Slog: News & Arts

RSS icon Comments on First Against the Wall

1

Everybody needs to learn a little about economics before they complain about:
1) High housing prices in Seattle
2) How awful higher density is. "Oh, these quaint neighborhoods are being bought up by evil developers..."\

P.S. Why do we have to enter our email address before each post? I get tired of typing in "a@a.com" each time.

Posted by Erik | October 6, 2007 12:36 PM
2

Unless I'm misreading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Americans in their 20's shall be provided a cool yet quirky apartment in a vintage building, located in a hip bohemian neighborhood at a cost of no more than one third their income. Economics be damned: this is about justice and the dignity of man.

Posted by elenchos | October 6, 2007 12:48 PM
3

New York is too damn expensive. I don't know how any normal humans live there. I could barely stand the dorm life there even though I loved the city. The living conditions are horrible unless you have a boatload of money. Still $500,000 is a boatload of money too, not as much as $6 million, but still. I'm simply too provincial and broke to live in a big city no matter how much I might like them.

Posted by Kristin Bell | October 6, 2007 12:57 PM
4

That article makes me seethe with contempt, but I'm not supposed to begrudge another their good fortune. I guess I'll just get drunk.

Seriously though, a $6mil house? Did I miss a critical class in college or something? How the hell can a 20-something be able to afford that kind of a place without serious help from a trust fund?

Posted by TacomaRoma | October 6, 2007 12:58 PM
5

@4 they aren't in their 20s. go look at the photo of Mr. Rushmore that's alongside the NYT article.

Posted by stinkbug | October 6, 2007 1:05 PM
6

You can all go fuck yourselves.

First--anybody who own more than ZERO homes shouldn't bitch. Anybody who owns more than one shouldn't use headlines like "Up Against the Wall"--now should they? More than likely you'd be the victim of the revolution than the instigator, so knock it off.

Second--a person can live anywhere provided he or she is willing to compromise. Trust me, even the rich have to bend to live in this town. But no matter how crappy your New York apartment is, it's still in New York.

Posted by Boomer in NYC | October 6, 2007 1:17 PM
7

Sure, they're spending my yearly income on a couch. I spent $250 on my couch (and I thought that was steep!) and it's the best couch in the world. I bet my apartment is cooler than theirs in the end, because I decorated it myself and I love everything in it as an extension of myself and my style and my taste. They're paying for someone else to invent their taste.

People like this are in a different world. I will never interact with them, and I don't think I would really want to. So why should I worry about them?

Posted by exelizabeth | October 6, 2007 1:43 PM
8

In the end, they'll be just as dead as me, feeding the worms (although I plan on donating as many functional organs as possible before the rest is burnt to ashes, preferably in a Viking long-boat floating in the middle of Lake Union), so I say, let them have their fun now, while they can.

In 100 years, their names will be just as forgotten as mine, unless of course they develop some sort of a conscience between now and the day of their death, and set up a charitable trust, in which case their names won't be forgetten for maybe 200 years.

Posted by COMTE | October 6, 2007 2:06 PM
9

The prices in Seattle are obscene, the prices here in SF are obscene, and we've all known since the 80s that NYC prices are ridiculous. The problem is the same in all three cities, in my opinion - basically the cost of living not matching with the average incomes paid to people. That's the economics issue - it isn't the number on paper, it's what people can (or most likely can't) afford based on the fact that the top wealthy consumers drive up the prices for the rest of us. I don't care if people are rich (good for them, congrats) but why should that mean that the rest of us who don't earn that much are subjected to insane prices that only a small few can actually afford? Some of us don't particularly want to join the rest of the nation in mass consumer debt. I hope the housing and rental bubbles burst big time, and there's a lovely, wonderful drop in prices (ha).

Posted by Anne | October 6, 2007 2:15 PM
10

Whew. I only own one home. Luckily for me.

