Why Americans Feel so Poor

[Metalcat]

Yeah, if I was able-bodied I would be an adventure camper for sure. But I'm very, very much not. Lol.

I also spend months there and am part of the community. Eventually I'll start renting out the main residence when I go there and it will actually lower my overall housing costs making it legitimately a mustachian move.

Fair enough! That's an excellent reason to have a fixed base somewhere you like a lot!

That's kind of the whole point of this place. Figuring out how to spend in ways that give you maximum life enjoyment. Not just spending more to get more.

There's often a creative and interesting way to do things that make life rich and exciting. The fun part of figuring out how to do them *better* while optimizing your spending.

Where people feel poor is when they overspend on things that don't give as much reward proportional to their cost.

So the PP above mentioned getting a lot of benefit from a take out date night, which is awesome, because it's a great alternative to the expense of going out. Compared to say, someone who spends $35+ on getting McDonalds delivered just because they can't be bothered to make themselves a sandwich or even to walk across the street and buy a sandwich from the grocery store, which is literally what happens in my building. We're directly across the street from a massive major grocery store that has an enormous prepared foods section.

Date night food delivery feels like luxury. Lazy McDonalds delivery does not feel like luxury.

It's not that spending on luxuries is somehow a bad thing, it isn't. It's that few luxuries live up to their cost, and just aren't worth the expense.

I often say that I'm not frugal because I'm cheap, I'm frugal because I'm a snob about spending.

[Alternatepriorities]

I often say that I'm not frugal because I'm cheap, I'm frugal because I'm a snob about spending.

I like this a lot!

[economista]

Date night food delivery feels like luxury. Lazy McDonalds delivery does not feel like luxury.

It's not that spending on luxuries is somehow a bad thing, it isn't. It's that few luxuries live up to their cost, and just aren't worth the expense.

I agree with this completely.

[bacchi]

Date night food delivery feels like luxury. Lazy McDonalds delivery does not feel like luxury.

It's not that spending on luxuries is somehow a bad thing, it isn't. It's that few luxuries live up to their cost, and just aren't worth the expense.

I agree with this completely.

Agreed, I'm stealing it.

[TreeLeaf]

Date night food delivery feels like luxury. Lazy McDonalds delivery does not feel like luxury.

It's not that spending on luxuries is somehow a bad thing, it isn't. It's that few luxuries live up to their cost, and just aren't worth the expense.

I agree with this completely.

Agreed, I'm stealing it.

Agreed -  especially mcdonalds.

I worked and ate there for two solid years as a teenager, now cannot stand most of the food there. It also reminds me of some of the worst times of my life.

Definitely does NOT feel like a luxury to me.

It just gives me flashbacks of dumping grease traps and trying to get the grease smell off of me.

It seems like what one considers a luxury might be fairly subjective.

[Metalcat]

Date night food delivery feels like luxury. Lazy McDonalds delivery does not feel like luxury.

It's not that spending on luxuries is somehow a bad thing, it isn't. It's that few luxuries live up to their cost, and just aren't worth the expense.

I agree with this completely.

Agreed, I'm stealing it.

Agreed -  especially mcdonalds.

I worked and ate there for two solid years as a teenager, now cannot stand most of the food there. It also reminds me of some of the worst times of my life.

Definitely does NOT feel like a luxury to me.

It just gives me flashbacks of dumping grease traps and trying to get the grease smell off of me.

It seems like what one considers a luxury might be fairly subjective.

Of course it's subjective, people don't universally value the same things. That's why it's so important for each person to truly understand what has value to them because if we get sucked into what society tells us has value, that's when we're consumer suckers just buying what we're told to buy.

[Zamboni]

Compared to say, someone who spends $35+ on getting McDonalds delivered just because they can't be bothered to make themselves a sandwich or even to walk across the street and buy a sandwich from the grocery store, which is literally what happens in my building. We're directly across the street from a massive major grocery store that has an enormous prepared foods section.

Lol do you live in the same building as my son and his college roommate?!

I regularly implore him to just walk across the street from his apartment to the giant and luxurious grocery store. It's not even a busy street, it's just a little side street. He has to walk just as far to retrieve a sack of UberEats from the lobby of their building!

He is an excellent cook because of a compulsion he had during high school to learn how to make foods like omelettes and steaks and fish and chicken wings and smoothies and brownies . . . probably he was just feeling hungry at weird hours when the Zamboni household resident cooked had signed off for the day, and it turns out you can learn how to cook anything perfectly compliments of youtube.

But, if he is feeling lazy or just tired, that grocery store has hot pizzas made-to-order for $10 ($8 on whatever day of the week is "pizza day"), giant fresh-made subs are $5, and $5 sushi packs on Fridays. Or get a whole cooked rotisserie chicken, my son. They will slice the fresh-made bread for you. Or get some Devour meals for your microwave. They have every flavor of beer you could ever want at this grocery store. It's fancy! Sheesh. C'mon son, get with the program!

[mm1970]

About 13 minutes in, the chart showing wage growth as stagnant from 1972 to present was accompanied by commentary on how much more expensive things are now, with the conclusion that our standard of living has decreased.

I remember middle class North America in 1972.   Our household had 1 car, 1 TV (with 3 stations!), 1 telephone, 1200 square feet of living space, no AC, obviously no computers or cell phones,and restaurant meals were a rarity. 

It doesn't seem to me that living standards have decreased. I'm not even sure how you compare living standards from 50 years ago today.

I've said this many times to folks who say they can't live like their parents, BUT...

- my mom was trapped in a bad, emotionally abusive marriage for years.  Women couldn't get their own credit cards until 1974.  I don't want to go back to those days.
- Likewise, my mom was trapped at home with no car most days
- We did not have health insurance, and maybe made it to the dentist every few years
- People died earlier because of unavailable or non-existing treatments
- We owned a house

Simply put, housing costs have greatly outpaced incomes in a ridiculous way.

and also, the two are not mutually exclusive (i.e., that it's harder and more expensive today than it used to be AND people are still stupid with money)

[hudsoncat]

Second hand from my spouse... He was in a meeting with a very young co-worker (YCW) and a... bit of a blowhard co-worker (CW2). At the end of the meeting they were having some small talk.

Spouse: I hear you were able to close on your house YCW! Congratulations!

YCW: Yes, thank you! It needs some work but [wife] and I are really excited.

CW2: The first house is nice but your second or third house is when they really get nice! We keep trading up and this house is a far cry from our first one!

YCW: Oh well we plan to stay here a while.

CW2: no one stays in their first house for more than a few years, [spouse] how long were you in your first house?

Spouse: Been here 10 years, no serious plans to leave soon!

CW2: oh right you are always trying to save money, [YCW] don't listen to this guy, he barely goes on vacation... (says some other things we apparently do not ever spend money on)

Spouse let's it go on for a bit....

CW2: Oh yeah, you're pretty new, don't forget to go in and change your retirement. [Company] automatically enrolls you in to meet the 6% match but you are a homeowner now! You need that money! If you really want to save I know a guy who sells these really great annuities...

Spouse: CW2, don't you have another meeting starting? YCW, can you stay on a minute?

Spouse then basically told the young guy to be careful where he takes financial advice from, now is the time to consider your future, and he'd be happy to share some websites if he needs a place to start... CW2 is the type who will die working and in debt. Sigh.

[Zamboni]

I always thought the phrase "starter home" was odd.

[Dave1442397]

We've been in our starter home since 2001, and our next home will be a smaller retirement home. Apart from doing the necessary infrastructure upgrades, we've done no remodeling. I plan on getting a realtor in before we're ready to sell and getting advice on how the house should look when we sell it. I'll do whatever helps raise the sale price, and that's it.

[Fomerly known as something]

We've been in our starter home since 2001, and our next home will be a smaller retirement home. Apart from doing the necessary infrastructure upgrades, we've done no remodeling. I plan on getting a realtor in before we're ready to sell and getting advice on how the house should look when we sell it. I'll do whatever helps raise the sale price, and that's it.

The biggest thing is for it to be clean.  Unless you are going to “Flip it” it’s better to sell without renovations so long as nothing is broken.

