The American Dream... 🏡 Owning a House? 🏡

In 'merica the dream is to go out, get a good job, good wife, buy a house...

buy a house??!!

Imagine telling a 1700s Cherokee about "buying a house"?
What kind of strange concoction is this?
When a man comes of age, and partners with someone, then they just build another teepee.

So, why do we push kids out of the nest and expect them to go get a job and buy/rent a house/apartment?
Back in the 50s this seemed doable. There were lots of jobs, and lots of houses being built.
So, anyone with any amount of drive could achieve "home ownership".

But, as jobs got first shipped to Mexico, and then shipped overseas, there aren't as many good jobs that would allow home ownership. You needed a college degree and drive. Then you needed a college degree, drive and luck. And now, you need to... basically, marry into money or win the lottery. The house prices have been growing exponentially, and wages have been growing ... well, they haven't been growing. If you remove the top 10% earners from the graph, it has been going sideways for decades now.

Why do we think this way? Of course if you own something, it means you can sell it. And sell it for a good price, and that person can turn around and sell it for a better price...

Think about it. A person is born, and then raised for 18 years, and then is shoved out into the cold to make it on their own.

This was ok (sorta) when the bar was set pretty low. But, when the bar is set so high as to not be reached, then it is a real problem.

Why do we not think that when a child comes of age, that we do not make for them a space in our community?

Why indeed? Is it because, like govern-cement, we have taken up all the good land and divided it among ourselves so there is no land to be doled out to the next generation?

Is it because of our individual greed, manifest over a community? We want our property prices to go up! Never thinking that the next generation will be left out. (limiting development, regs that houses have to be a minimum size...)

Is it because property ownership is a carry over from the times of nights and lords. Where, they own the property and every one and every thing on it is theirs? And now, we want our own lands?

These are some hard questions.

Things have not always been this way, but this IS the starting point from which we will shape the new world.

Things really changed with the advent of agriculture. When you work a field into a farm, that is a lot of work. A lot of work that cannot be just picked up and moved. Thus, ownership of the land was essential. One needed to have assurances that their farm, their growing crop, would be theirs when it came time to harvest. If it is not 99% assured, than no crops are grown.

But, what about housing? It is currently tied to the ground, with a foundation, but it is not something that took a huge amount of effort (compared to years of turning dirt into top soil). For shelter, one house is as good as another. Except for sentimental and emotional reasons. ("I have roots in this area")

It becomes quite apparent that having "your" place is very important to many people's mental health and well being.

In the end, we need to take a hybrid approach. Having the land sold to the highest bidder will leave all the land owned by the banks. Having the land be communally owned, with no borders makes for a chaotic affair where no one is sure enough to grow food. The two extremes have huge problems.

This is one of the reasons i have championed the idea of tiny houses/apartments for every man, woman and child.
Building 300 million units is nothing for our modern, industrial nation.
We could pump out 300 million tiny homes with less effort than anything else we do in the name of welfare.

The problem only arises in that everyone who "paid" for a house says, "not in my back yard".
There is enough space in almost every city to build these. Always some area that really needs to be bulldozed. Probably every place but New York and San Francisco, but even these cramped areas could find something.

So, i suggest that we, the people, the communities, all work on having a room for every person in their communities.
No more of this pushing people out and just expecting them to make it on their own. Today, this is not only tough on the young adult, it is actually asking too much of them.

When a young adult comes of age, we should give them a place in our community.

All images in this post are my own original creations.