There is no housing crisis in MoCo or most of the DMV for that matter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

^^ Despite what a PP said earlier, this really is about everyone wanting to live in Bethesda, CC, Arlington, etc. The people complaining about affordable housing know that they can afford to buy a place in Montgomery Village, they just think they're too good for it.

I agree with you but the reason that people want to live in those areas is because of the quality of the schools. That's the uncompleted part of the sentence "affordable housing in the DMV with decent quality schools"

The schools won’t be “good” anymore if the housing is much more affordable. The socioeconomic composition of the schools is the number largest predictor of school performance. Schools cannot change the home environment and school/teacher quality explains less than 10% of the variance in academic performance. Parental background is the most important. This idea that you can magically make low income kids from families with low education have equal outcomes to wealthy families is not based in reality. You might be able to reduce the gap a little bit, but there is no society where these groups have equal outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Agree, just a bunch of woke liberals trying to shatter the “American Dream” of single family home ownership. Trying to cast it as “racist” and a product of some imaginary “privilege”.

Work, save, buy a condo or townhome as a starter, build equity, move on to a single family home. People have done it for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

^^ Despite what a PP said earlier, this really is about everyone wanting to live in Bethesda, CC, Arlington, etc. The people complaining about affordable housing know that they can afford to buy a place in Montgomery Village, they just think they're too good for it.

I agree with you but the reason that people want to live in those areas is because of the quality of the schools. That's the uncompleted part of the sentence "affordable housing in the DMV with decent quality schools"

It is possible to improve/support any school by putting effort into it as a parent. Being present, fundraising, building community.

No, you joining the PTA does not, and will not magically improve that school. That's not reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Part of the push for changing zoning is supposedly to build more family-friendly multifamily housing. For this you need larger units, and you need them designed for family life (i.e. bedrooms near each other but away from main living space, living spaces conducive to small children, building design that makes sense for people with kids and strollers, etc.) But developers have limited interested in serving this part of the market. The trend is toward smaller units, even micro units, aimed at singles and DINKs. The assumption is that families won't live in apartments, they'll move into SFH once they have kids. But increasingly it's hard for many families to afford SFHs (whether because close in housing is too expensive, or because further out housing requires an expensive and time consuming commute that also isn't conducive to having kids). So there genuinely is a lack of affordable housing for families, even if they are open to living in smaller homes or in multi-family housing.

- Signed, a parent who lives in an apartment and has no issue with that.

Gets it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

^^ Despite what a PP said earlier, this really is about everyone wanting to live in Bethesda, CC, Arlington, etc. The people complaining about affordable housing know that they can afford to buy a place in Montgomery Village, they just think they're too good for it.

I agree with you but the reason that people want to live in those areas is because of the quality of the schools. That's the uncompleted part of the sentence "affordable housing in the DMV with decent quality schools"

It is possible to improve/support any school by putting effort into it as a parent. Being present, fundraising, building community.

No, you joining the PTA does not, and will not magically improve that school. That's not reality.

And yet I helped build a school that way .

[Anonymous]

If you own a house in your desired location, you don’t get to declare there is no housing crisis. Just sit down and stop shaming people who are in “low income” jobs or pretend that you have an iota of a heart. Just stop, it’s gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

^^ Despite what a PP said earlier, this really is about everyone wanting to live in Bethesda, CC, Arlington, etc. The people complaining about affordable housing know that they can afford to buy a place in Montgomery Village, they just think they're too good for it.

I agree with you but the reason that people want to live in those areas is because of the quality of the schools. That's the uncompleted part of the sentence "affordable housing in the DMV with decent quality schools"

The schools won’t be “good” anymore if the housing is much more affordable. The socioeconomic composition of the schools is the number largest predictor of school performance. Schools cannot change the home environment and school/teacher quality explains less than 10% of the variance in academic performance. Parental background is the most important. This idea that you can magically make low income kids from families with low education have equal outcomes to wealthy families is not based in reality. You might be able to reduce the gap a little bit, but there is no society where these groups have equal outcomes.

I was waiting for it! Keep the poors out of my backyard said explicitly. Never change DCUM, the place where people say the quiet part so loud we keep coming back for more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

^^ Despite what a PP said earlier, this really is about everyone wanting to live in Bethesda, CC, Arlington, etc. The people complaining about affordable housing know that they can afford to buy a place in Montgomery Village, they just think they're too good for it.

I agree with you but the reason that people want to live in those areas is because of the quality of the schools. That's the uncompleted part of the sentence "affordable housing in the DMV with decent quality schools"

The schools won’t be “good” anymore if the housing is much more affordable. The socioeconomic composition of the schools is the number largest predictor of school performance. Schools cannot change the home environment and school/teacher quality explains less than 10% of the variance in academic performance. Parental background is the most important. This idea that you can magically make low income kids from families with low education have equal outcomes to wealthy families is not based in reality. You might be able to reduce the gap a little bit, but there is no society where these groups have equal outcomes.

