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Having neglected urban neighborhoods revitalized is certainly a good thing, but the ugly side is often too much money flows into the areas, and it effectively prices out a lot of people.
Where I am they took a big abandoned department store building and turned it into a Chelsea Market type deal with a bunch of cool shops, restaurants and apartments. The entire area is really cool, but costs have gone through the roof. The chipotle nearby even raised its prices.
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On September 29 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2017 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:26 Mohdoo wrote:
From a Portland resident's perspective, gentrification is amazing. So many shitty little bars that go away and are replaced with amazing brunch places. There are so many areas in Portland that I previously had no interest in visiting that are suddenly useful.
I understand that there are a lot of people who aren't willing to live in a non-trendy city and that they are poor so they can't. I weep for them. Taking a 45 minute bus ride to work in the morning would be shitty.
However, from a bird's eye perspective, I see some serious benefits. There is a shit load of money being injected into the city. Average income is way up. Average education is way up. Areas are safer, cleaner and generally frequented by a straight up higher tier of person. There's something hilarious about groups of people wanting an area to remain low-income and to not have wealth injected into it. "sucks to be poor but at least I got so many brunch places". Take a moment to think about what you just wrote and how that looks if your part of the poor people who got displaced. Also, throwing out all the poor people to live in their own shit place where they don't steal wealth from us fine smart folk has always worked so well throughout history. I am saying that from the perspective of the city and related metrics, gentrification is unquestionably an improvement. If this was Sim City, you'd be rubbing your hands together watching your city get gentrified. In that regard, it is a ridiculous thing to argue against. A city managing to attract tech business, increase net revenue, decrease crime and modernize infrastructure/architecture is a plain and simple win. Speaking about Portland in particular, it has a few areas nearby that are very cheap. This essentially means that people who worked in Portland, while renting in Portland, now have to move away and take a 45 minute bus to work. This undoubtedly sucks ass. But my point is that there is such tremendous advantage to the "city as a whole". The entire idea of people protesting tech companies moving in, new condos (thus reducing housing scarcity) going up, old buildings being replaced is madness because it is such a clear net positive. I am using brunch places as a crude example of the fact that some shitty bar that never really did that well to begin with being replaced with amazing brunch is a good thing. The argument against gentrification is a clear argument against a greater good scenario. It disproportionately impacts vulnerable, poor, renting families, but that's where things get weird. Here is a situation that is very common: Person owns a house and rents it to people. They rent it at a rate consistent with a home value of $150K. People around this area are selling homes for upwards of $350K. You check the value of your home, speak to a realtor and it turns out you can walk away with $250K in your pocket by selling this rental property. But here's the catch: A poor family of 4 lives in this house. They pay $800/month in rent. Because the owner of the house sees an opportunity to make an insane amount of money, they decide to sell the house. Reddit loses their god damn minds. Many locals don't think that these home owners should be allowed to sell the house. They think these renters should be grandfathered into their current lease for the next 3-5 years until they can find somewhere else to live. So this dude who owns and rents the house out should be disallowed from selling it? How does that make sense? And that's the issue. The things that people advocate for as a way to fix this are all ridiculous. The only way to "fix" the problem is to prevent the property owners from selling their property. Even if you impose renting restrictions, they can always just sell the place for a great profit.
The cost of living increases as well as the quality of life. I get your point. But, as in San Diego, you can't afford to live where you work, you're commuting. And that's causing traffic congestion and more issues to arise. It's deeper than the cafe or brunch spots replacing the bars. Why do you think the minimum wage is being raised all over the country? Because people can't afford to live where they work. Kansas City downtown is going through a building phase now. A few years back, you could rent a loft or 2 bedroom downtown for $800. Dead smack in the middle. Now that same loft is $1200, and that 2 bedroom is $1500. The people who used to be able to afford those places have to move to suburbia or find something with less amenities. Sure, dining is great.
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On September 29 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2017 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:26 Mohdoo wrote:
From a Portland resident's perspective, gentrification is amazing. So many shitty little bars that go away and are replaced with amazing brunch places. There are so many areas in Portland that I previously had no interest in visiting that are suddenly useful.
I understand that there are a lot of people who aren't willing to live in a non-trendy city and that they are poor so they can't. I weep for them. Taking a 45 minute bus ride to work in the morning would be shitty.
