i've been battlin this one out in my head lately. i don't like the idea of state owned properties; i think the state should be limited as much as possible. private ownership unfortunately comes with a lot of its own downfalls, and has fucked us over pretty bad in the past few decades. there's got to be something in between.
i've watched a lot of local areas decay in the past 3 decades. some areas get refreshed, but most don't. most of the refreshes are superficial. i'm talking about apartment complexes and strip/inside malls. i always hear from people about issues in their apartments, and how it's a battle to get the landlord to address issues. it's in the owner's interest to pay as little as possible for fixes and improvements, as long as people keep renting. this leads to decay and entropy, with apartments getting worse and worse until condemned. it's the same with shopping centers, the owners never want to pay to fix the roads or parking lot, or stuff like HVAC and signage. the renters don't either, and rarely fix or upgrade the interiors.
there's no incentive to make things nicer, to make things better, to make something that will last. it's quite the opposite. so, for the sake of the profit of the few, the general condition for everyone else declines. sure, there are still groups that are building new properties that are quite nice, but that only exacerbates the decline of the surrounding properties.
now, as i battle this out, this vector against private ownership starts to sound a lot like communist shit, and i'm not about that. feds just fuck shit up, and at best are bloated and inefficient. there's got to be something else.
the idea of a trust comes to mind. i get this picture of people renting in a city, and all of that money actually goes back into the city, into the property directly and other things like roads. instead of using cheap materials, funds would be put to high quality long lasting materials. the idea is to continuously build up the quality of an area over time. roads can last 100 years easily, yet we're redoing them every 10 or so. some old roads have lasted 1000 years. we used to build grand structures, with intricate artwork and nice architecture, stuff that has lasted 150 years and is still impressive. over time, things would be so nice that there'd be very little cost to maintain stuff, and payments would be lower and lower and allocated to projects of your choice.
i'm just weary of this cheaping out for short term profit over the longterm progression and cultivation of society and quality of life. it's the selfish mindset of i want things better for me versus i want things left better for everyone. i'm probably in the minority there.
i've watched a lot of local areas decay in the past 3 decades. some areas get refreshed, but most don't. most of the refreshes are superficial. i'm talking about apartment complexes and strip/inside malls. i always hear from people about issues in their apartments, and how it's a battle to get the landlord to address issues. it's in the owner's interest to pay as little as possible for fixes and improvements, as long as people keep renting. this leads to decay and entropy, with apartments getting worse and worse until condemned. it's the same with shopping centers, the owners never want to pay to fix the roads or parking lot, or stuff like HVAC and signage. the renters don't either, and rarely fix or upgrade the interiors.
there's no incentive to make things nicer, to make things better, to make something that will last. it's quite the opposite. so, for the sake of the profit of the few, the general condition for everyone else declines. sure, there are still groups that are building new properties that are quite nice, but that only exacerbates the decline of the surrounding properties.
now, as i battle this out, this vector against private ownership starts to sound a lot like communist shit, and i'm not about that. feds just fuck shit up, and at best are bloated and inefficient. there's got to be something else.
the idea of a trust comes to mind. i get this picture of people renting in a city, and all of that money actually goes back into the city, into the property directly and other things like roads. instead of using cheap materials, funds would be put to high quality long lasting materials. the idea is to continuously build up the quality of an area over time. roads can last 100 years easily, yet we're redoing them every 10 or so. some old roads have lasted 1000 years. we used to build grand structures, with intricate artwork and nice architecture, stuff that has lasted 150 years and is still impressive. over time, things would be so nice that there'd be very little cost to maintain stuff, and payments would be lower and lower and allocated to projects of your choice.
i'm just weary of this cheaping out for short term profit over the longterm progression and cultivation of society and quality of life. it's the selfish mindset of i want things better for me versus i want things left better for everyone. i'm probably in the minority there.
