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+--- Thread: On Homelessness (/thread-4877.html)
On Homelessness - beechnut79 - 06-25-2018
Not too long ago I discovered an article concerning the homeless problem. Apparently many feel that the ravages of the tech industry, which has displaced numerous jobs over the past 25 years or so, is largely to blame. I have said for years that the nature of the job and housing markets plays a big role in creating this problem, as there are fewer jobs available which don't require higher education and/or specialized training. When there was a stronger manufacturing base you could go into a factory job right straight from high school and earn a decent living, especially in the days when labor unions were strong. Not only that, but workers seldom got fired for anything less than real serious offenses. Not so today. I am posting a link to an article I just found today for discussion purposes. In large cities including Chicago, gentrification of poor and working class districts has been rampant, and many of the new residents haven't had a call to venture into the unknown; therefore are without a doubt highly unaware of the magnitude of the problem. And I lay much of the blame at the feet of restrictive zoning ordinances which are specifically designed to keep alternative housing such as rooming houses out. The revival of rooming houses, if there ever is to be one, would go a long way toward solving much of this problem, especially acute in places such as Chicago with the harsh winters. We need a rising of consciousness of the issue, opening our minds in relating to others, allowing more room for the growth of alternative methods of solving this issue. Where do we go from here?
https://www.wired.com/story/big-tech-isnt-the-problem-with-homelessness-its-all-of-us/
RE: On Homelessness - pbrower2a - 06-25-2018
(06-25-2018, 08:03 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: Not too long ago I discovered an article concerning the homeless problem. Apparently many feel that the ravages of the tech industry, which has displaced numerous jobs over the past 25 years or so, is largely to blame. I have said for years that the nature of the job and housing markets plays a big role in creating this problem, as there are fewer jobs available which don't require higher education and/or specialized training. When there was a stronger manufacturing base you could go into a factory job right straight from high school and earn a decent living, especially in the days when labor unions were strong. Not only that, but workers seldom got fired for anything less than real serious offenses. Not so today. I am posting a link to an article I just found today for discussion purposes. In large cities including Chicago, gentrification of poor and working class districts has been rampant, and many of the new residents haven't had a call to venture into the unknown; therefore are without a doubt highly unaware of the magnitude of the problem. And I lay much of the blame at the feet of restrictive zoning ordinances which are specifically designed to keep alternative housing such as rooming houses out. The revival of rooming houses, if there ever is to be one, would go a long way toward solving much of this problem, especially acute in places such as Chicago with the harsh winters. We need a rising of consciousness of the issue, opening our minds in relating to others, allowing more room for the growth of alternative methods of solving this issue. Where do we go from here?
https://www.wired.com/story/big-tech-isnt-the-problem-with-homelessness-its-all-of-us/
Maximal profits depend upon pricing people out of something. So it is with housing, transportation, health care, education, or food. It may be a tenet of classical economics that high profits entice competition -- but the highest prices typically show a lack of competition and economic actors intent on keeping a non-competitive sector of the economy. Profit, no matter what the human cost, is the objective of our economic elites, and the current crop of politicians largely comply with that objective lest they miss out on campaign funds. Maximal profits also mean great suffering.
Affordable housing is possible -- so long as people are willing to live in high-rise apartments. But we know all about the horror stories of such gigantic slums as Pruitt-Igoe, or for that matter, the normal housing flats of former Commie states.
The technology in housing is basically nineteenth-century. The furnishings may be ultra-modern, but the building techniques aren't. Then again, what family really wants to live in some giant tower?
...We are not coping well with the transition to a post-industrial world. Our system of rewards depends, at least for the masses, upon staying latched onto what remains of the industrial economy that had barely modernized out of the factory era.
RE: On Homelessness - beechnut79 - 06-26-2018
(06-25-2018, 11:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(06-25-2018, 08:03 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: Not too long ago I discovered an article concerning the homeless problem. Apparently many feel that the ravages of the tech industry, which has displaced numerous jobs over the past 25 years or so, is largely to blame. I have said for years that the nature of the job and housing markets plays a big role in creating this problem, as there are fewer jobs available which don't require higher education and/or specialized training. When there was a stronger manufacturing base you could go into a factory job right straight from high school and earn a decent living, especially in the days when labor unions were strong. Not only that, but workers seldom got fired for anything less than real serious offenses. Not so today. I am posting a link to an article I just found today for discussion purposes. In large cities including Chicago, gentrification of poor and working class districts has been rampant, and many of the new residents haven't had a call to venture into the unknown; therefore are without a doubt highly unaware of the magnitude of the problem. And I lay much of the blame at the feet of restrictive zoning ordinances which are specifically designed to keep alternative housing such as rooming houses out. The revival of rooming houses, if there ever is to be one, would go a long way toward solving much of this problem, especially acute in places such as Chicago with the harsh winters. We need a rising of consciousness of the issue, opening our minds in relating to others, allowing more room for the growth of alternative methods of solving this issue. Where do we go from here?
https://www.wired.com/story/big-tech-isnt-the-problem-with-homelessness-its-all-of-us/
Maximal profits depend upon pricing people out of something. So it is with housing, transportation, health care, education, or food. It may be a tenet of classical economics that high profits entice competition -- but the highest prices typically show a lack of competition and economic actors intent on keeping a non-competitive sector of the economy. Profit, no matter what the human cost, is the objective of our economic elites, and the current crop of politicians largely comply with that objective lest they miss out on campaign funds. Maximal profits also mean great suffering.
