Limited supply of housing is an artificial local government constraint using tools like zoning and permitting to stop the construction of new housing keep prices high for incumbent owners. I agree it’s a huge problem but I would rather fight the constraint on supply than limit demand (partially immigrants) when they contribute so much else. We shouldn’t restrict economic growth and deny millions of people the chance at a better life to appease NIMBYs.
USA is amazing at assimilating immigrants. Mostly the places the furthest away from any immigrants that don’t actually interact with them have a problem. The melting pot isn’t a myth it’s real.
Please. We have 40% unemployment in Greece among young people. Housing is bloody expensive to build. It is not some goverment conspiracy!
Did you actually try to immigrate into US? It is one of the worst countries at accepting immigration. Any normal country gives citizenship after 5 years of residency. In US it is like 30 years.
And from far away it looks like your melting pot is broken. Too many groups fighting each other.
"30 years" is factually incorrect. The requirement is to be a permanent resident for 5 years (I can find links if needed). Source: I'm currently awaiting my naturalization appointment, if all goes well the total time from setting my foot in the US to becoming a citizen will be few months short of 9 years (~2.5 years on work visa & 5 years on green card + ~1.5 years wait for naturalization appointment).
With that said, it may be tricky to become a resident [1] in the first place. There are per-country-of-birth quotas, currently the wait times for people born in China / India can be significant (if taking the work visa route), up to 11 years. The longest wait that I see is for family-based immigration from Mexico - 24 years' wait for "married sons/daughters of US citizens". [2]
[1] resident to me means lawful permanent resident
Only one category ("married children of US citizens"), only for Mexicans, comes close enough to ~30 years total time (~24 years waiting to become LPR, +5 years being an LPR in USA) to consider the "30 years" as valid IMO. The fact still remains that the requirement for citizenship is to be a LPR for 5 years (this is the upper bound, there are cases where less is possible), it is the LPR part that may take time, as I've already mentioned in a reply to my comment. For China and India the total times are closer to 15-20 years. All of this is for family-based immigration, which I'd expect to be generally less interesting as it requires people to already have a fairly close family member who is a US citizen.
Not familiar with housing in Greece. I should have clarified I’m talking about the US where housing is quite cheap to build but regulations make it illegal to build most types of housing.
I was born in the US but a lot of my family are immigrants and I know how tough the system is, I’m arguing to make it much easier.
I’m sure on the outside it does look broken and there are lots of issues to fix, but take a walk around pretty much any American urban metro area and it’s working amazingly well.
I can understand the situation in Greece is much different, especially when compare the amount of refugees compared to the population of Greece. But I think a lot of the issues boil down to Greece having a quite shit economy at the moment causing more issues. If jobs were abundant in Greece then I think immigration wouldn’t be as contentious. Although that’s just me taking from no experience. I’m interested in hearing your view.
I would love to see how American cities deal with large scale immigration. SF got maybe 10k people on its streets and there is already talk about martial law and forcefully mopping people into rehabs. What would SF do with 1 million people on its streets? Athens and other cities managed...
Greece does not have a shit economy, we do relatively well. There are simply not enough jobs.
US is the same. Show me an entry level job, that pays enough to buy a house and raise a family...
Do you mean like NYC? Literally the city built on large scale immigration? Also the state of California. Houston, Texas is the most diverse city in the country and you can buy a house for less than the national average. There are hundreds of millions of people in the US who own homes and raise families on entry level jobs, the just don't live in high cost of living areas. That's not to say their lives are all perfect and rosy but its possible. I'm not denying housing affordability is a problem, it absolutely is but narrowing your view of America to SF when it is the most extreme example is a little disingenuous. My hometown has tons of people where 2 parents work slightly above minimum wage jobs and own homes and raise families. It's 2 hours from 2 major cities. You can absolutely have a good life without making a ton of money. Now healthcare... that's a separate issue.
If there are simply not enough jobs in Greece, that means the economic situation isn't great. A highly functioning economy should be produces lots of jobs as businesses grow and expand. I'm not arguing Greece should take more immigrants though, you sound like you don't want them and neither does your country. I would be happy for America to accept all of them, refugee or PhD Scientist, but unfortunately the political situation at the moment doesn't allow for that.
》but take a walk around pretty much any American urban metro area and it’s working amazingly well.
I choosed SF bcos you wrote this. NY etc have similar problem. Modern US cities are not capable to accept and absorb large scale immigration of people who are not already integrated into society. People who do not speak local language and have very different culture.
Martial law was suggested as a way to force homeless into shelters and rehabs. SF gets around 700 people per year, and it already abandoned basic humanitarian principles. Look at recent Louis Rossmann video, this mishandling is systemic problem in US: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8WGjCeFyr1g&pp=sAQA
USA is amazing at assimilating immigrants. Mostly the places the furthest away from any immigrants that don’t actually interact with them have a problem. The melting pot isn’t a myth it’s real.