this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
1172 points (98.8% liked)
Work Reform
17232 readers
231 users here now
A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Nothing's broken, least of all the laws of physics. Detached, single family homes are low density housing. The land that makes up any given metro area is basically a two dimensional plane. That plane is a finite amount of space that can only be filled with so many buildings. Detached homes are almost always limited to just a few stories at the most, and they can't be stacked on top of each other, so vertical expansion is essentially non-existent. The only way to build more detached homes is to spread out horizontally along the two dimensional plane. But the further you go out horizontally from the metro center, the further you are from the jobs and amenities that are associated with an urban core. The detached houses that are nearest to that center are in the highest demand, so their prices go up the most. You can continue to just build out horizontally, but after a while you simply run out of land. Or, the houses get so far from where the jobs and amenities are that it's not viable.
There are areas in the US where you can buy a home for $138,000, but most people probably don't want to live there, which is why the homes only cost $138,000. Areas in greater demand will have higher home prices. In the areas that are in higher demand, again, the only option is horizontal sprawl away from the metro center, if you're building only detached single family homes.
This is also a function of transit efficiency. It's not the distance to a metro center that is the problem, it's the time to get to that metro center. Our commuter rail network is woefully slow. Our highways have design issues that create choke points that cause traffic jams. If living 20 miles from the urban centers was only 20 minutes away, then it wouldn't be an issue. In fact, it might be desirable to go home to a quiet place, but have more action a short commute away.
Not even going to mention the poor design of suburban areas that lack a proper downtown of their own.
Yeah, but the further a suburban neighborhood is from the metro center, the more time it will take to get there, necessarily. Maximally efficient transportation would minimize the travel time but not eliminate it. Even with great transportation options, the further the sprawl, the longer the commute.
But if a suburban area grows enough to need urban infrastructure it kinda stops being suburban. Which is fine, there's nothing wrong with increasing the number of urban areas. I don't think we should have only a few Tokyo style mega cities. But I also don't think higher density is necessarily a bad thing. I get that not everyone wants to live in a relatively high density urban area, but I'm also sure that we can't just keep sprawling out forever.
Faster express trains with better access and less stops. In combination with improved roadways
They should start building china style huge apartment buildings.
Stupid that we aren't yet doing it
Idk about China's style, but we do have high rises. And Washington state is on a state level encouraging building higher density in urban areas. This has led to increased density zoning, and is expected to lead to, in the not too distant future, an area that was once single family housing to be rezoned for high rises.
so people who get reimbursed (The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution mandates that if the government takes private property for public use, the government must provide "just compensation." In Kohl v. United States, 91 U.S. 367 (1875), the Supreme Court held that the government may seize property through the use of eminent domain, as long as it appropriates just compensation to the owner of the property. Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/eminent_domain) will just move to where their careers provide stability as well as being able to afford a single family home.
If you can afford a home and all that comes with owning one, do it up. Nothing wrong with being a home owner. I will never shit on success because you have to be successful in life to purchase a home. I'll shit on the ultra rich who are gonna profit on those apartments and make it so that they're gonna go to shit or use materials that are just good enough and a structural falure happening.
The government isn't tearing houses down, simply permitting larger multi family dwellings in neighborhoods specifically targeted for growth. Those areas in Seattle are usually along the light rail line, and elsewhere are closer to city centers.
Most who sell will move to more suburban areas elsewhere, often in town, others will move to something like a townhouse, but regardless there will be more residences available in higher desirability areas
fuck you. Like living in a cramped apartment where you can hardly move around is more ideal than making it so that people can actually retire and actually make college loans affordable so people can actually afford to further their lives. No one should aspire to live in a Chinese style apartment. We should all want to make 75$ and up.
Fuck you too then. Go build your stupid wood house yourself then. And no 75k a year is not gonna make that house affordable anyways
120k$/might which is bullshit easy to reach depending on what you do and where you are and how good you are at your job.
Lol, no it isn't. I make that now, can't afford a house anywhere near a city where a job like that is available.
Single Family Homes are the epitome of wasteful toxic individualism and your yearning for one marks you as a selfish, toxic person.
