dionidium t1_is15qp6 wrote on October 12, 2022 at 3:31 PM

Reply to comment by BOKEH_BALLS in why is our government so ignorant in Rhode Island? just because the weather is warm during the summer does not mean that the homeless go away. why do they wait until the cold weather to go and fix the problem? they never gets fixed?! we obviously need more shelters unless bike path. by [deleted]

> How does building new apartments affect someone whose life doesn't revolve around property value? I think any rational person would want a society where affordable housing is plentiful.

If you don't know the answers to these questions, then I'm not sure what I can do for you. People don't only oppose construction in their neighborhood because of "property values." "Property values" is a proxy for all kinds of things that make a neighborhood more or less desirable and people care also about all those things.

Again, I think this isn't merely true, it's extraordinarily obvious, so I'm not sure what I could say to someone who doesn't believe it.

BOKEH_BALLS t1_is16rh5 wrote on October 12, 2022 at 3:38 PM

I guess I've lived in countries where entire communities live next to each other in mega high rises vs the US where people want to live isolated. In Singapore for example the government strictly regulates housing ratios based on ethnicity to ensure everyone lives next to everyone else. They try to minimize the "I'm not living here bc the <insert minorities> are moving in next to me" attitude like you find in the US.

dionidium t1_is178e6 wrote on October 12, 2022 at 3:41 PM

I feel like we're talking across each other here. Of course the government could literally mandate desegregation and the government could literally force people to allow a bunch of new construction in their neighborhood. Of course that's something that could happen.

The point is that at this exact moment in time the vast majority of Americans oppose that and they don't oppose it only because of the "profit motive." They oppose it because they fear crime, because they don't want more traffic or noise in their neighborhood, maybe because some of them are racist. They have lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of reasons to oppose it that have nothing to do with capitalism. Not all of those reasons are good. It's just that a lot of them have nothing to do with capitalism.

So, I'm sorry, but it's just extremely naive and unserious to say that it's all about capitalism.

BOKEH_BALLS t1_is2p48g wrote on October 12, 2022 at 9:28 PM

I'd agree if the attitudes and personal feelings of Americans in general weren't completely shaped first by nascent capitalism a la chattel slavery and then afterwards by unfettered and unregulated hyper capitalism lol. Peoples attitudes in this country are inextricably linked to Capitalism bc Capitalism has been allowed to seize and commodify every single facet of society. Americans have never lived to experience any other system.

Greed, selfishness, and entitlement are behaviors enhanced and rewarded in Capitalist countries. To say that one has nothing to do with the other is real naivety imo.