| > The dream is strong in part because this lifestyle was within reasonable reach across many parts of the country for so many decades that it became synonymous with the very name of our nation. No, it was not. 1920s Chicago was a gross polluted mess hardly anyone in the US would want to live in today. Ditto for any major city in the US. By the 1980s you were already deep into the modern car-era dystopia where the highways had been built and barely anything, anywhere in the US was walkable (far less places than you have today). In between then, you have White Flight - which you wouldn't have had if the city was this Utopian paradise where everyone could easily afford a quite, walkable, cute home right next to everything. If there was some brief point in time where everyone could easily a afford cute Craftsman in downtown Menlo Park on a part-time salary at the meat packing plant, it was VERY brief. Since 1985 - wages are up 3.2x and rents are up 4.9x. The major difference is that you used to be able to rent an apartment in the city for cheap, and now you can't, because the city used to be dangerous and gross, and now it's not. There is a reason why "everyone" wanted to buy a house in a suburban development 40 years ago, and why "everyone" wants to buy something in the city now. "everyone" is in quotes before some special snowflake says - but my parents liked living in the city 40 years ago! And I want to start my own communal farm in the countryside now! |