# On "antiwork" and necessary labor **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 29, 2022, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671 "2022-04-29T12:41:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/141 "2022-05-13T15:57:30Z")
I’m familiar with “New Urbanism” and would even go so far to say that the city where I currently live on the Jersey side of the Hudson River has adopted many New Urbanist concepts - mixed commercial / residential zoning, walkability, access to public transportation. I really enjoy the combination of being able to walk everywhere while having plenty of parks and green space for my kids to play in. The challenge with New Urbanism, as I see it, is that I’m not sure it scales larger than, say, Hoboken NJ. A walkable city of mixed-use medium-density zoning about one square mile. Scale multiple Hobokens together and now you basically have the East and West Villages in Manhattan just over the river. Which works fine by the way and New York City does incorporate a lot of those mixed-zoning and public transportation concepts. Mostly what I see is that New Urbanism seems to create “enclaves”. Here in Hudson County, you have New Urbanist neighborhoods like Hoboken, Newport-Pavonia, Paulus Hook and Port Liberte in Jersey City, City Place in Edgewater and some others. They are very nice and almost “campus-like”. But they tend to be surrounded and hemmed in by industrial zones, sprawl, or low-value urban neighborhoods. So these New Urbanist neighborhoods seem to become either luxury gated communities in low income areas or affordable housing in high end suburban neighborhoods. Also New Urbanism doesn’t solve the main problem that causes people to buy suburban homes in the first place. As much as I live city living, we don’t have any freakin’ space! I have no place for storage. No place for hobbies. My kids have to share a bedroom. Three and four bedrooms within public transportation distance of Manhattan are exorbitantly expensive. And as most people don’t have cars in those areas, you are effectively trapped there. So let’s not pretend people are out of their mind for not wanting to raise a family in a 1,100 sq ft condo above an Au Bon Pain. But the reality is, cities already exist as they are. Exapno\_Mapcase’s mad plan for urban renewal not withstanding, we aren’t going to tear down all our cities and suburbs and completely restructure them ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/142 "2022-05-13T16:07:23Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m talking about reading articles on New Urbanism, which is a city planning movement that seems to be driven more by ideology than market forces. I would disagree with that. Not everyone wants a big house with a yard and the subsequent sprawl that goes with it. Particularly if you are young, single, and/or childless. And not everyone wants to move to New York, Boston, Seattle or some other city. When people talk about “affordable housing” I think they think they usually mean “poor unskilled people”. But it could also include a new school teacher or really people in any other profession that doesn’t command “Manhattan corporate salaries”. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/143 "2022-05-13T17:59:53Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > it requires a lot of money and political will to generate public housing in New York, Chicago, or wherever you live. It is crazy corrupt if the city is buying “tony properties”. I live out in the suburbs. The town is pressured to buy up vacant land from private owners to prevent it from being subdivided into housing lots. State law restricts the ability of municipalities to block housing development especially “affordable” housing. The last thing these rich folks want is 30 acres of farmland being converted into 75 tract homes or even 30 McMansions. They want the town to buy it and then maintain it as parkland for their convenient use. These are the same people who rail against the town providing space rent free for the non-profit Food Pantry to operate out of. Because THATS SOCIALISM! ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/144 "2022-05-13T19:44:32Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > They are very nice and almost “campus-like”. But they tend to be surrounded and hemmed in by industrial zones, sprawl, or low-value urban neighborhoods. That’s probably the biggest sticking point for me. Those kinds of neighborhoods are usually supported by lower wage people coming in to work at those stores and restaurants and so on, rather than the residents occupying those niches. And those workers have to live somewhere (read: not a similar sort of enclave) they can afford, which tend to be urban nightmare or out in the suburban sticks. Basically it all rolls downhill. ETA: a lot of the Houston suburbs have these new urbanist centers and this is exactly what I see. The residents work elsewhere but have these nice little walkable town center areas staffed by other, lower wage people commuting in from elsewhere in the sprawl. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/145 "2022-05-13T19:52:45Z")
I don’t know the dollar values involved, but I know someone who bought a condo in Hoboken because it was presumably cheaper than buying an apartment in downtown Manhattan, where they work. But it’s fine because there is a PATH train. ETA I am sure it would have been a bit more of a problem if they could not afford Hoboken, either. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/146 "2022-05-13T19:52:47Z")
The small town often is both these days. The middle-class townhouses and garden apartments all in walking/biking distance. The garden apartments being more for the retail workers. Additionally, in the rarer older town, you still get the classic ground floor store with apartments above. These towns are probably one of the best mixes, but they still lose the most of the families with school age kids to the suburban sprawl which usually have superior school systems. My town’s school system is improving and that is great. We now have some 3 bedroom townhouses going up starting at over $600,000. When these DINKs have kids, maybe our schools will be good enough by then that they won’t either move or send their kids to private schools. * * * Hoboken is pretty awesome and a lot cheaper than Manhattan. You’ve got the PATH and a really nice Ferry. But not compared to Manhattan, Hoboken is very expensive now. 30 years ago when my wife to be lived there it was getting pricey. Now it is very pricey. Figure a 2 bedroom, 2 bath will run at least $500k and it goes up quick. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/147 "2022-05-13T20:00:27Z")
