Sure we could spend the next few decades building high end housing and watching as the poor continue to get priced out of our cities, ensuring they have longer and longer commutes, more stress, and shorter life expediencies.
Or we as a society can recognize that all people deserve housing, and that the poor are in most dire need of it. We can build specifically affordable housing, which both accomplishes your goal of "build more housing" while also ensuring that vulnerable people get what they need.
I think there is something to the idea of being a society which cares for those in need, instead of ignoring them and letting market needs serve those with the most money first. Serving those in need not only helps the needy, but it helps all of us center what matters most: our humanity.
Theoretically yes, but they are really two different undertakings and I think it is important to advocate specifically for social housing. If you just advocate for building more, you're really just advocating for gentrification and making things harder for the poor.
Not really. You can't realistically pursue more public housing in the US without major zoning and other building changes anyway, it's just too hard to build anything now, and that includes potential public housing.
You think the NIMBY's who show up at community meetings to shut down both for-profit high-end housing and also 100% affordable housing for seniors are going to hold off on blocking public housing? Without changes that deal with the nosy neighbor problem, we won't get anywhere.
> If you just advocate for building more, you're really just advocating for gentrification and making things harder for the poor.
Nope. This is a common talking point by the left, but it's wrong. If we had more reasonable rents like in Tokyo (compared to similar US major cities), that'd be great for the poor, working class, and middle class.
Now, having renter protections as well would be fantastic, absolutely. I think it's terrible how little protection renters usually have in the states.
Or we as a society can recognize that all people deserve housing, and that the poor are in most dire need of it. We can build specifically affordable housing, which both accomplishes your goal of "build more housing" while also ensuring that vulnerable people get what they need.
I think there is something to the idea of being a society which cares for those in need, instead of ignoring them and letting market needs serve those with the most money first. Serving those in need not only helps the needy, but it helps all of us center what matters most: our humanity.