From 2019 to 2023, the lowest iconome Americans have had their real (inflation adjusted) wages increase by 13.2%. The US median income is also the highest in the world when adjusted for cost of living.
Perhaps the increase in homelessness is because local NIMBYS efficevly ban new housing projects?
Or perhaps this post is trying to get an emotional response on a complex and extremely difficult to solve issue?
All of these things can be true. Based on this (https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/) for the same time period of 2019 to 2023, the CPI-adjusted median home price in the US went up by roughly 21%. So, the average American can both see their income increase but also find a home further out of reach.
The point of this post and this article is not about how people are doing in inflation adjusted terms, but the startling and sharp increase in wealth inequality we're seeing.
Most often media reports over-regulation/regulatory capture type of problems, including but not limited to zoning and NIMBY. I don't see any solution to those in my lifetime. Politicians talks about non-solutions only.
Financialization of homes leading to incentives against construction of new homes at sufficient rates to reduce the supply shortage, among other factors.
> Perhaps the increase in homelessness is because local NIMBYS efficevly ban new housing projects?
No. Housing projects lead to nothing but misery and more homelessness.
The increases are almost 100% drug-driven. Because of drugs, people are not _exiting_ homelessness (the average time of being homeless is growing, according to the 2-year counts).
The answers, counterintuitively, to strengthen the NIMBYs and make sure it's impossible to build ANYTHING in cities. Then promote the remote work and suburbs/rural areas via tax incentives.
Suburbs are pyramid schemes that are already beginning to collapse. Infrastructure costs are unsustainably high without density and plenty of cities are going bankrupt when it comes time to replace sewers etc.
> Infrastructure costs are unsustainably high without density and plenty of cities are going bankrupt when it comes time to replace sewers etc.
It's funny that you mention infrastructure. Do you know that one mile of Manhattan subway now costs more than 1000 miles of modern 6-lane freeway?
Suburban infrastructure costs are in line with the _average_ urban costs (some cities like NYC or Seattle have _wildly_ inflated costs). Some costs are slightly more, some are less.
Clearly people want to move into cities. The increased prices of housing makes that beyond clear, to deny it is to deny basic economics. Thus why shouldn't we build housing where people show with their money that they want to live? Its worked in several US cities when tried, who have even seen housing prices go down while building very reasonable 3-6 story apartment buildings.
Thanks very much, very useful. I notice that the first wage link states:
"Wage rates remain insufficient for individuals and families working to make ends meet. Nowhere can a worker at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution earn enough to meet a basic family budget."
It's truly been fascinating watching the dialogue over some of the recent issues.
As a thought experiment: millions of Americans wished for the death of Osama Bin Laden and cheered about his death. Bin Laden plotted and oversaw plans which, when carried out by others, led to the deaths of thousands.
Health insurance CEOs have plotted and oversaw plans (such as updating tooling to increase the rate at which healthcare coverage is denied) which led to the death of tens of thousands (quite possibly orders of magnitude more) and the suffering or bankruptcy of millions, and yet it's not OK for people to be thrilled about their death?
This is evidence that pple connected to law enforcement can hold (hypothetical) exponentials in their heads (but not from their pants).
Underlying the difference is the notion that what ObL did was difficult to replicate (or at least straightforward to stymie) but what LM did was the opposite.
If plotting to kill thousands is evil and should lead to an international manhunt to bring you into custody or kill you, plotting to kill tens of thousands should have consequences at least as severe, even if (especially if) you're hiding behind a corporation.
I and everyone I've talked to thinks it's fine as does independent journalists. However, there's a class divide here that people fail to accept. There's also the mechanics of how class works which explains both of these.
Bin Laden being from a billionaire oil family gave him the protection needed to orchestrate the attack. The same kind of protection that Epstein enjoyed.
Whenever someone becomes a much bigger news story, this is usually why. Take Jamal Kashoggi for instance - he was the nephew of the billionare adnan kashoggi. If you think his death would have received equivalent international coverage had he not been connected to multiple billions of dollars, I'd have to disagree.