If they’re like the examples I’m familiar with then I barely think of them as neighborhoods. They’re a step in the right direction in that they have mixed-use zoning with residential, office, and retail, but there’s like, no schools. Or community centers. The basic services (groceries, doctors/dentists, banks, drug stores, etc) are hit or miss – maybe there’s a Whole Foods or a CVS in one of the retail spaces but the ratio of bars to useful things is way out of whack. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/148 "2022-05-13T20:09:44Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > At least I’m every town I have lived in, it is the Republicans who are opposed to liberalizing zoning restrictions. Heck they are always pressing the town to BUY up land around their tony properties and “preserve” it. They seem to see no irony in this as they hammer away at health and safety regulations, employee rights, etc as government overreach. Much as I hate to defend Republicans, I think it is more home owners fearing a reduction in property values if more people move in, as well as an increase in traffic. My town has hardly a Republican to its name, but I went to a HOA meeting and people were mad at the state mandating that height restrictions on new housing near transit centers (which at one point might have included bus stops) be relaxed. > [@msmith537](#): > > When people talk about “affordable housing” I think they think they usually mean “poor unskilled people”. But it could also include a new school teacher or really people in any other profession that doesn’t command “Manhattan corporate salaries”. Here it includes cops. There are tons of openings for cops and city workers because they can’t afford to live anywhere near our town. And the town pays decently also. The budget it there, the people aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/149 "2022-05-13T20:43:20Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > My town has hardly a Republican to its name, Chris Christie called my town a bunch of communists on the radio, and he’s not entirely wrong. We also have plenty, plenty, plenty of people beyond pissed that apartment buildings are being proposed, because they don’t want the town to “change”. They’ll be the champion of ‘low income’ housing, be against gentrification but not realize that adding supply to the local market will slow down the rate of gentrification. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/150 "2022-05-13T20:56:42Z")
And in fairness to New Jerseyans, we are the most densely populated state and yet keep increasing at a pretty good clip. Our roads, especially in North East Jersey are overwhelmed and there is no place to build more. The growth rate is significantly higher than NY State or Pennsylvania. Our primary neighbors. We have one of the highest tax rates in the country to try and maintain having one of the best school systems in the US. Apartments do equal a burden of the town as NJ like most of the US relies on township funding for much of the school budget. ---
**Author:** ![Ranch\_Dip](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranch_dip/32/5238_2.png) [@Ranch\_Dip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranch_Dip)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/151 "2022-05-13T21:49:07Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > that’s the single biggest driver behind climate change. A quick google shows that is not true. It is emissions caused by burning fossil fuels. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/152 "2022-05-13T21:56:35Z")
But we burn those fossil fuels at crazy rates as our population keeps going up. Most economies are sadly built around growing population. But the earth would be far better if population was decreasing. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/153 "2022-05-14T03:11:40Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > If they’re like the examples I’m familiar with then I barely think of them as neighborhoods. They’re a step in the right direction in that they have mixed-use zoning with residential, office, and retail, but there’s like, no schools. Or community centers. The basic services (groceries, doctors/dentists, banks, drug stores, etc) are hit or miss – maybe there’s a Whole Foods or a CVS in one of the retail spaces but the ratio of bars to useful things is way out of whack. Hoboken does have a lot of bars. But it also has schools, plenty of grocery stores, banks, drug stores, coffee shops, etc. I happen to have a car now, but for years I lived there just fine without really ever having to leave town to get most things. But that’s atypical. As I drive up the river to Weehawken or Edgewater, I tend to see what are really “mixed use shopping malls” that sound closer to what you describe. Lincoln Harbor in Weehawken for example or City Place in Edgewater. Some “luxury” condos next to maybe a high-end steakhouse (Ruths Chris in Lincoln Harbor, Flemmings in City Place), some retail stores. Lincoln Harbor has a UBS (investment bank) office. But as I said - they are little enclaves. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/154 "2022-05-14T03:20:20Z")