Posted by Dan Savage | October 6, 2007 2:19 PM
11

That kind of excess is just disgusting. There will be those, though, who envy being able to blow $30K on a sofa. It's not hard to see these people have never been hungry or had to go without much of anything.

I still want to know the chain of events that happened to the housing market. Historically, a home's cost was roughly a little more than a year's salary - even during post-war and the baby boom when housing was in short supply. How many people make half-a-million a year?

Posted by Bauhaus | October 6, 2007 2:23 PM
12

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. (Mao)

Posted by kinaidos | October 6, 2007 2:33 PM
13

i hope that when that couple has its housewarming party, someone spills a glass of red wine on their couch. that would be poetic justice.

Posted by kinkos | October 6, 2007 2:43 PM
14

Gentrification is the same in Seattle as NYC as Tokyo, it's just the scale that's different. It's the same global economy, same process, same driving forces. What I wonder is not whether housing prices in Seattle and NYC are the same. The question is whether there is parity in the RATE of housing price increases over the last ten years.

Posted by wf | October 6, 2007 2:46 PM
15

Couldn't we just eat them? The nice thing about the idle rich is that they're so tender, from doing nothing all the time.

Posted by a modest proposal | October 6, 2007 3:11 PM
16

Screw them and the other super-rich bastards, they buy their $30,000 couch on the backs of the middle class, and those who can't afford health insurance.

Thank the Bush tax cuts: which have made the wealthy wealthier enuf to afford the indulgence of a couch that would pay a beginning teacher's or police officers salary in some areas of the country.

I wouldn't be surprised if their ill-gotten money was as a result of Halliburton padding, or a homeland security fraud. Can't bear to read the article, so don't bother to inform me otherwise.

Posted by Judy Brown | October 6, 2007 4:40 PM
17

You know, if we did rise up and overthrow our capitalist oppressors, we still wouldn't allocate hip apartments in central neighborhoods to the young creative types who keep complaining about this.

Parents with young kids, the sick, and the elderly would have first dibs on apartments in walkable neighborhoods with easy access to shopping, work, hospitals and other services. Their need is greater after all.

Whereas the young and healthy are best able to bike into downtown from Lake City or use mass transit from Kent. Or drive if they must. Young people are more flexible and resilient in every way.

So I'm saying you can't afford to live there, and you don't deserve to either. That's what put the 'tragic' into 'hip'.

Posted by elenchos | October 6, 2007 4:46 PM
18

As a Seattle native living in NYC, I'll tell you this -- New York and Seattle are both becoming horridly homogenized by real estate developers who are knocking everything down and creating housing that threatens to displace everyone EXCEPT wads like those in the article. Old buildings? Gone! Affordable housing? Gone! New York isn't even worth living in anymore, it's become an everycity. I may just move back to Seattle ;)

Posted by Al | October 6, 2007 5:31 PM
19

After the revolution, all the best apartments will be occupied not by moms with kids or the deserving elderly but by party functionaries.

Posted by Fnarf | October 6, 2007 5:42 PM
20

"$30,000 custom wraparound couch"

Isn't that just a fancy-ass sectional? Unless it's the one from "The Dick Van Dyke Show", I'm not interested.

And what sort of people need to take a year off to decorate? I threw Chez Vel-DuRay together in a weekend, and it looks just fine, especially after a nice dusting and a run around with the hoover.

Posted by catalina vel-duray | October 6, 2007 5:57 PM
21

@1, isn't there a "Remember me?" option? It works pretty well for me.

Posted by Amelia | October 6, 2007 6:01 PM
22

I think I need to go into couch-making.

Posted by Jude Fawley | October 6, 2007 6:25 PM
23

At the very least, everyone deserves a couch.

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | October 6, 2007 7:31 PM
24

The problem lies in people wanting to live in New York, wanting to live in SF, Chicago, Seattle. These are desirable locales to live in. That's the sad reality. As long as these places are desirable places to live, you're gonna see this problem happening. It's happening to Las Vegas and it's going to happen to Austin.

