True. IтАЩm stuck for now in the Bay Area and $100k makes you not very rich here (a shitty one bedroom runs $2k a month, daycare for an infant around $2.7k - it is sheer insanity around here). Most other places are rather great at the same income level.
More than half the population resides in major cities. I guess my point is that the elites (the ones who control things) piss away more than $100K in a month. 99% of the people don't make $700K, and speaking as someone n the top 1%, I assure you, I don't control anything. It's the people in the top 1% of my class that do.
I donтАЩt wish to assert that social mobility is not possible here. However, the opening paragraph asserts that our society is not run by a little group of elites. It is. The people who run this country are the people who can spend the median income on a night out and not notice.
our society is not run by the rich 1% or even the top 10% of that 1%.
the power is not concentrated in the wealthy. it's concentrated in the politically connected. we've developed a serious oligarch class that's getting goodies the rest of us are not.
and i know enough of them to see the difference.
the endless claims that the middle class is dying and the "1%" need to "pay more" are just part of the canon they use to hide where the real privilege is.
spend some time with the politicians and media barons and it gets awfully glaring.
the people who run the country are not the guys dropping $20k a nite on hotel rooms and 3k on bottles on st barths. they're the ones in cheap suits in the corridors of the capitol aspiring to be the next big gun committee head or climbing the greasy pole at bureaucracies.
you think mark cuban has more power than tony fauci or some no one like walensky these days?
because it doesn't look like it.
wanna see most billionaires wet their pants? send the justice department. (musk is, admittedly, an outlier, (at least to the US govt) but look how fast zuck backed off politics and learned to get back in line and play ball.)
being rich ain't enough.
as government gets more powerful, privilege accrues to those in its orbit and being merely wealthy gets you less and less.
Amazingly to me, the large social-justice driven class is simultaneously envious and personally ambitious, yet seem to serve as foot soldiers for the war on stability and agency. Comfortable yet want and claim victim status.
The national median income is low. In places like San Francisco, $100,000 is not above poverty for a family of four. The minimum income to be in the top 1% (the elites) is $758,434.
san francisco is a city of city of 870k in a country of 330 million.
and it's really expensive.
this is the price of stupid, socialist and crony capitalist policies. adjusted for cost of living, california is the highest poverty rate state in the US.
Socialists: everyone deserves not to be "poor" even in the richest, most expensive city in the U.S. and if they are "poor" then it's proof of America's Grand Failure and we need to fix it. The one thing that should never happen is that they move somewhere else.
let's do everything we can to make permitting, zoning, and construction all but impossible to be sure that supply of homes can never expand in response to demand.
ever try building something in san francisco? i don't recommend it.
There's plenty of new housing in Mission Bay. That said, I'm totally in favor of selling and dozing the entirety of Golden Gate Park. More a glorified community college campus + burglary playground than a proper "park," and the Presidio is next door anyway. Doesn't matter - the city is doomed to be the next Detroit.
ItтАЩs still expensive. And all the new housing in SoMa (east cut as they try to call it) is freaking luxury condos a la Lumina and Mira. Yet the streets are full of homeless people with no prospects.
That's my point. The vague assertion that "if only SF would let builders come in, it would fix everything" is contradicted by the fact that there's lots of new builds and they didn't fix anything.
Price is a reflection of demand-relative supply. No, Mission Bay didn't make a dent in demand - how could it, when almost no construction was taking place in Peninsula / East Bay at the same time. Aside from a tiny blip of development in Emeryville, you have to go all the way out to Dublin or Gilroy to find some recently-squandered farmland to put a family on. In absolute terms, Mission Bay added a lot of units on its own and more than any closer satellite counties have managed to. SF's housing problem is not a reflection of SF's density, which is actually already incredibly high, but the lack of peripheral footprint.
"then how can one say "there is plenty of housing"?"
How can one say it's impossible to build in SF?
I'll grant the southern stretch of Outer Sunset, the pockets of unoccupied mansions in Pacific Heights and Sea Cliff, and of course the quasi-skid rows of Bayview as low density.