Just to get back on topic of “antiwork”. Every Friday I sit in on a “leadership call” at my firm. Sort of a “state of the union” call, so to speak. I don’t dislike my job, but whenever I hear our leadership speak, it does make me question it. For example, today our head of HR was complaining how we’ve had a number of people quit and just tell their project manager, but it never made its way to HR. Sometimes they catch it in time. Other times, they have to figure out how to claw back several weeks of pay they’ve made after the person has left the company. It really took all of my will power to not post “so did you fix the glitch?” to my companies executive leadership team. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/155 "2022-05-14T06:22:21Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Every Friday I sit in on a “leadership call” at my firm. Sort of a “state of the union” call, so to speak. I don’t dislike my job, but whenever I hear our leadership speak, it does make me question it. Oracle, before I left it, had no downward communication, and they killed the all hands meetings that were a part of the Sun tradition. Maybe this is the case of having no meetings and guessing your top management are idiots or having meetings and proving it. When people complained that workers doing good things were never recognized, and no one was ever given a spotlight, HR said we’re on it - and published a few spotlights for HR people. (On command from on high, I’m sure. Not blaming HR.) The only downward communication I remember is when the CEO of HP got fired for lying on his expense reports - and Larry said HP was stupid and hired him immediately. Then we got a memo saying, “umm, by the way, you shouldn’t falsify your expense reports.” Then they wondered why people came late and left early. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/156 "2022-05-14T11:30:04Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Wages/salaries haven’t kept pace with inflation and prices in general, giving nearly everyone a de-facto pay cut over time, even though they may actually make more money than they used to. While things got weird in 2020, both real (CPI-U-RS) median household and individual income were the highest they’d ever been pre-pandemic. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/157 "2022-05-16T00:36:58Z")
[For most Americans, real wages have barely budged for decades | Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/) That’s what I’m talking about; the actual _numbers_ of what people get paid aren’t really relevant. For example, if someone made say… 75k in 2008, they’d have to be making $100k now just to have the same buying power. So of course they’re making more money, but everything else has become more expensive as well. ---
**Author:** ![Ranch\_Dip](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranch_dip/32/5238_2.png) [@Ranch\_Dip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranch_Dip)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/158 "2022-05-16T19:20:06Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > But we burn those fossil fuels at crazy rates as our population keeps going up. > > Most economies are sadly built around growing population. But the earth would be far better if population was decreasing. Again, a quick google shows that fertility rates globally are dropping. A better answer to burning of fossil fuels is to really start developing and using alternatives. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/159 "2022-05-16T21:37:11Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > > [@msmith537](#): > > > > Someone that gung ho isn’t going to stay. They are going to leverage whatever promotion they get into a better job at a better company. Or if they were REALLY gung ho, they’d start their own company. > > I’m not sure it is gung ho - I think it is more fear. In usual times people worry about getting laid off, and they feel that not vanishing for paternity leave will not make them candidates for getting fired. And for good reason. I’ve been in a performance review meeting where a guy who left on time - not early - to be part of a carpool got screwed. That was exactly the moment when I decided I was leaving that company. > I expect the fear is much diminished now. Just out of curiosity, was this company you described generally considered a “good place to work” in the industry (like a Google for example)? How did the company’s external reputation (assuming it had one) compare to the reality? I’ve worked with a lot of companies (both as an employee and as a consultant). I always find it interesting about how or whether various interested parties consider a place a “great place to work”. But the situation you describe is why a good portion of Americans hate their jobs. Capricious management combined with a lack of any sort of transparency into how their performance is actually evaluated. It’s like the Chachkies manager in Office Space. How many pieces of flair am I required to wear? What time can I actually go home for the day? How many hours am I actually expected to work? What are my actual sales targets? What is my actual job description? The answer is usually “more”. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2022, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671/160 "2022-05-17T01:32:05Z")
> [@bump](#): > > That’s what I’m talking about; the actual _numbers_ of what people get paid aren’t really relevant. > > For example, if someone made say… 75k in 2008, they’d have to be making $100k now just to have the same buying power. So of course they’re making more money, but everything else has become more expensive as well. That’s what “[real](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_versus_nominal_value_(economics))” means. Pew doesn’t say but they appear to be adjusting with the older, more aggressive CPI-U rather than CPI-U-RS, and definitely not PCE. They are using data from BLS’ CES, not Census’ CPS. So the fraction of excluded workers (sole proprietors, workers in private households, agricultural workers, etc.) changes over time. Leave the farm for a higher-paying retail job? You’ve just brought the average down with your higher income. And that particular dataset excludes bonuses and commissions. So as I wrote, both real (CPI-U-RS) median personal and household income increased. E.g.: > **[Real Median Personal Income in the United States](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N)** > > Real Median Personal Income in the United States > **[Real Median Household Income in the United States](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N)** > > Real Median Household Income in the United States Both the median person and household had more income in 2019 than had ever been measured. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-antiwork-and-necessary-labor/963671.md?page=9)