Opinion | America’s Cities Are Unlivable. Blame Wealthy Liberals. - The New York Times

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

There's a post like this on the travel forum. Poster is concerned about the "warming crisis" even yet has 3 kids and travels by plane 4 times a year. I bet they live in a big air conditioned house too.

I have 1 kid, an apartment with a window unit (we close off the other rooms when it's unbearably hot), and never fly anywhere. Do I get to be concerned? Also, yes certainly our lifestyles make a difference, but it's really willfully ignorant to act like a) our infrastructure systems don't shape those lifestyles, it's 100% personal choice in a completely free world and b) virtuous individual behavior is enough to solve the problem. It's absolutely not.

Nevertheless it's hypocritical to say you care about global warming then choose to have 3 kids and travel by plane more than a couple times a year. This lady's carbon footprint is immense.

But if you don't have 3 kids, we can't maintain the minimum social security nets, let alone the additional ones, everyone is supposedly clamoring for.

Of course you can. We can start letting in, gasp horror, more immigrants.

[Anonymous]

...yet no mention of the fact that most of those on DCUM call any place west of the DMV, and east of California "fly over country".

It's THAT exact attitude that's feeding the issue.

[Anonymous]

^^^^

White wealthy liberals think the Midwest are all farmers and coal minors who do nothing all day long, despite the fact that those Midwest folks are often friendly, educated, and will give you their shirt off their back to help you out

But White liberals here get mad when their neighborhood has anything to do with low-income housing moving in, or if poor immigrants are sent to their school district. And if you need help with anything, they'll laugh and scoff in their face.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I do remember the elite Upper West Side NYC public schools brouhaha over the 25% low test scoring students set asides. It's funny but I can't seem to find any follow up articles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The US needs to simply spread out more. We have a HUGE country full of livable land, but we keep concentrating more and more people and jobs in the same locations.

I get it - who wants to move to *gasp* the mid-west, because there is nothing to do! It's a chicken/egg problem. People don't move to open areas of the country because there is nothing there so companies don't move there because talent is too hard to attract. But if companies don't move there, nothing gets developed that'd entice people to move.

Maybe there should be plans in place for a Marshall Plan for our own country. Develop huge swaths of the mid-West and South to attract more investment and development. Spread the wealth and population out more evenly throughout the country.

Given the pushback from feds who refuse to leave the DC bubble....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The US needs to simply spread out more. We have a HUGE country full of livable land, but we keep concentrating more and more people and jobs in the same locations.

I get it - who wants to move to *gasp* the mid-west, because there is nothing to do! It's a chicken/egg problem. People don't move to open areas of the country because there is nothing there so companies don't move there because talent is too hard to attract. But if companies don't move there, nothing gets developed that'd entice people to move.

Maybe there should be plans in place for a Marshall Plan for our own country. Develop huge swaths of the mid-West and South to attract more investment and development. Spread the wealth and population out more evenly throughout the country.

Given the pushback from feds who refuse to leave the DC bubble....

It’s about jobs. Especially two income families. Sure I’ll move to Nebraska if you guarantee my job for life and pay enough that I can buy a house and fund college and retirement and not have my wife work she won’t find a job.

People learned he lesson of factory towns — how precarious they are now when there is no job stability. A city has a diversity of jobs as a built in insurance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article isn’t about spreading around the wealth to smaller cities. It’s about seemingly “liberal” people routinely blocking proposals to change zoning laws to allow affordable housing - which brings the diversity they tell everyone they love - to their own neighborhoods.

This is why you shouldn’t judge rich liberals by what they say, but what they do. There are a lot of people out here calling Trump a racist that spend millions of dollars to live in rich, mostly white enclaves and do everything they can to keep their DCs away from schools with large populations of minority, low SES kids. They claim to love diversity, but do everything to avoid and fight it in their own lives.

Correction: they love the *right* kind of diversity. Obama as your neighbor? Fabulous. Working class white family that goes hunting on the weekend? Oh, god no!

We keep getting these posters claiming that they can't move to smaller cities because of jobs and I'm always puzzled because most smaller American cities are doing just fine. Jobs isn't the point of the article. It's really about a handful of certain cities becoming unaffordable, and yep, it's because it's very difficult to build large scale new housing to keep up with the demand, and a large part of that is due to NIMBYISM. IF DC was allowed to achieve the density of New York, it'd become a lot more affordable. But try demolishing blocks of historic rowhouses for tower blocks you only get angry screeches and protests.