I bought my current condo with lovely honey oak cabinets (the 80s ones everyone hates). They are currently being painted (as in I sanded the last batch today and will paint the, tomorrow) because I don’t have time to project manage a major renovation.  But most of the time I hate the renovations that are done for the sale of the house, I’d rather make my own. 

[Dave1442397]

We've been in our starter home since 2001, and our next home will be a smaller retirement home. Apart from doing the necessary infrastructure upgrades, we've done no remodeling. I plan on getting a realtor in before we're ready to sell and getting advice on how the house should look when we sell it. I'll do whatever helps raise the sale price, and that's it.

The biggest thing is for it to be clean.  Unless you are going to “Flip it” it’s better to sell without renovations so long as nothing is broken.

I bought my current condo with lovely honey oak cabinets (the 80s ones everyone hates). They are currently being painted (as in I sanded the last batch today and will paint the, tomorrow) because I don’t have time to project manage a major renovation.  But most of the time I hate the renovations that are done for the sale of the house, I’d rather make my own.

I agree on not doing unnecessary renovations. We'll probably do the bathrooms at some point, but nothing over the top. The kitchen works - I'm not messing with it. Most likely we're looking at ten years out, but I've already started decluttering and getting rid of stuff we don't need. Many thousands of books will be donated to our local library sale. I keep an eye on the local buy nothing group and give stuff away when people are looking for it.

We'll clean and paint all the rooms in whatever the trendy color scheme is at the time, and maybe spend a little on landscaping the front yard to give a better first impression.

[bacchi]

Agreed -  especially mcdonalds.

I worked and ate there for two solid years as a teenager, now cannot stand most of the food there. It also reminds me of some of the worst times of my life.

Definitely does NOT feel like a luxury to me.

It just gives me flashbacks of dumping grease traps and trying to get the grease smell off of me.

It seems like what one considers a luxury might be fairly subjective.

Have you seen the Beavis and Butthead episode about working at McDonald's? We never put a phone in the fryer vat but we did drop in Happy Meal toys (https://youtu.be/OQUaguZawJQ?t=13) on occasion. Grease is cool.

If it was near closing time, and a customer asked for a 20 pack of nuggets, sometimes we'd look through the trash for old, rubbery, ones instead of frying up a new batch.

Etc., etc.

Hiring teens at minimum wage and treating them like shit is never a good idea when they have to work around food.

[SpeedReader]

Re home sale:  we hired a home inspector one year prior to planned sale so there would be no expensive or deal-killing surprises.   The inspector was impressed by our planning.

[Dave1442397]

Re home sale:  we hired a home inspector one year prior to planned sale so there would be no expensive or deal-killing surprises.   The inspector was impressed by our planning.

Yes, I plan on doing that too. The house is 63 years old now, so I'm sure an inspector will find something to be fixed!

[Zamboni]

Sigh, home selling. I'm going to do some work on that now. And I should have the cleaners go through as well . . .

[divinvestor]

Like a bottle of Coca cola is way more affordable relative to average wages than it was for my grandparents, despite the recent hand wringing about food inflation. High speed computers are much more affordable over time. Heck, having phone service is more affordable than ever if you aren't stupid about it, and now that phone service includes free long distance calls and it is a supercomputer too! Most people in US/Canada can be "live via satellite" now in video conversations with friends if you think about it. Insanely luxurious.

Relative to inflation, clothes are cheaper than ever, furniture is cheaper than ever. Believe it or not, the inflation adjusted price of gasoline is flat if you look at a graph of the last 100 years. Thus more and more people have not just one, but two cars . . . so they can complain about the short term rising prices of gasoline. It's a huge list!

Zamboni - The cost of a can of Coke today is inconsequential when it comes to the affordability of stuff and isn't the reason why the younger generations feel poor, or at least poorer than their parents' generation. Also, the point about having "affordable" high speed internet computers today isn't an apples to apples comparison because their parents' generation didn't buy high speed internet computers, because they didn't exist yet, so this is another expense people have today that previous generations never had and is another thing that is adding to young people's credit card debt.

The main reason the younger generations these days are struggling is because of bigger expenses like houses, college tuition, child care costs, etc. So if you want to get to the root cause, the fact of the matter is that wages have not kept pace with the cost of these major things. I did some fairly basic google research comparing the median cost of things in 1970 compared to 2019. In 1970, the median household income was $8,730, and the median home price was $23,400. The ratio of wages to home price in 1970 was 27%. Now fast forward to 2019, and the median household income was $68,700, and the median home price was $258,000. That equates to a ratio of wages to home price of 37%, about 10% higher than in 1970. For college tuition, from 1970 thru 2019, it has increased an average of 6% per year. Conversely, wages have increased only 4.3% per year on average from 1970 thru 2019, so it's easy to see how college has become less and less affordable over the years.

[Dicey]

27,000 to 37,000 is a 37% increase, not 10%.

[Alternatepriorities]

Dicey is right about the rate of increase. However there is another important factor in the rising cost of houses.

https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/

Look at the increase in the size of houses over that same time period and particularly the space per occupant. we've got three time the space per person that our grand parents had in their first homes. When my grand parents moved off the farm they still had five kids at home and they upgraded to a 1500 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms... When my dad left the farm drafted for Vietnam they still didn't have a toilet inside. Grandma died still using the same television they "always" had. I was 29 so it was at least 24 years old... Meanwhile televisions outnumbered occupants in other homes around the US!

Maybe the reason Americans feel so poor is we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians now instead of the Jones...

[divinvestor]

27,000 to 37,000 is a 37% increase, not 10%.

Yes I understand the increase from 27% to 37% is a 37% increase, but that's the incorrect way to look at it when you're comparing the ratio of household income to house prices over the span of almost 50 years.

[divinvestor]

In 1970, the median household income was $8,730, and the median home price was $23,400. The ratio of wages to home price in 1970 was 27%. Now fast forward to 2019, and the median household income was $68,700, and the median home price was $258,000. That equates to a ratio of wages to home price of 37%, about 10% higher than in 1970. For college tuition, from 1970 thru 2019, it has increased an average of 6% per year. Conversely, wages have increased only 4.3% per year on average from 1970 thru 2019, so it's easy to see how college has become less and less affordable over the years.

Sorry I had it reversed, the ratio in 1970 was 37%, and the ratio in 2019 was 27%. So a nominal decrease of 10% over 49 years, or mathematically speaking a 27% decrease. All of this to say, housing is eating up a larger portion of people's take home pay today than it did long ago.

[Dicey]

Dicey is right about the rate of increase. However there is another important factor in the rising cost of houses.

https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/

Look at the increase in the size of houses over that same time period and particularly the space per occupant. we've got three time the space per person that our grand parents had in their first homes. When my grand parents moved off the farm they still had five kids at home and they upgraded to a 1500 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms... When my dad left the farm drafted for Vietnam they still didn't have a toilet inside. Grandma died still using the same television they "always" had. I was 29 so it was at least 24 years old... Meanwhile televisions outnumbered occupants in other homes around the US!

Maybe the reason Americans feel so poor is we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians now instead of the Jones...

So true! Another area is appliances. They bought them once, they were basic and they lasted forever. Anybody here been burned by Samsung or other fancy but unfixable whizbangs? Oh, and add water heaters to the planned obsolescence list, too. Sure, the newer models are more energy efficient, but they are not dollar efficient.

[SunnyDays]

Dicey is right about the rate of increase. However there is another important factor in the rising cost of houses.

https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/

Look at the increase in the size of houses over that same time period and particularly the space per occupant. we've got three time the space per person that our grand parents had in their first homes. When my grand parents moved off the farm they still had five kids at home and they upgraded to a 1500 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms... When my dad left the farm drafted for Vietnam they still didn't have a toilet inside. Grandma died still using the same television they "always" had. I was 29 so it was at least 24 years old... Meanwhile televisions outnumbered occupants in other homes around the US!

Maybe the reason Americans feel so poor is we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians now instead of the Jones...