However, from a bird's eye perspective, I see some serious benefits. There is a shit load of money being injected into the city. Average income is way up. Average education is way up. Areas are safer, cleaner and generally frequented by a straight up higher tier of person. There's something hilarious about groups of people wanting an area to remain low-income and to not have wealth injected into it. "sucks to be poor but at least I got so many brunch places". Take a moment to think about what you just wrote and how that looks if your part of the poor people who got displaced. Also, throwing out all the poor people to live in their own shit place where they don't steal wealth from us fine smart folk has always worked so well throughout history. I am saying that from the perspective of the city and related metrics, gentrification is unquestionably an improvement. If this was Sim City, you'd be rubbing your hands together watching your city get gentrified. In that regard, it is a ridiculous thing to argue against. A city managing to attract tech business, increase net revenue, decrease crime and modernize infrastructure/architecture is a plain and simple win. Speaking about Portland in particular, it has a few areas nearby that are very cheap. This essentially means that people who worked in Portland, while renting in Portland, now have to move away and take a 45 minute bus to work. This undoubtedly sucks ass. But my point is that there is such tremendous advantage to the "city as a whole". The entire idea of people protesting tech companies moving in, new condos (thus reducing housing scarcity) going up, old buildings being replaced is madness because it is such a clear net positive. I am using brunch places as a crude example of the fact that some shitty bar that never really did that well to begin with being replaced with amazing brunch is a good thing. The argument against gentrification is a clear argument against a greater good scenario. It disproportionately impacts vulnerable, poor, renting families, but that's where things get weird. Here is a situation that is very common: Person owns a house and rents it to people. They rent it at a rate consistent with a home value of $150K. People around this area are selling homes for upwards of $350K. You check the value of your home, speak to a realtor and it turns out you can walk away with $250K in your pocket by selling this rental property. But here's the catch: A poor family of 4 lives in this house. They pay $800/month in rent. Because the owner of the house sees an opportunity to make an insane amount of money, they decide to sell the house. Reddit loses their god damn minds. Many locals don't think that these home owners should be allowed to sell the house. They think these renters should be grandfathered into their current lease for the next 3-5 years until they can find somewhere else to live. So this dude who owns and rents the house out should be disallowed from selling it? How does that make sense? And that's the issue. The things that people advocate for as a way to fix this are all ridiculous. The only way to "fix" the problem is to prevent the property owners from selling their property. Even if you impose renting restrictions, they can always just sell the place for a great profit.
Now imagine the other side of this story.
Your poor, you get thrown out of your house and the only place you can go is a suburb ghetto. Your making longer days because you got an hour commute extra each day, there are no decent shops around, more traveling for shopping.
The entire neighborhood is full of poor people thrown out so that rich people can build brunch places.
Gangs move in, drugs move in. Your child falls in with the bad crowd. How could he not, there is no other crowd around. Downward spiral continues, the neighborhood keeps getting worse, police stop coming. gangs are the defacto law. If your lucky you only get mugged occasionally. You haven't seen your kid in days, maybe hes lying dead on someone's couch OD'd on drugs. Not like you can go looking for him without crossing some gang and getting mugged or killed.
Atleast you live in the knowledge that some rich kid no longer has to look at poor people in his neighborhood, and as a bonus there are a lot of brunch places around for him.
Now why doesn't every city go through this amazing revitalization process!
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On September 29 2017 02:08 ticklishmusic wrote:
Having neglected urban neighborhoods revitalized is certainly a good thing, but the ugly side is often too much money flows into the areas, and it effectively prices out a lot of people.
Where I am they took a big abandoned department store building and turned it into a Chelsea Market type deal with a bunch of cool shops, restaurants and apartments. The entire area is really cool, but costs have gone through the roof. The chipotle nearby even raised its prices.
And the problem is that the money might be flowing in from outside the community, inflating the prices and cost of living. But when that money turns off for whatever reason, the prices don't instantly drop.
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On September 29 2017 02:12 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 29 2017 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:26 Mohdoo wrote:
From a Portland resident's perspective, gentrification is amazing. So many shitty little bars that go away and are replaced with amazing brunch places. There are so many areas in Portland that I previously had no interest in visiting that are suddenly useful.
I understand that there are a lot of people who aren't willing to live in a non-trendy city and that they are poor so they can't. I weep for them. Taking a 45 minute bus ride to work in the morning would be shitty.