I was waiting for it! Keep the poors out of my backyard said explicitly. Never change DCUM, the place where people say the quiet part so loud we keep coming back for more.

It's not the quiet part, out loud. It's just the plain out-loud part. I have heard real people say this in real life, in the context of school boundary changes, with their neighbors in the room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

^^ Despite what a PP said earlier, this really is about everyone wanting to live in Bethesda, CC, Arlington, etc. The people complaining about affordable housing know that they can afford to buy a place in Montgomery Village, they just think they're too good for it.

I agree with you but the reason that people want to live in those areas is because of the quality of the schools. That's the uncompleted part of the sentence "affordable housing in the DMV with decent quality schools"

The schools won’t be “good” anymore if the housing is much more affordable. The socioeconomic composition of the schools is the number largest predictor of school performance. Schools cannot change the home environment and school/teacher quality explains less than 10% of the variance in academic performance. Parental background is the most important. This idea that you can magically make low income kids from families with low education have equal outcomes to wealthy families is not based in reality. You might be able to reduce the gap a little bit, but there is no society where these groups have equal outcomes.

I was waiting for it! Keep the poors out of my backyard said explicitly. Never change DCUM, the place where people say the quiet part so loud we keep coming back for more.

It's not the quiet part, out loud. It's just the plain out-loud part. I have heard real people say this in real life, in the context of school boundary changes, with their neighbors in the room.

shhhh, PP doesn't want to be made to feel uncomfortable when faced with cold statistics. feels before reals!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

^^ Despite what a PP said earlier, this really is about everyone wanting to live in Bethesda, CC, Arlington, etc. The people complaining about affordable housing know that they can afford to buy a place in Montgomery Village, they just think they're too good for it.

I agree with you but the reason that people want to live in those areas is because of the quality of the schools. That's the uncompleted part of the sentence "affordable housing in the DMV with decent quality schools"

The schools won’t be “good” anymore if the housing is much more affordable. The socioeconomic composition of the schools is the number largest predictor of school performance. Schools cannot change the home environment and school/teacher quality explains less than 10% of the variance in academic performance. Parental background is the most important. This idea that you can magically make low income kids from families with low education have equal outcomes to wealthy families is not based in reality. You might be able to reduce the gap a little bit, but there is no society where these groups have equal outcomes.

I was waiting for it! Keep the poors out of my backyard said explicitly. Never change DCUM, the place where people say the quiet part so loud we keep coming back for more.

It's not the quiet part, out loud. It's just the plain out-loud part. I have heard real people say this in real life, in the context of school boundary changes, with their neighbors in the room.

shhhh, PP doesn't want to be made to feel uncomfortable when faced with cold statistics. feels before reals!

I'm the PP you're responding to directly, and you're right, I felt very uncomfortable when my neighbors were standing up at boundary-study public meetings, explaining that those kids should have to go to that school over there because if they went to this school over here, it would be bad for our property values and our kids' college prospects. It did not make me feel good about my neighbors who said those things, and I have not forgotten that they said those things..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

^^ Despite what a PP said earlier, this really is about everyone wanting to live in Bethesda, CC, Arlington, etc. The people complaining about affordable housing know that they can afford to buy a place in Montgomery Village, they just think they're too good for it.

I agree with you but the reason that people want to live in those areas is because of the quality of the schools. That's the uncompleted part of the sentence "affordable housing in the DMV with decent quality schools"

It is possible to improve/support any school by putting effort into it as a parent. Being present, fundraising, building community.

No, you joining the PTA does not, and will not magically improve that school. That's not reality.

And yet I helped build a school that way .

DP. You can also volunteer to pay extra taxes to the government to help out if you think it needs more money, but, as Buffet points out, that's not your job. It's the government's job to use whatever funding we end up giving it as a society (yes, I know, we make up the government, too -- separate issue) in a way that provides equal protection to those in the society.

Education is part of that government provision. In Maryland, that is administered at the county level. MCPS, not parents, needs to be providing reasonably equivalent educational services across the county.

Making a school experience better on top of that is something you can try to do as an individual, sure, just like paying extra tax. The thing is that when the educational system allows itself to rely on that for good schools, the only schools where that tends to happen are the ones in areas where people can spend their extra time & disposable income for that purpose. Suggesting to a school community without those resources that they should just pitch in to make their schools better is tantamount to "Let them eat cake!"

