your commute is, again, is not exactly something that's particularly trivial to define. At what point should I start looking in San Antonio rather than Austin? These are hard questions. This is what I mean when I ask whether I have a right to housing in Malibu? At what point should I be expected to just move to East LA? At the end of the day, housing in Austin is relatively inexpensive. There are real options below $300K. Living in SF, it's pretty astounding that that's even possible within the city limits, much less at reasonable commuting distances. I certainly think incentivizing subsidized low income housing is worthwhile, and I think even incentivizing builders to just target the low income price points is also worthwhile. I just think that focusing on subsidizing the lowest income folks, rather than letting markets actually work for most people has been shown to trivially fail in CA where I live at actually accomplishing anything. A lot of "ugly" 5-over-1's have been built in Austin, and it's working to keep the place affordable for working class people. I'm absolutely fine with that.
- miyoji 7mo ago
  > At the end of the day, housing in Austin is relatively inexpensive. There are real options below $300K. This is so insanely out of touch. Most people will never be able to afford a house over $200k, even in Austin. I live here, you apparently live in California. As a resident, let me tell you that Austin is not affordable, and definitely not "inexpensive". Housing here is relatively inexpensive compared to the most expensive metros in the world, it's not relatively inexpensive compared to the US housing market, or more relevantly, the Texas housing market. This isn't the Bay Area, it's the middle of Texas. > A lot of "ugly" 5-over-1's have been built in Austin, and it's working to keep the place affordable for working class people. Austin isn't affordable for working class people and it hasn't been for a long time, so no, those new constructions aren't keeping it affordable, they've just stopped the insane rent increases that were coming every year for more than a decade. A living wage in Austin for a single person is $100,000, for a family it's $200,000, and that is well above the median household income of ~$90,000. Working class people are well below the median and aren't making $90,000 per year. These numbers are from an article in our local newspaper from this week. [0] [0] https://www.statesman.com/news/local/article/austin-cost-of-living-salary-breakdown-22062775.php https://www.statesman.com/news/local/article/austin-cost-of-...
vel0city 7mo ago
> Texas led the nation in job creation in 2025, adding more nonfarm jobs than any other state and setting multiple employment records https://www.wfaa.com/article/money/business/everything-bigger-in-texas-including-job-growth/287-52c4f3e9-094c-4d39-ae89-ae7ae8b8dc35 https://www.wfaa.com/article/money/business/everything-bigge... As someone who has lived here for a long while, it seems like there are lots of jobs in a lot of industries here. We're not all oil riggers and cowboys.

FuriouslyAdrift 7mo ago

Yeah seriously... when I was dirt poor and hurting, I moved to Shreveport and was able to get by on minimum wage. There's plenty of places in the Deep South where one may live a decent life for moderate wages. Not everyone gets to live the life of Riley.