However, from a bird's eye perspective, I see some serious benefits. There is a shit load of money being injected into the city. Average income is way up. Average education is way up. Areas are safer, cleaner and generally frequented by a straight up higher tier of person. There's something hilarious about groups of people wanting an area to remain low-income and to not have wealth injected into it. "sucks to be poor but at least I got so many brunch places". Take a moment to think about what you just wrote and how that looks if your part of the poor people who got displaced. Also, throwing out all the poor people to live in their own shit place where they don't steal wealth from us fine smart folk has always worked so well throughout history. I am saying that from the perspective of the city and related metrics, gentrification is unquestionably an improvement. If this was Sim City, you'd be rubbing your hands together watching your city get gentrified. In that regard, it is a ridiculous thing to argue against. A city managing to attract tech business, increase net revenue, decrease crime and modernize infrastructure/architecture is a plain and simple win. Speaking about Portland in particular, it has a few areas nearby that are very cheap. This essentially means that people who worked in Portland, while renting in Portland, now have to move away and take a 45 minute bus to work. This undoubtedly sucks ass. But my point is that there is such tremendous advantage to the "city as a whole". The entire idea of people protesting tech companies moving in, new condos (thus reducing housing scarcity) going up, old buildings being replaced is madness because it is such a clear net positive. I am using brunch places as a crude example of the fact that some shitty bar that never really did that well to begin with being replaced with amazing brunch is a good thing. The argument against gentrification is a clear argument against a greater good scenario. It disproportionately impacts vulnerable, poor, renting families, but that's where things get weird. Here is a situation that is very common: Person owns a house and rents it to people. They rent it at a rate consistent with a home value of $150K. People around this area are selling homes for upwards of $350K. You check the value of your home, speak to a realtor and it turns out you can walk away with $250K in your pocket by selling this rental property. But here's the catch: A poor family of 4 lives in this house. They pay $800/month in rent. Because the owner of the house sees an opportunity to make an insane amount of money, they decide to sell the house. Reddit loses their god damn minds. Many locals don't think that these home owners should be allowed to sell the house. They think these renters should be grandfathered into their current lease for the next 3-5 years until they can find somewhere else to live. So this dude who owns and rents the house out should be disallowed from selling it? How does that make sense? And that's the issue. The things that people advocate for as a way to fix this are all ridiculous. The only way to "fix" the problem is to prevent the property owners from selling their property. Even if you impose renting restrictions, they can always just sell the place for a great profit. Now imagine the other side of this story. Your poor, you get thrown out of your house and the only place you can go is a suburb ghetto. Your making longer days because you got an hour commute extra each day, there are no decent shops around, more traveling for shopping. The entire neighborhood is full of poor people thrown out so that rich people can build brunch places. Gangs move in, drugs move in. Your child falls in with the bad crowd. How could he not, there is no other crowd around. Downward spiral continues, the neighborhood keeps getting worse, police stop coming. gangs are the defacto law. If your lucky you only get mugged occasionally. You haven't seen your kid in days, maybe hes lying dead on someone's couch OD'd on drugs. Not like you can go looking for him without crossing some gang and getting mugged or killed. Atleast you live in the knowledge that some rich kid no longer has to look at poor people in his neighborhood, and as a bonus there are a lot of brunch places around for him. Now why doesn't every city go through this amazing revitalization process!
So how do you stop this? How do you prevent property value from increasing? So long as Joe Shmoe can walk away with $200K in his pocket, he's going to do it.
My point isn't that it has no negative effects. My point is that it is a net positive and that there are no viable mechanisms for decreasing property value. Property value is the key. Nothing can be fixed without property value decreasing.
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I agree it's a net positive, but there are some real human costs that are being incurred. Folks like us are the ones reaping the benefits, while others are the ones feeling the pain.
A extreme case is Apple HQ. A small, 30 yr old townhouse a couple miles away used to be, IDK, 400k or something. Now it goes for a million. The guy who owns it, great for him. The guy who rents, he's fucked.
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I have a friend who's stuck in PR, from Boston, went to PR for vacation, and his return flight got cancelled (He was suppose to fly back Tuesday) because of Hurricane Maria. Today he was legit in a line waiting since 5am at Royal Carribean, one of the first 20 there. Royal Carribean didn't let him on board of a 3800 passenger ship because he didn't stay in a "Hotel". He also said they only let 800 people on board an empty ship.
He said there is a huge need for water over there. Showers have turned into couple cups of water on your body. Removing this Jones act hopefully will help move supplies to PR much faster, but the overall damage is really fucking bad.
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On September 29 2017 02:16 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2017 02:12 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 29 2017 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:26 Mohdoo wrote:
From a Portland resident's perspective, gentrification is amazing. So many shitty little bars that go away and are replaced with amazing brunch places. There are so many areas in Portland that I previously had no interest in visiting that are suddenly useful.
I understand that there are a lot of people who aren't willing to live in a non-trendy city and that they are poor so they can't. I weep for them. Taking a 45 minute bus ride to work in the morning would be shitty.