So true! Another area is appliances. They bought them once, they were basic and they lasted forever. Anybody here been burned by Samsung or other fancy but unfixable whizbangs? Oh, and add water heaters to the planned obsolescence list, too. Sure, the newer models are more energy efficient, but they are not dollar efficient.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem though.  Things are made cheaply because people want stuff to be new and pretty - they don't really care about function and longevity.  Our throwaway society extends past clothes, phones and computers to furniture, cars, big appliances and houses.  Can't really blame the manufacturers for giving people what most people want.  Appearances matter the most.  Overall, we're a vary shallow culture.

[Metalcat]

Dicey is right about the rate of increase. However there is another important factor in the rising cost of houses.

https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/

Look at the increase in the size of houses over that same time period and particularly the space per occupant. we've got three time the space per person that our grand parents had in their first homes. When my grand parents moved off the farm they still had five kids at home and they upgraded to a 1500 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms... When my dad left the farm drafted for Vietnam they still didn't have a toilet inside. Grandma died still using the same television they "always" had. I was 29 so it was at least 24 years old... Meanwhile televisions outnumbered occupants in other homes around the US!

Maybe the reason Americans feel so poor is we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians now instead of the Jones...

So true! Another area is appliances. They bought them once, they were basic and they lasted forever. Anybody here been burned by Samsung or other fancy but unfixable whizbangs? Oh, and add water heaters to the planned obsolescence list, too. Sure, the newer models are more energy efficient, but they are not dollar efficient.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem though.  Things are made cheaply because people want stuff to be new and pretty - they don't really care about function and longevity.  Our throwaway society extends past clothes, phones and computers to furniture, cars, big appliances and houses.  Can't really blame the manufacturers for giving people what most people want.  Appearances matter the most.  Overall, we're a vary shallow culture.

Definitely chicken and egg because that desire for new is also driven by marketing that aggressively tells people that anything old is undesirable.

Fashion for example used to be a lot more timeless, a "classic" style could stay fashionable for many, many years, that's why they were called investment pieces. Likewise, the marketing for appliances used to be that they never broke down, hence the bored Maytag repairman.

But over time companies pivoted to more disposable products by generating trends and FOMO to sell more units of crap made cheaply overseas. They turned shitty manufacturing into a feature, not a bug.

Obviously the human nature to follow trends and have FOMO has to exist for this to work, but it's systematically cultivated and stoked with very specific ends in mind.

[Log]

...

...The main reason the younger generations these days are struggling is because of bigger expenses like houses, college tuition, child care costs, etc. So if you want to get to the root cause, the fact of the matter is that wages have not kept pace with the cost of these major things. I did some fairly basic google research comparing the median cost of things in 1970 compared to 2019. In 1970, the median household income was $8,730, and the median home price was $23,400. The ratio of wages to home price in 1970 was 27%. Now fast forward to 2019, and the median household income was $68,700, and the median home price was $258,000. That equates to a ratio of wages to home price of 37%, about 10% higher than in 1970. For college tuition, from 1970 thru 2019, it has increased an average of 6% per year. Conversely, wages have increased only 4.3% per year on average from 1970 thru 2019, so it's easy to see how college has become less and less affordable over the years.

Seriously cannot emphasize this enough. If anyone wants to be in touch with the struggle of younger people, "it's the housing crisis, stupid."

And everything else becomes more expensive proportional to housing, because it's such a massive driver of wages. Your groceries cost more in an expensive city because the cashier needs to afford rent. Your childcare costs more in an expensive city because the daycare staff need to afford rent. Your college tuition is higher in an expensive city because the professors and administrative staff and graduate assistants and janitors and dining hall staff need to afford rent.

We haven't built enough housing because local politicians can't get elected on platforms of densification, because people don't like their neighborhoods changing... but our neighborhoods have to change to provide enough housing. The only alternative to densification is more suburban sprawl, which just encourages miserable and wasteful "super-commuter" lifestyles. And we see in coastal California housing what happens when suburban sprawl reaches its limits, and densification is still stymied. People either end up on the streets, or they bail to cheaper housing markets.

---

Editing to plug Paige Saunders' youtube channel. He's gotta be one of the most under-subscribed Youtubers I follow, his content is way way way too good for him to only have 10k subscribers. This whole playlist about the housing crisis (mostly from the perspective of Quebec & Ontario, but applicable for basically all of the Anglosphere) is golden.

[Michael in ABQ]

Dicey is right about the rate of increase. However there is another important factor in the rising cost of houses.

https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/

Look at the increase in the size of houses over that same time period and particularly the space per occupant. we've got three time the space per person that our grand parents had in their first homes. When my grand parents moved off the farm they still had five kids at home and they upgraded to a 1500 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms... When my dad left the farm drafted for Vietnam they still didn't have a toilet inside. Grandma died still using the same television they "always" had. I was 29 so it was at least 24 years old... Meanwhile televisions outnumbered occupants in other homes around the US!

Maybe the reason Americans feel so poor is we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians now instead of the Jones...

So true! Another area is appliances. They bought them once, they were basic and they lasted forever. Anybody here been burned by Samsung or other fancy but unfixable whizbangs? Oh, and add water heaters to the planned obsolescence list, too. Sure, the newer models are more energy efficient, but they are not dollar efficient.

My parents still have multiple appliances that are 25+ years old and work fine. Dishwashers, ovens, refrigerators, etc. All Made in America before everything started getting manufactured overseas.

Send the production to China and someone will figure out they can save $0.05 switching out a metal piece for plastic or use a slightly narrower gauge of wire, etc. and
now your $800 appliance last 5-7 years instead of 25. Our last dishwasher lasted less than 3 years - and required a couple of repairs during that time when it started leaking water. Granted it gets run at least once a day because we've got 8 people filling it up, but that's still unacceptable.

[Alternatepriorities]

Dicey is right about the rate of increase. However there is another important factor in the rising cost of houses.

https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/

Look at the increase in the size of houses over that same time period and particularly the space per occupant. we've got three time the space per person that our grand parents had in their first homes. When my grand parents moved off the farm they still had five kids at home and they upgraded to a 1500 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms... When my dad left the farm drafted for Vietnam they still didn't have a toilet inside. Grandma died still using the same television they "always" had. I was 29 so it was at least 24 years old... Meanwhile televisions outnumbered occupants in other homes around the US!

Maybe the reason Americans feel so poor is we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians now instead of the Jones...

So true! Another area is appliances. They bought them once, they were basic and they lasted forever. Anybody here been burned by Samsung or other fancy but unfixable whizbangs? Oh, and add water heaters to the planned obsolescence list, too. Sure, the newer models are more energy efficient, but they are not dollar efficient.

My parents still have multiple appliances that are 25+ years old and work fine. Dishwashers, ovens, refrigerators, etc. All Made in America before everything started getting manufactured overseas.

Send the production to China and someone will figure out they can save $0.05 switching out a metal piece for plastic or use a slightly narrower gauge of wire, etc. and
now your $800 appliance last 5-7 years instead of 25. Our last dishwasher lasted less than 3 years - and required a couple of repairs during that time when it started leaking water. Granted it gets run at least once a day because we've got 8 people filling it up, but that's still unacceptable.

If we ever want to get serious about going green step one has to be the end of planned obsolescence. I'm to the point of just ignoring a person or company who says they care about the being green who sells products that don't last. Sure my new dishwasher saves water and energy... but only if we ignore all the water and energy it takes to make and ship five units that last five years instead of one unit that lasts 25... When the energy guide sticker starts to include the full life cycle energy cost maybe it will actually mean something .

[Cassie]

Buying life insurance for a baby was common when I was born in 1954. No one got cremated and burials were expensive. It was always whole life and was given to you once you grew up. My grandma bought all my kids one. It seems silly to people now.

 People of the past were satisfied with much less and not constantly upgrading. There weren’t things like cell phones, cable television, etc to spend your money on. Often when people find out my 2 bedroom condo is only 855 sq ft with one bathroom they ask how I manage to live in such a small space.  I live alone with 2 small dogs.

[Michael in ABQ]

Dicey is right about the rate of increase. However there is another important factor in the rising cost of houses.

https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/

Look at the increase in the size of houses over that same time period and particularly the space per occupant. we've got three time the space per person that our grand parents had in their first homes. When my grand parents moved off the farm they still had five kids at home and they upgraded to a 1500 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms... When my dad left the farm drafted for Vietnam they still didn't have a toilet inside. Grandma died still using the same television they "always" had. I was 29 so it was at least 24 years old... Meanwhile televisions outnumbered occupants in other homes around the US!

