Time used to be a news magazine with (for part of its history) a strong anti-communist slant. Apparently, news doesn’t sell anymore in the Internet age, as Time is now more of an opinion magazine.
So when last week’s cover story was titled, “Rethinking Homeownership,” the Antiplanner assumed this would be another smart-growth diatribe against urban sprawl with the usual talk about how “some people just shouldn’t own a home.” There’s a little bit of that: “Homeownership contributed to the hollowing out of cities and . . . fed America’s overuse of energy and oil.” But mostly it is just a lament that there have recently been lots of foreclosures.
The on-line version of the article is only four paragraphs long; it is possible the print version is more detailed. But with a subtitle like “why owning a home may no longer make economic sense,” I would like to see an analysis comparing the cost of a mortgage with the cost of renting in various housing markets. Of course, there is nothing like that.
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Naturally, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) disagrees with the article, arguing in part that homeownership remains “a good investment.” But this is a mistake too: homeownership should not be seen as an investment but merely an alternative that, in the long run, often costs less than renting.
Historically, and still today in places without bubbles, local housing prices rise at about the same rate as local family incomes. If a city experiences a bust (as Portland did in the early 1980s and Houston did in the late 1980s), then prices may fall. In the long run, as long as the economy recovers, prices will rise to at least keep pace with inflation. This gives homeowners some assurance that they can sell their homes when they no longer want or need them, but it won’t make them rich. Only when there are restrictions on housing supply do prices rapidly rise, leading people to view homeownership as an investment rather than merely an alternative to renting.
The biggest problem with the Time article, as with most articles of this kind (including the NAHB response), is that it makes no distinction between places that housing bubbles (such as California and Florida) and places that did not (such as North Carolina and Texas). Regardless of the reasons for this difference, all of the arguments against homeownership cited in the Time article apply only to places that had bubbles.
This means the article should have been titled, “Rethinking Property Bubbles,” and the author should have asked what policies led to the bubbles and how we can avoid them in the future. Maybe it is too much to ask Time magazine to get into such detail, particularly if it can only devote a few paragraphs to a cover story. But in that case, it shouldn’t have written the story at all.
Time is of course an American magazine, and as such is a corporate mouthpiece despite having global circulation. It tailors its mouthpiece message to the audience. We can see another instance where it dumbs down the message for Murricans with the Pakistani floods.
Nonetheless, The Murrican Dream is not homogeneous. And with the coming paradigm shift (almost here now) where people must retrain and change careers every 7-10 years, homeownership will be a less good option as families must uproot themselves to find jobs. Renting will be a new normal for many as capital continues to offshore jobs and people must migrate to eat (like we see with people coming north to the US for jobs).
DS
Wow Dan, you certainly drank a lot of Venezuela socialist coffee and listened to a lot of NPR this morning. Maybe next time you could comment on something relevant to the post and not write self-contradictory tripe about US jobs going offshore while illegal aliens come to the US for more jobs.
Direct hit, Dan! Once again you have crystallized my thoughts.
While eating lunch at a pedestrian refuge today, and noticing how livable the roar of oncoming traffic was, I decided to put a deposit down on one of the sparkling clean, high-density housing apartments near the crime-riddled and infrequently used MAX station. I’ll be moving out of my house of 30 years next week to live in this rip-snorting shit-void.
Soon the untamed middle class will join me at the margins of society, where we will all grow infirm and die. When that day comes, I would like to meet Dan for a cup of locally brewed coffee, mount him firmly, and return his benevolence with a bit of “tactile paving.”
“Apparently, news doesn’t sell anymore in the Internet age, as Time is now more of an opinion magazine.”
This line is more and more blurred everyday. Even the true journalistic news outlets are slanted in what they choose to report, but at least they “report.”
I do think asking Time to investigate the detailed analysis on housing bubbles is asking too much… for Time. Let’s be honest, even at the magazine’s best, it’s still pop journalism. That’s why The Economist exist, for those who want to go beyond Time’s populist dumbing down of stories.
I appreciate the society that allows great unwashed fantasists to work together with members of a vast conspiracy forcing everyone into (fill in with the fear phrase of the week) to help illustrate my point about paradigm shifts, New Normals, migration and homeownership.
DS
Dan, like a good lozenge, your words dissolve in my mouth. They lubricate and soothe.
I forced that lozenge down your throat, just as I forced you to have extra choices in transportation modes to travel to the Walgreens (whom I forced to carry consumer goods that I liked and to have a facade that was pleasing only to overeducated effete city dwellers).
So in effect I’m forcing you to thank me for your spittle surplus.
