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by jeffbee 1393 days ago
There's more than enough economic activity in SK to pay for both health care and housing, but their wealth is highly concentrated among the richest. Instead of insisting that there must be an underclass of subterranean peasants supporting her in late life due to the happenstance of her petty real estate holdings, people who are just barely above peasants should be looking up, demanding accountability from people richer than themselves.
2 comments

Im not insisting there should be an underclass of peasants. I am defending an old woman against the charge of NIMBYism, or that she should not take space for the young generation. In fact, Id make these living arrangement illegal.

However, as is often the case, emotion driven decisions have horrible secondary effects. Is Seoul setting aside money for compensating landlords for loss of legal income? Is Seoul building affordable housing? Is Korea delivering high quality government services evenly throughout the country?

Seoul, one of the world's richest cities, isn't offering her a NPV of her future rent. Seoul isn't building affordable housing.

This landlady has had a much tougher life than her tenants who have had much tougher lives than most on this forum

I think this is fair but not at all what you were saying in your initial comment.

I don't think the old lady was being a NIMBY Andy.