6 ms·

Moving is expensive too. If you're hand-to-mouth poor, you cannot afford a rental truck, let alone time off work and still feed your children. You will probabl

by codemac 12y ago

Moving is expensive too. If you're hand-to-mouth poor, you cannot afford a rental truck, let alone time off work and still feed your children. You will probably lose your job if you move, and not find another one where you land, especially if you're in the service industry. Good luck with that East bay -> peninsula commute on your minimum wage. The reason many cannot get jobs other places is due to felonies or other legal issues related to being poor. If your children are in school a lot of parents would actually rather struggle than put their family through the trauma of a move, even if in the end it may be better. American society is more mobile than others, but poverty (outside of vagrancy) is extremely restricting. I do think your main thesis is correct (this is unmaintainable, gtfo), but moving is a multi-year struggle of planning and saving at these low levels of income. This is at it's core class struggle, not individual unawareness.

Lawtonfogle 12y ago
Assuming government resources are needed to be spent to help resolve this, would they not be put to better use helping individuals relocate to somewhere sustainable (especially those who would be making a living wage elsewhere) than to subsidize the difference year after year?
- nsnick 12y ago
  Lets not forget that these people would be middle class anywhere else.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Lets not forget that these people would be middle class anywhere else. If they could magically keep their Bay Area income while being anywhere else, they might be. But since they can't actually do that, I'm not sure what relevance that has.
    - reneherse 12y ago
      This assumes all levels of income are inflated equally, which they are not.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        No, it doesn't. It just assumes that people can't magically take their income with them when they leave. Even if the 10th percentile income is the same as in the Bay Area in some place where the average income and cost of living is lower than the Bay Area, that doesn't mean that someone in the 10th percentile in the Bay Area can move to that location and keep their income (or any income at all.)
- Frondo 12y ago
  I wonder if anyone's asked those poor people what they want. I've seen a few commenters here suggesting using government money to ship 'em out, or retrain or job-place them, but I wonder: what do the poor in Silicon Valley want for their lives? Do they want to be shipped out? To be retrained? Better wages? Cheaper housing? These are people, after all, and are worthy of being involved in any discussion concerning their fate.
  - Lawtonfogle 12y ago
    I'm in no way limiting their choices. I am merely discussing the limits that should be put to best utilize limited government resources. If they do not like those limits, they do not have to accept the aid.
    - Frondo 12y ago
      That doesn't address my basic point at all: what do they want for their lives?
      - Lawtonfogle 12y ago
        Your base point is a question? I assume you meant that your base point is something we should do with the answer to that question. Could you please restate your base point so I do not have to guess what that something is?
        Frondo 12y ago
        My point is, what these folks want for their lives matters in a discussion concerning their lives. You've said, ship 'em out! Retrain them! If they don't want to do those things, do nothing. What I'm going for is: ask them, too. It makes very little sense to try to have a conversation about solving a community's problem without listening to members of that community.
        Lawtonfogle 12y ago
mgraczyk 12y ago
When times are tough, moving does not need to be expensive. Before I moved to SV, I sold or donated everything I couldn't fit in two suitcases. I moved into an affordable house where I share a bedroom with 3 other people. I would be able to make rent with only $20k/year. I know not everybody can divorce themselves from all of their belongings, especially large families. Additionally, I didn't have to worry about schools (no children) or work (my industry has ~0 unemployment). I did, however, have to worry about saving enough to survive between jobs and finding an affordable place to stay. > This is at it's core class struggle, not individual unawareness. I agree, but I think part of the solution has to involve helping people relocate. We should also strive to encourage a more distributed social life. If we had inexpensive, high quality video telecommunications I believe that people would be more okay with moving away from their families.
- codemac 12y ago
  Selling all your belongings to move to SV when you're single, educated, and high employment chances is not as similar as you feel. I know you probably struggled to make it happen, and I'm not trying to understate that.. but that sounds completely different than poverty.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  I have moved on a shoestring many times as well, but it's exponentially more complex when you have a family than when you're a single guy on the make. It's even more disruptive for children who are pulled out of their real-life social/educational network with basically no choice and no agency in how they go about reconstructing that. We should also strive to encourage a more distributed social life. Why? I'm not the most gregarious person and I am OK with telephones and video, but it's a far cry from meeting people you care about in person. The problem with helping people relocate rather than deal with these issues at their source is that you wind up with economic cleansing, large enclaves and entire cities where only the wealthy can live and others where only the poor can afford to reside. Naturally there are few economic opportunities in communities of poor people, so people who live in them have to travel ever farther to get to their jobs, with increased cost in fuel/transit fares and diminishing marginal utility of labor due to the extra commute time. The thing is, the same dynamic is at work to varying degrees all over the country so it's far from obvious where people who are economically dislocated should move to.
RIMR 12y ago
I moved to Seattle for Tech work. It required 2 months of planning and less than $5k in expenses (for two people). I moved from Memphis, TN. Places like the Puget Sound and the Bay Area are going to keep getting populated with tech workers, and they are going to keep rising in cost. Moving isn't hard. It sucks to feel kicked out of the city you live in, but there isn't much that can be done. If you can't afford it, move somewhere that you can. I hate gentrification, but what can we do to avoid it? Ban high-paying jobs? Maybe one day all of this will bite us in the ass, but if you find yourself on the receiving end right now, do the best thing you can for yourself and get out!
- taco_emoji 12y ago
  > Moving isn't hard. You think scraping together five fucking grand "isn't hard" for someone who's hand-to-mouth poor? > If you can't afford it, move somewhere that you can. "What if you can't afford TO MOVE" is the entire point of the post you responded to.