Maybe the reason Americans feel so poor is we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians now instead of the Jones...

So true! Another area is appliances. They bought them once, they were basic and they lasted forever. Anybody here been burned by Samsung or other fancy but unfixable whizbangs? Oh, and add water heaters to the planned obsolescence list, too. Sure, the newer models are more energy efficient, but they are not dollar efficient.

My parents still have multiple appliances that are 25+ years old and work fine. Dishwashers, ovens, refrigerators, etc. All Made in America before everything started getting manufactured overseas.

Send the production to China and someone will figure out they can save $0.05 switching out a metal piece for plastic or use a slightly narrower gauge of wire, etc. and
now your $800 appliance last 5-7 years instead of 25. Our last dishwasher lasted less than 3 years - and required a couple of repairs during that time when it started leaking water. Granted it gets run at least once a day because we've got 8 people filling it up, but that's still unacceptable.

If we ever want to get serious about going green step one has to be the end of planned obsolescence. I'm to the point of just ignoring a person or company who says they care about the being green who sells products that don't last. Sure my new dishwasher saves water and energy... but only if we ignore all the water and energy it takes to make and ship five units that last five years instead of one unit that lasts 25... When the energy guide sticker starts to include the full life cycle energy cost maybe it will actually mean something .

Some of the issues with appliances in particular are planned obsolescence and some are just the natural result of manufacturing overseas and accepting a lower level of quality. You get what you pay for. If a manufacturer wants to get an appliance made for a certain price they're implicitly or explicitly accepting that it will be lower quality. Sometimes that may be directed by the manufacturer and sometimes it may be the factory trying to eke out some additional profit by substituting lower quality parts or manufacturing processes.

I don't import directly from China for my ecommerce business (some of our suppliers do), but many people in ecommerce do and it's very common for their factory in China to produce a couple of productions runs at a good quality and then drop the quality all of the sudden to try and get some additional profit without explicitly raising the price. The business culture is such that if you can take advantage of someone (even your customer) then it's your fault for getting taken advantage of.

One of the reasons why we try to buy products Made in America as much as possible - even if they're more expensive. That, and I don't want to support an evil communist government.

[Log]

It's worth noting that confirmation bias definitely plays a role in this narrative that "we used to build stuff that lasts." When you see something decades old that's still in use you can see an obvious example of something built in the "good old days" that lasted. Meanwhile, all the cheap junk that was built back and ended up in the landfill is out of sight, out of mind.

Any product run will have natural variation between those that are extremely well made and those that are defective (playing a musical instrument makes this painfully obvious, for one example.) Sometimes your uncle lucked into buying the miracle dishwasher that outlasted the vast, vast majority of other dishwashers off that exact same production line. He can admire that dishwasher as a shining example of how things used to be built to last, meanwhile your mother-in-law bought exactly the same dishwasher and it only lasted a few years. But she's got the same admiration for her clothes dryer that was built in the good old days. It's just variance.

Obviously there is some progress to be made here in reducing waste and making products for longevity. We definitely should push back on cheapo production, read reviews, and be willing to pay more for higher build quality. We should push for "right to repair" laws and regulate that smart appliances continue to have the software support necessary for longevity. But yearning for how things used to be doesn't really change shit.

[zolotiyeruki]

It's worth noting that confirmation bias definitely plays a role in this narrative that "we used to build stuff that lasts." When you see something decades old that's still in use you can see an obvious example of something built in the "good old days" that lasted. Meanwhile, all the cheap junk that was built back and ended up in the landfill is out of sight, out of mind.

You make a good point, but the logical fallacy you're thinking of is "survivorship bias" not confirmation bias.

[Metalcat]

Buying life insurance for a baby was common when I was born in 1954. No one got cremated and burials were expensive. It was always whole life and was given to you once you grew up. My grandma bought all my kids one. It seems silly to people now.

 People of the past were satisfied with much less and not constantly upgrading. There weren’t things like cell phones, cable television, etc to spend your money on. Often when people find out my 2 bedroom condo is only 855 sq ft with one bathroom they ask how I manage to live in such a small space.  I live alone with 2 small dogs.

People in the past didn't have access to easy credit and cheap goods made overseas, so it didn't make sense to market a constant stream of new, disposable crap to them.

They *cared* just as much about new things and keeping up with the Joneses, they just weren't as conditioned to constantly replace practically new shit as shoppers are now.

It was just a totally different production and marketing ecosystem at the time.

Easy credit and cheap production were absolute tidal forces in terms of sweeping change to how people, especially Americans, could be convinced to buy things.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

Dicey is right about the rate of increase. However there is another important factor in the rising cost of houses.

https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/

Look at the increase in the size of houses over that same time period and particularly the space per occupant. we've got three time the space per person that our grand parents had in their first homes. When my grand parents moved off the farm they still had five kids at home and they upgraded to a 1500 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms... When my dad left the farm drafted for Vietnam they still didn't have a toilet inside. Grandma died still using the same television they "always" had. I was 29 so it was at least 24 years old... Meanwhile televisions outnumbered occupants in other homes around the US!

Maybe the reason Americans feel so poor is we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians now instead of the Jones...

It's very difficult to find a house less than 1500 square feet in my neck of the woods. Extremely large houses are the norm, because developers noticed that it's more profitable to sell an expensive thing to a rich person (or a debt slave) than it is to sell a cheaper thing to a poor (or frugal) person. Without the 1970's-era subsidies to build starter homes or affordable homes, the only way developers are willing to engage is if there's some kind of direct incentive. The profit margin just isn't there.

[Alternatepriorities]

Dicey is right about the rate of increase. However there is another important factor in the rising cost of houses.

https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/

Look at the increase in the size of houses over that same time period and particularly the space per occupant. we've got three time the space per person that our grand parents had in their first homes. When my grand parents moved off the farm they still had five kids at home and they upgraded to a 1500 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms... When my dad left the farm drafted for Vietnam they still didn't have a toilet inside. Grandma died still using the same television they "always" had. I was 29 so it was at least 24 years old... Meanwhile televisions outnumbered occupants in other homes around the US!

Maybe the reason Americans feel so poor is we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians now instead of the Jones...

It's very difficult to find a house less than 1500 square feet in my neck of the woods. Extremely large houses are the norm, because developers noticed that it's more profitable to sell an expensive thing to a rich person (or a debt slave) than it is to sell a cheaper thing to a poor (or frugal) person. Without the 1970's-era subsidies to build starter homes or affordable homes, the only way developers are willing to engage is if there's some kind of direct incentive. The profit margin just isn't there.

I agree that is a problem, but respectively disagree with the proposed solution. The government may well have created the problem with their incentives programs to encourage home ownership... A government guarantee means lower interest rates for any buyer who is willing to be a debt slave which means they can "afford" more house which means builders can sell bigger houses. Subsidizing contractors to build smaller houses with one hand while subsidizing buyers who want bigger houses with the other makes no sense to me. If interest rates keep going up people will not be able to afford the giant homes and builders will be forced to build cheaper properties if they want to sell them.

I've given some serious thought to building highly efficient (in price terms as well as energy) housing as a FIRE gig. The first one would be my own because DW and I would like a house in a nice location but don't need a house the size of the ones that are commercially built in those nice locations... I suspect a Mustachian approach to home design from the beginning could produce houses with well utilized space instead of just extra insulation in the walls and better air sealing... Here in Alaska the energy efficiency rating is currently based on energy use per square foot rather than energy use per occupant. Since area grows faster than perimeter, larger houses have an easier time getting a higher energy rating even though they use more total energy and more energy per occupant. I tried to point out the absurdity of this while working with the University of Alaska's Cold Climate Housing Research Center a few years ago and got no where.

[YttriumNitrate]

Buying life insurance for a baby was common when I was born in 1954. No one got cremated and burials were expensive. It was always whole life and was given to you once you grew up. My grandma bought all my kids one. It seems silly to people now.

People in the past didn't have access to easy credit and cheap goods made overseas, so it didn't make sense to market a constant stream of new, disposable crap to them.

