🚀 go-pugleaf

In dc.biking Miguel Cruz <spam@admin.u.nu> wrote:
> Eternal Nay-sayer  <no@spam.for.me> wrote:
>> Nobody is contesting that the DC government (currently overseen by federal
>> appointees) is working to reduce the amount of public housing in DC,
>> focusing mainly on "projects". Why do they want to eliminate the
>> projects? Because they're a nightmare from a law enforcement
>> standpoint, because they get damaged and/or destroyed by vandals 
>> on a regular basis, and because (and this is probably the single most
>> important reason...) they are not maintained by the residents.

> It might be expensive in the short term, but how about keeping the same
> amount of public housing, but scattering it in single units throughout the
> city?  In the Netherlands they've been trying to locate public housing in the
> wealthiest areas, on the theory that this will bring people together in the
> schools and the neighborhoods and lead to less of a dueling-fortresses
> mentality.

Geez, and here I was thinking that getting out of a lousy public high
school, then working my way through engineering school, then paying off
a huge amount of student loans, and finally becoming comfortably middle
class, I finally had the right to leave the slums. So now I can pay my
tax dollars to have the slums brought to me. 

Perhaps I'm missing something really deep and really profound, but I
can't see a single reason why I, as a taxpayer, should NOT be screaming
bloody murder if they try to vaporize property values in my neighborhood
(including, I might add, the house I'm going to be making mortgage
payments on for a long, long time yet).

Let me make this PAINFULLY clear: I worked my ass off for a bunch of
years to get away from the threat of poverty. I didn't get any
special breaks, I didn't get any snazzy scholarships, and it took me a
lot of pain for a lot of years to get as far as I have. Here's the
important part: I did not do this to benefit folks who aren't interested
in working to better themselves. If poor folks from the slums want a
house in my neighborhood, they can go get this thing called a "job". If
they don't want their kids to end up in the slums, they can make damn
sure their kids get something called an "education", so their kids can
get a job that does not involve the phrase "You want fries with that?".

> I don't think that public housing should be eliminated, because people need
> a place to live. Whether it's because they're disabled or overburdened or
> just down on their luck, everyone deserves a roof over their heads.

Absolutely. People need a place to live. And that place should be
somewhere where they can afford to live. West Virginia is nice, I'm told,
and the cost of living is much, much lower than DC. In fact, there are a
large number of places where the cost of living is lower. (And why don't
poor folks move out of DC into West Virginia? Probably because WV welfare
benefits are much, MUCH lower than DC welfare.)

Where we differ is the premise that people should have the right to live
where they want. Hell, I want to live in one of the nicer neighborhoods
in Fairfax, but there's no way I'm going to come up with $1.5M
(minimum) to buy a house there. I'd love to live in Silicon Valley, but
it's either a 2-3 hour commute or $800k for a small studio
apartment. There are a lot of places I'd like to live, but I can't afford
to live there, so... *drumroll* I don't live there. I do not claim some
god-given right to live where I want to live and demand public housing.

> I do think that the way it is implemented now - concentrating large numbers
> of unhappy people into miserable settings - is not doing anyone a whole lot
> of good.

You could make the same arguement about prisons. Lots of unhappy people
concentrated into miserable settings, not doing anyone a whole lot of
good. Personally, I'm not going to make an arguement for releasing these
people into society, because frankly, society is better off for having
these people (both the poor and the prisoners) pidgeon-holed into their
own special little enclaves.