I was moved by the documentary City Rising. I have been concerned for some time about our society becoming a feudal system, with a few lords owning all the land and buildings and people paying them to live there. Home ownership is becoming out of reach, and housing is instead owned by landlords and speculators who run dozens or hundreds of properties, with no connection to the community where the houses are, solely to evict the residents and make more money from rents that many people can't afford. Racist laws and discrimination have helped create this new feudalism, and still exist. There's no more free market. It's true that gentrification might upgrade a neighborhood, but what happens to the people who lived, worked and gathered there, and where do they go? Just to a downgraded neighborhood somewhere else, or on the street? We do need low crime and upgraded neighborhoods, but realistically it has to happen among the people who live there now, or it means nothing except more money for a few rich new feudal lords, including some from foreign countries. Here is a link to the program: chapter 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11508ex1Xxg
(01-09-2018, 07:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I was moved by the documentary City Rising. I have been concerned for some time about our society becoming a feudal system, with a few lords owning all the land and buildings and people paying them to live there. Home ownership is becoming out of reach, and housing is instead owned by landlords and speculators who run dozens or hundreds of properties, with no connection to the community where the houses are, solely to evict the residents and make more money from rents that many people can't afford. Racist laws and discrimination have helped create this new feudalism, and still exist. There's no more free market. It's true that gentrification might upgrade a neighborhood, but what happens to the people who lived, worked and gathered there, and where do they go? Just to a downgraded neighborhood somewhere else, or on the street? We do need low crime and upgraded neighborhoods, but realistically it has to happen among the people who live there now, or it means nothing except more money for a few rich new feudal lords, including some from foreign countries. Here is a link to the program: chapter 1: <SNIP>
There is another, even more insidious factor: wealth offshoring. Wealthy Chinese and Russians buy whole buildings as a hedge. If things get dodgy, they move to one of their properties and sell the rest to other oligarchs playing the hide-and-seek game themselves.