TheSanSabaSongbird

That seems a little generous. While I know it’s challenging, I don’t think law school is quite the same thing as a PhD program.

Education also matters because it teaches critical thinking and epistemology. You can be highly intelligent, but if you don’t have any critical thinking skills and an understanding of the rules of evidence, you can still be easily misled and otherwise manipulated.

It matters because being a responsible citizen in a democracy requires having good enough critical thinking and reasoning skills so as not to be easily misled or manipulated by bad-faith actors. If you can’t read well, and it’s not due to something like dyslexia, it speaks to your ability to follow complex ideas and fact-patterns and themes which in turn means that you’re more likely to make poor political decisions.

This is simply untrue. There is no world in which someone with 6th grade reading comprehension is going to be able to read, absorb and parse a 3000 word article on a complex political or scientific or economic issue, no matter how simple the language used. It’s just not going to happen. Full stop.

If you want to be a well-informed citizen, you have to be able to read at least at a 12th grade level.

The last two decades have underscored this.

Lol. That’s why, as explained in the Wiki article you linked to, it’s a requirement in many states that auto insurance policies be written at no more than a 9th grade reading level.

But sure, having 6th grade reading skills is perfectly fine.

What a joke.

You could “still have strong critical thinking skills,” but you probably don’t, especially not in the information-dense and highly complex environment that is contemporary life.

That’s why it’s smart to hedge our bets and try to make sure that everyone can read at least at a 12th grade level.

I don’t argue that there aren’t any better solutions, but SF is on a peninsula (called Yerba Buena if anyone cares) and is already the 2nd most densely populated city in the US, which is just to say that it’s a limited space without a lot of options for housing short of building in more density.

But how is this supposed to happen in high-density cities like NYC or SF?

I don’t have any answers, but as someone who lived in SF for 7 years back in the 90s and early oughts as a student, I know for a fact that “there are no simple solutions for the problems that we face.”

Yeah, I just quoted a DRI song; guilty as charged!

Well there’s that and the fact that if you’re a tradesman --or woman, or whatever-- having a truck or van can be pretty crucial to your ability to make a decent income.

I currently have a company vehicle, but for years, prior to my current position and when I was a contractor, I was obliged to own my own truck or van for very basic practical reasons.

My dues are automatically paid out of my PTO account and are basically an hour’s worth of wages per month.

I don’t even notice it.