It's also important to point out that in 1954 childhood mortality was about 5x what it is now in. In 1900 (about when the grandmother was born) it was 34x what it is now (roughly 1/4 of kids died) [cite] so it is understandable that the grandmother would have the mindset of buying life insurance for children.

[Log]

Dicey is right about the rate of increase. However there is another important factor in the rising cost of houses.

https://compasscaliforniablog.com/have-american-homes-changed-much-over-the-years-take-a-look/

Look at the increase in the size of houses over that same time period and particularly the space per occupant. we've got three time the space per person that our grand parents had in their first homes. When my grand parents moved off the farm they still had five kids at home and they upgraded to a 1500 square foot house with 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms... When my dad left the farm drafted for Vietnam they still didn't have a toilet inside. Grandma died still using the same television they "always" had. I was 29 so it was at least 24 years old... Meanwhile televisions outnumbered occupants in other homes around the US!

Maybe the reason Americans feel so poor is we're trying to keep up with the Kardashians now instead of the Jones...

It's very difficult to find a house less than 1500 square feet in my neck of the woods. Extremely large houses are the norm, because developers noticed that it's more profitable to sell an expensive thing to a rich person (or a debt slave) than it is to sell a cheaper thing to a poor (or frugal) person. Without the 1970's-era subsidies to build starter homes or affordable homes, the only way developers are willing to engage is if there's some kind of direct incentive. The profit margin just isn't there.

I agree that is a problem, but respectively disagree with the proposed solution. The government may well have created the problem with their incentives programs to encourage home ownership... A government guarantee means lower interest rates for any buyer who is willing to be a debt slave which means they can "afford" more house which means builders can sell bigger houses. Subsidizing contractors to build smaller houses with one hand while subsidizing buyers who want bigger houses with the other makes no sense to me. If interest rates keep going up people will not be able to afford the giant homes and builders will be forced to build cheaper properties if they want to sell them.

I've given some serious thought to building highly efficient (in price terms as well as energy) housing as a FIRE gig. The first one would be my own because DW and I would like a house in a nice location but don't need a house the size of the ones that are commercially built in those nice locations... I suspect a Mustachian approach to home design from the beginning could produce houses with well utilized space instead of just extra insulation in the walls and better air sealing... Here in Alaska the energy efficiency rating is currently based on energy use per square foot rather than energy use per occupant. Since area grows faster than perimeter, larger houses have an easier time getting a higher energy rating even though they use more total energy and more energy per occupant. I tried to point out the absurdity of this while working with the University of Alaska's Cold Climate Housing Research Center a few years ago and got no where.

Note than when a developer builds an apartment building with small studio apartments (literally the cheapest form of housing that can be built), people complain about the dystopian horrors of cramming people into shoeboxes. The entire American concept of home ownership needs to become more accepting of condos as an essential rung on the property ladder if we insist on sticking to this fantasy of a “society of homeowners.”

But the reality is that somewhere around 65% of Americans are homeowners, and giving homeownership tax incentives is just a massive transfer from poor to rich… which then puts pressure even higher on the poor to buy homes they can’t afford in order to get on that insidious “property ladder.” And having a “society of homeowners” just means a society where the majority have a consistent incentive to enact policy that makes homes more expensive, further slamming the door in the face of the poor.

This entire post-war experiment in housing policy has been a ticking time bomb since it started. We’re simply reaping what we’ve sown in terms of terrible policy choices. But now these norms around owning a house in the 'burbs are so culturally ingrained that people can’t even see the forest for the trees.

[zolotiyeruki]

But the reality is that somewhere around 65% of Americans are homeowners, and giving homeownership tax incentives is just a massive transfer from poor to rich… which then puts pressure even higher on the poor to buy homes they can’t afford in order to get on that insidious “property ladder.” And having a “society of homeowners” just means a society where the majority have a consistent incentive to enact policy that makes homes more expensive, further slamming the door in the face of the poor.

How does having a "society of homeowners" create an incentive to drive home prices up?  Are you referring to an urge to prevent a home's price from ever falling?  If it's that, then I don't see how related policies would prevent the building of smaller/lower-cost homes, unless it's NIMBYism preventing lower-cost housing because of fears of crime impacting property values.

It's very difficult to find a house less than 1500 square feet in my neck of the woods. Extremely large houses are the norm, because developers noticed that it's more profitable to sell an expensive thing to a rich person (or a debt slave) than it is to sell a cheaper thing to a poor (or frugal) person. Without the 1970's-era subsidies to build starter homes or affordable homes, the only way developers are willing to engage is if there's some kind of direct incentive. The profit margin just isn't there.

That must be a very local thing.  In my area (far suburbia), the local government carefully regulates the mix of SFHs, townhouses, and apartments.  Given the freedom to do so, the developers would be building multifamily housing exclusively.  The profit motive very much is there--you eliminate 50+% of the land cost, 40% of the structure (due to shared walls), a lot of the permitting cost, etc, all while selling at a cost per square foot similar to single family homes.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

But the reality is that somewhere around 65% of Americans are homeowners, and giving homeownership tax incentives is just a massive transfer from poor to rich… which then puts pressure even higher on the poor to buy homes they can’t afford in order to get on that insidious “property ladder.” And having a “society of homeowners” just means a society where the majority have a consistent incentive to enact policy that makes homes more expensive, further slamming the door in the face of the poor.

How does having a "society of homeowners" create an incentive to drive home prices up?  Are you referring to an urge to prevent a home's price from ever falling?  If it's that, then I don't see how related policies would prevent the building of smaller/lower-cost homes, unless it's NIMBYism preventing lower-cost housing because of fears of crime impacting property values.

It's very difficult to find a house less than 1500 square feet in my neck of the woods. Extremely large houses are the norm, because developers noticed that it's more profitable to sell an expensive thing to a rich person (or a debt slave) than it is to sell a cheaper thing to a poor (or frugal) person. Without the 1970's-era subsidies to build starter homes or affordable homes, the only way developers are willing to engage is if there's some kind of direct incentive. The profit margin just isn't there.

That must be a very local thing.  In my area (far suburbia), the local government carefully regulates the mix of SFHs, townhouses, and apartments.  Given the freedom to do so, the developers would be building multifamily housing exclusively.  The profit motive very much is there--you eliminate 50+% of the land cost, 40% of the structure (due to shared walls), a lot of the permitting cost, etc, all while selling at a cost per square foot similar to single family homes.

Agreed that it's a regional thing. The official state tree here is the greased palm.

The cost per square foot is for the multiple unit building, though. It's the way things are zoned. You can't just buy or sell a single apartment. Apartments are available for rent, and are being built now, although there aren't enough to go around so rent prices are artificially high. Very few condo or townhome projects are being built, and those that are built are far away from public transit or major employers. They are being marketed almost exclusively to commercial buyers.

[Log]

But the reality is that somewhere around 65% of Americans are homeowners, and giving homeownership tax incentives is just a massive transfer from poor to rich… which then puts pressure even higher on the poor to buy homes they can’t afford in order to get on that insidious “property ladder.” And having a “society of homeowners” just means a society where the majority have a consistent incentive to enact policy that makes homes more expensive, further slamming the door in the face of the poor.

How does having a "society of homeowners" create an incentive to drive home prices up?  Are you referring to an urge to prevent a home's price from ever falling?  If it's that, then I don't see how related policies would prevent the building of smaller/lower-cost homes, unless it's NIMBYism preventing lower-cost housing because of fears of crime impacting property values.

It's very difficult to find a house less than 1500 square feet in my neck of the woods. Extremely large houses are the norm, because developers noticed that it's more profitable to sell an expensive thing to a rich person (or a debt slave) than it is to sell a cheaper thing to a poor (or frugal) person. Without the 1970's-era subsidies to build starter homes or affordable homes, the only way developers are willing to engage is if there's some kind of direct incentive. The profit margin just isn't there.

That must be a very local thing.  In my area (far suburbia), the local government carefully regulates the mix of SFHs, townhouses, and apartments.  Given the freedom to do so, the developers would be building multifamily housing exclusively.  The profit motive very much is there--you eliminate 50+% of the land cost, 40% of the structure (due to shared walls), a lot of the permitting cost, etc, all while selling at a cost per square foot similar to single family homes.

