Cities with No Children
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Anonymous
I brought it up first, in an aside to indicate that culture can change to make raising a family in an apt more acceptable. I am quite familiar with NYC. I grew up there, in a condo. Family of four, we were happy, it was delightful. I have friends who still live there, one is a family who raised two kids in a condo on the UES. I go back there often, and see plenty of kids from the UWS to Park Slope to Boro Park. We lived with our child for a time in an apt in NoVa. I know of people who raised kids in apts in Boston and I am pretty sure people do in the Bay Area and other US cities, and of course its even more common and accepted in europe. I did NOT mean to say anything about 30 stories vs 6 stories, nor to suggest that DC would every look like Manhattan. Apparently I have triggered something in you, because while there is no policy question that we appear to have an issue with, you don't seem capable of letting this go. Of course many people prefer to raise kids in houses, even in places where it is more acceptable to raise them in multifamily. And if you have had a bad experience raising kids in multifamily, I am sorry for you. But I am not suggesting EVERYONE do that, merely suggesting that IF having kids in DC is going remain an option in DC, for significant numbers of families, it will need to become more socially acceptable to do so. That is all. Nothing more than that. Sorry that the suggestion that some non-trivial number of people could have good lives raising kids in multifamily is so triggering for you. |
Anonymous
There are plenty of shady folks in all kinds of businesses (and guess what, in govt too!) If you want more building code enforcement, go ahead and lobby for it. Banning new developments, because we don't have good enough code enforcement would be like banning cars because we don't have good enough traffic enforcement. |
Anonymous
I'm not sure I'd even call many of these people developers because they're amateurs who see flipping houses as get rich quick scheme. |
Anonymous
I'm sorry you can't afford to live in the very best neighborhoods. It is a tragedy. |
Anonymous
This is such a basic free-market argument, but when you make it, people yell "Socialism!" It's weird. |
Anonymous
Sounds good to me. |
Anonymous
I remember when DuPont Circle was a sketchy neighborhood. I remember when no one walked down 14th street at night except for prostitutes. I remember when cabs wouldn't take you to Petworth. No one wants to live in "bad neighborhoods" until they become "good neighborhoods" and then suddenly everyone wants to live in the same place, in the place they previously turned their nose up at. |
Anonymous
Do, can all you GGE advocates get over to Arlington and point out to the county planners that the sector plans for EFC (on a Metro) and the upcoming Lee Hwy sector plan need to include a lot more density? Those areas need to be rezoned to allow for things other than SFHs. It’s garbage that the Pike corridor is zoned for so much multi family housing with low parking minimums when we’re not on or near enough to Metro and the Streetcar got cancelled. Buses aren’t going to cut it for the amount of density planned. And telling the rest of the county they can “help” affordability with a handful of ADUs is ridiculous. Upzone the transit corridors first. Then, if that isn’t enough, look at ADUs. Unless Arlington is just trying to further the residential segregation we inherited from Jim Crow. |
Anonymous
Sorry for the typos, GGW folks. |
Anonymous
Hire an inspector. A lot of this new construction is really shoddy. |
Anonymous
So, why didn't you buy in Dupont then? It used to be dirt cheap, you could have made an investment and cashed out big today. I guess it wasn't desirable then, it was scary, it was a risk, so you didn't want it, and now you cannot afford to live there and want some big daddy come in and build highrises all over to make it dirt cheap for you, so that you can take advantage of all the improvements without taking any risk like early investors or working on building wealth like new buyers who can afford it. |
Anonymous
If you consider human nature, then it only will become "socially acceptable" when the alternatives to apartment living become exorbitant enough that it's not affordable to anyone but the wealthiest .01%. Until then there will be this economic hardship stigma attached to families choosing to live in apartments when supply of private homes exists in abundance, because for majority of people it's more desirable to raise a family. Huge luxury apartments in nice neighborhoods are the only exception, but they are not economically plausible like SFHs and are indeed luxury, so many families forgo them in favor of private homes in good school districts. |
Anonymous
Truly astonished that it's now considered entitlement to hope that a housing-building company will come and build more housing in an area where people want to live. |
Anonymous
Socialism to them is not about govt intervention in the market (they LIKE govt intervention in the market) Socialism is the notion that it should be easier for people 'inferior' to them - poorer, or younger or just less able to afford what they have for whatever reason - to get what they have. They don't care if what makes it easier is MORE govt intervention, or deregulation. If it lessens the exclusivity of what they have its "socialism". Capitalism to them is not the defense of private property (if it were they would support the right of someone to redevelop their property as they see fit) but the defense of what they see as markers of their status, and thus their virtue. |
Anonymous
As noted, private homes will not "exist in abundance" within a few miles of dowtown DC (say within the diamond of DC, Arlington, east Alexandria) much longer. They won't be as expensive as houses in Manhattan or North Brooklyn - they won't be limited to the wealthies .01%, but perhaps to wealthiest 10%. IME the economic stigma of lviing in an apt has less to do, even now, with the market realities of DC today, than with where and when people grew up. People who moved here from lower cost metro areas, or who grew up around here a long time ago, when RE was cheaper still have that stigma, and will commute VERY far to get a detached SFH. People who are younger, or grew up in a higher cost metro, have much less of that. It also depends on who they know - when they actually spend time with families who are like them, but living in apts, they begin to realize its not so terrible. |