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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2504 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How homeownership became the engine of American inequality

Shit. Now I'll have to read it.

My first introduction to the radical imbalance imparted on the American landscape by real estate came from Elizabeth Warren's first book. Among other things, she points out how the system of paying for schools through property taxes basically silos poor people in perpetual poverty while overvaluing houses for everyone else - she goes as far as arguing that single-earner households no longer exist because we've grown accustomed over three generations to having both parents work in order to stretch in order to get to the neighborhood that has the school. She profiles a neighborhood where the rumor of a new charter school going in a "bad" neighborhood (in Delaware? I think?) drove up property values by like 100% in 18 months.

I've voted for those Seattle levees mentioned in the article. I vote for mass transit. And I had to leave NextDoor because it was all about people bitching about how expensive their car tabs were now "and they never ride the bus or anything!" No shit. 'cuz you don't have to. It's funny how many people I know in LA that aren't even aware that LA has rail.

Of course you're unaware. You're white.

Don't feel guilty that you've got a house now. Just don't feel entitled.





ButterflyEffect  ·  2504 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I've completely given up trying to have conversations with (white) people out here who refuse to understand that their car tabs are subsidizing transit for people who can't afford a new Subaru, new Mercedes, or, you know, reliable private transit in general.