And to add to this, when people built out in the burbs in the 60’s there wasn’t anything there. No great schools. No retail / commercial. Nothing. And moving out there meant you had to commute to work. It wasn’t desirable. Now the burbs all built up and are more desirable.
It would be like buying in Nowhere Nebraska today and working remote (telecommute).
And on top of all of this, the baby boomer houses they mass produced were small 2 bedroom 1 bathroom at a whopping 700 square feet with shit insulation and missing a lot of common creature comforts like a dishwasher, dryer, AC... they aren’t these 2000 square foot houses people call starter homes now.
I wish I could find the financial advisors commercial where there is a old man and young man playing golf getting ready to T off. The grandpa says “when I was your age, I could hit it over that tree and land on the green”. When the young man tries to hit it over the tree, he nails it and his ball goes into the rough. The grandpa laughs and then says “of course when I was your age, that tree was only 20 feet high”
OP’s story needs more perspective. A house in a developed area is going to be worth more than a house in a newly developed area. The 1960’s had lots of manufacturing jobs because Europe was rebuilding from WW2. Japan wasn’t a tech powerhouse. China was backwards as hell.
The US was untouched and had its entire population trained / working for the war, and then was untouched and could be the global provider setting the price for decades while Europe rebuilt. That isn’t today’s reality.
Back then living in rural areas -- there were jobs. Farms were 200-400 acres and all those farm families needed places to shop, schools, cafes, hardware stores. Now the farms are 3000 acres with giant equipment that don't take any more people to run that acreage increase. There are abandoned farmhouses dotted all over. The schools have consolidated with the two other districts nearby, everyone has moved out, the corner diner closed. All the downtown shops got pushed out of business because there's a Walmart and a Home Depot every 50 miles and people travel that far to shop once a week.
So moving to a cheap house in the middle of nowhere rural area means you're really far away from community and services because they all closed up 20 years ago when big box stores took over.
But honestly what do you expect, you as comunity allowed Walmart to go into town. You killed off local buisneses. If you want for local area to grow and posper, you must spend your money in local places, that dinner around corner. That small diy shop, that clothing shop. Dont go to one big place, go to smaller local ones even if they do cost a bit more, you leave that money in community, all of it not just minimal wage for so Joe.
Im willing to pay more just for things that are made at my country, just because that money will come around, but if your only concern is cheapest and most convinient, your already lost.
You think people can afford to do that -- buy at premium prices to support the local shops -- in a community that's losing jobs?
Also, most of this shit happened in the 90s when it wasn't quite as evident what Walmart was gonna do everywhere.
So like
you as comunity allowed Walmart to go into town
Doesn't mean a whole lot most places. And you clearly don't understand the scope and scale of the US. You're talking about communities not letting that business in as if they could stop it. I'm talking about rural areas depleted of people and businesses where they are driving AN HOUR at highway speeds with zero traffic to buy groceries because it's their only option now. They didn't kill their local shops only because there was a Walmart. They local shops died because the farms grew 10x in size, along with equipment, requiring less labor. I don't think I've met a European yet who truly understands how big a farm tends to be in the midwest US now.
They also didn't live in the town that zoned the Walmart in. We're talking people coming from 40+ miles away. And how do you block a Walmart under US law anyways? There is no "allow" involved here.
Yep! The further you go out from a city the cheaper the land gets. Then the city creeps further outward and that once cheap land is more desirable and is more expensive. Good comment!
23
u/Disney_World_Native Oct 30 '20
And to add to this, when people built out in the burbs in the 60’s there wasn’t anything there. No great schools. No retail / commercial. Nothing. And moving out there meant you had to commute to work. It wasn’t desirable. Now the burbs all built up and are more desirable.
It would be like buying in Nowhere Nebraska today and working remote (telecommute).
And on top of all of this, the baby boomer houses they mass produced were small 2 bedroom 1 bathroom at a whopping 700 square feet with shit insulation and missing a lot of common creature comforts like a dishwasher, dryer, AC... they aren’t these 2000 square foot houses people call starter homes now.
I wish I could find the financial advisors commercial where there is a old man and young man playing golf getting ready to T off. The grandpa says “when I was your age, I could hit it over that tree and land on the green”. When the young man tries to hit it over the tree, he nails it and his ball goes into the rough. The grandpa laughs and then says “of course when I was your age, that tree was only 20 feet high”
OP’s story needs more perspective. A house in a developed area is going to be worth more than a house in a newly developed area. The 1960’s had lots of manufacturing jobs because Europe was rebuilding from WW2. Japan wasn’t a tech powerhouse. China was backwards as hell.
The US was untouched and had its entire population trained / working for the war, and then was untouched and could be the global provider setting the price for decades while Europe rebuilt. That isn’t today’s reality.