Lots to unpack here.

The US (and currently, every single other anglosphere country) is suffering from a shortage of overall houses right now. Homeowners benefit from the value of their asset being propped up by that shortage. I don't agree with the implicit assertion that lower-end housing, middle housing, and high-end housing are separate markets, bubbled off from each other. If we build more small starter homes/condos, that also reduces the price of middle class family homes, because currently, the people who would be living in small condos are going in on over-crowded family homes with lots of roommates. Similarly, people complain about the construction of "luxury" housing, but building more fancy homes for rich people allows those people to move up the property ladder, opening up more homes in the middle for those of more modest means. People need housing, so when there's not enough housing of the kind that's optimal for them (say, small apartments for young professionals), they find ways to make alternative arrangements work.

I agree that many people advocate for NIMBY policies over concerns of crime, and their primary incentive for banning more affordable housing forms (plexes and small apartment buildings) in their neighborhood is to keep poorer people out. Of course they are not consciously thinking, "muahaha, the NIMBY cabal has successfully enacted our plan to engineer a nationwide housing shortage, we'll all be rich!" The end result, though, is the same. If every neighborhood makes efforts to keep poor people out, then the poor people have to live somewhere, and that often ends up being camper vans and tents. Personally, I like apartment buildings in my neighborhood more than tents.

We take for granted in America this notion that suburbs are segregated by income, and that it's desirable to live in these socio-economic bubbles apart from people poorer or richer than oneself. It's easy to take this for granted when it's just the water we Americans swim in for their whole lives, but I think it's (to use a technical term) really fucking weird. Poor people are not all drug addicts and criminals. Rich people are not all sociopaths. Maybe actually living in mixed-income neighborhoods would help us realize that.

In my area (far suburbia), the local government carefully regulates the mix of SFHs, townhouses, and apartments.  Given the freedom to do so, the developers would be building multifamily housing exclusively.

Implicit in this statement is the belief that "more single family housing than the market would naturally support is a desirable policy goal." Why? I'm by no means some free market purist, I'm a big fan of carefully considered, well-designed regulations. But what is the societal good that's being pursued through these regulations? And, more crucially, is that good worth the costs?

If, absent these regulations, the market would build more multi-family housing and less single-family housing, that means that these regulations make SFHs artificially cheaper, and multi-family housing artificially more expensive (because land zoned for multi-family is artificially scarce, driving up costs, which the developer passes on to the renter/buyer). So if making more affordable starter homes is considered a desirable policy goal, and multi-family is cheaper to construct on a per-unit basis, shouldn't we be very skeptical of regulations that are inhibiting the construction of these very homes that are cheaper to build?

[zolotiyeruki]

(snipping stuff so that this post isn't a huge block of quotes)

I agree that many people advocate for NIMBY policies over concerns of crime, and their primary incentive for banning more affordable housing forms (plexes and small apartment buildings) in their neighborhood is to keep poorer people out. Of course they are not consciously thinking, "muahaha, the NIMBY cabal has successfully enacted our plan to engineer a nationwide housing shortage, we'll all be rich!" The end result, though, is the same. If every neighborhood makes efforts to keep poor people out, then the poor people have to live somewhere, and that often ends up being camper vans and tents. Personally, I like apartment buildings in my neighborhood more than tents.

We take for granted in America this notion that suburbs are segregated by income, and that it's desirable to live in these socio-economic bubbles apart from people poorer or richer than oneself. It's easy to take this for granted when it's just the water we Americans swim in for their whole lives, but I think it's (to use a technical term) really fucking weird. Poor people are not all drug addicts and criminals. Rich people are not all sociopaths. Maybe actually living in mixed-income neighborhoods would help us realize that.

I don't get the impression that my neighbors were concerned about the income level of the soon-to-be-nearby residents per se.  They're concerned about crime, pure and simple.  And crime is correlated strongly with low income, regardless of whatever causal relationships may or may not exist.  I don't think anyone would be bothered by having low-income folks near or in the neighborhood, provided crime doesn't increase.

As for income segregation, I suspect that most of the inclination toward segregation comes from two things:  safety and schools.  And both of those are correlated with income.  I don't think many people avoid living near people richer than them, but they definitely avoid lower-income areas.

In my area (far suburbia), the local government carefully regulates the mix of SFHs, townhouses, and apartments.  Given the freedom to do so, the developers would be building multifamily housing exclusively.

Implicit in this statement is the belief that "more single family housing than the market would naturally support is a desirable policy goal." Why? I'm by no means some free market purist, I'm a big fan of carefully considered, well-designed regulations. But what is the societal good that's being pursued through these regulations? And, more crucially, is that good worth the costs?

If, absent these regulations, the market would build more multi-family housing and less single-family housing, that means that these regulations make SFHs artificially cheaper, and multi-family housing artificially more expensive (because land zoned for multi-family is artificially scarce, driving up costs, which the developer passes on to the renter/buyer). So if making more affordable starter homes is considered a desirable policy goal, and multi-family is cheaper to construct on a per-unit basis, shouldn't we be very skeptical of regulations that are inhibiting the construction of these very homes that are cheaper to build?

I can't take a position on whether multi-family housing is a desirable policy goal for our community--I am not privy to all the considerations that are going into those discussions.  It touches everything--schools, congestion, road maintenance, utilities, taxes, crime, housing affordability, diversity, emergency services, mix of rentals vs owner-occupied...

In the current situation of a housing shortage, erstwhile homeowners may want a SFH, but may have to "settle" for what's available, and given the freedom, builders would opt for multifamily.  If you go back to 2011 when our area was coming out of the housing crash, we had the opposite situation--an absolute glut of homes.  In our neighborhood, large areas of already-platted land stood vacant for several years.  Once the existing inventory had been absorbed, the first homes built were single-family.  It was only after the SFHs had been built out, that the zoned-for-townhouses areas of our development started getting built.  In fact, about the same time, a developer who owned a separate zoned-for-townhouses area petitioned to have their land rezoned for SFHs.  Now that there is a sudden shortage of housing and developers are sensing blood in the water, they're pushing for more rentals and multifamily.

Again, though, it's gonna be a local thing, and it's unwise to try to impose a single approach everywhere.

[Log]

Well, I was almost done with a pretty long-winded response that got lost to the auto-logout, but in short, I'd like to address these two snips...

I can't take a position on whether multi-family housing is a desirable policy goal for our community--I am not privy to all the considerations that are going into those discussions.  It touches everything--schools, congestion, road maintenance, utilities, taxes, crime, housing affordability, diversity, emergency services, mix of rentals vs owner-occupied...

Again, though, it's gonna be a local thing, and it's unwise to try to impose a single approach everywhere.

By acknowledging that you are not an expert on these things, you are wiser than the vast majority of people who are advocating for NIMBY policies. They are also not experts. NIMBYism is not a carefully considered technocratic set of solutions to the multi-variate cross-disciplinary dilemmas of municipal finance, housing economics, transportation systems, racial equity, urban planning, etc... it's a simplistic "I moved to my neighborhood because I like the way it is, and I don't want it to change." But if every neighborhood is frozen in amber, there's no room, on a regional or nationwide scale, to adapt to the needs of future generations. The actual experts in all these fields basically all agree that a gentle increase in density throughout all cities, towns, and neighborhoods is an effective policy agenda to pursue.

Local politics are overwhelmingly driven by older folks who know they'll be sticking around for a long time, and who have time on their hands to attend lengthy boring meetings and give public comments (eg. retirees). Overwhelmingly putting power over land-use regulation in the hands of older, settled people means the needs of younger people and people who move a lot are completely ignored. Speaking from personal experience, someone in their early 20s who moves every year might just call their parent's address their "permanent residence" for simplicity sake, and be voting in statewide elections, but have minimal voice in terms of the place where they actually live, the place they're moving next year, or even the place where they're voting (because they can't actually show up at a meeting and harangue the city council in person). And that's assuming that a young person is even voting. But whether a young person is voting or not, they do need a place to live.

In effect, by giving local government too much control, we are currently enacting a single approach everywhere: NIMBYism. We're stuck in a bit of a prisoner's dilemma where people understand that something has to give in order to address the housing crisis, but no individual municipality is going to be the one to flip the switch on allowing new development without a promise that neighboring communities will pull their weight too.

