Yes, I can rent. I can rent until I die. But how bizarre is it that you are telling me and everyone else who isn't wealth enough to have bought a house yet that we "insist" on buying and we should be happy to rent forever when we spent decades telling the baby boomers the exact opposite? As a country, we recognize the wealth building aspect of home ownership. We recognize the stability it gives people who don't have to worry about rent increases and who don't have to worry about pulling their kids out of their school. We see the value of people leaving their kids with homes after they die, not dusty rent checks. We recognize the value of people putting down roots in their community and investing in it. We gave the baby boomers the mortgage interest rate deduction, Prop 13, and the GI bill and numerous other programs to make sure that everyone in the middle class could have a home to call their own.
Now you're saying that it was fine for the American dream for boomers to involve home ownership but if a Millennial wants the same benefits then they're "entitled" and "insisting"?
The absurd cost of housing in this country and the declining rates of homeownership are directly tied to the massive divergence we're seeing between rich and poor in this country and the shrinking middle class. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/19/meet-...
Hey, I think you're being unfair here, attributing a wide range of beliefs to me that I never stated, nor do I believe. That's really unfair. I said in another post: I hear that you're angry, but it's not OK to lash out or claim that I'm arguing something I'm not.
Anyway, with regards to home ownership: I'm personally of the belief that home ownership has been massively oversold as a benefit. I've been in the Bay Area for 25 years, from undergrad to staff engineer at an internet firm. Over the various dot-booms and dot-busts, I saw people moving further from the Bay Area and taking on insane commutes due to the desire to own homes. For example, many Stanford employees purchased in Tracy(!), then experienced massive financial failures when that area depreciated.
I'd like to see Prop 13 die in a fire. Unlikely to ever happen.
So, as you say, you're moving out of Palo Alto because the costs to buy there are too high. However, Santa Cruz isn't particularly cheap nor is it significantly cheaper than my own area, San Mateo, which has a 20 minute commute to Palo Alto.
If you had just said, "$90K/year in an area 30 minute commute to PA", I wouldn't have complained at all. The problem here is insisting on living directly in PA weakens the argument (it's specious) because there is no specific reason for a person to have to live in PA. There are more affordable communities around within 30 minutes commute. I feel like you're insisting that people who support a community must live (and own) in that city. I don't think that's a rational requiment.
Again, none of my argument is based on the systemic issues in the Bay Area (or anywhere with a booming economy and a large number of well-capitalized buyers), which I freely admit is a problem.
I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Yes, I personally can go live 30 minutes away. So how far away should the teachers live, then? The police? Because if I can afford San Mateo, then that means they largely can't. So where are they going? Is it acceptable for them to be coming up to PA from Gilroy? Tracy? Stockton? At what point do we say that we've created a ridiculous system in which people are needlessly spending years of their lives in traffic and throwing rent money in the toilet all because we can't build some more apartment building next to our jobs centers? I'm not insisting that city work live or own in PA, I'm highlighting that they can't own anywhere near PA, since, as you state, even 30 minutes out of PA is where two-income professionals can afford, not them.
101 to Gilroy will often be faster and saner than 17 to Santa Cruz... sorry but you are in for some serious commute pain. Even people who only need to go as far as Summit Road eventually crack. 17 was never designed for commute traffic
Simply put, in your situation I would head to Texas. Sucks, but Santa Cruz is also gentrifying and you are already too late to catch a break there. You fought the good fight, there are other great places to live.
I would be on suicide watch if I had to take 17 every day. It is beyond awful and every day there is some lane-closing accident etc. The State will discourage more coastal development: 17 will never be improved...to do so would mean more development in precisely the areas the State wants to protect....coast and redwood forests
Now you're saying that it was fine for the American dream for boomers to involve home ownership but if a Millennial wants the same benefits then they're "entitled" and "insisting"?
The absurd cost of housing in this country and the declining rates of homeownership are directly tied to the massive divergence we're seeing between rich and poor in this country and the shrinking middle class. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/19/meet-...