I didn’t, however, force you to distract the thread away from the flawed basic premise of the original Randal post…but hmmmm…heeeey…MAYBE I forced you into the transparent, obvious change of subject by dint of the sheer force of my capitalization, HTML tags, and punctuation!!!!!
Ah…the pow-AHHHHHHH of th’ plannin’! We’ze have the powah!!! Hoo-ah.
DS
Just remember how Dan and other professional planners respond to comments. His response is what they say to each other in their offices. They mock public comments, not listen to them. Their attitude is that they are experts and just have contempt for anyone who disagrees from them. And this is just what Dan is bold enough to write on a government computer in violation of his government employer’s policies.
So, I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’ve gotta defend Dan.
First, I don’t think he’s working (directly) for the government now. Seriously, have you not been paying attention?
Additionally, Dan’s comments, for the most part have been extremely civil and rather cogent.
Again, it’s hard to believe I’m saying this, but I’m glad Dan is here. He makes some valid points and has abandoned personal attacks and rants.
Let’s give Dan a break. If you don’t like what he has to say, ignore or refute it.
On the rare occasions that Dan makes a civil and cogent comment, I don’t bother him. But that is rare. Just look at the asinine comments he made on this thread, while not making any substantive comments.
What is interesting is how planners think his comments are professional. That says a lot about the planning profession, and the contempt they have for public comments. It kind of proves the point of the “Antiplanner” website.
What I see is a relevant comment in #1 about Time and a shift from buying homes to renting. Then in #2 I see loaded words, like “socialist” and “tripe”. While I appreciate sarcasm, #3 is far OT. The author wants to meet Dan so he can “mount him firmly”.
So on this thread, the asinine comments aren’t Dan’s. They’re yours.
I stick by #9. If you don’t like what Dan has to say, ignore or refute it. If you can’t do so without loaded vocabulary, you’re exposing the weakness of your position, writing, vocab, and logic.
Thank you Frank.
Almost everything has been hoo-haw distraction away from the topic, so let us return to it:
DS
No problem.
I agree with the point that renting will become a new normal as people must move to find work. This is particularly true as some states are faring better than others. Had I been a homeowner, it would have been very difficult—if not impossible—to move when I was laid off from my teaching job for the third straight year in OR, where a colleague at a charter school tells me she thinks the school will go under in the next few years; luckily, as a renter, she can move to another state that might be hiring and will be looking for openings this spring. Her home-owning co-workers don’t have that freedom.
Are you still here? It’s over. Go home.
Frank, with all due respect, this isn’t one of your classrooms. You have no control over the dialogue. Enjoy it, hate it, slather yourself in it…it’s here to stay.
Having said that, as long as Planner Dan continues to dazzle us, the unwashed, mouth-breathing masses of “Muricans” who pledge allegiance to a corrupt ideology and require sock-puppet demonstrations from Dan to understand his extraordinary intellect, he’ll continue to incur comments about oily rodgerings in traffic-calmed neighborhoods and lozenges of wisdom administered to pants-less, plightful people of third-world, non-Murican countries.
It’s as simple as that, really.
Thus the sock puppet is reduced to accusing others of sock puppetry to spam away from the point:
One can pine for continued validation of a self-identity based on an outdated paradigm, drooling on lozenges all the while, and continuing to advocate for policy that is no longer relevant for many. As long as one isn’t disappointed that no one bases policy for many on irrelevancies.
Jus’ sayin’.
DS
“Frank, with all due respect, this isn’t one of your classrooms. You have no control over the dialogue.”
You’re right; it’s not. It is an online forum, a self-regulating one at that. Metaphorically, it’s like Randal’s parlor or living room. He pays the rent. He provides the hors d’Å“uvre.
I have just as much right as anyone to point out debate that is not constructive. That is one of our host’s guidelines: constructive debate. Not trying to control. Just remind.
I’m here to learn, not fight. I think we all, myself included, need to remember that we are guests and should behave as such. Dialogue is great. Appeals to ridicule, personal attacks, and name calling are childish behavior I expect to see in one of my classrooms, not in a forum of educated adults.
Frank, you seem like a nice guy and judging from your comments, I’m fairly certain you live within a stone’s throw of my abode. We both have court-side seats to the diseased theater of bad local government.
Funny you mention the “living room” analogy. I originally scribbled something similar and then deleted it, pointing out how Dan repeatedly breaks an unspoken “rule” of Internet etiquette in that he repeatedly storms the comments section of Randal’s “living room” with snide remarks and blanket statements geared at those who participate in this forum (as if we all march to the same drummer — a premise that’s laughable on its face. As nice a guy as you may be Frank, do you really think you have much in common with someone like myself in any element of life beyond “antiplanning”? I tend to think not, unless you enjoy “lozenge humor.”)
