There is no such thing as "locals getting screwed" in this scenario. We live in a free country, where people sometimes choose to move. In fact, when the demand for housing in an area goes up, often locals profit handsomely.
Unfortunately, "I was here first" sounds a lot like "fuck you, I got mine". And it's not gonna fly.
Listen, nearly everyone largely agrees that wealth inequality at the current US level is bad.
Wealthy people moving to low-cost areas (and thus raising cost of living) accelerates inequality for a few reasons.
1) Unlike you scenario, many working-class people in places like Sedona can only afford to rent their homes (25% of total, give or take in Sedona). These people incur huge monetary costs in being forced to move / switch jobs / etc.
2) Moving causes people to lose social capital. Laugh all you want, but going from a tight-knit neighborhood of peers to a new town of strangers creates costs, at least in the short term. No one to watch your kids, no one to give you a ride if your car breaks down, etc.
3) Even for those who stay, they lose power, since their new wealthy residents likely have better lobbying sway (e.g., the new bus to the airport causes service to decrease to job centers, etc.)
I don't disagree that certain locals benefit from gentrification (parent comment made the same point), but your capitalism-enabled lack of empathy for those who don't benefit is why people are warming to the ideas of socialism. So if you don't want that, I'd tread carefully & try to be a bit more empathetic.
So if simply moving creates inequality, then what do people do? Stay in their hometown their entire life? Sounds like you need to revise the game, not hate the player.
Maybe make the choice to move to established residential areas with infrastructure and housing to support growing populations instead of water-parched small communities near natural wonders?
Alternatively, those wealthy people could use their wealth to build civic infrastructure (e.g., better roads, better school, housing for working class people) to mitigate the negative externalities of their move. But generally, those wealthy movers are moving to escape urbanism and would be loathe to do those very 'urban' things.
Again, I don't disagree with you that in the current American system, 'I've got mine, f** you' is a totally acceptable way to approach moving to a new community, but to put it in words you used, "It's not going to fly" at least not in the long term.
“Revising the game” is exactly what the GP commentator was warning about. Push the inequality far enough and the social contract will likely get changed. So you asked what can you do? I’m not saying don’t move to the area you want, but make conscious choices that help reduce the inequalities that may drive those inequalities. Maybe don’t be riled up about high density housing bringing down your property values. Maybe support local businesses even though it costs more. Maybe vote for higher taxes that provide better schools even if you don’t have kids. Love how much father your income goes in that new town? Maybe donate just a portion of it to help provide a safety net for “locals” who may otherwise be negatively impacted by the “out-of-towners”.
And maybe you do all those types of things already. But the tone of your comment comes across as, “Welp, what choice do I have but to myopically try to get the most out of this hustle??”
I’m not sure how you got that tone from my comment. Things like better funding for schools and not treating property like an investment vehicle are exactly the type of game changing tactics we need to consider collectively enforcing as local communities, hence my suggestion to revise the game not hate the players. The comment I responded too is suggesting that people [moving] are the problem and while there may be some implicit moral responsibility expected of those who relocate when their income would be higher than average in their new location, the problem, to me, seems systemic.
Sorry if I misinterpreted, maybe it’s just the loaded phrase used as a quip that threw me off.
I agree, the way forward is to revise the structure and incentives. However, I don’t want to completely absolve individuals of moral responsibility just because they’re playing within the rules of “the game”
Source please. I can see how increased demand for property in an area would increase inequality but not the reverse. When the cost of living rises but you're not invested in the parts of the market which gain from higher valuation, you're going to lose ground until either you can't compete or you buy in. And if you can buy in, great. But I suspect few locals have the capital or professional skills to ante up.
I'm OK with "ideas of socialism," I think. Especially regarding UBI and universal medical care.
But, I also think that it's better to be in a growing area than a static or declining area. I'll never understand anti-gentrifiers.
As an adult human being, it is your responsiblility to adapt and decide what is best for yourself and your dependents. No one owes you an unchanging landscape.
I think the main point is being forced out of your life-long home due to increased costs or taxes. Or the destruction of the local cultures/customs through change in local government policies. If you want an extreme example, you can look at the way that cult in Oregon took over a county/town in the 80s or 90s. Nothing legally wrong with it (the population segment with the highest numbers won; not talking the biological attack), but it did make the existing residents subject to their will and angry.
The whole situation (on both sides) was mostly out of a lack of acceptance for other people and their life choices. I think we see this same sort of paradigm with people wanting changes that benefit them but might be detrimental to others in their "communities" (we don't really act like neighbors anymore) without meaningful discussion.
The key is assimilation. If you move into a place with the goal of becoming one of the community and understanding and blending into the local culture and economy, people will be a lot more accepting. If you expect everyone to get out of your way, expect them to fight back.
In the context of these discussions nobody ever complains about foreign immigrants with a small army of kids running around and they're (at least initially) as un-assimilated as one can be. Heck, they might not even speak the language.
Meanwhile everyone agrees that Karen the corporate lawyer who shows up and promptly gets to work building a fence, calling in noise complaints and narcing on everyone for ordinance violations and unpermitted work is in the wrong.