Top-down, state-wide solutions like we're starting to see in California (and to a lesser extent, Oregon) seem like the only way out of NIMBY stasis. If the state gives local governments a minimal obligation to meet statewide housing goals, then local politicians and bureaucrats can actually focus on the best way to locally implement these solutions, rather than being barred from discussing solutions altogether for fear of NIMBY retribution (eg. not getting re-elected). And people will feel more enfranchised as active participants in a positive change for their region and their state if they know that every community is contributing.

Some ADUs and plexes here and there will not "destroy the character" of any suburban neighborhood. Many of them will be completely unnoticeable. Elderly folks moving into granny flats are not going to cause a traffic crisis or a spike in crime. A duplex doesn't put any more burden on municipal services than two couples living as roommates in a SFH or an adult child living with their parents. These changes in population density are already happening due to the housing shortage, just without the changes in housing forms that enable people to live in their own independent spaces with privacy and dignity. (And on the plus side, an ADU adds to the property value of a single family home, so these forms of gentle density will actually increase property tax revenues for municipalities, enabling better schools, better emergency services, better transportation infrastructure, etc..)

California reached crisis levels in their housing market far before any other state, and they're now reaching solutions far before any other state. These solutions will take time to come into effect. New legislation can't generate new buildings overnight. But at least now they can begin to chip away at the problem. If other states are wise, they'll learn from California's mistakes sooner rather than later. The experts agree on the solutions, but local elected officials can't enact those solutions without getting voted out of office. It's only at the state level that housing solutions can be enacted in a way where all municipalities know that they're sharing the responsibility of gradual, gentle densification.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

The experts agree on the solutions, but local elected officials can't enact those solutions without getting voted out of office. It's only at the state level that housing solutions can be enacted in a way where all municipalities know that they're sharing the responsibility of gradual, gentle densification.

Possibly, although some of the states that are more diverse in terms of rural versus urban population will have to take a different approach. The more rural a region is, the less benefit people have from things like public transportation, and the more self-reliant people have to be. That's a recipe for conservatism, and one of the characteristics of conservatism in the USA is aggressive resistance to anything that doesn't directly benefit oneself.

There's another thing I noticed, when I moved State-side: people in the USA have an unusually strong preference for living around people similar to themselves. They want neighbors with similar complexions, accents, religion, occupations, age, family structure, and socioeconomic status. It's considered normal and customary for Americans to dump their single friends when they couple up and to only associate with other couples, and to refuse to invite people of a different race over for a meal, even if they have been guests in the other person's home. Americans appear to have an actual fear of interacting socially with someone radically different from themselves. Historically, there's been so much aggression between groups that it's reasonable for historically persecuted groups to regard persecuting groups as a threat, and there's also enough indignation to have created entire communities of people who genuinely believe that the wealthiest, most privileged groups are in fact the victims. I understand that racial segregation is no longer the law of the land and that it's no longer considered legitimate social or economic policy, however the American people prefer segregation to the point where real estate developers-- when building a section of housing-- intentionally keep all the plots, houses, and amenities similar. There's very little variation in within new developments. For this reason, new developments tend to attract a similar demographic. It's creepy, overall. I managed to find a normal neighborhood with lots of different kinds of people, but I had to really look.

I think the balkanization and self-segregation in US communities contributes to a feeling of poverty, because people can make themselves house-poor very easily trying to keep up with people in the group they aspire to belong to because of physical or apparent socioeconomic resemblance.

[zolotiyeruki]

the American people prefer segregation to the point where real estate developers-- when building a section of housing-- intentionally keep all the plots, houses, and amenities similar. There's very little variation in within new developments. For this reason, new developments tend to attract a similar demographic. It's creepy, overall. I managed to find a normal neighborhood with lots of different kinds of people, but I had to really look.

I wouldn't attribute neighborhood uniformity entirely to an inclination to self-seggregate.  It's more of a product of developers and larger-scale builders and economies of scale.  It reduces the cost of architecting a larger number of styles, enables more efficient prefabrication of sections of the houses, etc.

And it's not a new thing, either--whenever I drive to Midway Airport, I'm struck at how cookie-cutter all the houses are, over a very large area, and that's an area that was built in the 1950's.

Do people tend to self-seggregate?  Absolutely.  Is it done out of any sort of bigotry or animosity?  Nah.  It's just a lot easier to get along with people who are like you.  It's easier for parents of young kids to associate with parents of young kids, or retirees with retirees, or rich people with rich people, because your common life experiences result in an immediate emotional connection.  And Americans are *definitely* prone to seeking the path of least resistance.

By acknowledging that you are not an expert on these things, you are wiser than the vast majority of people who are advocating for NIMBY policies. They are also not experts. NIMBYism is not a carefully considered technocratic set of solutions to the multi-variate cross-disciplinary dilemmas of municipal finance, housing economics, transportation systems, racial equity, urban planning, etc... it's a simplistic "I moved to my neighborhood because I like the way it is, and I don't want it to change." But if every neighborhood is frozen in amber, there's no room, on a regional or nationwide scale, to adapt to the needs of future generations. The actual experts in all these fields basically all agree that a gentle increase in density throughout all cities, towns, and neighborhoods is an effective policy agenda to pursue.

For clarity's sake, can you specify what you mean by "an effective policy agenda to pursue"?  Effective at what?  I'm inferring (and please correct me if I'm wrong!) that the claim is that an increase in density brings some set of benefits.  I absolutely agree that NIMBYism is often an irrational and narrow viewpoint, but at the same time, the underlying concerns need to be acknowledged and addressed.

In effect, by giving local government too much control, we are currently enacting a single approach everywhere: NIMBYism. We're stuck in a bit of a prisoner's dilemma where people understand that something has to give in order to address the housing crisis, but no individual municipality is going to be the one to flip the switch on allowing new development without a promise that neighboring communities will pull their weight too.

When I see the phrase "will pull their weight too,"  it seems like there's an implication that increased density is a net cost that a community has to bear.  This would seem to contradict the earlier statement that pursuing increased housing density is a desirable goal.

Am I misunderstanding something?

[Philociraptor]

I understand that racial segregation is no longer the law of the land and that it's no longer considered legitimate social or economic policy, however the American people prefer segregation to the point where real estate developers-- when building a section of housing-- intentionally keep all the plots, houses, and amenities similar. There's very little variation in within new developments. For this reason, new developments tend to attract a similar demographic. It's creepy, overall. I managed to find a normal neighborhood with lots of different kinds of people, but I had to really look.

This is an interesting thought. We bought a new house in a small subdivision only 2 years ago. The entire development was about 50 SFHs. And in-fact, there is very little variation between the homes themselves. That being said, there is substantial racial and age diversity within the neighborhood it seems. We're probably the youngest in our early 30s, but I see folks walking around all the way up to their 60s probably. I see 20 year old vehicles on the street and brand new luxury vehicles that people park in their garages. I see young children walking to school and adult children of neighbors visiting on weekends. I would also guess that our neighborhood is majority minority somehow, but I'm not sure why. Would be interesting in finding out what caused this neighborhood to be so diverse.

[mm1970]

When I see the phrase "will pull their weight too,"  it seems like there's an implication that increased density is a net cost that a community has to bear.  This would seem to contradict the earlier statement that pursuing increased housing density is a desirable goal.

Am I misunderstanding something?

There are obviously societal advantages to increased density.  However, on an individual level, many people don't like change.  Case in point: our local Nextdoor, which is nearly 100% boomer complaining about new housing, new bike paths, and more traffic.

On one hand, you have the people suggesting that the new housing MUST go in the city 70 miles away because it's surrounded by open land (nevermind that the jobs are HERE).  On the other hand, the need for additional housing should probably be somewhat proportional to jobs and existing population.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

When I see the phrase "will pull their weight too,"  it seems like there's an implication that increased density is a net cost that a community has to bear.  This would seem to contradict the earlier statement that pursuing increased housing density is a desirable goal.

Am I misunderstanding something?

