I don't know if anyone here lives in the Seattle region, but I visited an economically depressed area. Half the shops in the strip mall were empty and closed, and there were homeless looking people with signs begging for money at several of the street corners. One time I even saw a whole family on the corner that looked pretty desperate. I have the exact location, if anyone is interested to go out there and do a sociological study. It's in the Olympia Square shopping mall, right next to the border of Lacey (about an hour south of seattle) For those of you who think more people means more money, the population in this area has been gradually increasing but it still looks pretty economically depressed. They're building more apartment complexes, yet a huge amount of the commercial space is sitting vacant. And the type of businesses remaining in these strip malls are pretty low end, the only restaurants left are cheap fastfood, even the little Asian restaurants have gone out of business. I saw one kind of scruffy middle aged guy riding on a bicycle hauling behind it a little cart with a vacuum cleaner on it. This is not in the middle of nowhere.
Same thing all around the country. This in a supposed good economic climate. Not all area's are bad, anywhere near a big city you can find it. Then, there are better area's. Here in Port Saint Lucie Florida it is nice, clean, well cared for. City only registered in 1968. Thus, everything is fairly new, I live on the far south side of town, even newer. The main road had not a gas station on it, nice curbs, median. Ride to Fort Pierce or West Palm and find a horror show. In-between Jupiter is beautiful for the wealthy. Had I stayed in New Castle Delaware or Elyria Ohio I would be regretting it. Especially Elyria, depressed, cloudy, no pay, etc. At least Delaware you can move south and still get decent pay. Sometimes in life you are better off moving your family. In 83 when I graduated Elyria was a **** hole, no work, blah blah.. I made 5$ hour and traveled to Cleveland for it. Had relative back in Del. offering me 15$ GM or Chrysler, I chose a trade and 2/3 that money. Best move I made, locked in work for a lifetime. I seen the same thing you are talking about in Portland back in February. Real **** hole part of town...The problem is they pay the poor a living wage, or at least enough to get by... Once Reagan cut taxes on the rich it ruined this country. People, working class need a decent wage to shovel ****. That need to be the bottom and pay well enough to live. Once we tax the billionaires, we got it made...
Seattle may be a big up and coming city in the U.S., but something people may not know, only 10 years ago Seattle only had about as many people as Cleveland, Ohio. It's not that big of a city, and you don't have to drive too far away to find economically depressed areas. Try going to the parts of Tacoma not near the water, for example (maybe not the worst area, but certainly obviously gritty). Seattle may have wealthy people but it's not the type of ostentatious wealth you can see in Southern Florida.
You forgot any economic comment. Why do these areas exist? What is your solution? A bit of economics please!
Well, it doesn't appear increasing population is helping these areas. Interesting example of more residential not correlating to more commercial space.
Maybe because as the population increases, rents go up, and people have less disposable consumer money to spend on businesses? There's also a big homeless encampment hidden in a wooded area right on the other side of the freeway. The locals call it "The Jungle". That could be keeping businesses away. Since there are people who look like living zombies roaming the strip mall.
The logic doesn't work. An increase in population also increases demand and therefore economic activity. So your actual argument is that capitalism is incapable of meeting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights?
It increases demand, therefore it also shifts price, and also shifts the distribution of consumer spending. It's not a paradox to say that more consumer spending in one area could result in less consumer spending in another area. In this case the consumer spending is being redirected to housing, so even as consumer spending on housing is rising due to an increase in people, other types of more discretionary consumer spending are falling.
Increase in demand does not necessarily translate into increase in economic activity. In this case the increase in demand is just translating into higher profits for those renting out housing. As you well know Reiver (and I'm sure you'll agree) higher concentration of wealth will not necessarily lead to increased economic activity.
My argument is more that shifts in external factors can lead to capitalism not being able to meet human needs as well. If I can use an analogy, it's sort of like an engine. You need to a lot of factors to be maintained in their correct ranges if you want the engine to maintain its peak efficiency. Anyway, this particular thread was not meant to go too much into the deeper underlying causes in the economy behind why this is happening. I simply wanted to point out here that it is happening.
You haven't offered a coherent argument. Your attempt was an abuse of supply and demand, which ignored macroeconomic consequences. Perhaps read up on growth theory? Is this really just a non-economic whinge? Perhaps you really want to moan about immigration?
Perhaps you should read up on theories that show an oversupply in the labor force can drive down wage levels and tip the economy into a recession? I would modify that theory to include housing price levels going up as well. Same effect.
Oversupply of labour creates a recession? Yes please, send me the link to the economics that makes that claim. Don't let me down now.
I don't know Seattle's issues. I know that all cities have depressed sketchy areas that the homeless, drug users and prostitutes find refuge in. Where I live we have manicured gated areas, crime ridden areas, and then we have poorer areas where one can find cheap housing and still safely raise a family even though your neighbor might be a druggie or previous felon. I think it's I important to have those areas that a person struggling but working can find affordable shelter. I wonder if Seattle is lacking that type of housing balance.
I know that there will always be poorer areas, perhaps even sketchy and rundown, but what I am seeing here doesn't seem like something that has to be inevitable, rather shocking really. I wouldn't have expected to see this in the U.S., maybe something in the Third World, or really old stories my grandma told me about from the Depression Era in the 1930s.
Not everyone can afford nice areas. Not far from me are neighborhoods that look terrible--tarps on roofs, trashy. Fortunately I live near downtown which makes my property of reasonable value but still affordable. We don't have gangs in this part of my city, so a family can be raised without that risk. Its just an area where poor people can live--some because they are single parents, some people have drug addictions, mental issues. After I read your post, I did a zillow search of Seattle area, and it doesn't look like there is any area where a person of mid to little means can purchase or rent a home. Even though you have these desolate areas that look third world the housing within these areas are still out of reach for a middle class family. Just weird really....My city's "third world" type areas have affordable housing for goodness sake! What would create this situation in Seattle? It doesn't seem natural. Is there some sort of regulations preventing lower housing costs?
Yes, there are many areas on the West Coast where poverty exists side by side with housing unaffordability. I've also heard there are some real ghetto areas in Rhode Island, and they have crazy expensive real estate prices.
Seems like the "oversupply of labour creates a recession" economics isn't going to be provided. Wonder why
I know of one area, in Santa Ana, CA, where the neighborhood turned into a bad area with lots of crime and gang problems, but the price of real estate kept slowly going up. It started turning south in about the mid-80s. Lots of middle class people left and the houses became jammed with lots of people. Stories of police finding 40 persons sleeping in an average smaller medium sized house weren't that uncommon. You can find lots of accounts of this posted in City-Data forum, if the moderators didn't delete and censor them.
