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Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

"But not in our generation, the next one."

The familiar song of the NIMBY knows no borders. What an amazing statement. Younger people must be immiserated because older person has bills to pay. At least demographically speaking the young man in the video won't really need to wait 40 years to get an apartment above ground. Population of SK is believed to have peaked in 2020 and is now rapidly plunging, with total fertility now way below 1.0. They used to project peak population in 2035 but now they are projecting to lose 1 million by that year.

Edit: Sorry, the 1 million is according to the "medium" fertility projection but since reality is already far below the "low" scenario, the projection is for losing 3 million people by 2035.

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That lady is dirt poor clinging onto the meagre rent of a very insignificant asset. I guarantee her entire life, including as a "landlord", has been certainly tougher than mine, but probably yours and 99% of the people on this forum. The landlord is "in her 80s", so born between '33 and '42. Consider:

- She was born into Japanese occupation and lived through WW2. Probably was malnourished growing up.

- Shes old enough to remember the Korean War and, almost assuredly had the front line go through her location (at one point only the city Busan held out). War is not good for young teenaged girls.

- After the war, she might have been one of the thousands of low income women that were prostituted off to the American army by the Korean state desperate for foreign capital to rebuild.

- She lived most her life under a pretty brutal dictatorship.

Korean women of her generation have lived through some of the most insane hardships. The toil of her generation built one of the richest export economies in the world while inheriting literally one of the most backwards and poor country ruled by dictators.

I think shes owed a small rental income to buy meds.

There's more than enough economic activity in SK to pay for both health care and housing, but their wealth is highly concentrated among the richest. Instead of insisting that there must be an underclass of subterranean peasants supporting her in late life due to the happenstance of her petty real estate holdings, people who are just barely above peasants should be looking up, demanding accountability from people richer than themselves.

Im not insisting there should be an underclass of peasants. I am defending an old woman against the charge of NIMBYism, or that she should not take space for the young generation. In fact, Id make these living arrangement illegal.

However, as is often the case, emotion driven decisions have horrible secondary effects. Is Seoul setting aside money for compensating landlords for loss of legal income? Is Seoul building affordable housing? Is Korea delivering high quality government services evenly throughout the country?

Seoul, one of the world's richest cities, isn't offering her a NPV of her future rent. Seoul isn't building affordable housing.

This landlady has had a much tougher life than her tenants who have had much tougher lives than most on this forum

I think this is fair but not at all what you were saying in your initial comment.

I don't think the old lady was being a NIMBY Andy.

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