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Comment by just_a_dev | Hacker News Reader

It's easy to live outside of a heavily polluted area if you have severe asthma.

Whenever I see comments like this, I want to remind people to be grateful that they have such luxuries and abilities in their life to relocate at will whenever factors become inconvenient.

The reality is, I think most people don't realize how hard others have it, and how non-trivial such things can be for those in more dire straits or those that are more destitute. These are simply not options for many folks. Where's the money to move, to relocate, the wherewithal? The sheer number of factors that tie people to less-than-ideal places can be daunting, and those not living in that kind of squalor are sometime oblivious...or lacking the empathy, to understand its rarely that simple.

I grew up in extreme poverty and for myself (and others in a similar situation) moving was, perhaps contrary to intuition, a pretty common thing. Whenever a better paying job or cheaper housing popped up, we moved. There are a number of factors that make it somewhat easier to move when you're in poverty. In particular you're always renting and you have negligible items of wealth. For instance you don't need to worry about a place accepts pets when you can't even afford a cat. An extra $50 a month is a pretty big deal when you don't have anything so there's much more of an external drive to move for what otherwise people might just simply accept. There are also extrinsic factors that, more or less, force moving when you're in poverty. Indeed FiveThirtyEight dug up the stats and people who earn < $5000 per year are just about twice as likely to move (13%), in any given year, than those earning > $100,000 (7%). [1]

In some cases there are going to be some extenuating circumstances that prevent things like moving. For instance, extreme disability is one possibility, though that does not seem to be the issue in this case. The mother seems able, younger mid aged, and had 3 children. If she was disabled in any significant way, the media pieces and her crowd funding would also have mentioned that, to further draw at pathos.

Ultimately you cannot discount the fact that there are many negligent parents. In this case the parent is claiming, in her crowd funding page [2], that she only realized pollution might be a trigger for her daughter's asthma, after she died. Quoting her, "Since her death I have become aware of the dangers posed by air pollution and discovered that our home, located approximately 25 metres from the South Circular in London, was a known air pollution ‘hot spot’ and started to put two and two together. ". It's insane and inexcusable that somebody can have a daughter with severe asthma and not realize pollution and fumes can trigger it. That's something any 10 second search on asthma would turn up.

[1] - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-times-the-aver...

[2] - https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/airpollution/

> (yes, I realize most people cant just move on a whim)?

> It's easy to live outside of a heavily polluted area if you have severe asthma.

Most people can't just move, but it's easy to just move?

So why isnt the cause of death poverty?

She was nine fucking years old.

I am straining to maintain the notion of civility that HN demands, so I will only ask you this: what bent you to make you think this sort of thing is reasonable or okay or decent?

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