Shanty town demolitions

[DanS]

If you want to remove shantitowns, just build public housing for the shanty's inhabitants.

See my remarks above in response to che...

Building government projects doesn't force these folks into the functioning housing market. Now you may say that this payoff to the poor is worth it, at least from an expediency point of view, but I'm not so sure.

[Spiffor]

Building government projects doesn't force these folks into the functioning housing market. Now you may say that this payoff to the poor is worth it, at least from an expediency point of view, but I'm not so sure.

I don't understand what you mean. In the 1960's France, at least, everybody had an actual housing, except for the marginals that wished to be homeless. The housing was functional, with clean normal hygiene conditions and acceptable connectivity to the rewst of the cities.

I don't know if the police destroyed the shanties once the public housing was built. But in any case, the shanty population has disappeared. And not because of crime or disease.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Dis
I have never seen one first hand.

I would guess that people in some European countries have seen honest to goodness shanties. See Gypsies.

[DanS]

I don't understand what you mean.

Building public housing is not a solution. Rather, it's just moving the poor from one non-market for housing to another non-market for housing.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DanS
I would guess that people in some European countries have seen honest to goodness shanties. See Gypsies.

Indeed, I even had a permanent Gypsy settlement right next to my Uni in Bordeaux ("permanent" in that it was systematically renewed by new gypsies - it wasn't a group of sedentary gypsies)

Incidentally, the Gypsies squatted the Uni grounds because the Bordeaux area didn't provide adequate land for gypsies (with running water and trash disposal), despite the law.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DanS
Building public housing is not a solution. Rather, it's just moving the poor from one non-market for housing to another non-market for housing.

You're assuming that market is the only possible solution. It's patently absurd.

[Dis]

we have gypsies in america too. But they live in actual dwellings (though ****ty ones). They still beg for everything though.

We have so many peopel beg in our city. And they aren't all homeless. These guys probably make more money than I do. I bet you they can make $20 an hour begging. That's more money than I make. These *******s should be giving me money. I refuse to give them any money.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Spiffor
You're assuming that market is the only possible solution. It's patently absurd.

Even in the socialist utopia of France, the vast majority of housing is provided using markets. It's just the way things work.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DanS
Even in the socialist utopia of France, the vast majority of housing is provided using markets. It's just the way things work.

at "socialist utopia"

Yes, the majority. Not all of them. Public housing provides an actual solution to those who couldn't find housing on the market, because private housing is too expansive.

Problem = people live in Shantitowns in extremely fragile conditions.
Solution = people live in actual housing, with proper living conditions.

Public housing has provided the solution to the problem.


You may identify the problem differently. To you, the problem may not be the dire conditions of the shanties, but simply the fact that soome people do escape the market. I'm sorry to tell you that I couldn't care less about the level of penetration of the market. The market is merely one means among others to allocate resources, and it should be supported only when it is more efficient at better the human condition than the other resource-allocation schemes.

Obviously, the housing of the poor is not among these cases.

[DanS]

If you were in a communist system, public housing would be an actual solution, but France relies on markets to provide housing and is not communist. If there are problems with the housing market, then the solution is to fix the market.

I'm not casting stones at France. We have loads of anti-market land provisions in the US (probably more than most countries), such as overzealous zoning, which leads utlimately to the market not being able to provide for the housing needs of everyone.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DanS
If there are problems with the housing market, then the solution is to fix the market.

You're assuming that the market can fix the problem. The "solution" the market provides to poor housing is much worse than the one provided by the State:
1. The poor have trouble paying rent. Even cheap ones. In a "perfect" market, the poor would be fired from the house immediately, but in my civilized country, you can't expel a fragile family during the cold months. There are many safeties for the inhabitant, that are precisely in place to avoid the untold misery that was found in shantitowns.

2. In my "socialist utopia", there are also regulations on the housing market. You can't rent a housing of less than 9 m² (well, now you can, actually ). A bathroom must be available. There are demands about the hygiene of the bathroom, of the plumbing, and other santiary regulations. Obviously, private housing has a minimal cost, which is fairly high by the standards of an impoverished family.

3. As a result, the few entrepreneurs who still intend to make a profit by hosting the poor will ofer the most dire living conditions they can legally, and they'll charge a price much higher than what the State provides. They manage to get customers that need a "quick fix", while they look for an appropriate solution.
The ones who excel at this job are cheap hostels. Hostels don't have the same regulations about size, and can demand a payment each day. And naturally, staying at a hostel is much more expansive than paying an actual rent, which creates a spiral of debt and fragility. People go there simply because the State doesn't do its job anymore, and doesn't provide the housing that the market simply can't.

[Timexwatch]

Originally posted by DanS


I would guess that people in some European countries have seen honest to goodness shanties. See Gypsies.

The shantitowns that I've seen in Europe were all in southern European countries (i.e. Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc.). You can see them along major highways and on the municipals borders of big cities. Living in Barcelona, one could see farmers' shanties on the train to El Prat de Llobregat and by the autopistas near the Cruzcampo brewery northeast of the city. There used to be large shanties near the convention center full of gypsies, transients, migrants, etc., but the whole area was bulldozed and redeveloped into a hideous conference center. Grenada had them along the hills in town.

Shanties and squats are everywhere, even here in the states. There is a squat/crackhouse on my block and an abandoned house that is occasionally squatted in behind my place. I've seen shanty towns only in the real backwoods and rural areas of the U.S., like in central Wyoming and the mountains of Nevada.

Moral of the story: They're everywhere.

[Chemical Ollie]

I have not checked my dictionary to look up what "chanty" means, but it sounds bad, and I'm sure I don't live in a town like that, with my 400 m2 of house and 2800 m2 of lake-side garden.

But I've taken a guided tour of the part of Copenhagen mentioned in the OP (Christiania). It has a very mixed status. Some houses are really junk yards inhabited by narcomaniac hippies, as you would expect, while others are very exclusive villas made by the artistic architect who lives in it. While the area was created by ultra-leftist hippies, some of the inhabitants today are more like neo-liberals (European term for the right-wing anarchists who want to live their own life with no government involvment whatsoever). The funny thing is that you pay the same rent for every apartment, no matter if it's a thrashy 5 m2 trailer or an exclusive architect-created villa with several floors. The Danish police has recently made several hits to stop the open drug market in one of the streets there.

[BlackCat]

Long time no se CO - gues the last time was our little local storm

You are quite right - cristiania has nothing to do with the general concept of shantytowns. Actually, inhabitants of shantytowns around the world sould consider cristiania as pure luxury. To be true, it is utterly rediciosly to claim that christiania is a shantytown.

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Timexwatch
I've seen shanty towns only in the real backwoods and rural areas of the U.S., like in central Wyoming and the mountains of Nevada.

When I visited the US a few years ago, we drove through southern Montana. It was rather scary to see how people there actually lived. To quote a coworker: "I thought they only had stuff like this in movies".