I recall visiting places like Key West, which is outrageously expensive and Jackson Hole WY, where employees will stack up in mobile homes (9 people in a double wide with shifts in Key West) or driving for miles to Jackson Hole.
I know some resorts and such in the Keys will provide employee housing but that generally consists of bunk house and that type not really ideal for long term.
The problem with places like NY is an influx of foreign buyers who buy and don’t live full time. (This is also problematic in Florida) or NIMBY syndrome of most of California. Where people love the “liberal” values but don’t extend them to housing.
Also is the fact of things like Rent Stabilization or the fact there is no real incentive to build affordable housing. Even if it is profitable it is still more profitable to build the expensive housing.
I can see in my line of work, this only seems to have gotten worse. I work for an NPO that helps people get off Public Aid and find jobs.
everything about the new arrivals is beige, they even paint their flipped row houses beige and push their beige kids around in little SUV baby carriages. I miss when my neighbor up the street cut hair on his front porch and when no one really cared about their lawns.
Lower-wage workers are needed, and do survive, in such places. I think the three main ways have all been touched on in this thread:
– they commute from far away
– they live in very tiny dwellings
– they live many to a dwelling, either in large family settings, or with roommates.
When I first came to the San Francisco area, which is notoriously expensive, I lived with roommates for ten years before I could afford a place of my own.
I think mostly they commute, some probably live closer in, but packed in. There are all kinds of illegal boarding houses that just cram renters in with little regard to code violations or safety.
It has been fifteen years since I have visited Silicon Valley, but back then it appeared that this had already happened. I visited several local restaurants who had signs near the entrance saying that because there was no way to hire kitchen help (I assume there was someone cooking), customers were asked to take (nice quality) paper plates and plastic utensils to their tables. The restaurants and hotels seemed to operate normally, but there simply wasn’t any staff around except for the key positions. I was told by the local employees that it was typical for the area-no one could live within access distance and work at less than a high-end job. The grass was cut on the roads, things were maintained, but it seemed like there wasn’t anyone around doing the work! It was a strange experience.
Back when a modest house in the town (Walnut Creek, CA) could be had for $600K, I saw a “Help
Wanted” sign on an upscale burger joint:
Line Cook $8/hr
Shift Manager $10/hr
I don’t know how/where the workers lived.
SF has/had an old industrial section south of the SP rail tracks.
That area is now becoming condo towers for the young, white elite.
There used to be a planning commission in SF which controlled building density. Apparently, it can be bought - a 60-story tower just went up.
A local Prop to require a popular vote on such things passed.
A sad footnote to the rapid change: the shooting of the young woman at Pier 60.
10 years ago, pier 60 was a place that made cabbies nervous.
That shiny new condo does not change the neighborhood all that rapidly.
Aspen and Vail Colorado. Oddly while they might look like some sort of Disneyland they are actually functioning towns with schools, parks, and all that.
BUT super expensive so much I hear even doctors need assisted housing. Also the school teachers get housing assistance. The resorts have their own housing for their workers.
Talking to locals they bus in alot of the workers and some of the younger ones will live 8 to an apartment.
Sydney and Melbourne in Australia now have one of the highest costs of housing in the world, with an average housing price of > 700k for a very average house in an average suburb. Average earners have no way of affording such properties, even at entry level, so they rent. Fortunately in Aus, prices for commodities don’t change much regardless of where you live…so whilst your rent might be higher in a select area, your food, utilities and gas prices will remain much the same.
If you don’t have roommates/housemates you live further away from the city and commute.
The problem with that is, as more people are priced out of the greater city area, the further out they’re going to move in order to afford anything…the further out they move, the more tenuous the commute. Some people will want to quit their job in the city as a result and get a job closer to home. Chances are the job closer to home isn’t going to pay anywhere near what the city job pays, so you’re going to have to work a couple of jobs just to keep yourself above water. You’re already used to this because you had to do it when you lived closer to the city. There is no rest for the weary
But: Back in the early 80’s, when the housing prices really took off, there was a very curious development in the South Bay (SF) somewhere - 400 sq ft* “houses” with foundation pads and structures that could be “easily added to when the buyer can afford to do so”.
I wish I had made note of the place - I’d like to see how that worked out.
