134 points

I don’t think anybody thinks that.

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89 points

Not explicitly, maybe, but implicitly, absolutely, and in multiple ways:

  • Supporting the system that creates one over the other
  • Having ‘bootstrap’ attitudes about the poor
  • Worrying about property value over utilization
  • Complaining about the homeless rather than the lack of action on housing
  • Voting against people who run on public housing

In so, so many ways, people say they prefer the latter over the former. Usually just with the caveat that the homeless people also be invisible.

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28 points

Maybe we should institute a tax on underutilized land in metro areas.

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24 points

Land Value Tax 👀

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13 points

I think a simple law that if there is a building, it must be in a repaired state.

In St. Louis a person opened large portions of the city where they’ve let the holes decay.

He should have to keep them in a proper upkeep or tear them down.

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1 point

Based Geoism.

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13 points

I wonder who is doing this voting? Oh, it’s people who live in the areas we can’t afford to live in. And capitalists add lobbying power to those voters selfish interests.

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-2 points
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-7 points
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68 points

In the United States at least, your local government’s public hearings for new housing developments kinda begs to differ.

People will demand the homeless be eliminated from their area while simultaneously opposing development of housing or shelters for the homeless in their area.

So maybe you’re right though: they don’t hate the apartments more, they simply can’t make up their mind on which they hate more.

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13 points

I agree but want to say everyone jumps to homeless. There are a ton of normal people that are suffering from high rent, lack of options, etc. We need to think about way more than homeless.

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5 points
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2 points
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Removed by mod
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5 points

So it sounds like zoning laws are the problem?

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11 points

In some cases. But even proposed changes to zoning laws can get this kind of opposition.

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-6 points

I think it’s more so that people don’t want an apartment complex built in their backyard, not that they are opposed to them being built in an area where there is proper infrastructure

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3 points

NIMBY!!

Where do you place the proper infrastructure then? It’s always going to be in someone’s “back yard” as you put it.

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7 points

It’s not far off what many think. Many think apartments are, oh so many adjectives, dirty, poor, unsanitary, inhumane, cruel, unusual, etc.

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2 points

Who is “many”? Do you have surveys and data to support this?

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6 points
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Go to/watch any planning or proposal meeting and watch the pearl clutching and nimbyism. I think you know this but you want to demand “studies” instead of engaging in good faith.

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1 point
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-2 points
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4 points

Sure they do. Look at all of the posts from my neighbors on Facebook and Nextdoor every time a developer tries to build an apartment building instead of a single family home in our neighborhood.

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1 point

We’re not building homes, we’re not focussing on density. But apparently our elected officials have no problem letting people set up shanty towns. Where do you think the priorities lay?

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1 point

What do you mean we’re not building homes? I have plenty of homes and apartments being built in my city that cater to lots of strata of incomes.

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131 points

The world will never recover until poverty is seen not as a character flaw, but as a failure of society itself to provide for the most vulnerable.

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41 points
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They wouldn’t be vulnerable if they just overcame their own biology and lifetime of trauma. Its that simple, they arent trying hard enough.

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6 points

What do you mean by “overcame their own biology”?

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15 points

I think he’s trying to make a joke by appealing to the absurdity, like pulling yourself up by the boot straps. Literally impossible.

Though Poe’s Law and general stupidity are up lately, so…

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11 points

Literally people born with or contracting disabilities that leave them permanently destitute due to you not being able to eat or house yourself without work you can’t do because your disabled.

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3 points

They’re being satirical. They’re saying it’s virtually impossible to not succumb to poverty if you have disabilities, trauma, or racial prejudice working against you.

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3 points

The simple fact of the matter is that most things most people do are simply input -> biology happens -> output. Breaking that hardwired process that happens in the background for every miniscule decision you make is the basis of like, every kind of therapy, self-help, meditation routine, etc.

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4 points

Also historical and/or generational poverty.

