On 9 November we posted “WRONG SIZE HOUSE, WRONG LOCATION.
Subsequently, we promised to add a note in response to several comments. The original string is now 48 comments long, many of them not related to the core issue. So we will start over.
Groveton asked: “What makes a right location?” “Right location” is not determined by what any one person or Household does, it is determined by what everyone in the Community does to achieve Balance.
Groveton puts it this way: “… whether my house is in the right location seems to depend a lot on whether my job is in the right location.”
That is a start but it is not just the house and the job that matters.
It is Balance of J / H / S / R / A that matters. It is all the elements required to assemble a quality life. As many of the elements as possible that are needed to make you happy and safe should be “in the best locations.” As a backup there needs to be a shared vehicle system to get you to a few high value places that do not fit in the Village-scale station area or in the Community – say a job in the Zentrum, the Regional train station, stadium or concert hall.
Lets us assume one has a job and a home that are in convenient proximity. Next thing you know, children are on the horizon. The question that the partners must ask is not “where is the best school?”
The questionS are:
What can we do with those in my Dooryard and Cluster to crate the best environment for infants and toddlers?
What can we do with those in my Neighborhood to create the best environment and education for our grade schoolers?
What can we do with those in my Village to create the best environment and education for our junior and senior high schoolers?
What can we do with those in my Community to create the best environment and community Agencies and Institutions – including a Community college for all of us?
Ask not where to go to find a ________, ask how can we can create great ________s in this Community.
You say you move too often and change living patterns too often to make this work?
You may think you are still living in the past when burning through Natural Capital paid for a much wider range of choice and the level of excess which is reflected in the widening wealth gap, the financial crisis, food insecurity, energy dependence, etc., and, of course, dysfunctional settlement patterns.
In fact there never was a time when this “go where and when I want” strategy worked for more than a few at the top of the Ziggurat. It seemed like it a few decades ago but that was a temporary illusion driven by advertising and living off of cheap energy and foreign debt.
The Large, Private Vehicle Mobility Myth is that a Household can live where they want, seek employment where they want and then Agencies can provide a Mobility and Access system that allows everyone to go wherever they what, whenever they want and arrive in a timely manner.
Larry Gross asks again about “data.” We will get to data (again) in a further note as promised in UPON FURTHER REVIEW.
TMT said “As I understand the rule, if you take a job on the Hill, you should sell your house…”
Well that is a problem. Some will be able to do that, not everyone.
TMT, let us be clear the “Rule” is “pay the full location variable cost and you can do what you want.”
However, given humans – especially in the US of A – have burned through so much of their Natural Capital they will find the choices going forward are constrained by the market and by democratic processes – if humans are fortunate enough to preserve democracy and a market economy in the face of declining resources and growing demand by those who have been left behind by past actions.
If you think there are too many taxes now, just wait until you finally get around to costing out the true location-variable tab for the life style you espouse as a right.
The choice is intelligent and Fundamental Transformation or
Collapse.
Failure to prepare for the future and failure to reconsider traditional practices when conditions change is the prelude to Collapse.
As you may have noted, conditions HAVE changed.
It is depressing that Large, Private Vehicles and the Wrong Size Houses in the Wrong Location – places like Mountain Home – are the primary drivers of dysfunctional human settlement patterns. In spite of this reality, they have been used to “recover” from every recession since The Great Depression.
Now, when it should be clear to all that a new perspective is needed to achieve a sustainable trajectory for civilization, all the “leadership” is talking about is bailing out Detroit and propping up a flawed financial system exposed by the mortgage, derivative and default swap meltdown.
EMR