Comments by "Colorme Dubious" (@colormedubious4747) on "Should the U.S. Build More Public Housing?" video.

  1.  @Cr3stfa113n  "slum [sləm] NOUN a squalid and overcrowded urban street or district inhabited by very poor people" -- Doesn't seem to include all those qualifiers you added. Just saying - for a friend.
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  2. Let's not overlook the other underlying issues with high-rise housing projects: It wasn't JUST the concentration of poverty, it was ALSO the massive employment deserts surrounding them, the lack of mixed uses, and the streets with no street-level windows. Rather than look to government to "fix" this issue, let's pursue ACTUAL solutions in the context of public/private partnerships. Eminent domain: No. Just NO. Eminent domain brought us to the most corrupt slum clearance/redevelopment scandals of the 40s and 50s, displaced at least 300,000 people under Moses' rule, and created the hellscape of urban freeways that has devastated our cities. No! NIMBYs: Also known as productive people living and working in functioning neighborhoods who keep the local economy going, pay the taxes that pay the public servants' salaries, and have EVERY right to push back when they hear the most frightening words ever to be uttered outside of a horror film: "We're from the government and we're here to help you." Doing housing right: Take lessons from various HOPE VI projects and focus investment on scattered-site, mixed-use, mixed-income development with a majority of market rate units. Take lessons from Montgomery County MD and other jurisdictions that reward(ed) developers with increased density permitting for inclusion of ADUs above and beyond the basic code requirements. Allow any owner-occupied single-family home to add a garage apartment, casita, or mother-in-law suite regardless of local ordinances or HOA rules. That alone could introduce hundreds of thousands of ADUs while the owner occupancy requirement satisfies the NIMBYs.
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  3.  @enjoyslearningandtravel7957  In most of our cities, office or residential above retail is perfectly legal. In New Urban communities, it is the default. In typical postwar suburbs, not so much.
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  4. We are not. He never said we were. There are regional imbalances in housing, just like everywhere else in the world.
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  5. It actually IS voting! Bond issues for housing are on the ballot in my city. The problem arises when the city tries to force an ill-though project into a neighborhood where it won't fit.
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  6. I'd love to hear some examples from that "weird shit" category!
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  7.  @nehcooahnait7827  Something tells me that you don't have eyes. This very video showed you failed housing projects that became slums.
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  8. Brilliant! Exile your tax base. Who's going to pay for the housing programs?
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  9.  @milkdrinker7  Owning and managing rental property IS work and often employs other workers. In the past two years, I've hired HVAC, electrical, remodeling, and landscaping subcontractors many times. I've gotten a LOT of shit done.
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  10.  @milkdrinker7  Only the work I cannot do myself due to either lack of certification (HVAC) or the loss of use of one of my hands.
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  11. Like the "elite" elderly retiree who depends on his modest rental property investment income to keep him ALIVE after he's no longer healthy enough to work 40 hours per week? That bastard! Screw him, right?
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  12. Show your math, please. Yes, postwar zoning is awful, but it's not the primary driver of housing costs.
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  13.  @crash.override  Is it, though? There's a beautiful tract on the edge of my neighborhood that would make a lovely park, but the city wants to build an 80% subsidized housing complex on the site, less than a hundred yards from the neighborhood elementary school and on top of one of the most congested intersections in this part of the city. They already decommissioned the water tower that serves that area and there's no room for additional power lines. There are no major employers within 5 miles and every intersection within 3 miles already has a full crew of meth-addled beggars. The people who live on the street behind the tract JUST had their property taxes go up by 94% (in ONE year) and, if this palace of concentrated poverty is built, will see their property values dwindle to tenement levels while their taxes remain sky-high. You are clearly too young to understand basic economics and have only reactionary buzzwords upon which to fall back.
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  14.  @shanekeenaNYC  VERY naive. There was NO "complete package" -- they had no shops, restaurants, grocery stores, or jobs. In several cases, access to transit was neither convenient nor useful. Learn from history. In cities like New York and Chicago, hi-rise projects were often built upon the razed bones of old and poor but functional and diverse neighborhoods (with intact amenities and opportunities) in order to enrich a scant handful of developers. Moses was the worst of the lot after he gained control of the NYCHA. He lost power in 1968 and yet the city still hasn't recovered from his "upgrades."
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  15.  @shanekeenaNYC  First, that isn't what those particular neighborhoods were like before the PJs were built. Second, if you didn't have the right connections in NYC, you couldn't build squat. Moses was NYC's Shadow Emperor for over three decades. You didn't tell HIM what to do, he told YOU.
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  16.  @shanekeenaNYC  It's 20th Century urban slang for "project." The context should have made that obvious.
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  17. We have some.
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  18. He was referring to the individual ITEMIZED deduction, which fewer people now benefit from due to the mortgage cap and the increased Standard Deduction. Those don't apply to rental or business mortgage interest deductions, which are usually allowed in full.
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  19.  @clayortex  Correct, due to the mortgage cap. People with smaller mortgages simply don't bother itemizing because the standard deduction is now so generous, thanks to the TCJA.
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