So it's not surprising that in a county where the school budget has been kneecapped year after year for a couple of decades that there is increasing demand for areas with "better" schools. Not that this hasn't always been the case, but that it's been exacerbated by the underfunding.

Part of that better has to do with the student population -- well supported at home, etc. -- and it should be the part that really deserves the quotes, as it isn't the school, there, making the difference. Part of it may have to do with the schools, though -- like retained teachers who provide greater stability, attracted by more manageable cohorts, perks from parents, etc. Part of it has to do with that direct support of parents that is much more possible in wealthy areas.

Raise taxes/fund the schools to levels where there aren't great disparities in facility conditions (MCPS has a huge backlog, now) and where location doesn't heavily determine access to class variety, robustness of supports vs. need or availability of extracurriculars. Sure, you'd be left with performance differences (and some peer influence) based on cohorts with heavy family support in some areas, but there'd be much less concentration of housing demand, and it would undercut the perceived need for the kind of housing that is the current darling of development interests.

Now, of course, you'd still be left with some schools getting the odd Mike and Jean Heatheringfellow Class of 29 Memorial Sundial, but the school system could be providing that reasonable equivalence of education, itself. Meanwhile, there are many other societal benefits associated with broadly available high quality education (lower crime/teen pregnancy rates, increased social mobility, etc.)

Cue the "We already pay those corrupt bandits too much as it is" responses from opportunity hoarders...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree, just a bunch of woke liberals trying to shatter the “American Dream” of single family home ownership. Trying to cast it as “racist” and a product of some imaginary “privilege”.

Work, save, buy a condo or townhome as a starter, build equity, move on to a single family home. People have done it for years.

This is the "boomer" response whether one is a boomer or not. 2024 MoCo is not the same as even 2004 MoCo, let alone 1974. Housing is less affordable than its ever been and young people start life with more debt than ever before.

We talked stats up-thread, and the median MoCo household has at best a tenuous path to homeownership. The American Dream used to be a broadly shared dream. It now is out of reach for perhaps half of the county's population, and shrinking. If its not yet a crisis, its heading in that direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree, just a bunch of woke liberals trying to shatter the “American Dream” of single family home ownership. Trying to cast it as “racist” and a product of some imaginary “privilege”.

Work, save, buy a condo or townhome as a starter, build equity, move on to a single family home. People have done it for years.

My great-grandparents immigrated to the US just before the Kishinev pogrom in search of the American Dream of ... living in a detached single-family house they owned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree, just a bunch of woke liberals trying to shatter the “American Dream” of single family home ownership. Trying to cast it as “racist” and a product of some imaginary “privilege”.

Work, save, buy a condo or townhome as a starter, build equity, move on to a single family home. People have done it for years.

This is the "boomer" response whether one is a boomer or not. 2024 MoCo is not the same as even 2004 MoCo, let alone 1974. Housing is less affordable than its ever been and young people start life with more debt than ever before.

We talked stats up-thread, and the median MoCo household has at best a tenuous path to homeownership. The American Dream used to be a broadly shared dream. It now is out of reach for perhaps half of the county's population, and shrinking. If its not yet a crisis, its heading in that direction.

So move out of moco. Not hard. You can buy homes in Indiana for under $200k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

^^ Despite what a PP said earlier, this really is about everyone wanting to live in Bethesda, CC, Arlington, etc. The people complaining about affordable housing know that they can afford to buy a place in Montgomery Village, they just think they're too good for it.

I agree with you but the reason that people want to live in those areas is because of the quality of the schools. That's the uncompleted part of the sentence "affordable housing in the DMV with decent quality schools"

The schools won’t be “good” anymore if the housing is much more affordable. The socioeconomic composition of the schools is the number largest predictor of school performance. Schools cannot change the home environment and school/teacher quality explains less than 10% of the variance in academic performance. Parental background is the most important. This idea that you can magically make low income kids from families with low education have equal outcomes to wealthy families is not based in reality. You might be able to reduce the gap a little bit, but there is no society where these groups have equal outcomes.

I was waiting for it! Keep the poors out of my backyard said explicitly. Never change DCUM, the place where people say the quiet part so loud we keep coming back for more.

It's not the quiet part, out loud. It's just the plain out-loud part. I have heard real people say this in real life, in the context of school boundary changes, with their neighbors in the room.

shhhh, PP doesn't want to be made to feel uncomfortable when faced with cold statistics. feels before reals!

I'm the PP you're responding to directly, and you're right, I felt very uncomfortable when my neighbors were standing up at boundary-study public meetings, explaining that those kids should have to go to that school over there because if they went to this school over here, it would be bad for our property values and our kids' college prospects. It did not make me feel good about my neighbors who said those things, and I have not forgotten that they said those things..

Were they wrong?