And woah, displaced anger much? Just cause you can't find a house where you are making sick money doesn't mean you should hate on me, you should move to where your profession is more valuable.
If yearning to own a home and having indiusalism, marks me as toxic than lord give me super powers to rise up above you all.
Yep, selfish and toxic. You probably think it's better to live in a car dependent suburb where "those people" can't bother you, don't you?
Not better, it's a choice. I personally, do want to move away from the city, own a car, a moderately nice home and be able to have a place to help my family if they ever hit hard times.
I don't care who live next to, I'm actually in an amazing area and soemtimes I consider just staying here because it's cheap, the landlord loves me and it's near everything.
I can keep saving and be one of those covert rich people in the future and eventually maybe I'll just own the floor I live on because people can strike deals with their landlords to buy out floors. That's how people eventually end up owning buildings. They gradually buy the floors.
Then you are 100% a part of the problem and aiming to become a bigger part of the problem.
Lol, so you're not only toxically individualistic, but delusional too.
You should move.
Lol, no. I'm not interested in living in cousin-humper country just so I can have a shitty patch of grass to have to mow.
You should learn how to coexist with other humans in a shared space instead of thinking you and maybe your immediate family are so fucking special you deserve to take up the space where a dozen families could live in actually dense housing.
There's incentives in certain states for in law housing and renting those out. Except, you'd probably hate on those people because the home owners would be making money off those people but you're okay with a building being owned by someone who doesn't give a fuck about you or I and will ll give you the bare minimum to live in, so seriously what the fuck do you even care?
You act like people can't own apartments, townhouses, or condos. An ideal housing law would require all housing to be as dense as is practicable for the geology and geography of the lot and ban all forms of for profit rental.
What makes your favorite celebrity dipshit YouTube dipshit or TikTok dipshit so special that people do not hate on them for owning properties? The common man wants to own a property and they're evil but there's gonna be some rich asshole owning the apartment complexes you want up.
Someone who's gonna gamble that money at the Encore casino because that's what people who have so much money they can piss it away with do.
That's what dispensary owners do, that's what large property owners do, that's what a lot of people do, they piss it away because they can.
You know who's paying for some of that piss stream? You and renting forever.
I'd rather pay property taxes and excise taxes to a city than know that some building owner is treating a place where people can live as some write off. I'd rather be paying towards my city's new schools and hospitals or the upkeep of them, than some asshole who's gonna tell me I can't paint a wall a certain color, do my floors the way I want to, ffs how big of a toilet I can own!
Nobody is special. All single family homes are wasteful. Suburbia is a breeding ground for Fascism. You sound like a preteen railing against having to do chores.
I live in a two family apartment building and even now I stillccan't wait to be fucking away from them.
That's why people aspire to drive too. So you can have you own area to scream in , to be yourself in am area to breathe in with peace and quiet a place where you are not bound by other people's rules.
Having individuality and having a dwelling because you were successful enough to earn one isn't being special that's doing better. Though, covert rich people will live in apartments and take advantage of renting and still own properties so......
Again, if you want some super rich developer to own how you live and dictate when you can and can not live there anymore bmfg. I ain't stopping you.
I still want to be able to scream bloody murder, turn up my music in a sound proof room and make any room in the house mine without ever having to ask a single human being whether or not I can because I'd be the owner.
I wouldn't have to hear some dipshits kid screaming through paper thin walls, hear some assholes service dog barking, someone using their blender at 2am, taking showers at 2am, fucking loudly at 2am, going to work and slamming the door at 2am.
No I'm not gonna live with other people my whole fucking life.
Like people move away from their parents so they don't get told what to do and how to live. Why the fuck would I bound myself to a lifestyle where I don't own the area I'm living in?
Being special = successful? K'ay be more hive mind.
Yeah your "Hell is other people" bullshit isn't really beating the toxic individualism allegations. You see that, right?
Do you seriously think minimum wage workers could afford that if that was the US?
Lol fuck yourself clown, tiny apartments are fine
You can't just keep building out horizontally; it reduces intensity without reducing costs, eventually becoming unsustainable.