status symbol of reaching "middle class", that and capitalists push it since it makes them a fuckload of money via a variety of industries including financial, automotive, construction and a plethora of secondary industries that rely on the housing industry
What do we do about the housing market and the property problem?
Hunter Sullivan
Austin Lee
Because if you don't I'll throw you arse first off Trellick Tower.
Can't stop modernism baby.
In Marx's time, the normal thing was to rent your house anyway. At least in the UK. Even if you were well-off, why shackle yourself to one property?
Keynes, by no means a poor man, rented as an adult.
ok you get the tower second.
(someone else goes first so you can see what you're getting.)
employing brutalists
Ayden Gutierrez
American society is based off home ownership. At the most basic level, there is not enough social security or pension security to ensure people don't become homeless after they retire. Security is provided through a home, which is paid off through a few decades of work and serves as a place to retire and an asset to pay off creditors when the owner eventually dies. It's the primary way intergenerational wealth and prosperity is formed. Too much of a good thing is bad though, as the economy stops working for most people most become unable to afford homes and must rent. Homeowners ban construction of new units causing rents to skyrocket, making homeowners extremely wealthy and renters extremely poor.
A practical example of the divide can be seen within San Francisco's 911 system. Homeowners who call using landlines are connected right into the SFPD's downtown HQ, whereas renters who call through their phones are sent to a California Highway Patrol office 80 miles away in the state capital. As a direct result of this homeowners get faster and better 911 service while renters often have their calls dropped or simply ignored.
Juan Wilson
Uh so they don't have to pay fucking RENT.
Not everyone lives with their mommy and daddy.
Brandon Miller
I didn't realize that houses were free in the US.
David Diaz
Read Henry George
It was an attempt to stop add a layer of security not afforded to renters due to rent seeking and rent following income.
Brody Turner
The US government pushed house ownership after world war 2 as a way to discourage strikes.
Eli Stewart
I've never really heard that one, though I don't doubt it. The main problem with a majority of people renting is that over time those people will be evicted due to rising rents which will occur regardless due to more improvements being built within the city driving the value of the surrounding properties up and therefore how much rent is charged. Overtime people are forced farther and farther away from the city into slums which occupy its periphery. With home ownership, people only have to worry about paying off the set price of the home and can take out a mortgage to do so. They also don't have to answer to a landlord who can arbitrarily raise the rent to force you out in order to make space for newer higher paying tenets. In this sense, people can now set themselves up as more permanent residents and begin taking out more permanent loans and making larger investments on their property. This compiles in making the economy less "fragile" as assets become more physical and savings aren't restricted that in the bank or that which is spent on consumer goods. It also somewhat mitigates the problem of far reaching land control as seen in places like the UK where the majority of the land is owned by a few families who can then set the rent. Of course its still capitalism though, so you end up in America having to deal with large scale housing bubbles and the inevitable boom/bust crises which occurs every decade or so as a trade off.
Also, to those who think otherwise, rent is just a bad a home ownership. It is probably one the most directly exploitative things in a capitalist economy. Read Henry George.
Liam Rivera
I hope it burns to the ground and takes the industrial world with it
Tyler Reed
Yeah let's absolutely murder the environment with extremely inefficient transit and housing layouts because amerianon doesn't like commieblocks, this is the brize of communism.