Thought for conversation: if you are able to work remote but still live in or near a major employment center, are you at least somewhat morally responsible for pricing out those who cannot work remote?
Land is bought and sold on an open market. Everyone can decide for themselves what is most important to them and what they can afford. One factor behind living in a major city is certainly easy access to in-person employment. But there are a ton of other factors (restaurants, culture, sporting events, community, etc.). If you are willing to pay a lot of money to be close to those things even if you don't use all of them, that's your choice and it's perfectly ethical.
1. I mean, unless you're talking about Boston in the 90's where the Charles was a pristine beautiful river that only an absolute madman would ever dare to fish on or some other similar pollution driven limitation of services... but that also shifts the original point since fisherman have no desire to live close to the Charles (and might actually be harmed by having to boat up and down the Charles every day when compared to living in Chelsea or Southie.
If such an obligation exists, it's the government's obligation, not an individual one.
The best thing an individual can do to provide housing to other people (aside from build it) is to support the loosening of regulations which make it difficult to build new housing. Those regulations tend to be worst in the major employment centers.
Morality is useful to avoid rationalizing things that we know are wrong. For example, killing is wrong -- we don't want individuals making complex rationalizations about how the end justifies the means.
But something as complex as the place a person chooses to live? No, that's a morally-neutral choice. It may not be optimal for the benefit of society, but that's not what morality is about.
Humanity justifies it in self-defense and war. A long time ago, civilizations justified human sacrifices. It doesn't take a complex rationalization. Only a convincing one.
While the platitude of "killing is wrong" is repeated by everyone, if you dig deep enough, people will still provide carveouts for themselves and their country or religion. Whether killing is good or bad is assessed by people objectively in terms of motives and consequences, and, on a subjective level, manner and "proportion". There wouldn't be a distinction between homicide and murder if humanity as a whole practiced what it preached.
>But something as complex as the place a person chooses to live? No, that's a morally-neutral choice. It may not be optimal for the benefit of society, but that's not what morality is about.
I agree entirely. However this seems like a massive departure from what I've had to argue against in this forum. Plenty have claimed the opposite, that morality is all about society and any correlated externality IS obliged to be solved by government or the people through a half-baked redistribution scheme.
I'd argue that choosing to live in any area for any reason does not in any way make you morally responsible for the externalities of that choice. What you do while living there you are morally responsible for, but merely the choice to move does not bear any responsibility.
So, yes, NIMBYs bear some moral responsibility for the housing situation, but simply relocating does not create responsibility or moral hazard.
For example, if I was permanently remote, I would like to move to a cheaper area. I can't because my wife doesn't want to leave the current county (because "It's the best county in the world"). Although I'm also not in a heavily populated area, more so on the edge of being rural.
For some reason that comment really piqued my curiosity. Obviously lots of us might choose different areas for various reasons (schools, weather, scenery, politics, recreational opportunities, cultural sites, etc). But to make a declaration of world's best must mean a lot of confidence in the greatness of one's county! It also reminds me how little I identify with the county I live in, perhaps because I've lived in a few, and perhaps because I currently live almost directly on a county border and can see the neighboring county from my back windows.
Still, I'm curious what about your home county makes your wife so enthusiastic about it compared to well, everywhere else?
I asked her that during the discussion. She wasn't able to give any explanation. My guess is that it's because she's never lived anywhere else. I've lived multiple places. They each have their good and bad characteristics.
Second, somebody living in a small super expensive apartment whilst fully working remotely is likely to have a miserable time (COVID situation). If they would have the type of job security guaranteeing they can continue working remotely for a long time, surely many of them might leave. Those that stay likely have non-work reasons to stay, like proximity to family or other attractions of the city.
As for home ownership, it's a market, and there's no such thing as morality in markets. If you think that sounds cruel and selfish, try this simple thought exercise: the people currently priced out of owning a home, imagine they somehow do acquire a home. Now add 10 years and their homes appreciating 50% in value. Now they sell, do you honestly believe that these people that were all about social fairness and morality now apply a 50% discount to the buyer, out of the goodness of their heart?
I don't think so.
Likewise, if something happens to your home (expensive repairs, mortgage issues) do "moral" people come to help and compensate you? No. Your problem, you're the owner.
Anyway, I do empathize with the point, and I think we need a systemic change. The spreading of work/cultural locations into more places/hubs. The idea that you can cram ever more people in a tiny area and somehow keep this stable and working is just a ridiculous illusion.
Extra supply doesn't really work in these areas, so indeed...reduce demand, by moving it.
Is it okay to sell people? Do you own your children? If you own land, do you also own anyone who lives on that land?
At various point in history answers to all of the above were yes.
Should we have a market for organs? There is a market for intellectual property, but what is intellectual property - maybe there should be a patent for everything that exists, say a pencil, and they should never ever expire. So noone except that owner should be allowed to make pencils.
Should we have laws against Dumping, self dealing, wash teading, antitrust, insider trading, tragedy of the commons, negative externalities, collusion, cartels, misselling?
All those behaviours arise naturally from markets.
Currently, a home is personal property and thus a market. The ownership of assets is a fundamental building block of a modern capitalist society.
The point of owning a home is to have a house to live in, which you like and can customize to your liking. Another point/benefit is to take control of your living expenses and to be independent from a landlord.
The fact that real estate prices are skyrocketing has nothing to do with the idea of home ownership, it's a side effect of an imbalance in supply and demand. Yes, some investors will abuse this imbalance to build wealth but the true root cause is the imbalance in itself that makes it possible.
It's not rocket science. You cannot keep cramming ever more people in the same area. Supply will never meet demand. No amount of policy or taxation will solve this. The only structural long term solution is to address the demand side. It should not be required for half the population to move into a handful of cities just to have a decent job.