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1 point
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I’d file that under trauma. If there was no trauma caused by extreme poverty like; parent was a sexworker; watching a parent lose it all; emotional neglect; physical neglect; history of incarceration; generational drug abuse, it would be more unlikely they would succumb to homelessness. That said, you are right.

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-21 points

I get your point, and while there is certainly a subset of people who are suffering through no fault of their own, there are plenty of people who are lazy and/or made terrible decisions. Lumping them all together like you are doesn’t help the situation. Those who want help should absolutely be helped. Those who don’t should not be allowed to ruin it for the rest of us.

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17 points
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No one is on the street because they are lazy. That is ignorance.

Also, what exactly are they ruining for the rest of us? What upward mobility are they keeping me from? Are you suggesting someone living in a tent or shelter ruins your???Propery value? Urban view? Existence?

Sounds like to me there is a certain pettiness you hold on to and letting that go means you actually have to accept the humanity of people less fortunate than yourself. That also sounds like an illness you should rid yourself of because it’s rottng away at you.

No one chooses consciousness. We are all coming in from the cold. We have this one chance to peer into the nature of the universe. Except, some are more concerned with the length of small little plants out in front of their house.

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16 points

There are also those who make bad decisions and are lazy but have a lot of money and power regardless. Being lazy/making terrible decisions does not equal poor; same as being hard working/making good decisions.

The system at this stage is just geared towards making the poor poorer and the rich richer. E.g. making people pay lots of money to stay healthy rather than give people equal opportunity, making good education only accessible to the rich by making it prohibitively expensive, the wage divide between an employee and a CEO, family trusts and associated taxes etc.

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6 points

I’d guess absolutely every person in a shit situation wants help. No one WANTS to be homeless, destitute, and addicted. The problem is, that for a lot of the worst off people in the world, that’s pretty much all they have. Sometimes, the only source of any light in someone’s life is a chemically induced high. Who am I to tell someone in that situation that they can’t do one of the few things that makes life kind of ok?

This kind of thing is a failing of society, not the person, no matter how deep you drill. Each and every one of the people in this shit needs help, not judgement, not to get clean, not to make money. Start with providing actual help, a home, food, mental and physical healthcare. It doesn’t have to be luxurious,just safe.The rest will follow naturally.

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3 points

“The point” was actually a joke.

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1 point

We all have our limits. Some people seem to be tougher than others. There are things people go through that I would last maybe two weeks before killing myself. When analyzing these situations it’s hard to balance compassion and being reasonably critical.

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-13 points

You’re going to get downvoted into oblivion for speaking the truth. Lemmy is full or libritards who are just as bad as the far right nutjobs. Both don’t live in reality.

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30 points

My freaking God. I volunteered at a local charity org a bit this summer and one of the first things they told us in orientation was that “most people think that poverty is about what people lack. But it’s actually a mindset.” That pissed me the heck off not gonna lie.

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20 points

Was it a religious charity org? Those ones are often condescending assholes like that…

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8 points

It was, unfortunately, yeah.

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-1 points

Yeah, you should have told the homeless charity you just joined the truth about homelessness!

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2 points

It was a religious charity org. They weren’t spreading or accepting any evidence-based truth.

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11 points

That’s the ticket. The most hardworking people I’ve ever met are also some of the poorest.

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79 points

I hate how when there is any picture of Soviet blocks it’s always shot in autumn or winter when it’s overcast. I live in an ex Soviet country and when these bad boys are maintained they can outperform new apartments, be it in functionality, amenities or price.

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12 points

always shot in autumn or winter when it’s overcast.

To me this adds a lot to the charm. I’d love to live there (at least for some time)!

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1 point

Kruschev housing outperforms new apartments? That’s the opposite of what we see of Russia in North America.

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-12 points

I am simply not believing that 50 year old apartment blocks are outperforming new ones by any metric.

