What's with all the Sketchy people on LI? (Brookhaven, Huntington: middle-class, homes)

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

What you guys are describing has already happened in much of Southern California. There is one big giant reason for it and it is the same reason in CA as it is on LI.

It is a lack of affordable housing, the loss of good-paying non-white-collar jobs (usually manufacturing jobs), and the resulting slow but steady exodus of the middle class and their grown children, and a slow but steady influx of low-skill, low-education-level workers (of all races) who are taking their place.

California and is much farther ahead than LI this trajectory... but the end result is the same - a bifurcated society where they wealthy use money and discriminatory tax and housing code to keep their enclaves nice - while middle class neighborhoods decline into trashed rental neighborhoods, chopped-up houses, and eventually, the crime, trash, and noise that follows.

The best bet is to either bite the bullet and buy into an insulated, wealthy area or move to a city with growth and enough affordable housing that the pressure on the middle class is lessened to the point where they can succeed. Most of those cities are in places like the mountain west, southwest, and southeast.

You aint kiddin' and its even worse in NorCal.

Ive never seen a worse homeless problem except maybe NYC under Dinkins.

Its like "Welcome to San Francisco...send more losers"

Great post.

Crooks

[lialleycat]

Originally Posted by thebobs

If you look at a map of Long Island you will see that the island doesn't really lie east to west, it points a bit northward.

So technically if you're on the LIE in western suffolk, you go "up island" to Riverhead.

Ok I know, bad joke.

But i'm in a weird mood today.

Thanks for the explanation.

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Crookhaven

You aint kiddin' and its even worse in NorCal.

Ive never seen a worse homeless problem except maybe NYC under Dinkins.

Its like "Welcome to San Francisco...send more losers"

Great post.

Crooks

There's nothing like being a sanctuary city!

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

What you guys are describing has already happened in much of Southern California. There is one big giant reason for it and it is the same reason in CA as it is on LI.

It is a lack of affordable housing, the loss of good-paying non-white-collar jobs (usually manufacturing jobs), and the resulting slow but steady exodus of the middle class and their grown children, and a slow but steady influx of low-skill, low-education-level workers (of all races) who are taking their place.

California and is much farther ahead than LI this trajectory... but the end result is the same - a bifurcated society where the wealthy use money and discriminatory tax and housing code to keep their enclaves nice - while middle class neighborhoods decline into trashed rental neighborhoods, chopped-up houses, and eventually, the crime, trash, and noise that follows.

The best bet is to either bite the bullet and buy into an insulated, wealthy area or move to a city with growth and enough affordable housing that the pressure on the middle class is lessened to the point where they can succeed. Most of those cities are in places like the mountain west, southwest, and southeast.

So far LI is keeping the housing unaffordable for the types you cite, except in some areas where illegal aliens are allowed to live 30 to a house. I don't think the majority of LI (except for where the millionaires live) is going to turn into that.

We also don't have the numerous failed exurb housing developments where ill-prepared and ill-financed landlords are renting large homes with built in swimming pools to formerly inner-city Section 8 and public assistance recipients like CA does because thankfully we don't have the land.

[MikeyKid]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

What you guys are describing has already happened in much of Southern California. There is one big giant reason for it and it is the same reason in CA as it is on LI.

It is a lack of affordable housing, the loss of good-paying non-white-collar jobs (usually manufacturing jobs), and the resulting slow but steady exodus of the middle class and their grown children, and a slow but steady influx of low-skill, low-education-level workers (of all races) who are taking their place.

California and is much farther ahead than LI this trajectory... but the end result is the same - a bifurcated society where the wealthy use money and discriminatory tax and housing code to keep their enclaves nice - while middle class neighborhoods decline into trashed rental neighborhoods, chopped-up houses, and eventually, the crime, trash, and noise that follows.

The best bet is to either bite the bullet and buy into an insulated, wealthy area or move to a city with growth and enough affordable housing that the pressure on the middle class is lessened to the point where they can succeed. Most of those cities are in places like the mountain west, southwest, and southeast.

I don't think I've EVER seen the issue described more succinctly and after reading posts on this forum for 18months+, this is my first ever ->

wow.

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by MikeyKid

I don't think I've EVER seen the issue described more succinctly and after reading posts on this forum for 18months+, this is my first ever ->

wow.

Agreed

It should be its own thread.

[Sassberto]

Originally Posted by I_Love_LI_but

This kind of sketchy is in Cali, where so many people can't sell their homes that they are renting them indiscriminately to people who are bringing inner city nonsense to suburbia and ruining their neighborhoods in the process:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/us...gewanted=print

If LI got like this I would be gone. Why bother staying here and paying the high taxes?

It's not just CA but everywhere. Section 8 is the bane of the California middle and working class neighborhood. The reason it's such a problem in So CA is because our counties are so big the same voucher can be used in Compton or Palmdale, Oakland or Antioch. The only way to avoid it is to live with the ultra-wealthy where section 8 isn't an issue.

[Sassberto]

Originally Posted by I_Love_LI_but

So far LI is keeping the housing unaffordable for the types you cite, except in some areas where illegal aliens are allowed to live 30 to a house. I don't think the majority of LI (except for where the millionaires live) is going to turn into that.

Eventually though you are left with the so-called "M&M" situation. The wealthy and those that serve them. That is already happening in Huntington, Great Neck, etc. The Hamptons are completely down that path. Jobs that used to be done by teenagers are done by immigrants (often illegal) now. That is because the children of the wealthy won't do those jobs, and the children of the middle class are leaving.

Originally Posted by I_Love_LI_but

We also don't have the numerous failed exurb housing developments where ill-prepared and ill-financed landlords are renting large homes with built in swimming pools to formerly inner-city Section 8 and public assistance recipients like CA does because thankfully we don't have the land.

Absolutely true but it just shows that distance is no obstacle. And in the end, the prime target for this demographic is not large suburban homes but small homes in working-class neighborhoods.

IMO Long Island is not susceptible to this because it has an older, wealthier, more established working and middle class than California does. Much of CA's urban middle class relocated out of the cities in the 80's and 90's. Californians do not tend to add-on to their homes the way that NY'ers do, they move to new big houses farther away.

[littlepawsinn]

What's your definition of sketchy or a misfit? Do you know any of these people personally?

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

It's not just CA but everywhere. Section 8 is the bane of the California middle and working class neighborhood. The reason it's such a problem in So CA is because our counties are so big the same voucher can be used in Compton or Palmdale, Oakland or Antioch. The only way to avoid it is to live with the ultra-wealthy where section 8 isn't an issue.

The problem is that CA has owners of single-family homes renting to Section 8 in the middle and working class neighborhoods.

Why do landlords there want the problems? I would rather burn it down than rent it to Section 8 and I think that would be the mindset of many other LI'ers.

On LI and much of NYC, Section 8 stays in the apartment buildings and also is now accepted in the NYC housing projects.