Affordable housing is possible -- so long as people are willing to live in high-rise apartments. But we know all about the horror stories of such gigantic slums as Pruitt-Igoe, or for that matter, the normal housing flats of former Commie states.
The technology in housing is basically nineteenth-century. The furnishings may be ultra-modern, but the building techniques aren't. Then again, what family really wants to live in some giant tower?
...We are not coping well with the transition to a post-industrial world. Our system of rewards depends, at least for the masses, upon staying latched onto what remains of the industrial economy that had barely modernized out of the factory era.
Part of your response indicates that it is now time to reassess how we've been asserting ourselves in life. Do we really know what we want? Often I doubt it. Do we have the political will to tackle homelessness and other related issues regarding the disadvantage? Again I believe not. For the past 25+ years we have been taught that we need to be acting on our own behalf and, like in the classic Smokey the Bear commercials concerning forest fires: ONLY YOU can make it happen. Applies on much more than preventing forest fires. While on one hand we are often taught that we should use our time to tune-in to what makes you feel alive; the weight of all that is happening in our world produces the opposite result and leaves us feeling weak and tired. In the late 1970s many spent numerous nights in bars and discos as an escape valve from weighty issues such as Vietnam and Watergate. Today we seem way too tired to explore what really turns us on and the higher purpose it can serve.
RE: On Homelessness - pbrower2a - 06-26-2018
We need to make the Rust Belt more attractive as a place to live. That means reviving its industrial economy and encouraging much of the tech business to relocate to places like -- well, if I am the Governor of Michigan, Michigan. Basically if you are paying $3500 a month in California, you can live much better in Michigan. Except for real winters the western part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan is California without the traffic and high-tech jobs. It's a lot like what northern California was before the high-tech boom. Hate Michigan winters due to lake-effect snow? Then spend your winter vacation in a place with a Mediterranean climate. Heck, with the lower rent you could afford to spend a couple of weeks in Portugal or Greece.
American opportunity is far too concentrated in too few places, and the Rust Belt used to be a place with those opportunities. Heck, at one time Detroit was the most prosperous city in the world, and Cleveland wasn't far behind.
I think of President Roosevelt's TVA program intended to give the Mountain South cheap energy and attract jobs for people then dirt-poor... and Boulder Dam, intended to bring water to the subtropical deserts of Arizona and southern California. Can't we do something similar for... Detroit? (You might be surprised, but Detroit has mild winters for its latitude -- and no lake-effect snow).
RE: On Homelessness - David Horn - 06-26-2018
(06-26-2018, 10:25 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: ... Do we really know what we want? Often I doubt it. Do we have the political will to tackle homelessness and other related issues regarding the disadvantage? Again I believe not. For the past 25+ years we have been taught that we need to be acting on our own behalf and, like in the classic Smokey the Bear commercials concerning forest fires: ONLY YOU can make it happen. Applies on much more than preventing forest fires. While on one hand we are often taught that we should use our time to tune-in to what makes you feel alive; the weight of all that is happening in our world produces the opposite result and leaves us feeling weak and tired. In the late 1970s many spent numerous nights in bars and discos as an escape valve from weighty issues such as Vietnam and Watergate. Today we seem way too tired to explore what really turns us on and the higher purpose it can serve.
We're at the end of a long road .. at least that's my hope. The issues you raise started in earnest in the mid-70's, but got turbocharged in the early 80s when Rush Limbaugh arrived on the scene. Hyper-individualism is just another version of 'I got mine and screw you'. All the 'successful people' began a campaign to shame anyone unable to do everything for him or herself … and to quit relying on them to help!. Like most movements, it appealed to people who wanted to feel themselves better than someone, and the Welfare Queens or <insert the degrading reference of your choice> need to suck it up and be like us! Of course, they couldn't do it either, but they tried their best to fake it.
That's when latchkey kids, galloping personal debt and the 2, 3 or even 4 job family started in earnest. It started to unravel in the late 90s, and two or three recession later, the middle was hollowed out as planned. When you're living on the edge, it's nearly impossible to get off the treadmill and oppose poor treatment. The PTB couldn't ask for more than that.
RE: On Homelessness - beechnut79 - 06-26-2018
First Paragraph: Well, Joan Osborne once wondered "What if God were one of us". (Have no idea whether or not she also wrote the song).
Second Paragraph: Workers in the 1890s were VERY vocal aboaut opposing their poor treatment. And that was at a time when there was no such thing as unemployment insurance. Be on the lookout for a new thread based partly on something I posted on the sexual assault thread earlier today.