by codemac 12y ago

Lawtonfogle 12y ago

Assuming government resources are needed to be spent to help resolve this, would they not be put to better use helping individuals relocate to somewhere sustainable (especially those who would be making a living wage elsewhere) than to subsidize the difference year after year?

nsnick 12y ago
Lets not forget that these people would be middle class anywhere else.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Lets not forget that these people would be middle class anywhere else. If they could magically keep their Bay Area income while being anywhere else, they might be. But since they can't actually do that, I'm not sure what relevance that has.
  - reneherse 12y ago
    This assumes all levels of income are inflated equally, which they are not.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      No, it doesn't. It just assumes that people can't magically take their income with them when they leave. Even if the 10th percentile income is the same as in the Bay Area in some place where the average income and cost of living is lower than the Bay Area, that doesn't mean that someone in the 10th percentile in the Bay Area can move to that location and keep their income (or any income at all.)
Frondo 12y ago
I wonder if anyone's asked those poor people what they want. I've seen a few commenters here suggesting using government money to ship 'em out, or retrain or job-place them, but I wonder: what do the poor in Silicon Valley want for their lives? Do they want to be shipped out? To be retrained? Better wages? Cheaper housing? These are people, after all, and are worthy of being involved in any discussion concerning their fate.
- Lawtonfogle 12y ago
  I'm in no way limiting their choices. I am merely discussing the limits that should be put to best utilize limited government resources. If they do not like those limits, they do not have to accept the aid.
  - Frondo 12y ago
    That doesn't address my basic point at all: what do they want for their lives?
    - Lawtonfogle 12y ago
      Your base point is a question? I assume you meant that your base point is something we should do with the answer to that question. Could you please restate your base point so I do not have to guess what that something is?
      - Frondo 12y ago
        My point is, what these folks want for their lives matters in a discussion concerning their lives. You've said, ship 'em out! Retrain them! If they don't want to do those things, do nothing. What I'm going for is: ask them, too. It makes very little sense to try to have a conversation about solving a community's problem without listening to members of that community.
        Lawtonfogle 12y ago

mgraczyk 12y ago

When times are tough, moving does not need to be expensive. Before I moved to SV, I sold or donated everything I couldn't fit in two suitcases. I moved into an affordable house where I share a bedroom with 3 other people. I would be able to make rent with only $20k/year. I know not everybody can divorce themselves from all of their belongings, especially large families. Additionally, I didn't have to worry about schools (no children) or work (my industry has ~0 unemployment). I did, however, have to worry about saving enough to survive between jobs and finding an affordable place to stay. > This is at it's core class struggle, not individual unawareness. I agree, but I think part of the solution has to involve helping people relocate. We should also strive to encourage a more distributed social life. If we had inexpensive, high quality video telecommunications I believe that people would be more okay with moving away from their families.

codemac 12y ago
Selling all your belongings to move to SV when you're single, educated, and high employment chances is not as similar as you feel. I know you probably struggled to make it happen, and I'm not trying to understate that.. but that sounds completely different than poverty.
anigbrowl 12y ago
I have moved on a shoestring many times as well, but it's exponentially more complex when you have a family than when you're a single guy on the make. It's even more disruptive for children who are pulled out of their real-life social/educational network with basically no choice and no agency in how they go about reconstructing that. We should also strive to encourage a more distributed social life. Why? I'm not the most gregarious person and I am OK with telephones and video, but it's a far cry from meeting people you care about in person. The problem with helping people relocate rather than deal with these issues at their source is that you wind up with economic cleansing, large enclaves and entire cities where only the wealthy can live and others where only the poor can afford to reside. Naturally there are few economic opportunities in communities of poor people, so people who live in them have to travel ever farther to get to their jobs, with increased cost in fuel/transit fares and diminishing marginal utility of labor due to the extra commute time. The thing is, the same dynamic is at work to varying degrees all over the country so it's far from obvious where people who are economically dislocated should move to.

RIMR 12y ago

I moved to Seattle for Tech work. It required 2 months of planning and less than $5k in expenses (for two people). I moved from Memphis, TN. Places like the Puget Sound and the Bay Area are going to keep getting populated with tech workers, and they are going to keep rising in cost. Moving isn't hard. It sucks to feel kicked out of the city you live in, but there isn't much that can be done. If you can't afford it, move somewhere that you can. I hate gentrification, but what can we do to avoid it? Ban high-paying jobs? Maybe one day all of this will bite us in the ass, but if you find yourself on the receiving end right now, do the best thing you can for yourself and get out!

taco_emoji 12y ago
> Moving isn't hard. You think scraping together five fucking grand "isn't hard" for someone who's hand-to-mouth poor? > If you can't afford it, move somewhere that you can. "What if you can't afford TO MOVE" is the entire point of the post you responded to.