Hacker News Reader

Comment by mgraczyk | Hacker News Reader

When times are tough, moving does not need to be expensive. Before I moved to SV, I sold or donated everything I couldn't fit in two suitcases. I moved into an affordable house where I share a bedroom with 3 other people. I would be able to make rent with only $20k/year.

I know not everybody can divorce themselves from all of their belongings, especially large families. Additionally, I didn't have to worry about schools (no children) or work (my industry has ~0 unemployment). I did, however, have to worry about saving enough to survive between jobs and finding an affordable place to stay.

> This is at it's core class struggle, not individual unawareness. I agree, but I think part of the solution has to involve helping people relocate. We should also strive to encourage a more distributed social life. If we had inexpensive, high quality video telecommunications I believe that people would be more okay with moving away from their families.

View on HN

Selling all your belongings to move to SV when you're single, educated, and high employment chances is not as similar as you feel. I know you probably struggled to make it happen, and I'm not trying to understate that.. but that sounds completely different than poverty.

I have moved on a shoestring many times as well, but it's exponentially more complex when you have a family than when you're a single guy on the make. It's even more disruptive for children who are pulled out of their real-life social/educational network with basically no choice and no agency in how they go about reconstructing that.

We should also strive to encourage a more distributed social life.

Why? I'm not the most gregarious person and I am OK with telephones and video, but it's a far cry from meeting people you care about in person. The problem with helping people relocate rather than deal with these issues at their source is that you wind up with economic cleansing, large enclaves and entire cities where only the wealthy can live and others where only the poor can afford to reside. Naturally there are few economic opportunities in communities of poor people, so people who live in them have to travel ever farther to get to their jobs, with increased cost in fuel/transit fares and diminishing marginal utility of labor due to the extra commute time.

The thing is, the same dynamic is at work to varying degrees all over the country so it's far from obvious where people who are economically dislocated should move to.

The struggles of the poor ("poor" as defined by the original post) are not the same as the struggles of a fresh college grad.

Households on minimum wage are often paycheck to paycheck, and thus have no buffer with which to even find a roof in a new city, much less hunt for a job in a less-reliable industry.

Also, familial connections are not just purely for joy - they may provide some amount of free childcare that would become a financial burden after moving away.

You can divorce yourself from your belongings because it's easy for you to find work and quickly replace your belongings. If you know you'll have to sleep on concrete for the next 5 months because you won't be able to find work, you'll carry your mattress with you.

When I moved after college, I slept on the floor without a mattress for 2 months because I didn't want to pay to ship my mattress.

I think it is important to make the point that you cannot buy the items for the value you sale them at. For one, you are selling them quickly, which means selling them at a loss. Then add in that you are selling the items used, 'other-used' is valued at far less than 'self-used', which means even if you buy used once you moved, the items have lost value. For example, I'd much prefer my own bed that I slept in for 3 years than a strangers bed they only used for 2.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com