However, from a bird's eye perspective, I see some serious benefits. There is a shit load of money being injected into the city. Average income is way up. Average education is way up. Areas are safer, cleaner and generally frequented by a straight up higher tier of person. There's something hilarious about groups of people wanting an area to remain low-income and to not have wealth injected into it. "sucks to be poor but at least I got so many brunch places". Take a moment to think about what you just wrote and how that looks if your part of the poor people who got displaced. Also, throwing out all the poor people to live in their own shit place where they don't steal wealth from us fine smart folk has always worked so well throughout history. I am saying that from the perspective of the city and related metrics, gentrification is unquestionably an improvement. If this was Sim City, you'd be rubbing your hands together watching your city get gentrified. In that regard, it is a ridiculous thing to argue against. A city managing to attract tech business, increase net revenue, decrease crime and modernize infrastructure/architecture is a plain and simple win. Speaking about Portland in particular, it has a few areas nearby that are very cheap. This essentially means that people who worked in Portland, while renting in Portland, now have to move away and take a 45 minute bus to work. This undoubtedly sucks ass. But my point is that there is such tremendous advantage to the "city as a whole". The entire idea of people protesting tech companies moving in, new condos (thus reducing housing scarcity) going up, old buildings being replaced is madness because it is such a clear net positive. I am using brunch places as a crude example of the fact that some shitty bar that never really did that well to begin with being replaced with amazing brunch is a good thing. The argument against gentrification is a clear argument against a greater good scenario. It disproportionately impacts vulnerable, poor, renting families, but that's where things get weird. Here is a situation that is very common: Person owns a house and rents it to people. They rent it at a rate consistent with a home value of $150K. People around this area are selling homes for upwards of $350K. You check the value of your home, speak to a realtor and it turns out you can walk away with $250K in your pocket by selling this rental property. But here's the catch: A poor family of 4 lives in this house. They pay $800/month in rent. Because the owner of the house sees an opportunity to make an insane amount of money, they decide to sell the house. Reddit loses their god damn minds. Many locals don't think that these home owners should be allowed to sell the house. They think these renters should be grandfathered into their current lease for the next 3-5 years until they can find somewhere else to live. So this dude who owns and rents the house out should be disallowed from selling it? How does that make sense? And that's the issue. The things that people advocate for as a way to fix this are all ridiculous. The only way to "fix" the problem is to prevent the property owners from selling their property. Even if you impose renting restrictions, they can always just sell the place for a great profit. Now imagine the other side of this story. Your poor, you get thrown out of your house and the only place you can go is a suburb ghetto. Your making longer days because you got an hour commute extra each day, there are no decent shops around, more traveling for shopping. The entire neighborhood is full of poor people thrown out so that rich people can build brunch places. Gangs move in, drugs move in. Your child falls in with the bad crowd. How could he not, there is no other crowd around. Downward spiral continues, the neighborhood keeps getting worse, police stop coming. gangs are the defacto law. If your lucky you only get mugged occasionally. You haven't seen your kid in days, maybe hes lying dead on someone's couch OD'd on drugs. Not like you can go looking for him without crossing some gang and getting mugged or killed. Atleast you live in the knowledge that some rich kid no longer has to look at poor people in his neighborhood, and as a bonus there are a lot of brunch places around for him. Now why doesn't every city go through this amazing revitalization process! So how do you stop this? How do you prevent property value from increasing? So long as Joe Shmoe can walk away with $200K in his pocket, he's going to do it. My point isn't that it has no negative effects. My point is that it is a net positive and that there are no viable mechanisms for decreasing property value. Property value is the key. Nothing can be fixed without property value decreasing.
There are ways of decreasing property value, but no one wants to pull that trigger. The way to do it is to stop backing mortgages at the federal level and force that industry to assess risk in lending. If you can't sell your house fro 400K because they don't hand out as many 400K loans any more, prices drop. But since so much of the US economy is driven by land sales, no one wants to do that. Also, it would be a blood bath. But trying to control land prices needs to happen at some point.
We can't have land prices increasing forever until the end time time. People need to live someplace. We can't just say "well the middle class and poor people can live in the next town over" forever. This problem will correct itself on a long enough time line, but that is cold comfort. Because the natural, free market way of this thing correcting itself is a blood bath where people are left with massive debt and properties they can't sell.
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Isn't the bigger problem the infrastructure is messed up? And that they don't have the means to get the supplies to the people who need it? We can deploy all over the world in an instant, but we can't get to PR? Priorities.
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Can we talk about how pathetically weak of a President DJT is? DJT comes out strong: no waiving Jones act, I need to protect business interests of my cronies. DJT folds <24 hours later. I have seen 4 year olds hold out in candy negotiations longer than DJT. He talks all this talk about how great of a dealmaker and bad-guy-firer he is, but he can't hold a rhetorical line for 24 hours.
Speaking with reporters on Wednesday afternoon, the president cited business interests as the reason for refusing calls from lawmakers and activists to allow international organizations and governments to ship aid to the island.
http://www.newsweek.com/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-donald-trump-jones-act-relief-aid-672778
President Trump waived shipping restrictions for Puerto Rico on Thursday at the request of the island's governor and after an outcry from Congress about shortages of fuel, food and emergency supplies in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/09/28/trump-waives-shipping-restrictions-puerto-rico/711541001/
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On September 29 2017 02:16 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2017 02:12 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 29 2017 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:26 Mohdoo wrote:
From a Portland resident's perspective, gentrification is amazing. So many shitty little bars that go away and are replaced with amazing brunch places. There are so many areas in Portland that I previously had no interest in visiting that are suddenly useful.
I understand that there are a lot of people who aren't willing to live in a non-trendy city and that they are poor so they can't. I weep for them. Taking a 45 minute bus ride to work in the morning would be shitty.
