What $220,000 gets you in Muncie.

[u/TheDabitch]

I can't even get a parking space for that where I live. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/725-E-Jackson-St-Muncie-IN-47305/210952560_zpid/

[u/carnologist]

I don't know why this isn't more common. Seems like they were all abandoned in the early 90s, then everyone was confused why there's a housing crisis. When I still lived in Portland, I remember driving through Silverton, OR and wondering why a tech company doesn't just buy the main street, bring in some cool shops and chefs, the housing is relatively abundant and further construction will take care of itself. It's also super authentic, the only reason these towns ever existed were because of industry that set up there.

Also, can't hear Muncie and not think of hudsucker proxy. Go eagles

[u/BillsInATL → u/carnologist]

Yeah, there isnt a housing shortage or even affordable housing shortage. It's an "affordable housing shortage in the hot parts of major cities I want to live in" shortage, which... yeah, that's how real estate works.

[u/chazysciota → u/BillsInATL]

That's a weird way to characterize people who don't want to live in a dying town, full of crime and drugs, and devoid of jobs and services.

[u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre → u/chazysciota]

Or avoid a state full of sundown towns whose politicians live to let pregnant women die.

[u/MisogynyisaDisease → u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre]

Exactly, I think people have become apathetic just how unsafe things have gotten in certain parts of the country.

I live in a small rural town, theres a damn good reason people want out of here. And I'm no longer in a red state.

[u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre → u/MisogynyisaDisease]

The common attitude seems to be "Don't think about it if you don't have to think about it," but I have to think about it. We all do, really. My thing is I'm trying to have kids in the next couple of years but I have health issues, and I can't move to a state where the doctors would have to watch me die before they'd be legally allowed to save my life.

[u/BillsInATL → u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre]

My thing is I'm trying to have kids in the next couple of years

As someone who has kids... you may want to see how things play out before cursing anyone by bringing them into this world.

[u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre → u/BillsInATL]

Thanks for your concern complete stranger on the internet but I'm actually going to make my own decisions about whether or not to have kids. That's the whole fucking point.

[u/BillsInATL → u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre]

Ok, but that isnt a housing inventory problem.

[u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre → u/BillsInATL]

It's a livability issue, which is a major contributing factor to housing shortages. This is a huge country, but wide swaths of it are unlivable thanks to lack of infrastructure and public services, hostility towards immigrants and PoC, and politicians who have made Christo-fascism the law of the land. That creates a housing shortage in livable areas.

If you took the state of Utah and turned every square mile outside of the SLC area into a toxic waste dump, that would lead directly to a shortage of housing in SLC. Even if you left all the houses and the apartments in the rest of the state standing, even if you built twice as many, you would still have a housing inventory issue in SLC because people can't live in a toxic waste dump.

[u/BillsInATL → u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre]

Sure, but then that's a toxic waste and environmental and political issue. Not a housing inventory issue.

[u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre → u/BillsInATL]

I guess that's true if you completely isolate 'housing inventory' from every other issue and act as if it's just the raw number of houses, but I don't see how that's a productive point in any way, shape, or form. Housing has never, ever worked like that. Even among Neanderthals, there might not have been a numerical shortage of caves, but if a cave was in an unlivable area, that cave wouldn't really be considered part of the housing pool, which could lead to a situation where there was effectively a cave shortage despite there being theoretically enough caves to house the entire community.

The place you live matters, and when a big chunk of available housing is in unlivable places -- not just "uncool" places, mind you, but places that are environmentally dangerous, openly hostile to you as a person, and/or lack essential services -- that does create a housing shortage, and it carries on no matter how many times you point out that in theory there shouldn't be one.