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Comment by bsanr | Hacker News Reader

Moving is a substantial expense. Should people be forced to consider the likelihood that housing costs that are currently within their means might rise outside of them at some unknown point in the future, and to some unknown degree, when choosing housing? How exactly should that be considered?

It seems regressive, socially, to force this consideration on the people least able to afford it. After all, people who "choose" low-quality housing tend to do so because their choice is necessarily limited, by their lack of access to wealth and financing, to housing that is more attractive for redevelopment.

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...Yes?

This has been happening for hundreds of years. Part of being a responsible adult is managing your finances and being prepared. It is crazy to me that so much attention these days is basically advocating for the babysitting of adults.

It is not as if this will happen overnight, either. If we allow people to stay in subsidized housing we remove the biggest carrot for self-motivation.

Your perspective seems narrow. What you view as “babysitting” is an effort to sustain communities.

What are the effects on a kid’s development if they have to change schools and friend groups because their family is displaced due to rising rent? What if people have to move away from family because they can’t afford to stay? How does it impact businesses if their long term employees are suddenly moving away?

Rapidly removing people from communities causes damage to the social fabric of a community, it’s not just about economic effects.

this comment assumes people are poor because they lack self motivation or "grit to pull themselves up by the bootstraps", which in general i believe to be false.

That carrot is unobtainable for most people. Janitors, teachers, deli workers, city park employees, dog walkers, babysitters, waiters, waitresses, contractors. Doesn't matter how well you "manage your finances" if your salary basically has a cap on it.

The only ones benefitting are overpaid tech workers supplanting people that do actual tangible work that makes the city tick.

Funny that a tech worker posting on the HN playground is addressing people who deal with real life struggles (raising a family, making increasing rent) how to be a "responsible adult."

In a society where each individual plays an increasingly specialized role, socially-responsible institutions that step in and cover common needs sounds less like babysitting and more like welcome encapsulation of complex functions. This is also a society where class stratification is rooted heavily in educational disparities. It doesn't seem... rational?... to expect people with little savvy or control over their circumstances to exhibit more savvy or exert more control than those with access to more of both.

Approaching gentrification as some sort of just-world force of nature, and those thrown up in the turmoil of it as willing-by-way-of-neglect, is backwards.

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