I’m glad you’re happy and there are plenty of 100+ year old homes in my country that are just fine but they are not outperforming anything.

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24 points
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Deleted by creator
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2 points

Yeah i was recently looking for someone to work on windows and finding someone who does work in the traditional way is not easy. They’re still out there, but for every one of them there’s ten hack shops using minimum wage labor for everything. Even then, the real good techniques just seem like lost technology. They didn’t get passed down to our generation.

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-7 points

Standards have improved 10 fold, I moved from a house built 70 years ago to a new build. It is completely different, air tight, less moisture, more efficient heating, permanent hot water, triple glazed windows. Literally everything is more secure and improved. There is nothing an old house can do a new one can’t.

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20 points

Here in Finland a lot of new apartment blocks have very small apartments. Three rooms and a kitchen crammed into 60 m2 (650 sq ft) are not uncommon. That means bedrooms that can fit a double bed and nothing else, and kitchens built into the side of the living room. Older blocks by contrast have much more spacious apartments. The condo I bought in a building built in the 1970s is three rooms and kitchen in 80 m2 (860 sq ft). The condo goes through the building, so windows on two sides. The kitchen is its own separate space. Bathroom and toilet are two separate rooms. (The building is not a proper commie block, though. Or “Soviet cube” as they’re called in Finnish. We were never Soviet, but we took some inspiration from their cheap building styles.)

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20 points

Even communism aside, this is actually not uncommon. One of the advances we’ve made in construction is knowing how to save even more money, making the right sacrifices and meeting the minimum bars of code compliance, to maximize our margins.

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-13 points

I don’t know how you say this unironically as criticism. That’s arguably one of the biggest advantages people claim capitalism has: managing finite resources. It’s not a good thing to waste manpower and resources for no real gain.

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14 points
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Tons of large buildings are older than you’d think. Hell, a lot of large buildings don’t even get serious structural inspections until they’re 40+ years old!

It was one of many contributing factors to the Champlain Towers South building collapsing in the US in Florida. No communism or Soviet corner cutting. Just good ol’ fashioned American ineptitude. That building was undergoing some work so they could raise prices. It wasn’t a low class building nor did many people think it was too old to invest in.

What OP said is extremely likely to be true: Those buildings are competative.

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7 points

It’s less a matter of technical capability and more one of cost. It’s not like people didn’t know how to build good, efficient homes before. It was just expensive.

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1 point

We have absolutely made strides in material technologies for construction over the last 50 years. Take asbestos for example.

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1 point

yes they are, they outperform american’s cardboard house

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66 points

I’d gladly live in one of those apartments in the first picture if it meant that everyone could have a home

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25 points

I’d gladly walk my ass out to the wilderness rather than live in an apartment block, but at least then there’d be an extra spot.

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17 points

The nice thing is in an anarchist society you could do just that, and no one would stop you

I’d personally prefer to be surrounded by people

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3 points
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Which is why I’m an anarchist. Pretty much every other system would force me to attempt to be happy in an apartment block, or waste huge amounts of resources creating suburbs that are still too goddamn crowded for me

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0 points

surrounded by people

I would literally prefer to put myself in a human sized toaster than live amongst people.

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1 point

bruh…

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2 points

You believe that housing is not a basic human right, yet you say to me, “bruh…”

Just gonna pre-emptively block your bootlicking ass

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-7 points

If everyone thought like this, everyone would have a home.

And 50 or so people would own all of the rest of the land and do nothing with it because we’re too fucking stupid to realize that a system that wants us all to live in 50m² micro apartments is a load of shit, and strung together by a greedy few.

There is enough land for us all to live comfortably, but a fraction of a percent don’t want anyone to use most of the land for anything useful so hey let’s just give up and take almost-squalor because at least it not squalor!

Fuck both these pictures.

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20 points

“Land-usage” is such a narrow-minded way to think about the implicit wants and needs of society. You sound like you’ve never been to actual cities, or never got your head far enough out of your arse to actually experience one.

