> not understanding that nowadays it is impossible to own a home unless you inherit one.
My barber, who neither went to college nor inherited anything, lives on a 10-acre property with his wife (who works as a teacher) and two children. His secret? The home is a mobile home (they're saving up to build a real house), and he's in a low COL area with reasonable home prices, with the only real disadvantage being that the rest of the country thinks it's in a "shithole state".
Your statement, properly amended, is as follows: it's impossible to own a home in a highly desirable, relatively low-density area, with many high income earners and lots of inbound migration both internal and external, unless you inherit one. Which of course makes perfect sense, and there's nothing wrong with that picture.
I don't think that's a completely fair assessment. Often people don't want to live in "shithole states" because those states discriminate against them.
There's really not as much discrimination as people imagine. I'm a visibly nonwhite ethnic minority who moved from a major coastal metropolis to a small city in a Deep South state; so deep and far south that my friends in my old city were shocked that I would voluntarily move there.
It's actually pretty funny. My old neighborhood was one of those with places with Black Lives Matter signs on every other lawn but approximately zero actual black people living there. Here, there are approximately zero Black Lives Matter signs, but a lot more actual diversity on the ground, with people of different races rubbing shoulders as neighbors, friends, and lovers. There's openly gay people. Everyone minds their own business, for the most part.
Of course, every place has its ups and downs, and there are legitimate downsides to living in a place like this. The restaurant scene is definitely not as good, although I'm sure some of that is due to just the size difference of the cities. But that brings me back to my original point, which is that you can't have your cake (big-city amenities, nice climate, majority politics you agree with) and eat it (houses you can afford right out of the gate as a new participant in the economy), too.
It would be worth their while for "kids these days" to examine whether they'd rather be tutted at and get a cold shoulder every now and then[0] for being a lesbian with purple hair or whatever while having the opportunity to buy a home and make an independent life for themselves, versus having their identity "affirmed" in a place where an actual ownership stake in that society is forever out of reach. I'm not saying there's a right answer here; all I'm saying that it's worth everyone asking that question of themselves.
[0]: And in my experience, it's at most every now and then. The difference in the sociopolitical attitudes between, say, Oregon and Mississippi, is basically just 48% one way and 52% the other, just flipped around. The number of people with similarities are much, much greater than the differences.
> So he lives in a thing that is freezing cold in winter and exceedingly hot in summer?
> That's not going to work in several areas of the world.
Trust me, this part of the world gets plenty hot in the summer, yet people make do in mobile homes. At least people here are given the choice to suffer through a hot summer in a home they own.
You can set building codes to be arbitrarily high such that nobody will ever suffer the indignity of straying from a 72 degree, 45% relative humidity indoor environment. The only downside to that, of course, is that nobody will able to afford a house.
> You mean if he's gay or an atheist he will get shot?
This is about as accurate as Fox News saying that if you go to San Francisco, roving bands of homeless people will break into your car and take a dump in it, and you'll step on a pile of fentanyl and instantly get addicted.
My barber, who neither went to college nor inherited anything, lives on a 10-acre property with his wife (who works as a teacher) and two children. His secret? The home is a mobile home (they're saving up to build a real house), and he's in a low COL area with reasonable home prices, with the only real disadvantage being that the rest of the country thinks it's in a "shithole state".
Your statement, properly amended, is as follows: it's impossible to own a home in a highly desirable, relatively low-density area, with many high income earners and lots of inbound migration both internal and external, unless you inherit one. Which of course makes perfect sense, and there's nothing wrong with that picture.