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Squidworth89 t1_ja8ajue wrote

Reply to comment by TheTowerBard in That 44-unit tiny home development, built by employer who can't keep staff by GraniteGeekNH

Most businesses aren’t “corporate” you’re making them out to be.

It’s not the responsibility of businesses to make up for foolish zoning. 75% of all residential land is single family. That is the problem.

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TheTowerBard t1_ja8b7a4 wrote

People working ANY job should be able to afford a house for themselves and/or their families, an actual house in the community where their job is located. If the CORPORATE ENTITY that you work for is also your landlord, you should be getting a HUGE deal on your rent, not handing your personal profits right back to the company. This is deranged. This was the American dream until they brainwashed you all into good little bootlickers.

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Squidworth89 t1_ja8dlaz wrote

Jobs don’t set the affordability of the community. The community does.

The proposed rent for these once completed falls in line with the standard 1% rule.

While the price seems absurd for the sf, it’s not absurd when looking at costs to build.

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Intru t1_ja8gzzf wrote

It just sound like you both are arguing the same thing...one is focus corporate greed and the other the inherit failures of exclusionary zoning... It's two sides of the same coin.

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Squidworth89 t1_ja8ip4u wrote

Sorta.

Most employers in America aren’t “corporate America”. The other poster seems to not understand there’s a difference there. Majority of jobs are employed by small businesses.

Wages are certainly an issue however in a competitive economy (where most small businesses operate) individual businesses cannot wander too far from the pack with wages or they’re no longer able to compete. Wage reform needs to be system wide.

Zoning is the only real issue to focus on for affordability. I use my mums house in San Diego as a perfect example. She could get a million plus for it. The house itself is like 900sf… meh quality. The land is what’s driving the price. Those cities are god awful. Like mostly single family zoned which is why they’re so expensive. Could tear her house down and she still get most of the price for it. Even the article points out that to build larger units they’d have to pay an additional $13,000 per unit fee which is asinine.

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Intru t1_ja8npet wrote

I agree with you that zoning is probably the most practical of the systemic issue that could be used to address affordability. Land use reform touches a lot of areas and can be used to reduce economic burdens that have to do with wage stagnation and rising cost of services, increase transportation costs, and other "capitalistic" pressures. If land is disproportionately expensive in desirable areas due to its access to work,services and the restrictions placed on new development. There's only two ways realistically that you can create housing that has a modicum of affordability. One is government intervention, either directly through things like subsidies or rent controls, etc or more indirectly like supporting community developments like the german "Baugruppen". Or through increasing the efficiency of the property though thing like upping its density, which before exclusionary zoning (direct government intervention through developer lobbying and community pressures) of the 1900s was just part of the natural growth of a city.

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TheTowerBard t1_ja8h85q wrote

Nope all around. If you can’t afford to pay your employees a living wage IN THE COMMUNITY YOUR BUSINESS IS LOCATED then you can’t afford to be in business there 🤷‍♂️

You attitude here is literally why everything sucks in our society. The reason this wage and housing crisis is so bad, is because we allowed corporations to call the shots since the 80s. It’s not working.

Remind me which company you are CEO of again?

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Squidworth89 t1_ja8hnxi wrote

Housing isn’t in the current situation it is in because of corporations. Corporations buying housing is a side effect of the root issue; poor zoning.

Single family homes on large lots isn’t sustainable or affordable. You need density. Has nothing to do with corporations.

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Intru t1_ja8qos2 wrote

Yes and no, The investment firms of today are not causing much of a dent of increase and didn't really create this mess they are just exacerbating the issue, same with AirBNB. As you state . But suburban development corporations and business did play a major role in the suburbanization of our zoning regulations as a means of increasing value and securing their investment. A concerned they passed along to new suburbanites that then enshrined these codes into their local planning ordinances. Add to that classism and racism and you get the disinvestment and destruction of our urban environment as a way to cater to the suburbanite communture.

This is more addressing TheTowerBard, Sure a company should be able to pay their employee a livable wage, but if we have structural issue that prevent that, then shouldn't we look at fixing it? Wage fairness is one of these, but the other is land-use, and a third one is transportation, and there's more but like I said before, land use is a very practical and easy one to work at now, one that we have a reasonable chance of changing with enough political will at a local level.

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TheTowerBard t1_ja8kwqo wrote

Ah yes, those that set wages and also act as landlords have absolutely nothing to do with whether their employees can afford an actual decent place to live or not... amazing logic.

My brother in Squid, this has been a downward trajectory since the 80s. This isn't a new issue. Yes, allowing corporations to shape everything about or communities and society at large is exactly why we find ourselves in this current situation. Allowing them to buy ALL of our politicians so that they advocate for corporations and industies over human beings is exactly why we find ourselves in this current situation.

Idk about you, but when I was a kid in the New England almost everything was locally owned. That is not the case anymore. Corporate America is literally destroying society and the planet itself, and somehow there are still folks out there licking their boots.

Look at how the people of France fight to protect their workers. Yet here, "free thinking" Americans are wholly and willfully corporate wage slaves wandering around mumbling about "bootstraps.". It's pathetic, honestly. And the crazy part is that it is the people that screech at others about being "sheeple" that are the most brainwashed by their corporate overlords.

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the_nobodys t1_ja8mtse wrote

Again, not every employer is an example of ruthless corporate takeover. I know you want to righteously rage, and no one is disputing your vision of a fair Ameirca, but not every windmill is The Machine.

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TheTowerBard t1_ja8q9uq wrote

If this company is big enough to get involved in building an apartment building, and now a plot with tiny houses for their employees, they are big enough to pay them a living wage for the community in which they are located. Let’s let that money go back into the local economy instead of back into the company’s bank account.

If they were offering heavily discounted rents to employees we’d be having a different discussion. They don’t seem to be. This is the exact sort of thing that crated those “too big” corporations that are the perfect example you seek.

All I’m saying is that we’ve seen this before, we know how it will play out, and it will benefit the company not the people of that community. So let’s learn from history instead of continually making the same mistakes over and over.

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