North American suburban sprawl already proves that “enough land for us all to live comfortably” is a terrible way to live sociable lives and drains the economy due to massive swathes of those lands being used for roads and the maintenance of said roads.

I implore you to take a trip to almost any European city, and see for yourself what actual “comfortable living” for most people looks like.

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-1 points

…Why did you reinterpret the premise of their statement into something entirely different and then attack them for it?

I’m not saying your interpretation is wrong, but that was mean.

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-1 points

I’ve lived in cities my whole life, which paints a pretty broad picture of you doesn’t it? Couldn’t even get the premise of your own bullshit comment right.

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11 points

You make dense housing like these apartments because it is the most practical way to house everybody quickly. Once you take care of the immediate problem, homelessness, you can continue to expand and build nicer, bigger housing for everyone.

What’s more important, that we have enough resources to house everyone, but there are still people forced to live on the streets or the fact that you don’t like the inconvenience of living in an apartment because it’s too small for you even in the short term? Guess that makes you one of the greedy few that can’t see past their own problems to think of their community.

Fuck you doubly.

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4 points

You agreed with me and then said fuck you? Weird take but okay.

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1 point
Deleted by creator
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0 points

What if we made the commie block apartments 140 m² each?

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53 points

The USSR didn’t do much good but those apartment buildings are definitely good. I used to live in a soviet apartment building and the funny thing about that was that every wall was a load bearing wall since all of them could hold up everything. They were thick as hell and fully concrete.

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26 points

Every wall was a wall and not a cardboard decoration of a wall

FTFY. Not all of them were load-bearing, mind you, they were just proper walls made of wall.

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15 points

I’d say those were made from at least 3 walls worth of wall.

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1 point

Appartments in panel buildings have load bearing walls inside.

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15 points
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Okay, I just went from “eh, commie blocks are gross but better than tents” to “fuck all the other apartments, bring on the commie blocks”. Buildings in the US are built so ridiculously cheaply that in a lot of lower-rent buildings you can hear everything.

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17 points

Commie blocks do have some issues like absolutely awful electrical wiring or lack of insulation but a lot of ex soviet countries renovate those buildings which leaves no downsides.

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1 point

Commie blocks do have some issues like absolutely awful electrical wiring

Default wiring is not impossible to replace. My building from 70-ies has global PE, only thing left is to replace aluminium wiring without PE inside appartment to 3-wire copper wiring.

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6 points
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Deleted by creator
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4 points

I find brutalism beautiful. Wish we could have more of it in my country but solid concrete, especially preformed, performs poorly under shear.

It’s gotten so “brutalist” is almost synonymous with “earthquake-prone”.

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6 points

How soundproof were they? I’m in an apartment with shitty drywall and sometimes I hear my neighbors fart.

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14 points

As far as I knew I never even had neighbors or I at least never heard any.

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4 points
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I’m living in a soviet-built tenement block, and the only time I’ve heard anything from a neighbour is when the guy living above me dropped a bowling ball.

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2 points

guy living above me dropped a bowling ball.

This is universal for all buildings. But I only hear when neoghbours do renovation and wall-penetrating ear-piercing baby cries.

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Not from Eastern Europe, but from India. Most buildings are made from bricks. Good enough to block most of the sound from adjacent apartment.

In fact, some builders started using drywalls and there has been a pushback because drywall is considered poor quality material by people here. Which it absolutely is when the country has 4 months of monsoon every year. Drywall doesn’t play well with moisture, does it?

https://thelogicalindian.com/exclusive/krishnaraj-rao-lodha-builders/

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1 point

that every wall was a load bearing wall since all of them could hold up everything.

It seems you lived in panel building. There are limitations to it like you should not add horisontal chases becaue it reduces load capacity or can’t replan appartment because it will be destruction of load bearong wall. So wiring better be done in factory-made in-wall concrete tubes.

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