I'm struggling to put my finger on exactly what it is but there's this disdain and unwillingness to respect local norms that makes the latter example of a newcomer toxic and unwanted (and IMO it seems to correlate strongly with wealth of the newcomer).
Agreed, but it goes both ways. "We welcome your money, but please keep your opinions to yourself", isn't a great way to assimilate new migrants. Also, see top comment by Mark Watson.
True, but the ones you hear about are usually not just sharing their opinion, but trying to force that opinion on someone else, and usually rudely (think Karens).
Every place changes regardless of people trying to preserve them in amber. The 'forced out of your lifelong' home thing is tough but I haven't seen any good solutions to it. California absolutely messed up their state with their property tax changes that turned home ownership into feudalism. Good intentions to help the old people stay in their homes but it means that the new people moving in support the people that lived there earlier.
If housing is actually allowed to be built, someone might be able to stay in the area in a new, nicer, place. However, in essentially 0 places in the US that are hot housing markets do they allow as much housing as is demanded. Houston might actually be the closest. Prices in Houston are way lower than many other in-demand major cities.
There are good reasons why Houston stays cheap. (I lived there for a couple of years.)
It's a huge metro area with no zoning. That dissuades people from building a castle when a toxic waste dump (or refinery) could go in upwind without warning.
The city's large size and the ever-expanding radius to growing exurbs tends to dilute the value of existing homes which slows their appreciation. And the land in the region has no natural beauty. It's scrub. So creating a synthetic upscale suburb would be hard to sell economically. So neighborhood trendiness tends to arise organically, mostly from proximity to central neighborhoods (like University Village near Rice or Memorial in the museum district).
Low home prices in Houston wasn't the result of an engineered or government-driven initiative. Like all economic change in Texas, it happened on its own.
It's the same phenomena that have restrained home price inflation in Las Vegas. There's a lot of surrounding desert there and not much natural beauty to motivate gentrification in upscaleing the homes/suburb near a natural hot spot.
"However, in essentially 0 places in the US that are hot housing markets do they allow as much housing as is demanded."
And thus my question/comments about controlling the demand side, as the supply side changes haven't worked well.
"Good intentions to help the old people stay in their homes but it means that the new people moving in support the people that lived there earlier."
Well, the system of funding the schools through property taxes on people without children is essentially the same - tax is used for "the collective good", where you have some people supporting others.
Keep in mind that the tax break can be passed on to children when the owner passes. I fail to see the collective good in that system. But at least the owners of that $3.5M home never have to leave while they pay $800/yr in property taxes and the newcomer that moved into the identical house next door pays $25k/yr.
The greater good is that you don't force people out of their homes. If you worked at 1960s-1990s pay, there's no way you're affording $30k a year in tax, so it makes sense to lock it at the purchased value. Sure the child inheritance of the old tax rate might not be. The real question is why not use income tax? This would avoid kicking out the elderly, and only collect money from those who are actually making it.
I don't generally like the idea of taxing people on things they already have. I would rather see it on the people who are making money. If you are benefiting from the system (income) then pay part of it (tax). Under these other schemes, it could be that the system has failed you, left you behind, etc and then the tax is like the nail in the coffin. It makes the most sense to take the money from the people who are making it.
However, I do know that some of these sites that report propery taxes do have incorrect information.
In my neighborhood (where I bought before it was built and have lived there ever since and know well who has lived for how long in each house) I see most houses on my street reported with their correct property tax but there are a few outliers which are completely wrong. Those show a property tax far lower than it ever was.
If someone were to take a screenshot of the property tax reported for my street, they'd think there is a 100x difference between the lowest and the highest for similar homes. But those lowest numbers are not true.
The real spread is more like 2.5x from lowest to highest. Which is not nothing, obviously, but way closer than it would seem.
The supply side changes haven't worked because people are selfish and the system is perverted. “I’ll see your family struggle with gentrification before I lose my bay views and stupidly inflated house value.”
The problem is boomers treating property as an investment vehicle the value of which must go up up up. Introduce affordable housing to cool the market off? Not over my dead body if it means people won’t be clawing tooth and nail for properties in my neighborhood anymore.
The incentives are so backwards. I’ve got mine fuck yours. I don't see how demand side regulation addresses any of this...
The higher taxes mentioned would be a demand side tactic. We could also address the root cause and not just the symptoms. The high paying jobs are one of the biggest things bringing people in. The city could create policies that make other locations more attractive for businesses to create those jobs, thus decreasing demand in the areas with the problem.
I do understand that many of the incentives are backwards, so higher taxes, policies to move jobs, etc are all difficult to handle. But I also think that building more high density housing isn't really going to fix anything. In my view, many of the people in this sort of situation chose to be - they could take jobs in other cities but the group-think says they need to be in SV and working for FAANG to be successful. Not to mention that many want a single family home with amenities to come with that.
Unfortunately, "I was here first" sounds a lot like "fuck you, I got mine". And it's not gonna fly.