However, from a bird's eye perspective, I see some serious benefits. There is a shit load of money being injected into the city. Average income is way up. Average education is way up. Areas are safer, cleaner and generally frequented by a straight up higher tier of person. There's something hilarious about groups of people wanting an area to remain low-income and to not have wealth injected into it. "sucks to be poor but at least I got so many brunch places". Take a moment to think about what you just wrote and how that looks if your part of the poor people who got displaced. Also, throwing out all the poor people to live in their own shit place where they don't steal wealth from us fine smart folk has always worked so well throughout history. I am saying that from the perspective of the city and related metrics, gentrification is unquestionably an improvement. If this was Sim City, you'd be rubbing your hands together watching your city get gentrified. In that regard, it is a ridiculous thing to argue against. A city managing to attract tech business, increase net revenue, decrease crime and modernize infrastructure/architecture is a plain and simple win. Speaking about Portland in particular, it has a few areas nearby that are very cheap. This essentially means that people who worked in Portland, while renting in Portland, now have to move away and take a 45 minute bus to work. This undoubtedly sucks ass. But my point is that there is such tremendous advantage to the "city as a whole". The entire idea of people protesting tech companies moving in, new condos (thus reducing housing scarcity) going up, old buildings being replaced is madness because it is such a clear net positive. I am using brunch places as a crude example of the fact that some shitty bar that never really did that well to begin with being replaced with amazing brunch is a good thing. The argument against gentrification is a clear argument against a greater good scenario. It disproportionately impacts vulnerable, poor, renting families, but that's where things get weird. Here is a situation that is very common: Person owns a house and rents it to people. They rent it at a rate consistent with a home value of $150K. People around this area are selling homes for upwards of $350K. You check the value of your home, speak to a realtor and it turns out you can walk away with $250K in your pocket by selling this rental property. But here's the catch: A poor family of 4 lives in this house. They pay $800/month in rent. Because the owner of the house sees an opportunity to make an insane amount of money, they decide to sell the house. Reddit loses their god damn minds. Many locals don't think that these home owners should be allowed to sell the house. They think these renters should be grandfathered into their current lease for the next 3-5 years until they can find somewhere else to live. So this dude who owns and rents the house out should be disallowed from selling it? How does that make sense? And that's the issue. The things that people advocate for as a way to fix this are all ridiculous. The only way to "fix" the problem is to prevent the property owners from selling their property. Even if you impose renting restrictions, they can always just sell the place for a great profit. Now imagine the other side of this story. Your poor, you get thrown out of your house and the only place you can go is a suburb ghetto. Your making longer days because you got an hour commute extra each day, there are no decent shops around, more traveling for shopping. The entire neighborhood is full of poor people thrown out so that rich people can build brunch places. Gangs move in, drugs move in. Your child falls in with the bad crowd. How could he not, there is no other crowd around. Downward spiral continues, the neighborhood keeps getting worse, police stop coming. gangs are the defacto law. If your lucky you only get mugged occasionally. You haven't seen your kid in days, maybe hes lying dead on someone's couch OD'd on drugs. Not like you can go looking for him without crossing some gang and getting mugged or killed. Atleast you live in the knowledge that some rich kid no longer has to look at poor people in his neighborhood, and as a bonus there are a lot of brunch places around for him. Now why doesn't every city go through this amazing revitalization process! So how do you stop this? How do you prevent property value from increasing? So long as Joe Shmoe can walk away with $200K in his pocket, he's going to do it. My point isn't that it has no negative effects. My point is that it is a net positive and that there are no viable mechanisms for decreasing property value. Property value is the key. Nothing can be fixed without property value decreasing.
Your first 2 posts made incredibly light of the cost to human lives. That is why people are pushing back against you. Few things are as simple as 'do the net positive'.
How do you stop it? Mandatory low income housing for example. A minimum of X% of homes in a neighborhood has to be affordable for people living on minimum wage.
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Mohdoo, in terms of fixes; it is indeed the case that many peple push for fixes that are unsound and cause considerable long-term damage, like rent control. And also that many push for zoning laws to "preserve community character" that de facto price the poor out of living in the area.
The solution is to allow the creation of affordable housing in an area, by ensuring that it can be built cheaply enough for it to be affordable without subsidies. It's very hard to get such solutions implemented.
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On September 29 2017 02:28 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2017 02:16 Mohdoo wrote:On September 29 2017 02:12 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 29 2017 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:26 Mohdoo wrote:
From a Portland resident's perspective, gentrification is amazing. So many shitty little bars that go away and are replaced with amazing brunch places. There are so many areas in Portland that I previously had no interest in visiting that are suddenly useful.
I understand that there are a lot of people who aren't willing to live in a non-trendy city and that they are poor so they can't. I weep for them. Taking a 45 minute bus ride to work in the morning would be shitty.
