this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Even communism aside, this is actually not uncommon. One of the advances we've made in construction is knowing how to save even more money, making the right sacrifices and meeting the minimum bars of code compliance, to maximize our margins.
I don't know how you say this unironically as criticism. That's arguably one of the biggest advantages people claim capitalism has: managing finite resources. It's not a good thing to waste manpower and resources for no real gain.
An apartment complex went up outside my work and it's made of wood. That's against fire safety code but they found some creative work arounds to convince the inspectors it was legal. (And of course the inspections are all toadies who have been put in place to rubber stamp developer plans.) Very efficient until it burns down and kills everyone inside.
So it doesn't actually meet minimum standards?
It meets the law but it sure as hell doesn't meet the safety.
Laws usually follow industry standard safety guidelines.
That’s naïve
What gain? More profits for the ultra rich? A dying planet?
People living in comfortable apartments is no real gain in capitalism because it means less ROI. But it is a huge gain to everyone's quality of life if they can live comfortably.
Market mechanisms are very powerful in optimising resource allocation - but they aren't optimising for maximum quality of life, they're optimising for maximum ROI. Which lands in the pockets of the ultra rich, which then allocate the accumulated capital in only those endeavours providing maximum ROI, and the cycle goes on and on until so much wealth is extracted from society that the middle class collapses and the planet dies - and the ultra rich with them, for they depend upon the plebes to work for them in order to have an ultra rich lifestyle in the first place.
I mean if we were trying to house people we should be aiming for inexpensive and non-wasteful building choices, shouldn't we? When we're handling basic human needs we send boats full of rice and beans, not a bunch of badass chefs.
Why not? Why not let people have nice things?
I mean it's kind of a scarcity thing. Resources aren't infinite. I have no problem with letting people have nice things and would certainly want minimums to be pretty decent, but when you're getting people off the street or something then efficiency means lives saved.
I agree!
Did you know that in the USA more buildings are vacant than there are homeless people? So the amount of housing that needs to be built is exactly zero. It' s not an amount of resources problem, it's an allocation of resources problem.
It is still a resource problem. There's a reason NIMBYs exist. Homeless populations have substance, legal and mental issues. The property is pretty much a write off the moment you hand it over.
This is probably where we'll disagree: I believe that all people living in a humane way is more important than investors' real estate portfolio valuation.
I wasn't even talking about investors or the homeowners you'd plan to confiscate from. I was talking about turning neighborhoods into slums overnight. Pest infestation and drug use.
Again, there are more vacant homes than homeless. It's not taking away people's homes. Homes where people actually live in, I mean. Most real estate investments, the owner hasn't visited once in years.
And you'd be surprised at how much people improve once they have stable housing. Finland has had a "housing first, no conditions" programme for a while now with very impressive results.
Obviously people will initially be afraid of "bad people" coming to their neighbourhood. I understand this. But I believe their feelings of discomfort are less important than the immense suffering of the homeless.
Would you seriously place property valuations as more important than humanity and human dignity?