> But many people want the status without having to pay the $$$
It's not just about the status. Every city needs people who do lower paying jobs. Someone has to clean those office buildings, someone has to take care of sick people at hospitals, someone has to drive taxis, buses, ... By not supplying those people with affordable housing within the city they're lives only become worse (more money and time spent commuting, less time spent with family and friends).
That is the trade-off they are making in exchange for things such as access to more employers. At some point though, they will demand more money or move out, assuming their quality of life relative to other places they can live drops to a sufficiently low level.
There are people who are poor and scraping by everywhere, not just cities. Low paying jobs are low paying because the demand is not high enough relative to the supply.
Also this cute "demand more more or move out" idea isn't even close to reality. You just said there's poor people everywhere. Why move out of a city to be poor when you're just going to be poor somewhere else? To be away from what support network you might have? Because you feel like incurring all the costs associated with moving?
Also, your original post implied that the city doesn't "need" these jobs. People need janitors and food service workers for their companies. Why these people aren't paid wages where they can afford to exist is a whole rats nest of economic theory that we don't really need to get into.
I'm just pointing out, that the idea that a single individual will be able to demand more money if their job is "important" runs contrary to what we've seen historically.
>Why these people aren't paid wages where they can afford to exist is a whole rats nest of economic theory that we don't really need to get into.
It's not a rat's nest of economic theory. People are paid what it costs to replace them, aka opportunity cost. Obviously the very existence of businesses and workers means someone is willing to work for those wages, which means they can afford to exist...since they exist. Whether or not it's a quality of life worth having is a political problem that needs political solution (i.e. basic income).
Based on the experiences of my businesses and people I know who have businesses in cities experiencing rising rent, wages are going up significantly for blue collar work, but at the end of the day, there will always be someone at the lowest end of the pay scale, and that will be the person who is doing work that many others are willing and able to do, which is usually food service/janitorial/security/etc.
But there is limited amount of apartments in good places like city center. Are you suggesting they should be for people with low salary and talented people with good pay should live in a suburb without public transportation and spend hours in traffic jams? And tourists won't be happy with this too.
> Every city needs people who do lower paying jobs. Someone has to clean those office buildings, someone has to take care of sick people at hospitals, someone has to drive taxis, buses, ... By not supplying those people with affordable housing within the city they're lives only become worse (more money and time spent commuting, less time spent with family and friends).
They can live in the suburbs. Nobody has a special right to live in a specific place. They can commute like everybody else.
This is just literally privatizing the cost of reproducing the city onto its lowest paid workers, i.e., entirely regressive. Why should those guaranteeing the very basic functioning of a place (janitors, firefighters, nurses, etc) bear not only the burden of lower wages, but now also terrible commutes? There’s no sane logic behind this kind of sentiment besides “might makes right,” which is fueling the rise of “eat the rich” populism.
Then it should be skilled, talented workers who should live in a place without public transport, buy expensive cars and gasoline and spend hours in traffic jams?
No. Cities should be invested in and planned to make themselves affordable and accommodating to all of the labor they need to exist, instead of “skilled, talented workers” shoving off all of the misery onto lower wage workers just because they can get away with it. It’s not zero sum. Look at cities in developed countries like Japan, Austria, Singapore, or the less Capitalist parts of Europe.
Nonsense. Japan is doing a good job at expending housing because they actually have a capitalistic approch to expention of houses in large cities. Its easy and cheap to build more buildings. The exact thing all of these socialist style regulations depress and systematically restrict.
And their is ZERO evidence that 'less capitalistc' parts of Europe do a better job. For the most part those parts are cheaper because nobody wants to live their and the population moves to the more capitalistic parts and that's why prices are going up there.
If you want socialist paradise see Cuba, Venezuela and the rest of Latin America. Come live here and you’ll see how well it works. Government doesn’t have a special power with future vision, nobody does. Let people decide their life, where to live. Move to other places if you want cheap living costs.
The suburbs (literally "bacon belt", wealthy exurbs) are even more expensive (after rapidly getting cheaper after 40-50km out from the city, but 2 hour commutes one way are very hard to sell at German salaries). Plus there's insufficient transport for getting the masses into the city already. Moving people more outwards won't work because these issues may get addressed after 10s of years.
It's not just about the status. Every city needs people who do lower paying jobs. Someone has to clean those office buildings, someone has to take care of sick people at hospitals, someone has to drive taxis, buses, ... By not supplying those people with affordable housing within the city they're lives only become worse (more money and time spent commuting, less time spent with family and friends).