Oh, my apologies, then. It sounded to me like you were against the idea of allocating parts of any/all new downtown housing developments for affordable housing in general.
In that case, yeah, I agree with you entirely. If Penmarc, for example, gets a stadium and gets redeveloped af, then I think it should be scrutinized just as harshly to have affordable housing options. No special treatments.
15 years ago, that’s true -but I was talking about way back before then.
My main point in quoting your old post was to summarize what’s already been said on this thread (plus other things being pointed out in popular media, news articles, a certain world leader etc). In general, I got the vibe that a lot of popular, messed-up misunderstandings about the daily conditions of poor people by richer people came from outdated assumptions.
Maybe you could’ve gotten by with a simpler life of flipping burgers and maybe working your way up to a fast food franchise manager …if you lived in the 60s and 70s. You and I know this is totally not true, but there’s a more-than-insignificant number of people who buy into that message. That’s why I felt the need to address what you said in that perspective, rather than as a direct reply to your post.
But about that other comment...
If I made more bad conclusions or had more misunderstandings about other things people have said, then I honestly apologize. Obviously, affordable housing (and the countless factors that play into how it’s a conversation we have to have in the first place) is a very sensitive topic, and I’m trying my best to understand where it’s coming from -both for individual people, as well as the “big-picture” approach so that we can have a productive, helpful conversation here. I’m open to learning more and changing my mind if I’m given the chance.
Besides, I may be American, but that doesn’t mean this is even my home country. Japan is a… uh… very different country when it comes to living while rich/poor.
If you’d like to be provocative and attack me for not understanding poor people, then I honestly feel offended about that, as well.
I was also on the free/reduced-lunch program in grade school among other support systems (and had to figure out my own way through high school, college and beyond as the first person in my family to live around the US). Parents were separated both geographically and emotionally, I had to basically teach myself to be a professional interpreter to argue for my family about credit card fraud attempts, etc… Sure, we may’ve had profoundly different experiences, but that does not mean I’m looking down on you, discrediting you, or saying that your experiences are wrong.
TL/DR: I do not doubt your experiences; I just disagree with the conclusion you drew from what you wrote that may or may not have been informed by it.
Credit where credit is due, though, it seems like I made a policy error; the federal minimum wage in 1968 wasn’t $7.50/hr, but it was actually $1.60/hr. This is about $11.70/hr in 2019, which makes my earlier argument weaker but doesn’t really defeat it.