Granted, I’ve been a smart-ass with Dan and sprinkled some invasive humor upon his diddlestick, but I’m fairly certain I haven’t called him any names. (Have I? Can someone audit my material?)
In fact, I value Dan’s intelligence although I find his irritating method of expressing himself equal in power to syrup of ipecac. Dan has more chops for these discussions than I do, agreed — absolutely, no argument. And though he unfairly and inaccurately characterizes Randal as an ethics-lacking ideologue, I suspect there are things I can learn from bathing in Dan’s ennobling waters (if there are wet suits for that type of thing).
For instance: Dan seems to despise EVERY approach that Randal endorses. Fine, OK, that’s fair — but why not articulate this more diplomatically and more thoughtfully? In between all the shrill blanket statements, why not try a nice little oasis of:
“Randal, what you suggest may be tenable for Portland, which certainly seems to have its share of problems, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all fix, and quite frankly it wouldn’t work here in Colorado Springs (or wherever Dan lives) for reasons A, B, C, and D. Please reconsider, and try implementing Strategy 1, 2 and 3 in lieu of Inputs 5, 7, and 8.”
Is that reasonable? Nyet?
Anyway, I love this site, and given proper medication, all its participants too.
Iced D
ID: (And how appropriate those initials on a psychological level: the part of the psyche, residing in the unconscious, that is the source of instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle”.)
Your posts make me chuckle, and I see how your existence here, your posts, are karmic, how you are the yin to Dan’s yang (and perhaps therein lies the source for the “mounting” comment). Look through my post history and you’ll find a curse-laden rant or two, sometimes in response to the very vomit-inducing, irritating method of self-expression you referenced. I just happen to see the latest responses, yours not being a primary offender, as somewhat baseless. And I’m trying to ignore comments and rhetorical flourishes designed to provoke while making sure mine are not among those.
To answer your question, da, eto razoomno. It’s something I’d like to see, and at least steps have been taken to cool the rhetoric somewhat. But poking a bear results in a mauling.
Frank – If you just apply your own thoughts to Dan, then you will help all of us make these comments a more intelligent and less belligerent place.
Frank said: “If you don’t like what [the Antiplanner] has to say, ignore or refute it. If you can’t do so without loaded vocabulary, you’re exposing the weakness of your position, writing, vocab, and logic.”
Andy said:
“Just remember how Dan and other professional planners respond to comments. His response is what they say to each other in their offices. They mock public comments, not listen to them. ”
That’s just stupid. Is there any profession that involves more public participation, public surveys, charrettes, appreciative inquiries, public meetings, public forums, public workshops, and other participatory processes in order to gather, analyze, account for and incorporate the desires of the public more that planning?
My entire planning career is based on my ability to engage the public. I wrote my thesis on it. It is my “expertise,” and from where I’m standing your comment is utter bull shit. Dan and other planners responses here are what planners say on blogs dedicated to their demise, not to the public who in concerned with issues in their community.
Maybe where Andy lives all the planners are assholes who belittle people, but I doubt it. Andy may be one of those people that shows up to public meetings a belittles the administrative professionals there doing there job. Just a hunch.
…there doing their… sorry.
Is there any profession that involves more public participation, public surveys, charrettes, appreciative inquiries, public meetings, public forums, public workshops, and other participatory processes in order to gather, analyze, account for and incorporate the desires of the public more that planning?
That is what makes Dan’s comments so unprofessional, and why I am so shocked that other professional planners are not the first to take him to task. I would think your professional ethics would compel you to disown such unprofessional behavior. He will continue to be the public face of your profession on this website, if only because he writes 30% of all the comments.
I have worked with many professional planners, and the really bad ones act like Dan. Fortunately many others have professional ethics.
Andy, have you been to Portland? Everyone in the city talks like Planner Dan. If I’m reading a stack of printed papers on the bus, it’s all I can do to fend off the rage foaming from the mouth of a well-salaried, emaciated urbanite who wants to know how many Douglas Firs had to die so I could read about the over/under in the Carolina Panthers/Tampa Bay Buccaneers game.
It used to fill my unmentionables with frothy anger. Contempt! Now I try to sit back in a lawnchair and watch the absurdity unfold as my fellow commuters throw fists at each other because the pork niblets at the ecotage summit didn’t contain strawberry sauce from within a 5-mile radius of the city center.
And no, I’m not really exaggerating:
http://icedborscht.com/blog/2010/08/01/pearl-districts-before-swine-is-portland-a-cult/