Trouble In the Big City

The New York Times is reporting that while cities in America are booming, they are becoming increasingly unaffordable for middle class people. Urban centers are partitioning into the haves and have nots with little in between.

I can speak to this from personal experience. It's nearly impossible for 2 people working full time on a middling salary to make it in a place like New York. A lot of people in public service are having to take these long commutes to get into town. Others are having to take two jobs - each.

The response of this guy indicative of how out-of-touch some of our leaders are:

Firefighters who want to live in high-priced cities can work two jobs, said W. Michael Cox, chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "I think it’s great," he said. "It gives you portfolio diversification in your income."

Yeah buddy. That's what you call working yourself to death and never seeing your family. A "diverse portfolio." What a schmuck.

And what about this comment?

Professor Glaeser said: "There’s no obvious smoking gun saying cities will be substantially worse off. There’s a whole lot of America that does a very good job of taking care of the middle class. The great sprawling edge cities of the American hinterland provide remarkably cheap housing, fast commutes, decent public services and incredibly cheap products available in big box stores. As a New Yorker, I understand the view that exile from New York is consignment to hell; but that’s not accurate. The majority of middle-class people that have moved out have presumably found themselves better lives out there."

I'm sorry. Some of us don't like living in the exurbs. Aside from all the economic, environmental, and social damage sprawl like that creates, it is very discriminatory to say that the urban life is in the future going to be restricted to the very affluent.

Do you know what's happening here? They are trying to turn out cities into 3rd world hellholes, with the elite having their poor servants close by packed 20 to a room. They're becoming these gargantuan gated communities, with crappy services and no culture for those of not lucky enough to have rich parents. And did I mention that our economic system is already busily destroying small town life, so that we'll be left with no real options for a satisfying residence at all?

I'm happy that the Times pointed out some of the problems associated with a disappering middle class, such as a lack of economic opportunity, economic and social stratification, and political instability. But I wonder why they haven't pointed to the broader problem. It's not that just our cities are seeing the disappearance of the middle class. This is what our entire country is facing: the end of the American middle class, and with the end of what we used to call the American Dream.