I'm not making a case for regulation, I'm just arguing that using SF as a poster child is easily contradicted by a five minute walk.
Ah but Gavin and the illustrious state Assembly and Senate have just proclaimed that they will overrule ALL local zoning laws to make any residential property capable of being a fourplex or more, subject to some very limited restrictions. That will solve everything make good and DAMN sure no one ever has to leave Paradise.
By default people, human beings, are poor. It takes a pretty well developed economy to have the level of luxury most americans have (even some of the poorest ones).
In the natural state, people are poor, as you can see on any underdeveloped african country where the majority of the population lives from subsistence agriculture.
Yes yes yes. The whole peninsula, Marin county, and parts of the east bay are just as bad. If I wasnтАЩt tethered by a custody agreement to this area I would be long gone for all those reasons!!!!
$100,000 is not a high income. Please redo it for $500,000.
us personal median income is $36k
it's about 67k for a median family.
100K is a high income almost anyplace outside a major city.
True. IтАЩm stuck for now in the Bay Area and $100k makes you not very rich here (a shitty one bedroom runs $2k a month, daycare for an infant around $2.7k - it is sheer insanity around here). Most other places are rather great at the same income level.
Valid point. I live in relatively rural NC. Our 5 bed/3 bath house on 1.5 acres is < $1k/mo. A $100k salary means living like a king!
Move. Solved.
You canтАЩt move when you have joint custody. YouтАЩd have to abandon your kids. Not an option.
More than half the population resides in major cities. I guess my point is that the elites (the ones who control things) piss away more than $100K in a month. 99% of the people don't make $700K, and speaking as someone n the top 1%, I assure you, I don't control anything. It's the people in the top 1% of my class that do.
and most major cities are quite affordable on 100k.
houton, dallas, chicago, phoenix, philly, san antonio, much of LA, even parts of NYC.
you're looking only at the most wildly ovprices and assuming it's typical.
500k is a crazily high figure to use to track social mobility.
that's 99th percentile. (top 1%) (531k is top 1%)
https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percentiles/
I donтАЩt wish to assert that social mobility is not possible here. However, the opening paragraph asserts that our society is not run by a little group of elites. It is. The people who run this country are the people who can spend the median income on a night out and not notice.
our society is not run by the rich 1% or even the top 10% of that 1%.
the power is not concentrated in the wealthy. it's concentrated in the politically connected. we've developed a serious oligarch class that's getting goodies the rest of us are not.
and i know enough of them to see the difference.
the endless claims that the middle class is dying and the "1%" need to "pay more" are just part of the canon they use to hide where the real privilege is.
spend some time with the politicians and media barons and it gets awfully glaring.
the people who run the country are not the guys dropping $20k a nite on hotel rooms and 3k on bottles on st barths. they're the ones in cheap suits in the corridors of the capitol aspiring to be the next big gun committee head or climbing the greasy pole at bureaucracies.
you think mark cuban has more power than tony fauci or some no one like walensky these days?
because it doesn't look like it.
wanna see most billionaires wet their pants? send the justice department. (musk is, admittedly, an outlier, (at least to the US govt) but look how fast zuck backed off politics and learned to get back in line and play ball.)
being rich ain't enough.
as government gets more powerful, privilege accrues to those in its orbit and being merely wealthy gets you less and less.
Amazingly to me, the large social-justice driven class is simultaneously envious and personally ambitious, yet seem to serve as foot soldiers for the war on stability and agency. Comfortable yet want and claim victim status.
ThatтАЩs so unfair. IтАЩm barely struggling along on a million a year.
FICA stops at $132,900. That would be a good threshold level.
Good point. Also, 100k in 1970 does not equate to 100k in 2020.
it's already adjusted for that (inflation). that's what "constant 2020 dollars" means.
100K in adjusted $.
Got it. Thanks.