What are you talking about. Investors are buying up the rowhouses in DC and turning each one into condos. So, where one family used to share a four-level rowhouse, each floor has been converted to two and three bedroom condos. Thereby making the one-family unit into four separate families. So you’re wrong. Dad is becoming too densely populated in some areas. Some areas of the city are unrecognizable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Article is spot on - democrat

+1. We just went through this is our DC neighborhood--a few outspoken neighbors blocked new development, saying a mid-sized apt. bldg was "out of character" would increase traffic etc. It got nixed after dragging out for several years.

Where in DC? They are throwing up apartment buildings all over the city, except perhaps west of the park in upper upper northwest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Article is spot on - democrat

+1. We just went through this is our DC neighborhood--a few outspoken neighbors blocked new development, saying a mid-sized apt. bldg was "out of character" would increase traffic etc. It got nixed after dragging out for several years.

Where in DC? They are throwing up apartment buildings all over the city, except perhaps west of the park in upper upper northwest.

Definitely WTOP.

I'm not sure why people move to a neighborhood and expect it to change?

I wouldn't move to Georgetown and expect the ANC to improve a 46,000 sqft new retail development. Ever.

I wouldn't move to UpperNW and expect anything but suburban tracts of small houses and smaller yards.

I wouldn't move to Columbia Heights and expect the 400-unit housing project to disappear.

You move to a community with your eyes open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Article is spot on - democrat

+1. We just went through this is our DC neighborhood--a few outspoken neighbors blocked new development, saying a mid-sized apt. bldg was "out of character" would increase traffic etc. It got nixed after dragging out for several years.

Where in DC? They are throwing up apartment buildings all over the city, except perhaps west of the park in upper upper northwest.

PP. I’m in an EOTP neighborhood of ~95% SFHs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The US needs to simply spread out more. We have a HUGE country full of livable land, but we keep concentrating more and more people and jobs in the same locations.

I get it - who wants to move to *gasp* the mid-west, because there is nothing to do! It's a chicken/egg problem. People don't move to open areas of the country because there is nothing there so companies don't move there because talent is too hard to attract. But if companies don't move there, nothing gets developed that'd entice people to move.

Maybe there should be plans in place for a Marshall Plan for our own country. Develop huge swaths of the mid-West and South to attract more investment and development. Spread the wealth and population out more evenly throughout the country.

Given the pushback from feds who refuse to leave the DC bubble....

It’s about jobs. Especially two income families. Sure I’ll move to Nebraska if you guarantee my job for life and pay enough that I can buy a house and fund college and retirement and not have my wife work she won’t find a job.

People learned he lesson of factory towns — how precarious they are now when there is no job stability. A city has a diversity of jobs as a built in insurance.

Factory towns? Nebraska? Is this for real?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

This

I put very little stock in the ability of DCUM posters to speak on behalf of “normal America.” Too many insecure, status-obsessed types who will latch onto any topic to reveal their own resentments.

The majority of DCUM are transplants originally from southern and midwestern states, so I think they can speak about “normal” America. If that’s what you want to call it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Article is spot on - democrat

+1. We just went through this is our DC neighborhood--a few outspoken neighbors blocked new development, saying a mid-sized apt. bldg was "out of character" would increase traffic etc. It got nixed after dragging out for several years.

Where in DC? They are throwing up apartment buildings all over the city, except perhaps west of the park in upper upper northwest.

PP. I’m in an EOTP neighborhood of ~95% SFHs.

I’m still curious as to which neighborhood? Buildings EotP are being built and houses replaced, or converted to multi-family units.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What are you talking about. Investors are buying up the rowhouses in DC and turning each one into condos. So, where one family used to share a four-level rowhouse, each floor has been converted to two and three bedroom condos. Thereby making the one-family unit into four separate families. So you’re wrong. Dad is becoming too densely populated in some areas. Some areas of the city are unrecognizable

And each of those condos cost as much or more than the original row house. This kind of density is not helpful. It's the textbook definition of gentrification. Which once was a home suitable for housing a family with children is now three or four shoddily flipped apartments suitable for DINKs or maybe high-earning singles. Families and lower earners are still pushed out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You've touched a nerve OP. Unfortunately this forum is almost uniformly wealthy liberals.

You people are funny. You talk about global warming yet have 3 children in comfortably air conditioned houses. You talk about racial diversity yet only live in the whitest neighborhoods.

Most of normal America hates you

This

I put very little stock in the ability of DCUM posters to speak on behalf of “normal America.” Too many insecure, status-obsessed types who will latch onto any topic to reveal their own resentments.

The majority of DCUM are transplants originally from southern and midwestern states, so I think they can speak about “normal” America. If that’s what you want to call it.

First of all, you don't know crap about the background of the majority of DCUM posters and, second, those who are transplants from such places aren't necessarily representative of the places they left.

You just want cover for your own grab bag of typical, DC-area insecurities.