Quote:
Originally Posted by lzppjb
Pulling yourself out of poverty in one lifetime is definitely possible.
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Sure. It's possible on a micro-scale. But these are not repeatable across every single person in America nor are they a solution to poverty or people being priced out of cities which are very real issues.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...-their-country
American's vastly overestimate the probability of socio-economic movement. It can happen, and for those of us who have made it out it's fantastic. But every person who is poor can not "work harder" and be rich next week. And being poor is not something that should come with punitive measures. One of the things that I remember most about where I grew up was people acting like being poor was a disease or a symptom of laziness. Felt really good as a kid to have people assume all kinds of things about you and your family because of where you lived or what your parents did for a living.
I'm also smart enough to know that free school lunches, free after-school care, a donation to my school that made it possible for me to travel to debate trips for free, a hardship scholarship to UT and tons of other assistance that my parents had helped get me where I am. I didn't pull myself up by my bootstraps. I had help, and I got lucky.
Other kids in my neighborhood had good parents, and they worked hard. And a handful of us made it out. Most didn't. Every one of us that "made it" were white in a neighborhood that was predominantly Hispanic and Black. I can't ignore that success in America isn't equally distributed.
But none of this is even relevant to the problem at hand. There *are* poor people in Austin. They are not all going to magically make enough money to remain living in neighborhoods they grew up in tomorrow.
So, we either figure out a workable solution that allows for growth, recognized the realities of the demand to live in a nice neighborhood, deals with rising rent and helps these people remain in the city. I refuse to believe that we cannot find ways to understand that there are citizens of our city who are being pushed out of it. Gentrification is a complicated problem. It's one of those issues where people on both sides of the equation are right. It both deals with property owners rights, but recognizes that increased economic pressure is presently white-washing vast swaths of central Austin. You can't stop progress and that isn't the answer, but I refuse to believe that all that we should do is suggest people become more successful.
Or we're going to find ourselves in a sterile Randian "meritocracy" where only those with the most money can afford to live here and the vibrancy that has helped make Austin the city it is now will wither and we'll be a really rich tech enclave with all that that entails.