You don't see moguls who are as disconnected from reality as Julia Kim and Stephen Rushmore spending a year decorating gazillion dollar condos in Omaha.

Posted by Gomez | October 6, 2007 7:53 PM
25

psh, you guys are pussies.

london.

think new york is bad? double it.

Posted by Cale | October 6, 2007 8:36 PM
26

Who is this Cale?

Posted by Amelia | October 6, 2007 10:17 PM
27

Cale is correct. Me, I sort of gasp when a tiny tudor-y thing down the street from me has just listed for $900K (over $300K more than what it sold for less than a year ago, BTW).

However, Londoners are the bad-ASSES of the world when it comes to cost of living and real estate. We're wimpy little pusses next to them. We should only dream to be even considered in the same breath as London. If we ever get to be like London, we will really know what a housing crunch is all about. I say bring it!

Posted by Brad | October 6, 2007 11:07 PM
28

I have to semi agree with this Cale person. I'm not an expert, but I watch House Hunters, so that makes me a semi-expert! haha. jk. Anyway, whenever they do the international House Hunters in like Paris or somewhere European, the housing costs are wow! Out of the ballpark! But, afterall, it is Paris. WOW! I've never been but I've heard it is c'est magnifique! Au revoir!

Posted by Kristin Bell | October 7, 2007 1:00 AM
29

I moved here from London a few years back. Love both cities ... but could never afford to buy over there. Fortunately I had the odd rich friend from college that wanted a roommate, and I lived pretty central for several years.

Difficult for me, when local folk whine about the house prices. My inner imp wants to grab you all and shake you. You have absolutely no idea!

Posted by Sto | October 7, 2007 9:30 AM
30

#26, I am.

Posted by Cale | October 7, 2007 10:51 AM
31

you are all right, we are not paying nearly enough for housing in Seattle!!

Realators: Add two zeros at the end of every price in Seattle!!!! We DESERVE it!!!!!!

Posted by Just Me | October 7, 2007 9:01 PM
32

When I fantasize about being filthy, stinking rich, the purpose of the money would be to allow me to buy the first sofa that catches my eye when I walk in the high-end home furnishings store, and then donate it to Goodwill when I get tired of the upholstery. Not so that I can spend hours and hours poring over information on cushion density. She's doing it wrong.

Posted by Naomi Kritzer | October 7, 2007 9:25 PM
33

I'm hard at work attempting to make a fortune by trading pieces of paper over the internet. It's slow but steady. Once I get enough, I'm going to lounge around all day and live off interest income.

This is my dream; America makes it possible.

Posted by options trader | October 7, 2007 10:14 PM
34

#31, good idea, but we should wait 'till i buy a house first ;-)

Posted by Cale | October 7, 2007 10:54 PM
35

COMMENT DELETED: Off-topic
We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-puppetry (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.

Posted by Darren D. Misklashuvacis | October 8, 2007 2:58 AM
36

# 35 -The closet case

Christ, haven't you been deported yet?
You are of no value.

Posted by old timer | October 8, 2007 7:57 AM
37

I'm wondering about her shoes, and if she regrets wearing something as predictable as Gucci with the NYT watching. I'd have gone with Roger Vivier -- more interesting, more expensive, and more chic. Better yet, something custom in endangered Siberian baby skin, with Kobe beef linings and diamond soles...

Posted by It's Mark Mitchell | October 8, 2007 8:27 AM
38

Mark, you are absolutely right. They smell awfully nouveau to me. Imagine allowing the details of your private life to be seen in a newspaper. Vulgar.

Posted by derek | October 8, 2007 1:13 PM
39

yesterday the NYT front page had a lovely article about the rape epidemic in the congo. it made me sad all day.

i hope mrs. kim has a moment to contemplate that during her "year off to decorate".

Posted by maxsolomon | October 8, 2007 1:34 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).