If building huge condo towers could lower the price, they might be acceptable. But they still are not “affordable” - even the mandated-by-law “affordable units”.
Low-income families used to be able to get “Section 8” vouchers for rental units - the landlord accepted lower rents in return for the government guaranteeing payment.
I don’t think there is a county in CA with more than 300,000 population which even still accepts applications for Section 8 Housing.
So cities are requiring large developments to set aside X number of units to sell at city-specified prices. Buyers are selected by lottery in the areas I have heard of.
size of a small 2-car garage. A very modest 2-bedrrom house is 900 sq ft.
A couple can do fairly well in these places. Even a couple with a small child.
Its the mum, dad and two kids who decide to move to a house in a suburb with a yard and good schools nearby.
An interesting anecdote is a friend of mine who lived in NYC. He was one of those annoying big city types who lived in apartment the size of a broom closet but loved it because he only had to sleep there and wow he loved the"diversity and getting Pizza at 4 am in the morning".
He moved to North Dakota for a year for job purposes. He lived in a three bedroom house while there and on his return could not stand the thought of returning to small apartments. Moved to Long Island.
(Ironically the place he lived in N Dakota is now suffering a housing shortage or so he told me, the house he lived un alone now houses 5/6 people who each pay more then he did)
I’m puzzled when families started needing so much space. Me, my three siblings, and two guardians lived in a 1200 sq. ft. home back in the 70s and 80s, and it had 4br/1ba. My brother (divorced, one 32-year old child with his own place) was recently going on about how he needs a minimum of 2500 sq. ft. on a double lot to live by himself; he was scoffing at my “tiny” 3br/1ba place, about 1000 sq. ft. for one person. The same size place, btw, that my grandparents raised 10 children in.
It’s just how you are. Some people like my wife and I, have alot of hobbies so we have alot of stuff. Also I’ll admit we are a bit of packrats and could easily get rid of half of our stuff or more.
Even so. It was my grandparent’s house and they had the Depression-era “everything must be worth something” attitude that meant nothing was ever ditched. We moved in in 1973 and to this day my sister lives there now), no car has ever been in the garage because it’s full of crap. The tin roof rusted (love shack reference) thru about a decade ago, so that old useless crap is now rusty, musty, water-logged crap. And then there’s the basement. Even so, everyone fit fine.
I’ve got my hobbies - I’m currently looking at my 4th motorcycle - but I’m not big on just keeping stuff around hoping I’ll use it again. My only space eating monster was books and getting a Kindle stalled the physical volumes at a thousand, luckily.
My city has quite a few little houses–less than 900 sq ft. And they are all old. 1920-1930s. I don’t think they were built just for spinsters. I’m guessing quite a few families were crammed up in these places. Multiple kids and grandparents too.
But. Those were also the days when kids were not couch potatoes and were not expected to spend hours every night studying for AP exams. Kids went out and played (and worked). And the adults were also out there working long hours–10, 12 hours. There was no TV to watch. No computers to be addicted to. You came home, ate supper, sat on the porch for a spell, and then went to bed. Home was literally where you laid your head. People who lived in those small quarters had hobbies like pie-baking and sweater-knitting. Consumables, not collecter’s items.
So while, I think people can survive in small dwellings, I don’t think simply surviving is what we should be aspiring towards. If folks are going to be raising children in small dwellings, then society needs to make sure that there are safe playgrounds and green places for them. I once watched a documentary about kids growing up in extended-stay hotels. None of those kids were happy, and I don’t think it was just because they were poor. It was also because they were pinned up all the time.
In NYC (and maybe other places too), all city workers are required by law to live in the city. A lot of them lived on Rockaway (only 1 1/2 hours to Manhattan on the A train), but that got washed away by Sandy. I guess some live in the far reaches of Queens or The Bronx, but it is really hard.
Years ago, the artist types live in lower Manhattan, lower east side and the village. Rents got to high and they moved to Brooklyn. Now Brooklyn is getting yuppified and a few at least have decamped to… (gasp)… Philadelphia. Which has lost 1/4 of its population since 1950 and has lots of cheap housing. Not Detroit, at least not yet.
Here’s a Slate article about the situation in one area of Silicon Valley and how the housing prices affect teachers, who are generally thought of as middle class.
I like one option for them that’s been given: marry a high earning techie.:dubious:
