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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As pp stated, its not just about “burger flippers”. To function, a healthy and effective society needs teachers, firefighters, EMTs, healthcare workers, sanitation workers, etc. These are not high paying jobs. These employees need somewhere to live. [/quote]

I am a nurse ($128k fwiw). The VAST majority of my fellow nurses live in places like Howard County, Olney, Urbana, Clarksburg, Rockville …. if they’re married with kids and have a 4-bedroom home. The single, no-kids nurses live in DC and Arlington.

I have never once, in 7 years, met another RN in the DMV who just couldn’t afford to live here within 40 minutes of work at a DC/Montgomery County hospital.  In fact, we tend to do pretty well, take vacations, have our kids in travel sports (if married), eat out all the time (the single ones).

Maybe the couples living in a 3000 sq ft newer build house in Olney would prefer to live in NWDC. It doesn’t follow that their dreams have been crushed and they’re living in hardship.

I’ve never understood why RNs and similar are always lumped in with minimum wage workers. [b]But honestly, even they can get a couple of roommates and rent in an older building in a first-ring suburb.  How I know? My son does exactly this with an intern’s $17/hr wage. [/b][/quote]

Yes, families can definitely get a couple of other families and illegally rent in a small older "single-family" house outside the Beltway, or illegally double up with another family in a two-bedroom apartment in a rental complex in Gaithersburg. What is this evidence of? It's evidence of a housing shortage. Plus, at least on line, the same posters who oppose pro-housing policies, such as zoning changes, also demand stricter code enforcement against these types of illegal housing arrangements.

https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/maryland/montgomery-county/12-people-displaced-after-house-fire-in-wheaton-glenmont/

[/quote]

You didn’t reject my actual datapoints offered about “healthcare workers” making $100k +/- somehow finding a safe place to live. Within 40 minutes of their hospital.

Re: the doubling up “families” …. It’s fine if 4 unrelated men rent a 1+ bed w den in gaithersburg.   Also fine if person, spouse, unrelated adult does the same.

Is there no room for these ^^^ people’s children in the same apartment? I have a solution!! 1.  Don’t have more kids until your financial circumstances change. 2.  Move to a different US city with unskilled jobs in an agriculture heavy state where housing is cheaper. 3.  Move back to the place you just moved *from*.  Ahem[/quote]

"Don't have had children" is not actually a solution, housing or otherwise.

You didn't offer data points, you offered anecdata, but I don't really care, plus I think it would be good if people could live closer to their work than a 40-minute drive.[/quote]

And now we know you don’t actually live in the DMV because if you did, you would know what the actual commute times are here. 40 mins  door to door is -good-  it’s only in urban planning 201 where you get the idea that a <40 minute commute is achievable in a metropolitan area of six or 7 million people. It’s called theoretical for a reason, and I know it’s a fun thesis for you, but it doesn’t work in reality, and never has

The only way to statistically shorten the average commute times in this metropolitan area would be to build Manhattan skyscrapers, which I suspect you also learned in your urban planning undergrad class and in your current internship.  And even then, you wouldn’t get it much under 40 if you look at the median, not mean, commute times  for Manhattan and Tokyo.  Which is dense as it gets in the real world and not your internship.

And you’re not accounting, as a young 20 something, for the preference of the actual homeowner.  a sizable majority of homeowners and even renters prefer outdoor space of their own. I.e. a yard. To get that in any urban area, the trade-off is commute time.

Building thousands of craptastik skimpy micro Apartments in Navy yard is not going to entice a family of four that wants to put in their own swingset and a fenced yard for their dogs. [/quote]

Thank you. This over development needs to stop. I'm looking at you Upton Place pop up hotel.[/quote]

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