However, from a bird's eye perspective, I see some serious benefits. There is a shit load of money being injected into the city. Average income is way up. Average education is way up. Areas are safer, cleaner and generally frequented by a straight up higher tier of person. There's something hilarious about groups of people wanting an area to remain low-income and to not have wealth injected into it. "sucks to be poor but at least I got so many brunch places". Take a moment to think about what you just wrote and how that looks if your part of the poor people who got displaced. Also, throwing out all the poor people to live in their own shit place where they don't steal wealth from us fine smart folk has always worked so well throughout history. I am saying that from the perspective of the city and related metrics, gentrification is unquestionably an improvement. If this was Sim City, you'd be rubbing your hands together watching your city get gentrified. In that regard, it is a ridiculous thing to argue against. A city managing to attract tech business, increase net revenue, decrease crime and modernize infrastructure/architecture is a plain and simple win. Speaking about Portland in particular, it has a few areas nearby that are very cheap. This essentially means that people who worked in Portland, while renting in Portland, now have to move away and take a 45 minute bus to work. This undoubtedly sucks ass. But my point is that there is such tremendous advantage to the "city as a whole". The entire idea of people protesting tech companies moving in, new condos (thus reducing housing scarcity) going up, old buildings being replaced is madness because it is such a clear net positive. I am using brunch places as a crude example of the fact that some shitty bar that never really did that well to begin with being replaced with amazing brunch is a good thing. The argument against gentrification is a clear argument against a greater good scenario. It disproportionately impacts vulnerable, poor, renting families, but that's where things get weird. Here is a situation that is very common: Person owns a house and rents it to people. They rent it at a rate consistent with a home value of $150K. People around this area are selling homes for upwards of $350K. You check the value of your home, speak to a realtor and it turns out you can walk away with $250K in your pocket by selling this rental property. But here's the catch: A poor family of 4 lives in this house. They pay $800/month in rent. Because the owner of the house sees an opportunity to make an insane amount of money, they decide to sell the house. Reddit loses their god damn minds. Many locals don't think that these home owners should be allowed to sell the house. They think these renters should be grandfathered into their current lease for the next 3-5 years until they can find somewhere else to live. So this dude who owns and rents the house out should be disallowed from selling it? How does that make sense? And that's the issue. The things that people advocate for as a way to fix this are all ridiculous. The only way to "fix" the problem is to prevent the property owners from selling their property. Even if you impose renting restrictions, they can always just sell the place for a great profit. Now imagine the other side of this story. Your poor, you get thrown out of your house and the only place you can go is a suburb ghetto. Your making longer days because you got an hour commute extra each day, there are no decent shops around, more traveling for shopping. The entire neighborhood is full of poor people thrown out so that rich people can build brunch places. Gangs move in, drugs move in. Your child falls in with the bad crowd. How could he not, there is no other crowd around. Downward spiral continues, the neighborhood keeps getting worse, police stop coming. gangs are the defacto law. If your lucky you only get mugged occasionally. You haven't seen your kid in days, maybe hes lying dead on someone's couch OD'd on drugs. Not like you can go looking for him without crossing some gang and getting mugged or killed. Atleast you live in the knowledge that some rich kid no longer has to look at poor people in his neighborhood, and as a bonus there are a lot of brunch places around for him. Now why doesn't every city go through this amazing revitalization process! So how do you stop this? How do you prevent property value from increasing? So long as Joe Shmoe can walk away with $200K in his pocket, he's going to do it. My point isn't that it has no negative effects. My point is that it is a net positive and that there are no viable mechanisms for decreasing property value. Property value is the key. Nothing can be fixed without property value decreasing. Your first 2 posts made incredibly light of the cost to human lives. That is why people are pushing back against you. Few things are as simple as 'do the net positive'. How do you stop it? Mandatory low income housing for example. A minimum of X% of homes in a neighborhood has to be affordable for people living on minimum wage.
There are other places that can be injected with wealth instead of pushing out poor people. The people injecting wealth want those places because of location, not thinking that there might be a place nearby that is relatively uninhabited that would do just fine. There's some old warehouse/manufacturing plants a few blocks from downtown proper KC. They've fallen into ruin and could be bought cheaply and enhanced, creating a new area of wealth that won't see average wage workers displaced. Thinking outside of the box instead of keeping everything contained within it, will result in some pretty creative solutions that solve a lot of problems.
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One thing I do don't understand: where do these poor people work on minimum wage in the rich areas and why? In Europe, metropolitan areas are often incredibly more expensive than rural ones and small towns. But it's not that much of problem, because most of the people there just make more money. It's a simple question of supply and demand in labour. Sure, it's not perfect, there are jobs where salaries are fixed somewhat globally, but in general it works pretty well. Why it doesn't work in the US the same way? How come there is not a shortage of workforce willing to work for low wages in expensive areas, leading to increase in the wages?
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On September 29 2017 02:38 opisska wrote:
One thing I do don't understand: where do these poor people work on minimum wage in the rich areas and why? In Europe, metropolitan areas are often incredibly more expensive than rural ones and small towns. But it's not that much of problem, because most of the people there just make more money. It's a simple question of supply and demand in labour. Sure, it's not perfect, there are jobs where salaries are fixed somewhat globally, but in general it works pretty well. Why it doesn't work in the US the same way? How come there is not a shortage of workforce willing to work for low wages in expensive areas, leading to increase in the wages?
