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March 2008
3/16/08
American Dream or Indentured Servitude?
3/16/08
3/16/08
3/16/08
3/16/08
3/16/08
Sunday, March 16, 2008
4:06:00 PM EDT
New Yorker Essay Says Ownership Ties People/Economy Down
"In the U.S., it may be worth noting, the states that have the highest unemployment rates—states like Alabama, Michigan, Mississippi—are also among those with the highest homeownership rates. ... And reluctance to move not only keeps unemployment high in struggling areas but makes it hard for businesses elsewhere to attract the workers they need to grow."
This essay does a great job of calling out the biggest downside to homeownership -- increased difficulty in relocating.
Particularly in an area where one of the mainly employers suddenly lays off a significant portion of the workforce, the housing market is going to be flooded with homes for sale, valuations are going to drop, and owners will be forced to choose between selling at a loss, foreclosure or making the payments on a home with income they don't have.
At the same time, there is a lot more affordable housing in the United States than there are in places like Switzerland (mentioned in this article). Renting may not be a particularly viable option in rural areas where most homes are owner occupied, but you could see a scenario where the main breadwinner in a family might rent an apartment in another city as the rest of the family continues to live in the home they own.
In fact, NPR's Marketplace did a piece on Canadians from the eastern part of the country who spend most of the year in the mining towns of western Canada's providences, because they want their children to grow up somewhere completely geographically seperate from where they live. This is not uncommon in other parts of the world.
Of course, there's also no socialized medicine in the U.S., so owners for the most part need employment to be able to provide medical care for their families.
While this article raises some great issues, it probably doesn't do as much to suggest solutions, besides curbing our enthusiasm for ownership, which may be too little, too late.
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4:06:00 PM EDT
American Dream or Indentured Servitude?
"In the U.S., it may be worth noting, the states that have the highest unemployment rates—states like Alabama, Michigan, Mississippi—are also among those with the highest homeownership rates. ... And reluctance to move not only keeps unemployment high in struggling areas but makes it hard for businesses elsewhere to attract the workers they need to grow."
This essay does a great job of calling out the biggest downside to homeownership -- increased difficulty in relocating.
Particularly in an area where one of the mainly employers suddenly lays off a significant portion of the workforce, the housing market is going to be flooded with homes for sale, valuations are going to drop, and owners will be forced to choose between selling at a loss, foreclosure or making the payments on a home with income they don't have.
At the same time, there is a lot more affordable housing in the United States than there are in places like Switzerland (mentioned in this article). Renting may not be a particularly viable option in rural areas where most homes are owner occupied, but you could see a scenario where the main breadwinner in a family might rent an apartment in another city as the rest of the family continues to live in the home they own.
In fact, NPR's Marketplace did a piece on Canadians from the eastern part of the country who spend most of the year in the mining towns of western Canada's providences, because they want their children to grow up somewhere completely geographically seperate from where they live. This is not uncommon in other parts of the world.
Of course, there's also no socialized medicine in the U.S., so owners for the most part need employment to be able to provide medical care for their families.
While this article raises some great issues, it probably doesn't do as much to suggest solutions, besides curbing our enthusiasm for ownership, which may be too little, too late.
Written by unstructuredblog Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | digg this
4/26/08 4:59 PM
:-)
KJ