Section 8 Housing

[David S]

Positive because the other realistic choice is rent control.  I'd take Section 8 over rent control any day.

I'd rather have rent control.

Rent control has caused a shortage of housing in Los Angeles.  The reason real estate has shot off the charts is party because economic incentives mitigate against new housing being built.  New renters get hosed if they are lucky enough to find someplace, old renters get subsidized by the new.

Rent control is the worst.

Someone once said; " Aside from intense bombing, nothing can destroy a city faster than rent control."

[David S]

There is no constitutional provision for the federal government to be involved in anything like Section 8 housing, so if its to be done it should be at the state or local level.

In Taylor Michigan there was a public housing building which accounted for most of the police department's calls. This despite the fact that only a tiny percentage of the city's people lived there. This might explain why other people don't want to live near one.

[David S]

No, what I meant is, put a public housing bloc in an area with some relatively posher housing, and a couple of people leave. Do that in America, and almost everybody leaves.[/slight exaggeration]

Oh yes, Americans fear a black (and a poor).  But my point was that in the US such white flight is highly subsidized by infrastructure investement - the roads, utilities, and such are subsidized by the existing customer, and in addition home loans are highly subsidized as well by quasi-governmental corporations known as 'Fannie Mae' an 'Freddie Mack', as well as the tax code, which allows deduction of interest.

If people have to pay taxes on earned interest, why can't they have a deduction for interest they have to pay?

[David S]

More a question of architecture, flat size etc. ... although America's established pattern of White Flight doesn't help.

The white flight is more highly subsidized than the housing of the poors!

Speaking of white flight, it seems to me that your own "white flight" has put more  miles between you and your home city than anyone else on the forum. Thailand is about as far as you can get from St. Louis without living in the ocean or leaving the planet.