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Home ownership strikes me as just a symptom of another more fundamental sacrosanct value in society, that of stability and security. The author alludes to that

by azanar 18y ago

Home ownership strikes me as just a symptom of another more fundamental sacrosanct value in society, that of stability and security. The author alludes to that in the article, but I think he needs to play it up more. For many people, this seems the real default, and buying a home is just outward evidence of that. Buying a home is a statement of commitment, that you will be there for at least as long as needed to make up the closing costs and what-have-you. Whether the house is just a byproduct of that attitude, or meant to directly project it, I don't know. But I don't think that everyone should make that sort of commitment, or that we should disproportionately laud those that do. This is not a critique against people who desire security and stability, this is a critique against the attitude that you must be secure and stable to be worthy. I've seen it make a lot of people around me become depressed, because they simultaneously desire a more interesting life but fear being branded as flighty and irresponsible. Maybe this is their own problem, for being unable to reason their way out of this internal battle, but it is ubiquitous enough that it indicates a more fundamental brokenness. I also wonder about the reported psychological benefits the author mentions. I wonder how much of this is induced by the belief that home ownership is meant to make you happy. If it doesn't then there is something wrong with you, not with your decision to buy. Not that there aren't happy homeowners, but that there are unhappy ones. It's the same with a lot of defaults; everyone else seems happy enough with them, why aren't you? Perhaps one of the biggest defaults, and the one that drives a lot of this, is the belief that those who follow the defaults are happier deeper than the image they project.

joeyo 18y ago
This is a really great point. I think many people buy homes because it is that thing they have to keep up with their neighbors/peers. On the other hand, owning your own property empowers you in ways that should not be discounted. To give simple example, consider the problem of "gentrification." This happens when there is a poor neighborhood that over time attracts a young, usually creative crowd. This leads to pressure for housing there, that in turn leads to speculators and developers who improve/replace buildings further driving the process until the character of the neighborhood is totally changed. This is a pattern that people observe over and over again. This process is at its worst when the original neighborhood has few or no owner occupants. In these situations there is little to stop a developer from being able to go through and completely change the character of the neighborhood en masse and overnight. Worst of all, the original residents don't benefit form this process-- their rent rises and when they stop being able to afford living there, they have no choice but to leave. On the other hand, when there is a mix of ownership and rentership in the neighborhood the gentrification process proceeds much more slowly and in a way that benefits the original residents who, if they choose to leave, enjoy a profit in the sale, not steadily increasing rents.
jacoblyles 18y ago
There's something to be said for stability too. I'm getting tired of losing all my friends every two years. Also, if you ever try to get involved in your local community, you will find that nobody really cares about you if they know you're going to be gone in a year. The people that have influence in the community are the folks that stick around. We live in a very young-thinking age, anxious to throw out established wisdom and forge our own way. However, I fear that we are too eager to discount the wisdom in established wisdom. I'm not saying that we have to swallow it wholesale. But there's a reason it came into existence in the first place. My peer group has no concept of "community". We don't belong to one. Or rather, we belong to a new one every two years, which amounts to the same thing. We pay lip service to the ideas of helping our neighbors and building strong communities, but we have no idea what those words actually mean. We try to fulfill these ideals through national politics, but it's not the same thing as actually helping your neighbor, personally, in real life. So sure, people need to rent and move around when they are young and finding their way. But eventually it's good to settle down and belong to a place. In the aggregate, it builds a stronger society. I went to a church around here on Christmas (I'm an atheist, but I like the carols), and it was startling to interact with people outside my peer group. Some of the parishioners had lived in San Diego for decades. They had known each other for decades. They knew who had children, and who was elderly, and who was sick and needed help. They knew who was widowed and who had children overseas in Iraq and could use a nice meal with friends. When someone moved away, it was a big event, and everybody was sad to see them leave. When I'm sick or need help, my facebook friends send me nice messages. It's not the same. Damn, I sound old for a guy that's 26.
- Rod 18y ago
  What's so great about helping the "community"? This is an honest question. I am European and I moved to California some months ago. I find it both amusing and mysterious that people here in the U.S. talk about "community" so much. I really don't get it.
  - jacoblyles 18y ago
    Human contact. A social safety net. Social capital. Taking personal responsibility for making the world around you a better place to live. Civic volunteerism is an old American virtue. It will probably be gone in 50 years, for better or worse.
yason 18y ago
This is so true. Stability and security are illusions that we want to think they exist. What are they anyway? Equity gets lost too. In the end you never really know what's going to happen. You can play the probabilities game to help you ignore that for a while but in the end you never really know what's ahead. Then why are people so afraid of something bad happening that they need to build securities and seek stability to ease their worries? Why do they crave for stability when the world itself is in constant flux -- with everybody in it as well? Is it some fundamental belief of not ever having enough, manifesting itself in barricading oneself inside things that at least seem rock solid?

