Well, I can only speak about my own personal experiences or what I’ve seen and I’ve seen some crazy shit since covid in such a concentration that I rarely witnessed with any regularity in the previous 10 years or whatever…
the deliberate distraction is the search for perfection, but the issue isn’t perfection, it’s not the inequality of outcome that’s a problem it’s the inequality of opportunity and imo this is the crux of the issue.
creating a society with no such thing as crime, no such thing as poor, no such thing as sickness/illness is almost impossible but creating a fair environment is easy, the will just isn’t there because we’d rather blame the media, video games, rap music, or cottage cheese rather than blame the true culprits… the people… I’m a big fan of Jordan Peterson , he’s like ASMR for resilient people and he and his acolytes have this consistent pattern that never fails to present itself… he’ll be in an hour long discussion or debate about the inequality of opportunity, but at some point he’ll interject that we shouldn’t be fighting about the inequality of outcome but usually the people he’s debating with are too far galvanized to even hear what he said and I’m always wishing someone would point out that never in the history of debates did anyone ever even suggest that so it’s super weird to just throw that out there as a conclusion to come to, and that’s the trick, they know what they are doing.
the gap between the haves and the have-nots has nothing to do with the have-nots replacing the haves or becoming the haves and it never has, the issue is what is fair… and although the outcome of ones opportunities should be left to one’s own devices we’ve collectively evolved far past the point where we can collectively weigh the fairness of opportunities themselves.
I loved all the times I visited Vienna. Especially all the well dressed grumpy old men and I don’t recall ever having an atrocious meal…
Sadly, our mayor here who many accused of being in bed with real estate developers, landlords etc. during the election, didn’t even wait to be in office a year to hike the allowed maximum increase to rent stabilized apartments to 5%.
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Thanks! Almost there, moving in December, starting house construction in February.
I’ll miss the big city, but I’m still happy.
mouse utopia style I reckon
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My NYC experience goes like this. I was fortunate enough to land a rent stabilized apartment in Brooklyn about 11 years ago. In that time I got serious with a girl, got engaged and married. We witnessed our neighborhood transform from industrial to Uber gentrified with new dull residential towers forming a wall along the east river waterfront. Slowly our views to Manhattan became obstructed. The neighborhood demographics shifted from hipsters to trust fund types sporting man buns and jogging in the middle of the road. The ladies are quite funny with their skin toned athleisure wear, which from a distance makes them appear naked. There is also a good percentage of middle American “bros” and their female counterparts. I don’t miss the hipsters but at least they tried to be interesting. This new crowd is straight up boring, but also rude and entitled. When my wife comes home, I sometimes hear stories about how some young guy cut her off on the sidewalk or bumped her without acknowledging or apologizing. Getting a little tired of this vibe, we considered giving up our apartment and moving to a more authentic neighborhood. Accepting the inevitable rent hike, we thought it was a decent trade for a living experience that would feel more “New York”. The reality of landing a new apartment these days means you will have to blindly outbid other people. Either you kick some money to the broker or agree to a higher monthly rate. This new practice is unregulated and now part of the process. After getting denied multiple times (despite having great credit, rental history and good income), we got fed up and decided to stay put in this gentrified setting. The irony is that most outsiders view our neighborhood as highly desirable and in many ways it is. But the reality is this new gentrified New York lacks authenticity. I’m an Architect in my early 40s. I don’t know how long I’ll stay here, but if I leave, I imagine we’ll head to a small town upstate and embrace the quiet. For now, despite all this nonsense, I still love this city and marvel at it multiple times a week. There are aspects of living here that suck, but that’s always been the case. It’s part of life.
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I think your experience was the norm, but how far out were you looking? We’re near Utica on the A/C, in Bed-Stuy, and our landlord (who renovated the place for himself but then left for work in Europe) listed it for $250/mo more than we were paying (still astronomical, but rose only that much in the three years we were there), showed it for a day, and I don’t think the people who got it needed to grease the broker (any more than usual, wish I could get that much money for so little work). There’s an uneasy gentrifying vibe in what is still a majority black neighbourhood, but it’s not as bad as Greenpoint/Williamsburg.
tokyo is something else, everyone greases the landlords palms, but it’s called a gift and no matter what I couldn’t get out of it…
but I love Green restaurant off of Ishikawa station!! yum… if food was the only variable Japan is where I’d live without a doubt
Youse can all get bent. 650 per month.
Here they charge the same price for the same thing PER WEEK.
Quit whining.
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where ya at?
Australia.
New Zealand is even more expensive.
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Things will bounce back any day now! Support the economy! Go to Work! Drink alcohol! Vote and watch sports! Have babies! Ben and Jerry’s! Don’t give up!
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Buy second hand!
Make your own beer!
Have a vasectomy!
(Im not that fussed about ice cream)
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This reminds me of a saying (for some reason)that rings truer the further towards some high achieving goal I become.
“Live simply so that others may simply live”
Besides, life isn’t so damn stressful without the worries of trying to achieve some big thing.
Everyone is always trying to get ahead of everyone else. If we would all just calm the fuck down a little maybe life would be better for everyone?
It seems like the younger generations are starting to be like “I’m not even going to take part in this crazy shit” (thankfully). At some point all of this insanity that we are a part of becomes too much and things will right themselves naturally. Humans have limits and we are hitting some of those now.
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You lucky bastard, mould and asbestos! Only 480 per week?
You must be doing something right.
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Apparently timeless:
I’ve lived in London my whole life. I grew up in Hackney, moved out of home at 18, and by the time I had graduated uni and got a “proper” job, I was already totally priced out of the area. House prices in the area are now often seven figures, and most of the people who live there now are relatively wealthy. London rent prices are crippling unless you have two incomes and even then, it’s incredibly hard to do much else but exist. Nobody can buy unless they get a windfall from somewhere. Oh, and forget about having kids. £1500 a month on nursery fees will ruin most people.
My mum’s landlord doubled her rent a couple of years ago, forced her out of the flat she’d lived in for 15 years so they could redevelop it. She was effectively homeless for a year before landing in a shitty town in Kent.
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agreed… imo the rate of our species own ignorance towards one another and our technology can’t keep growing at the same simultaneous rate… it’s just not sustainable.
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I don’t claim to be well educated on the financial games around the housing problems but I wonder why are so many ppl living in big cities if their financial situation and quality of life suffers from it. I get that if you run a business that is in some way niche, it might be in many ways easier in big cities but on the other hand it seems to me that you could make it more sustainable in a smaller city with lower rents and also by doing so you’d possibly be making that city more interesting for the ppl living there, no?
This is more of a question than an opinion but wouldn’t it make more sense to do something about the problem rather than complaining about it while being kinda part of the problem?
What am I missing here?
Again, I’m just curious to hear what is keeping you in a big city, not trying to blame anyone.
Sounds like you live in Williamsburg or Bushwick…
Anyways, that was a very accurate description of the type of people moving to NYC these days.