Letters to the Editor
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Nope, sorry, not buying this one
With everything I'm reading about the non-sustainability of our current industrial agricultural practices, I want my own piece of damn land. The house is of secondary concern.
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additionally
I don't know what kind of crap places the rest of these "boring" homeowners must be living in, but we've got mountains and grizzlies and world-class ski resorts and operas and lakes and parks and national forests and restaurants and family and friends in my proverbal backyard. So I'd hardly say we sit around going nowhere and doing nothing.
Plus there's that newfangled contraption called the airport where you can take a ride to go and see just about anyplace in the world if you think that sitting and staring at a wall at home will somehow be a far less enlightening experience than sitting and staring at a wall in Timbuktu.
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Leave your baggage on the plaform it will catch up with you
You are only being relocated to the east.
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Okay, I hate to be one of 'those people,' but...
"provocativeness"? How about "provocation" instead?
kpao
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Homeownership is Harmful (and not particularly smart)
"And a walk around the block is a journey through a rich universe." Is it really? I don't think it is for most people - particularly in America.
What Leonard skims over here is that many many people live in bland suburbanism. They hold to their homes in their "Whistling Glades" subdivision in Toledo, Ohio as if the "Whispering Pines" subdivision in Albany NY is really any different. Your grande vanilla latte will taste as sweet in both places.
The fascination with homeownership, particularly the white picket fence variety of ownership, is indeed harmful. The endless sprawl of the suburbs has resulted in more roads, more cars, more pollution, and less wilderness. That is putting aside the economic impact of millions of people taking on a lifetime of debt.
I live in the city a 20 minute train ride from where I work. I rent and my apartment is wonderful. Are there some appliances I would change? Certainly. But if I had the burden of a mortgage, property taxes, homeowners insurance, etc, I wouldn't be able to afford to remodel. Nor would I be able to afford to travel, or visit my family (safely thousands of miles away).
Yes, homeownership is harmful. Roots are for vegetables indeed.
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falling home prices
I'd rather watch someone else's house depreciate in value. If home prices fall 5% in a year, that means that a whole year's mortgage payments just went down the toilet.
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october271986...
Do you really think most people aspire to living in suburbia?
I've lived in North Carolina, Virginia, Arizona, California, Montana, and Minnesota. My parents rented owned homes everywhere except in Montana, where we own our own home, and now I go to school in Minnesota in a charming little college town with no suburban vibes. I have been in places where suburbia really is as bad as they say it is... driving through parts of Illinois, for example. However I think you'll find the majority of places that you go to are not like this. The majority of people who live in homes don't live places like this. I have never lived somewhere like that.
In the past couple years I've done driving tours of Oregon, Washington, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The only place I ever saw that suburban nightmare was a small part of Illinois outside of Chicago. I guess in some sense it's the people who want the best of both worlds... their own homes, as well as a life in the big city... that are really driving the need for these bedroom community, milquetoast suburbs. That is certainly the case here in Minnesota, where the Cities are fantastic and the small towns are wonderful but the sort of iffy big box crap is all right in between.
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So why is it either or?
I agree the article in question obviously blows things out of proportion, but I do think the question remains - when does the benefit of rootedness outstrip the benefit of mobility, and vice versa. And why do we view it as an either or?
In my profession (IT Project Management), my ability to be mobile let me escape a downturned economy in my old city and end up in a better job and a better area. I saw the downturns coming, saw the inflated home market, and resisted family and social pressure to get a house - and it probably saved my finances.
However, I also targeted specific general areas I knew would be good for my career - certain states, city areas, etc. In short places where any needed move would be minimal as opposed to my cross-country experience, and where a move wouldn't be overly negative on the relations and roots I put down. Or simply, there's moving and there's moving, mobility and mobility.
I looked for a general place to live first. Not a house, not a specific piece of land, but a place that had the kind of jobs I wanted and the people I'd want to build relations with. Meanwhile, being technical, the internet lets me keep up relations with my friends (who at times are mobile themselves).
The either-or idea annoys me. Roots are more than houses. Locations can be more than one thing.
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Since when does the Economist advocate for Ingsoc?
Martin Luther King said: "Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social." Free Exchange seems to be want a world with the worst characteristics of both.
Why stop at homeowners? There is no logical reason for my wife and children to live with me, except for the pathetic romance of seeing the same people all the time. My office is in the city, and the rug factory where my son's small hands are needed to knot wool is all the way in Pakistan. By living together, my family is really building inefficiency into the economy, and keeping the cost of fine carpets much higher than they need to be.
These guys sound bitter, like they lost a lot of money in subprime mortgages.
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Q: you know what else improves the mobility of labor?
A: a single-payer health system.
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Going for the rootless cosmopolitan life
Hey, yeppers! I will ditch my home and go for the rootless style.
Once all those rich dudes in Vail, Aspen, Jackson Hole ditch their digs and do the same!
Sure!