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Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

>a limited set of niches in the upper strata of society

Otherwise known as "owning a house" and not being buried in student debt.

Too many people believe those things are entitlements when in fact they are tradeoffs. Like half my high school graduating class dropped out of college or didn't even start and many make decent wages or have dual income with a significant other. Many of which own homes or live decently. None of which demanded free rent and a college education.

Sure, but why should someone who goes to university and studies, say, literature for 4 years feel more entitled to owning a house than someone who, say, did not go to university and instead read and studied literature on his own for 4 years?

I would imagine both groups would consider themselves equally worthy.

Where would you draw the line? Which classes of society do you deem unworthy of home ownership other than the aforementioned groups and (presumably) every group below them?

I don't think anyone should feel entitled to home ownership, but certainly the classes who voted for today's zoning/planning laws (pulling the ladder up behind them) are unworthy of it.

>Which classes of society do you deem unworthy of home ownership other than the aforementioned groups and (presumably) every group below them?

I do not know where you are getting this from. I have no interest in drawing a line and I do not deem anyone to be unworthy of home ownership.

That's exactly the point of the comment above - own a house you need to be an 'elite'. So people trying to become 'elite' is really just people trying to own a house and get a tiny bit of stability.

Home ownership is within a couple percent of where it was in the 70's and 80's [1] and much higher than earlier in the centry [2]. People have selective memories and remember everyone buying into the housing bubble in the 90's but have forgotten about the crash after where they lost those houses.

The reality is that home ownership is the same or better than any time before the Clinton administration, but those who grew up in the boom have a mismatch between expectations and reality.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S...

[2] https://www.census.gov/housing/census/data/owner/owner_tab.t...

I don't see how that maps into the argument. First of all, you need to look into youth home ownership, not total home ownership, second of all you need to look into the rate of change and not the overall amount.

Beyond that, it's not arguable that you need to be into a so called 'elite' job to be able to afford homeownership in most of the country.

I think it maps onto the argument as an explanation for both 1) why youth feel entitled to homes and 2) why they are experiencing such disappointment.

Growing up through a bubble explains 1) and the rapid decline from the bubble popping explains the intensity of 2)*.

I agree that the youth ownership numbers are dismal and indicate housing is harder to get into for that age group[1]. On the other hand, ownership is going up for the elderly as fewer old folks fall into poverty and lose their homes, leading to a bit of a wash for the overall population.

It is hard to call home ownership an 'elite' while the majority of Americans are homeowners.

*There are a ton of other factors that play into the affordability crisis

-Increasing migration to more expensive urban areas.

-Housing stock not keeping up (NIMBY, regulation)

-Loss of blue collar jobs, and immigration depressing wages

-College debt burden

[1] https://faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/03...

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