Lol that water is cold even in the summer

sure, but my bigger point is its not an "like an MLM marketing" scam, as the prior poster was suggesting

you make it sound like there arent ways to account/fix for that. you can increase revenue/taxes, reduce payouts a certain %, increase retirement age, etc. Of course none of those things are politically popular, but its fear mongering to suggest that SS is at risk of going insolvent. On the current trajectory without any changes the program can continue to pay out to retirees, just at reduced rates.

I paid 2k in property taxes last year in Chicago and housing around me is mostly under 200k. Hardly breaking the bank. And I'm off a train line 15 minutes from downtown. Name another American city where that's possible .I'll take the affordability lol

While true, housing costs in IL are still massively cheaper than the coasts even when factoring that in. Chicago is a huge bargain, and even with taxes is nowhere near PNW, CA, NY, or even Florida prices while still offering high incomes. Hell, there are podunk Midwestern college towns with housing costs that aren't all that different than Chicago

Did you water them?

if tree roots are getting into your pipes that means your pipes are the issue, not the roots. roots just follow water, which means the pipes were probably leaky all this time

Well, what hasn't worked is the private market addressing the needs of these communities for the past 60 years.

theres way too many possible scenarios

scenario A) theres some basic blight (deteriorating brick, missing gutters, bad roof) etc on an otherwise occupied and mostly "ok" property. in this case, they get cited by the building department, the owner makes the needed repairs, and the issue goes away. this is assuming they have the funds needed to make the repairs (in many poor neighborhoods they dont, which is why theyre in a state of dis-repair in the first place)

scenario B) the property is abandoned or in severe disrepair. in this case, it is a long long process involving building court. likely its a result of a foreclosure or extreme neglect. in some cases, the owner walks away from the property entirely, and in these cases the condition of the building declines rapidly as its exposed to the elements, gangs, etc. first the owner will get cited over and over, and typically there will be an active case against them. over a period of years, assuming nothing changes, the city will acquire the property through a court case. typically, the building is far too deteriorated to save without significant cost. so what will happen is the city will demolish the property, and then try to sell the vacant lot or re-develop it.

the sad reality is the neighborhoods where this is occurring often dont have strong demand in the first place because they are plagued by poverty and extreme violence (and also hyper segregation). so it creates a viscous cycle where the city is demolishing thousands of buildings, which makes it even more difficult for the neighborhood to rebound in the long run. in most cases, the cost to restore the building would cost more than you could otherwise be able sell it for in that neighborhood and theyre structurally compromised. in the cases where you CAN sell a rehabbed building for more than you acquired, well those neighborhoods are already undergoing gentrification and general improvement of the existing housing stock.

what Chicago is trying to do is tax developers building new construction to allocate a certain amount of money to an affordable housing fund. they then are taking those proceeds and trying to put up city-driven developments on some of those vacant lots. theyre also trying to offload a lot of those vacant lots into the hands of organizations who are willing to put up affordable housing or to do redevelopment. theres a lot of info here about the different approaches:

https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/invest_sw/home.html

while youre not wrong that companies hold a lot of the cards, forcing a range in a job posting dosent necessarily solve anything. in states where this has become law, many now just say the range is "$1 - $200,000" (or whatever)

the reality too is that a high value candidate who knows their market worth can probably demand ABOVE what a company would otherwise be willing to post/pay. wheras a more inexperienced person who they see promise in they may be willing to take a chance on, but for a lesser salary. theres also no way to account someone whos under-performing in a role and not getting regular raises and is on the lower end of the salary band vs someone who is killing it and is getting tons of offers and who the employer is desperately trying to hang on to because theyre critical to client success. i guess what im saying is, a role can say its "range" is $100k-150k, but ultimately a good candidate knows what they are worth and why they are entitled to it and will make that case directly to the hiring manager either way.

there is absolutely zero chance of leaving hungry at one of these places. if anything its too much food and its getting a little ridiculous by the end.

inflation was caused by a number of things including years of near 0% interest rate, massive supply chain disruptions due to covid in addition to global conflicts like the war in ukraine which have made resources scarcer

its not a good graph at all to say that one way or the other. youd need way more context blended in to come to that conclusion.