Because we hate workers? Also are ares are VERY expensive. I live in LA and make 63k a year. If I want to live within walking distance to work I can not afford a 1 bedroom apartment.
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On September 29 2017 02:30 zlefin wrote:
Mohdoo, in terms of fixes; it is indeed the case that many peple push for fixes that are unsound and cause considerable long-term damage, like rent control. And also that many push for zoning laws to "preserve community character" that de facto price the poor out of living in the area.
The solution is to allow the creation of affordable housing in an area, by ensuring that it can be built cheaply enough for it to be affordable without subsidies. It's very hard to get such solutions implemented.
Build this where? On what land? Is the thought that the state/city buys this land at the market rate and then just subsidizes the living hell out of the cost? So throw up a big apartment building and charge half price as a handout? Honestly, sounds good to me. Not really sure why we don't do that. I imagine it is way more expensive than I realize.
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On September 29 2017 02:42 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2017 02:30 zlefin wrote:
Mohdoo, in terms of fixes; it is indeed the case that many peple push for fixes that are unsound and cause considerable long-term damage, like rent control. And also that many push for zoning laws to "preserve community character" that de facto price the poor out of living in the area.
The solution is to allow the creation of affordable housing in an area, by ensuring that it can be built cheaply enough for it to be affordable without subsidies. It's very hard to get such solutions implemented. Build this where? On what land? Is the thought that the state/city buys this land at the market rate and then just subsidizes the living hell out of the cost? So throw up a big apartment building and charge half price as a handout? Honestly, sounds good to me. Not really sure why we don't do that. I imagine it is way more expensive than I realize.
You're speaking about Government projects. Those have bad histories and negative connotations attached to them.
It goes something like this:
Developer finds land and talks to home owners about buying property. Gets investors and buys property at market from city.
Developer hires architect (maybe) and produces plans/renders of proposed building. Community impacted votes or suggests changes.
Developer gets the okay from community (or says fuck you and gets the city to okay the project, with stipulation (usually parking, green spaces, sidewalks, etc)).
Developer builds in affordable housing at the very minimum required. (Remember, the more people in the building means more money).
Other businesses sees a shiny new building and brings their business there by buying out smaller businesses.
Prices rise to offset the costs of building and paying workers a buck or two above minimum wage.
People who can't afford to live in the area due to increases in property value (and incidentally, rent) eventually move away.
Rinse and repeat for pretty much any neighborhood.
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On September 29 2017 02:38 opisska wrote:
One thing I do don't understand: where do these poor people work on minimum wage in the rich areas and why? In Europe, metropolitan areas are often incredibly more expensive than rural ones and small towns. But it's not that much of problem, because most of the people there just make more money. It's a simple question of supply and demand in labour. Sure, it's not perfect, there are jobs where salaries are fixed somewhat globally, but in general it works pretty well. Why it doesn't work in the US the same way? How come there is not a shortage of workforce willing to work for low wages in expensive areas, leading to increase in the wages?
in short: american cities are weird. basically a couple decades ago all the rich people/ people that could afford it moved out to the burbs (which i understand aren't as much a thing in europe) so they could have a big house, lawn and pool, ie the american dream. that left the people with less means in the urban areas, and basically less money -> areas kinda went downhill. now there's a reverse flow since rich people, especially yuppies, like urban lifestyle where everything is close by and hip and stuff.
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United States44245 Posts
On September 29 2017 02:28 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2017 02:16 Mohdoo wrote:On September 29 2017 02:12 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 29 2017 01:41 Gorsameth wrote:On September 29 2017 01:26 Mohdoo wrote:
From a Portland resident's perspective, gentrification is amazing. So many shitty little bars that go away and are replaced with amazing brunch places. There are so many areas in Portland that I previously had no interest in visiting that are suddenly useful.
I understand that there are a lot of people who aren't willing to live in a non-trendy city and that they are poor so they can't. I weep for them. Taking a 45 minute bus ride to work in the morning would be shitty.
