I don’t get the impression that the lack of affordable housing for middle-class families is due to people expecting more spacious living arrangements than previous generations. In many cases the now-unaffordable housing in question are the same homes that were built in previous generations.
Take the neighborhood where I live in San Francisco. When it was built in the 40s and 50s it was considered a solidly middle-class affair, mostly small 2-bedroom deals populated by single-income families. Today those same houses sell for close to a million bucks a pop and are populated almost exclusively by A) retirees who bought the homes when they were still cheap, B) renters, and C) well-off tech workers. There are hardly any other families with young children left, but that has less to do with “kids these days all expect to have their own bedroom” than “it’s goddamn expensive to raise a family in San Francisco.” My wife and I both work full-time and we still couldn’t live here if we didn’t have a fortuitous living arrangement.
I live in one of those kind of units but in the DC area. Income cap well above the national median. I’d be living large in the midwest, if only my job were there.
That is similar (I have a smaller garden) to where I currently rent on the edge of Oxford UK, close to a relatively high crime area (I personally haven’t had any problems, and I walked out of the last place I lived to become homeless because of the violence towards me). To buy it will only cost you about 460,000USD + taxes and stamp duty (which the Conservative government have just increased)
It’ll be interesting to see what happens when the luxury real estate bubble bursts. It will happen, as there’s only a small percentage of the planetary population that can afford million dollar abodes, and only so many nations with GDP to be siphoned before angry armed crowds storm palace gates.
My house up north is 920 sq feet, two bed. It was one bath but I converted a tiny room into a second. Not including me there are five people living there, three dogs, and two cats. It’s cozy :D. (The back garden is quite nice, and I insulated and largely finished part of the garage as well)
Not really saying anything other than small places can be cool.
Wait…145k a year is considered middle class? what about the 2/3 of the populace who make about ten bucks an hour? walmart employees outnumber plumbers and electricians by a huge margin.
People making 100k+ a year are struggling to find a home in a super expensive city? cry me a river.
You don’t see any problem with “everyone who isn’t rich is getting priced out of one of America’s greatest cities?” Growing income inequality is bad for everyone.
That they can. I grew up in a 2 bedroom house through it has full basement that got semi finished and was the abode for my brother and I when it was obvious that the small shared bedroom was not going to work. But it was fine for a family of 4.
I would happily move to a smaller house with a smaller yard but those are all now 450K+ in Seattle and while I now make twice what I started out making 20 years ago I sure as hell don’t make enough to afford that. (well if we sell the current house we could cause we bought before the real big jumps in housing price) Hell 2 bedroom apartments are now $100+ more than my mortgage payment and if I had to find affordable housing now I would have to move out to bumfuck nowhere.
And if I have to go back to working from home then 2 bedrooms is probably not going to work so well unless there is that basement thing again or some sort of space to make a home office.
Too be honest, if you have two 100k incomes and two kids in the San Francisco bay area, you are not hurting, but you are probably near treading water financially. Maybe if you have free childcare via grandparents then you are “getting ahead” and not having to scrap and save to put away more than your $18,000 401k (or whatever the limit is this year)
I empathize just fine. I do not empathize with people who choose to suffer over things they cannot change when a simple, easy solution is right in front of them that will stop the pain, and even make things better.
And I never said it wasn’t a bad thing that this is happening.
The implication you missed was that this story has less relevance than what is happening to a significantly larger percentage of the populace.
Again - people making that money are living very nice lifestyles, and aren’t suffering, but most aren’t building much for themselves outside of maybe their home appreciation and 401ks. So it doesn’t seem like they have the same benefits of the boomers when it comes to income, reitrement horizon, and purchasing power, but it is still #firstworldproblems. Sort of a golden handcuffs situation I think.
The real question is, for those living in the area treading water, what more would you ask for and whose shoes would you step into? - not a lot of other people I would want to trade with.
When the story is “even people making $100K+ a year are struggling to find housing they can afford,” the implication is “…and people who make less than that are even worse off.”
The point isn’t to make us feel sorry for people who make six-figure salaries. It’s more like “if THESE people are struggling, what hope does everyone else have?”
“FUCK YOU, anyone stupid enough to be a public school teacher in San Francisco! If you weren’t such an idiot you’d simply uproot your family in the hopes of finding a job somewhere else. Don’t expect any empathy from me just because you’re fulfilling a crucial role in our society in a place that desperately needs your services.”
Yes. fuck you, middle school teacher for all those unrelated things and for continuing to struggle futilely against the inevitable dissolution of your home.
Or continue to live in tornado alley. On the flood plain. On the quicksand.
With the meth cooking room mate. Smoking.
I don’t even understand where you are going with this.
“Somewhere else in the country a middle school teacher lives in a place prone to tornado damage, therefore we shouldn’t waste time worrying that middle-class people can no longer live in many of America’s greatest cities?”
It’s quite possible to care about more than one social issue at a time if you try hard enough.
You make more money than me. But where I live, you could have that lifestyle for around $30k. (In West Virginia, you could have it for even less, but there wouldn’t be any artisanal cheese you didn’t make yourself.)