by azanar 18y ago

joeyo 18y ago

This is a really great point. I think many people buy homes because it is that thing they have to keep up with their neighbors/peers. On the other hand, owning your own property empowers you in ways that should not be discounted. To give simple example, consider the problem of "gentrification." This happens when there is a poor neighborhood that over time attracts a young, usually creative crowd. This leads to pressure for housing there, that in turn leads to speculators and developers who improve/replace buildings further driving the process until the character of the neighborhood is totally changed. This is a pattern that people observe over and over again. This process is at its worst when the original neighborhood has few or no owner occupants. In these situations there is little to stop a developer from being able to go through and completely change the character of the neighborhood en masse and overnight. Worst of all, the original residents don't benefit form this process-- their rent rises and when they stop being able to afford living there, they have no choice but to leave. On the other hand, when there is a mix of ownership and rentership in the neighborhood the gentrification process proceeds much more slowly and in a way that benefits the original residents who, if they choose to leave, enjoy a profit in the sale, not steadily increasing rents.

jacoblyles 18y ago

There's something to be said for stability too. I'm getting tired of losing all my friends every two years. Also, if you ever try to get involved in your local community, you will find that nobody really cares about you if they know you're going to be gone in a year. The people that have influence in the community are the folks that stick around. We live in a very young-thinking age, anxious to throw out established wisdom and forge our own way. However, I fear that we are too eager to discount the wisdom in established wisdom. I'm not saying that we have to swallow it wholesale. But there's a reason it came into existence in the first place. My peer group has no concept of "community". We don't belong to one. Or rather, we belong to a new one every two years, which amounts to the same thing. We pay lip service to the ideas of helping our neighbors and building strong communities, but we have no idea what those words actually mean. We try to fulfill these ideals through national politics, but it's not the same thing as actually helping your neighbor, personally, in real life. So sure, people need to rent and move around when they are young and finding their way. But eventually it's good to settle down and belong to a place. In the aggregate, it builds a stronger society. I went to a church around here on Christmas (I'm an atheist, but I like the carols), and it was startling to interact with people outside my peer group. Some of the parishioners had lived in San Diego for decades. They had known each other for decades. They knew who had children, and who was elderly, and who was sick and needed help. They knew who was widowed and who had children overseas in Iraq and could use a nice meal with friends. When someone moved away, it was a big event, and everybody was sad to see them leave. When I'm sick or need help, my facebook friends send me nice messages. It's not the same. Damn, I sound old for a guy that's 26.

Rod 18y ago
What's so great about helping the "community"? This is an honest question. I am European and I moved to California some months ago. I find it both amusing and mysterious that people here in the U.S. talk about "community" so much. I really don't get it.
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  Human contact. A social safety net. Social capital. Taking personal responsibility for making the world around you a better place to live. Civic volunteerism is an old American virtue. It will probably be gone in 50 years, for better or worse.

yason 18y ago

This is so true. Stability and security are illusions that we want to think they exist. What are they anyway? Equity gets lost too. In the end you never really know what's going to happen. You can play the probabilities game to help you ignore that for a while but in the end you never really know what's ahead. Then why are people so afraid of something bad happening that they need to build securities and seek stability to ease their worries? Why do they crave for stability when the world itself is in constant flux -- with everybody in it as well? Is it some fundamental belief of not ever having enough, manifesting itself in barricading oneself inside things that at least seem rock solid?