[harichinnan]

Living in New Jersey, gives me a front row view of crumbling America. I grew up in India and have no illusions of American infrastructure being third world standards. I'm taking about houses people live. I've been trying to buy a house I like for past 4 years. I've been to open houses in many small towns here. Town after town, I see 60, 80 even 100 years old houses, that are beyond repair. They all sell at upwards of 400K. I talked to realtors about new houses. They said people are afraid to repair or rebuild houses. If you rebuild your house from ground up, the town would reassess their property taxes and often charge 1000 to 1500 dollars a month of a medium sized family home. My friends in India earning much less than me live in far better and newer houses these days.

I think it's the lack of political will in America to make our lives better. You let your politicians (especially at local level) confine you to essentially urban slums rather than let you build a dignified life with your hard earned money.