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What's interesting is in my neighborhood I've seen growing inequality at the ground level over the past 20 years. We are an old neighborhood of decaying middle class housing still occupied by the elderly remnants of long-term owners. As the elderly move out they are replaced by one of three possibilities: 1. A large immigrant family moving in with one family to a room, sometimes sublet to several families, with no maintenance being done and the house falling apart. 2. An upper middle class family typically with Teslas moving in and doing a full remodel of the house. 3. An upper class family tearing down the old house and building a 6,000-10,000 sqft+ mansion for the husband, wife, and zero to two children. In the first case above, the poorer section, city services, roads, shopping continues to decay, with ever more liquor stores, massage parlors, pawn shops, tire repair, and used auto lots. This is by and large the largest area and population of the neighborhood. In the second case above, roads are repaired, a few new restaurants, but largely a decaying infrastructure. A large area but not as big in area or population as #1. In the third case above, all new roads. New full rebuilt shopping. A new school. A new public library. The smallest area by far, but once you enter it, it's a different world. Literally one side of the street is nightly robbery dilapidated midrise, and the other side behind the walls with their own police force are new mansions that start at $3m. Note what's missing from the above: the middle class. They don't exist here. They die off and are replaced, largely by the lower class. I've seen this happen on the ground, over the years. Inequality at the ground level. And it's still going on: absolutely no new building or improvements for the poorest, a little renovation for those with salaried jobs, and continuous rebuilding of luxury mansions for the upper crust. Doesn't seem sustainable from the Piketty perspective. I only hope it can be resolved peacefully. I'd even be fine with we all get new things but some get nicer ones than others. But this, you get the same thing, worse even, every year, and we get more and more and more, doesn't fit well with human sense of decency. |