There are obviously societal advantages to increased density.  However, on an individual level, many people don't like change.  Case in point: our local Nextdoor, which is nearly 100% boomer complaining about new housing, new bike paths, and more traffic.

On one hand, you have the people suggesting that the new housing MUST go in the city 70 miles away because it's surrounded by open land (nevermind that the jobs are HERE).  On the other hand, the need for additional housing should probably be somewhat proportional to jobs and existing population.

Increased density must be accompanied by permeability and mobility infrastructure, along with intelligently managed water supply and waste treatment, or else it won't be effective.

Trails, bike paths, alleys, roads, and public transit are all examples of permeability: if people cannot walk from one point to another because of massive freeways, blocks of buildings with no means of bypass, then you can have extremely dense housing but it still won't be a walkable or scalable neighborhood. The same people who are grousing about new bike paths or walking paths grew up in a generation where alleys between backyards actually existed. It's where people stashed their trash cans, and it's how they accessed personal vehicle parking. Detached garages, for example, were a thing. Kids would make use of the alleys to get to school and to cut diagonally within a neighborhood to avoid vehicle traffic on the streets. Sometime around 1980, trends changed and design switched in favor of no alleys but attached garages. Attaching a garage to a house actually creates extra building requirements and expenses due to the fire hazard and the noise.

[Log]

Possibly, although some of the states that are more diverse in terms of rural versus urban population will have to take a different approach. The more rural a region is, the less benefit people have from things like public transportation, and the more self-reliant people have to be. That's a recipe for conservatism, and one of the characteristics of conservatism in the USA is aggressive resistance to anything that doesn't directly benefit oneself.

I think that rural folks obviously benefit from a set of policies like what's happening in California—allowing higher density in the cities and suburbs reduces greenfield development. Most of these policies are around reducing zoning restrictions and allowing property owners to do what they want with their land, not mandating construction of developments in places that don't make any economic sense. By hitting the infill release valve in cities and suburbs, rural areas are actually more protected from getting swallowed by sprawl.

By acknowledging that you are not an expert on these things, you are wiser than the vast majority of people who are advocating for NIMBY policies. They are also not experts. NIMBYism is not a carefully considered technocratic set of solutions to the multi-variate cross-disciplinary dilemmas of municipal finance, housing economics, transportation systems, racial equity, urban planning, etc... it's a simplistic "I moved to my neighborhood because I like the way it is, and I don't want it to change." But if every neighborhood is frozen in amber, there's no room, on a regional or nationwide scale, to adapt to the needs of future generations. The actual experts in all these fields basically all agree that a gentle increase in density throughout all cities, towns, and neighborhoods is an effective policy agenda to pursue.

For clarity's sake, can you specify what you mean by "an effective policy agenda to pursue"?  Effective at what?  I'm inferring (and please correct me if I'm wrong!) that the claim is that an increase in density brings some set of benefits.  I absolutely agree that NIMBYism is often an irrational and narrow viewpoint, but at the same time, the underlying concerns need to be acknowledged and addressed.

Effective at, among other things:

• Increasing the housing supply and bringing down overly burdensome housing costs
• Reducing the need for people to live far, far away from their jobs in order to afford housing (this is a huge one, as we know long commutes are carbon-intensive, burdensome on household budgets, and that commuting just makes people miserable)
• Allow families and friends to live closer together—this could be adult children actually being able to afford to stay in their hometown near their parents, or it could be examples like I described above of aging parents being able to downsize to an ADU or granny flat situation
• Reduce traffic by enabling the construction of transit-oriented developments and walkable communities (note: under current zoning and building codes, it is literally illegal to build the kinds of traditional walkable neighborhoods that we built by default before Euclidean zoning became the norm. Many walkable neighborhoods that are seen as incredibly desirable places to live could not be rebuilt if they were to burn down, because they're currently grandfathered in to zoning codes that see them as "nonconforming.")
• Enable people to better get to know their neighbors, as walkable neighborhoods spur people to get out and about their neighborhoods without the anonymizing screen of a car windshield
• Reduce traffic deaths, as people will drive more carefully in street environments where they expect to share the roadway with pedestrians
• Increase municipal property tax revenues[/url] while not increasing the tax burden on individual households
• Enabling the creation of more "useful walks," which has a positive public health impact as people get more physical activity
• Reducing carbon emissions from home heating and cooling, as housing units with shared walls insulate each other
• Enabling more income-integrated neighborhoods, which increases upward mobility for poorer folks and cross-class empathy
• Enabling more racially integrated neighborhoods, which helps reduce the racial wealth gap and reduce racial bias
• Create a more thriving arts and culture sector, when young "starving artists" can afford to move to where the "scene" is

And so on... quite simply, as I see it: an effective policy agenda for human thriving and a well-functioning, socially connected, empathetic society. I may be idealistic about this, but I've really lived the difference between a whole bunch of different urban forms. The quality-of-life difference is enormous between car-centric cookie cutter suburban hells and just slightly denser and more walkable suburbs. In many places we can take for granted walking to the cafe or bar to meet a friend, but we've been building tons of developments all over this country where people do not leave the house outside of a car.

Re: your second point, mm1970 nailed it: it's perceived as "pulling weight," because of the status quo bias and aversion to change. Tons of older people (especially the boomers who show up at city council meetings) associate density with the urban disinvestment of mid-century white flight. They associate low-density suburbia with the American dream. It's only burdensome in their perceptions, which are fueled by a conflation of correlation and causation.

Further, it's "pulling weight" in the sense that no individual municipality can make enough of a difference alone, so it seems futile for one municipality to bother making a change when they know that their contribution to overall housing supply and transit connectivity will only be a drop in the bucket. As one example, we can look at the greater Toronto region right now—Toronto is building TONS of housing around transit, and putting tons of effort into upgrading their transit system to be truly great. The region as a whole is still far behind its housing targets, because none of the rest of the region is picking up any of the slack. No singular municipality can say, "alright, we're gonna solve the housing crisis now!" It can only be done when everyone contributes.

However much I love to give San Francisco shit for its failure to build enough homes, the fact is literally every other bay area city is far, far worse. I can empathize with why people in San Francisco have been averse to densifying when they know that no one else in the region is going to chip in at all, and all the while those suburbanites are going to keep flooding their city with traffic every day.

A New Yorker can comfortably go without a car, because they know that if they have to get somewhere else in the region, it's all reasonably well covered with functional train and bus service. Meanwhile, if someone lives in a beautiful, walkable, New Urbanist development in Florida, they sure as hell need a car as soon as they head out into this shit.

[Zamboni]

Are you saying stroads is why we feel so poor?

[Log]

Are you saying stroads is why we feel so poor?

Well, not stroads in particular, but the suburban development pattern and the housing shortage are inextricably interwoven.

All kinds of expenses that developers take on in order to complete a project (higher land cost per unit to build SFHs on large lots, building the roads and other infrastructure for a brand new subdivision) gets passed on to homeowner in the form of their mortgage.

ETA: Maybe some day I'll become a little less one-note in my policy advocacy, but I'm pretty on board with the thesis that "the housing crisis is the everything crisis."

Here's that idea being espoused by a [legitimate journalist] or a [random funny youtuber].

Edit again: Though actually, on second thought, stroads are a pretty crucial part of what makes tons of American suburbs not walkable, and force people to bear the financial burden of personal vehicle ownership, so they are making people poor. And long, traffic-jammed, dangerous, stressful commutes are a large factor in making even affluent people's lives feel especially miserable and Sisyphean, contributing to even people who are making good money not feeling like they're thriving or getting ahead. And the broader stroad ecosystem contributes to sucking money out of local communities as people's wages get sent to faraway Walmart and McDonald's shareholders instead of being spent at a local business where they continue to circulate in the community. And they prevent municipalities from spending money on improving other public services (like better libraries, schools, transit) because they're so expensive to build and maintain. So yes, stroads are a more direct contributor to Americans feeling poor than simply in relation to the housing crisis.

Further, I think they contribute to a lot of people's feelings that America is not on par with other developed countries with world-class transportation infrastructure. Having such a shitty public realm really does have a negative effect on the public consciousness. If you don't have access to a car and have to walk or bike along a stroad (or take a shitty, unreliable, low-frequency bus) you're made to feel like a second-class citizen.