However, from a bird's eye perspective, I see some serious benefits. There is a shit load of money being injected into the city. Average income is way up. Average education is way up. Areas are safer, cleaner and generally frequented by a straight up higher tier of person. There's something hilarious about groups of people wanting an area to remain low-income and to not have wealth injected into it. "sucks to be poor but at least I got so many brunch places". Take a moment to think about what you just wrote and how that looks if your part of the poor people who got displaced. Also, throwing out all the poor people to live in their own shit place where they don't steal wealth from us fine smart folk has always worked so well throughout history. I am saying that from the perspective of the city and related metrics, gentrification is unquestionably an improvement. If this was Sim City, you'd be rubbing your hands together watching your city get gentrified. In that regard, it is a ridiculous thing to argue against. A city managing to attract tech business, increase net revenue, decrease crime and modernize infrastructure/architecture is a plain and simple win. Speaking about Portland in particular, it has a few areas nearby that are very cheap. This essentially means that people who worked in Portland, while renting in Portland, now have to move away and take a 45 minute bus to work. This undoubtedly sucks ass. But my point is that there is such tremendous advantage to the "city as a whole". The entire idea of people protesting tech companies moving in, new condos (thus reducing housing scarcity) going up, old buildings being replaced is madness because it is such a clear net positive. I am using brunch places as a crude example of the fact that some shitty bar that never really did that well to begin with being replaced with amazing brunch is a good thing. The argument against gentrification is a clear argument against a greater good scenario. It disproportionately impacts vulnerable, poor, renting families, but that's where things get weird. Here is a situation that is very common: Person owns a house and rents it to people. They rent it at a rate consistent with a home value of $150K. People around this area are selling homes for upwards of $350K. You check the value of your home, speak to a realtor and it turns out you can walk away with $250K in your pocket by selling this rental property. But here's the catch: A poor family of 4 lives in this house. They pay $800/month in rent. Because the owner of the house sees an opportunity to make an insane amount of money, they decide to sell the house. Reddit loses their god damn minds. Many locals don't think that these home owners should be allowed to sell the house. They think these renters should be grandfathered into their current lease for the next 3-5 years until they can find somewhere else to live. So this dude who owns and rents the house out should be disallowed from selling it? How does that make sense? And that's the issue. The things that people advocate for as a way to fix this are all ridiculous. The only way to "fix" the problem is to prevent the property owners from selling their property. Even if you impose renting restrictions, they can always just sell the place for a great profit. Now imagine the other side of this story. Your poor, you get thrown out of your house and the only place you can go is a suburb ghetto. Your making longer days because you got an hour commute extra each day, there are no decent shops around, more traveling for shopping. The entire neighborhood is full of poor people thrown out so that rich people can build brunch places. Gangs move in, drugs move in. Your child falls in with the bad crowd. How could he not, there is no other crowd around. Downward spiral continues, the neighborhood keeps getting worse, police stop coming. gangs are the defacto law. If your lucky you only get mugged occasionally. You haven't seen your kid in days, maybe hes lying dead on someone's couch OD'd on drugs. Not like you can go looking for him without crossing some gang and getting mugged or killed. Atleast you live in the knowledge that some rich kid no longer has to look at poor people in his neighborhood, and as a bonus there are a lot of brunch places around for him. Now why doesn't every city go through this amazing revitalization process! So how do you stop this? How do you prevent property value from increasing? So long as Joe Shmoe can walk away with $200K in his pocket, he's going to do it. My point isn't that it has no negative effects. My point is that it is a net positive and that there are no viable mechanisms for decreasing property value. Property value is the key. Nothing can be fixed without property value decreasing. Your first 2 posts made incredibly light of the cost to human lives. That is why people are pushing back against you. Few things are as simple as 'do the net positive'. How do you stop it? Mandatory low income housing for example. A minimum of X% of homes in a neighborhood has to be affordable for people living on minimum wage.
You can't mandate away the realities of the market. The market engages in a bidding war to decide who receive the highest utility from the land by who is willing to give up the most money to have it. If you then give it to someone else for less you haven't changed what the utility, and therefore the value, of that land is. All you've done is set up a wealth transfer from the state or landowner to Joe Random. The state cannot mandate that the utility of land be reduced. No one can.
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On September 29 2017 02:38 opisska wrote:
One thing I do don't understand: where do these poor people work on minimum wage in the rich areas and why? In Europe, metropolitan areas are often incredibly more expensive than rural ones and small towns. But it's not that much of problem, because most of the people there just make more money. It's a simple question of supply and demand in labour. Sure, it's not perfect, there are jobs where salaries are fixed somewhat globally, but in general it works pretty well. Why it doesn't work in the US the same way? How come there is not a shortage of workforce willing to work for low wages in expensive areas, leading to increase in the wages?
The problem is we are 50 states, all with varying levels of public services for the poor and interest in developing them. A city like Portland or San Francisco has a set amount of public transportation that does not increase as the city gentrifies and the cost of living goes up. So the poor people move out of the city, but keep their jobs in the city. But the city does nothing to improve their ability to travel to work cheaply and efficiently. And because Americans are completely against taxes for any reason, the city cannot address the issue.
Also, schools are funded locally. So rich communities have good schools. Poor communities have poor schools that receive assistance from the state and federal goverment. But in recent years, we have started to strip that funding for under preforming schools.
So it is the same problem that the EU nations face, but Americans just want to export their problem to the poor town next to them, rather than use goverment and the growing tax base to address them and assure long term success. You can see this in San Francisco, where they bused the homeless in the city to another town on mass, rather than build shelters and develop services to help them. They don't really ask the other cities approval to do that either. A local police department in my state was doing that for a while until they got caught and the governor told them to knock it off.
We are a deeply backwards nation that kinda hates poor people through gross indifference.
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