The national median income is low. In places like San Francisco, $100,000 is not above poverty for a family of four. The minimum income to be in the top 1% (the elites) is $758,434.
sure, but that's hardly relevant to most people.
san francisco is a city of city of 870k in a country of 330 million.
and it's really expensive.
this is the price of stupid, socialist and crony capitalist policies. adjusted for cost of living, california is the highest poverty rate state in the US.
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/suppose-you-live-in-americas-most-liberal-state-now-suppose-you-live-in-the-state-known-as-the-poverty-capital-of-america-but-i-repeat-myself/
100k is 66th percentile for households, so if we're splitting high/medium/low that seems like the place to do it. (144k = 80th percentile)
Socialists: everyone deserves not to be "poor" even in the richest, most expensive city in the U.S. and if they are "poor" then it's proof of America's Grand Failure and we need to fix it. The one thing that should never happen is that they move somewhere else.
also socialists:
let's do everything we can to make permitting, zoning, and construction all but impossible to be sure that supply of homes can never expand in response to demand.
ever try building something in san francisco? i don't recommend it.
There's plenty of new housing in Mission Bay. That said, I'm totally in favor of selling and dozing the entirety of Golden Gate Park. More a glorified community college campus + burglary playground than a proper "park," and the Presidio is next door anyway. Doesn't matter - the city is doomed to be the next Detroit.
there really isn't. it costs what, 1000 ft2 even subsidized? 1500? more?
if there is "plenty" of housing, why would it be that expensive?
ItтАЩs still expensive. And all the new housing in SoMa (east cut as they try to call it) is freaking luxury condos a la Lumina and Mira. Yet the streets are full of homeless people with no prospects.
That oxymoron will explode one day just as it has in Paris, Detroit, Memphis and several other once proud cities.
That's my point. The vague assertion that "if only SF would let builders come in, it would fix everything" is contradicted by the fact that there's lots of new builds and they didn't fix anything.
Price is a reflection of demand-relative supply. No, Mission Bay didn't make a dent in demand - how could it, when almost no construction was taking place in Peninsula / East Bay at the same time. Aside from a tiny blip of development in Emeryville, you have to go all the way out to Dublin or Gilroy to find some recently-squandered farmland to put a family on. In absolute terms, Mission Bay added a lot of units on its own and more than any closer satellite counties have managed to. SF's housing problem is not a reflection of SF's density, which is actually already incredibly high, but the lack of peripheral footprint.
then how can one say "there is plenty of housing"?
in absolute terms, it did not make a dent.
none of it has. i used to live in SOMA before it had any tall buildings. if supply had kept up with demand, prices would not be up so much.
and an awful lot of SF is still quite low density. richmond, sunset, marina, mission, etc.
if there were any real will to build, it could easily be a lot more populous.
space is not the limiter.
"then how can one say "there is plenty of housing"?"
How can one say it's impossible to build in SF?
I'll grant the southern stretch of Outer Sunset, the pockets of unoccupied mansions in Pacific Heights and Sea Cliff, and of course the quasi-skid rows of Bayview as low density.
I'm not making a case for regulation, I'm just arguing that using SF as a poster child is easily contradicted by a five minute walk.
Ah but Gavin and the illustrious state Assembly and Senate have just proclaimed that they will overrule ALL local zoning laws to make any residential property capable of being a fourplex or more, subject to some very limited restrictions. That will solve everything make good and DAMN sure no one ever has to leave Paradise.
ЁЯдк ЁЯШВ
Anti-socialist sociopaths: people deserve to be poor because "the market" is and should be the final arbiter of human worth.
By default people, human beings, are poor. It takes a pretty well developed economy to have the level of luxury most americans have (even some of the poorest ones).
In the natural state, people are poor, as you can see on any underdeveloped african country where the majority of the population lives from subsistence agriculture.
Human failures: people are never EVER responsible for their own destiny.
Yes yes yes. The whole peninsula, Marin county, and parts of the east bay are just as bad. If I wasnтАЩt tethered by a custody agreement to this area I would be long gone for all those reasons!!!!