Shorter Megan McArdle: Sucks to be you.
True, that could be most of her posts, but this one is especially blithe: The poor are priced out of their homes when the wealthy want to take over their neighborhood and that's a pity, but hey, if it's between you or me, I'll take me.
Think I'm kidding?
I want the services [that come with gentrification], but I don't want this to price out all the people who already live there. Unfortunately, it's a package deal.
For every winner there's gotta be a loser. It's just the way it goes.
12 comments:
What services come with gentrification? Is she under the impression that taxes paid by rich and poor alike are sort of miraculously separated and just fall, like a gentle rain, on the gentrifying streets? So, one minute its full of poor people who don't need or deserve police, fire, garbage and health care and the next when the yuppies move in all that stuff just arrives?
aimai
My shorter Mc Megan:
I really don't want to kick you out of my neighborhood but I am being forced to do it - because I want stuff you cannot afford.
What services come with gentrification?
Stores that sell Himalayan salt and $6 cups of coffee.
But those aren't services, they are ameneties. There's a difference, but its one she doesn't want to acknowledge.
aimai
Yeah, I think the insistence that services and amenities are the same might really at the root of all libertarian thought. This is how you get firemen letting a house burn to the ground.
Yikes, I misspelled amenities. Darn. I knew it looked funny.
aimai
I think she's just being sloppy regarding services versus amenities--perhaps she just thinks of anything in the service industry as services.
Why does she even feel the need to make excuses for squeezing out the poor, especially since she shrugs it off? Her audience doesn't care.
Well, it's always easy to be philosophical when it's someone else getting the short end of the stick. But I guess that's never really been a problem for Ms. Megan. Silver spoon and all that, you know.
Not to mention the totally-credible apologia from the ... darker skinned fellow on the bus. "Please save us from ourselves, Ms. McArdle! Look what we do to the city without the guiding hand of the alphas!"
They didn't even use all their money and influence to make the neighborhood nice!
Did anyone think her conversation on the bus was straight from the Tom Friedman playbook?
I got a very "cab driver" feel from that supposed conversation as well.
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