This is insanely sticky. Take Ruja Ignatova or Jho Low for instance, criminals that stole billions that you've probably never heard of. The first one, top 10 fugitive, $5 million reward, on the FBI most wanted list. Somehow stealing a billion puts you in the media protection club regardless.
The phenomenon is real. Sean Combs is another example. Or how the people imprisoned for running the scams leading to 2008 is a solid Zero.
Historically the people have usually sooner or later stabbed the king or kings, or at least the kings stabbed each other. In five years, I predict, either US goes through something like that or robotics cause this option no longer being possible, since no one wants the risk their own life versus superhuman drone & killerbot militia (probably going to be called something to direction: "safe automated guards") even when fighting against a CEO. The actual cruelty will be visible only once there's nothing you can do.
Aren't the government cuts sort of consistent with this? I would also be cutting, since in theory public servants or military who aren't bribed could step in, so you want as few of those who could still do something once they see the "bad" things done to the public. I'm uncertain about this and don't vother digging up though, could be that they are not cutting from everything.
There were couple of videos on YouTube outlining how transport driven development makes poor people even more poor. Reasoning is that light rail transport makes housing along it more expensive. It's definitely feels like that in Montreal near REM, although I don't have 'proofs'. Gentrification on steroids kind of reasoning.
It's more about public transportation make the urban middle class richer, and have marginal to no effect on lower class people or rural middle class. As long as roads are not paid for by tolls and gas taxes but by general taxes (basically mine), public transportation should have no negative effect for poorer people. That's why i don't bitch about car being way, way more subsidized than train/buses in my city, and i find people crying about it out of touch and to be honest quite selfish.
> It's more about public transportation make the urban middle class richer, and have marginal to no effect on lower class people or rural middle class.
It means that if you want your life to become better, you have to move in closer to the large cities. In turn, this means that your living conditions will worsen.
> That's why i don't bitch about car being way, way more subsidized than train/buses in my city
That source makes claims that its data does not actually back up - that road infrastructure is actually paid for by user fees, while only actually providing data that highway infrastructure is paid for by user fees. Highways are clearly not most road infrastructure.
They use the Census data reported by the cities. It's called "highway and street", and it includes all the surface roads except for roads with limited access. Their table just somewhat misleadingly removed the "street" part of the series name.
Nope. I researched that in details, and I'm writing a book about it.
In short: no large city in Europe, US, or Japan managed to lower housing sale prices by increasing housing density and building transit. This is even tacitly acknowledged by urbanists. The best result that I found in literature, was a one-time 5-8% decrease in _rental_ costs immediately near the new construction.
But the negative effects are clear: people have to pay ever-rising costs for worse and worse housing. With the "upside" being "near to theaters and museums" (that people visit maybe once a year).
> Seems like you’ve been radicalized to a point of view, but by what?
By urbanist propaganda resulting in visible misery.
It has turned from a useful science of "how to make living in cities better" to "how to force more density onto people".
ive been flirting with the idea of leaving the city for years. what resources and/or communities do you recommend regarding this literal "movement"? please ignore me if this is like asking chomsky to check my grammar
so you want better outcomes (lower homelessness and lower housing sale prices) by restricting new builds in urban centers to motivate people to live further away (working remote)?
I don't think this has ever been done on purpose with the explicit goal of anti-urbanism.
However, it's been done a bunch of times accidentally. One really great example: Copenhagen in Denmark. Its population actually decreased after the initial boom, it's only now back up to the levels of early 70-s: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/20894/cope...
As a result, the overall Danish well-being and economics improved compared to neighboring countries. I believe, that this is very much a part of the reason for the "Danish Bumblebee" economy (meaning that it shouldn't be able to fly, but does).
And Copenhagen is routinely scored as one of the best cities on the planet.
Copenhagen's suburbanization was not accidental. They specifically built infrastructure and public transit to support suburbs with a strong connection to the city center. Their success with homelessness probably has more to do with high taxes and a lot of welfare support systems than anything else.
Perhaps the increase in homelessness is because local NIMBYS efficevly ban new housing projects?
Or perhaps this post is trying to get an emotional response on a complex and extremely difficult to solve issue?