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Fixing America

Brainster said:
This. The first town I lived in had a minimum lot size of 6000 square feet, so you could (in theory) get 7 houses per acre. The second town had a minimum lot size of 22,000 square feet or a little under 2 houses per acre. The town we shared our high school with had one-acre zoning, and the really ritzy town next to them required two acres. I shouldn't have to mention that the per square foot value of land was higher the more restrictive the zoning; thus the land cost alone of building a house in the last town was even more than 14 times as expensive as in the first town. BTW, these towns were all next to each other, within a 5-mile radius.
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That town with 2 acre lots was set up as an enclave for the rich. It might as well post a sign not to enter unless you make 7 figures. My belief is that kind of zoning should be illegal. I owned a 2400 square foot house on a 1/3 acre lot. Man I hated mowing it. You could have put 2 or three more houses on that lot.
 
CNN reporting Trump just "made a deal" with El Salvador that they'll accept deportees of any nationality from the US...and also they'll accept into their prisons American prisoners. Americans, born in America, shipped off to a foreign prison. Um, that seems very wrong to me. Alarmingly, unconstitutionally, stripping-people-of-their-rights wrong.
 
TragicMonkey said:
CNN reporting Trump just "made a deal" with El Salvador that they'll accept deportees of any nationality from the US...and also they'll accept into their prisons American prisoners. Americans, born in America, shipped off to a foreign prison. Um, that seems very wrong to me. Alarmingly, unconstitutionally, stripping-people-of-their-rights wrong.
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Ask SCOTUS about that!

Oh wait...

Are the affected people brown? Then the original constitution didn't apply to them. Too bad, how sad.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Are the affected people brown? Then the original constitution didn't apply to them. Too bad, how sad.
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The affected people could be anybody, any American. And once shipped off (sold?) to El Salvador I'm guessing they won't retain any of their rights as Americans. Trump and his cronies could just dump Americans they don't like into an El Salvadorean prison and that would be the end of them. This is straight up dictator stuff. Every day we slide further into it. This is insanity.
 
TragicMonkey said:
The affected people could be anybody, any American. And once shipped off (sold?) to El Salvador I'm guessing they won't retain any of their rights as Americans. Trump and his cronies could just dump Americans they don't like into an El Salvadorean prison and that would be the end of them. This is straight up dictator stuff. Every day we slide further into it. This is insanity.
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I can see the El Salvadoreans making a massive profit off this. Because they will be paid to take these "prisoners". Who they will then quietly let out of jail (if they ever put them in), and encourage them to walk back to the USA via Mexico. Sooner or later they will be transported again, for another bite of profit.
 
acbytesla said:
That town with 2 acre lots was set up as an enclave for the rich. It might as well post a sign not to enter unless you make 7 figures. My belief is that kind of zoning should be illegal. I owned a 2400 square foot house on a 1/3 acre lot. Man I hated mowing it. You could have put 2 or three more houses on that lot.
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We had a full acre, although about a quarter of it was wooded; still took about 2 hours to mow. My current house is on about a quarter acre so in theory its big enough for another house, but it's a pie-shaped lot so the back yard is huge compared to the front. Desert landscaping so no mowing and only occasional weeding.

BTW, the two-acre zoning town is Saddle River, New Jersey, and yes, it is very rich--the kind of town today where former NBA stars (Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Mark Jackson) and TV personalities (Rosie O'Donnell, Andrew Dice Clay) live(d). Nixon lived there for awhile after leaving the White House. Having dated a few gals from there back in my high school days, I can tell you that the houses you could see from the road might be pretty spectacular, but it was the ones you had to drive a quarter mile back in the woods that would really take your breath away.
 
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I mean - can you fix stupid?
Trump claimed to bring in billions in Tarifs, and then instantly backs down for token gestures.
And he won't lose any support for it, on the contrary, his supporters will gush who big and powerful he was getting them nothing in return for pissing off allies.

It might take a generation to get over this brain deficit.
 
TragicMonkey said:
The affected people could be anybody, any American. And once shipped off (sold?) to El Salvador I'm guessing they won't retain any of their rights as Americans. Trump and his cronies could just dump Americans they don't like into an El Salvadorean prison and that would be the end of them. This is straight up dictator stuff. Every day we slide further into it. This is insanity.
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All true. Just that it all applies to only brown people.
 
Brainster said:
We had a full acre, although about a quarter of it was wooded; still took about 2 hours to mow. My current house is on about a quarter acre so in theory its big enough for another house, but it's a pie-shaped lot so the back yard is huge compared to the front. Desert landscaping so no mowing and only occasional weeding.

BTW, the two-acre zoning town is Saddle River, New Jersey, and yes, it is very rich--the kind of town today where former NBA stars (Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Mark Jackson) and TV personalities (Rosie O'Donnell, Andrew Dice Clay) live(d). Nixon lived there for awhile after leaving the White House. Having dated a few gals from there back in my high school days, I can tell you that the houses you could see from the road might be pretty spectacular, but it was the ones you had to drive a quarter mile back in the woods that would really take your breath away.
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I have a friend who lives in the Highlands in Seattle, Washington. It is a gated community with a guard house at the main entrance. There are other gates which can be accessed with a remote control that residents get with the homes. It used to be the most exclusive neighborhood in the Seattle Metro area. The founder of Boeing created the enclave. You can't even see any of the spectacular homes from outside its fences. This is heavily wooded area. Some of the homes line the private Seattle Country Club. Others are on the hill or cliff overlooking Puget Sound. Spectacular views of the Sound and Olympic Mountains.

The only way riff raff like me saw what was inside those fences was my friend purchased a house there during the mortgage crisis. He got it cheap. (For that area) It had lost more than half its market value as a result. He bought it for 900K. He had a nice home in Torrey Pines that he inherited from his parents. Nothing spectacular. But a very expensive neighborhood. He wouldn't have spent all that money on a gome here in Seattle normally. But he was looking at a huge tax bill if he didn't use most of that money on a home here. So he bought the most he could in Seattle. Now, you would probably be lucky to purchase it for under 5 million.

The lots in the Highlands vary in size and cannot be subdivided because of covenants. So it has nothing to do with government zoning. More the result of the privileges of being rich and powerful. I doubt there is one less than an acre and other lots probably as large as 5.
 
TragicMonkey said:
The affected people could be anybody, any American. And once shipped off (sold?) to El Salvador I'm guessing they won't retain any of their rights as Americans. Trump and his cronies could just dump Americans they don't like into an El Salvadorean prison and that would be the end of them. This is straight up dictator stuff. Every day we slide further into it. This is insanity.
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The prison would be "Salvadoran." People from El Salvador are called Salvadorans.
 
acbytesla said:
It does absolutely. And that nails the reason for the exemption. And I took advantage of that exemption twice. But it does little to address housing shortages and skyrocketing home values. Great for the homeowner, but renters remain screwed.
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It's not necessarily great for the homeowner because although they get a wad of cash they still have to live somewhere. They can downsize or move to a cheaper market. Or live in an RV but you have to park it somewhere and often pay for the privilege.
 
Minoosh said:
The prison would be "Salvadoran." People from El Salvador are called Salvadorans.
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If you want to be pendantic --am I'm assuming you do-- they'd be Salvadoreños. Or Salvadoreñas if the ones being referenced were female. But I suspect this is not a particularly important point and that both of us wasted time on it.
 
acbytesla said:
I have a friend who lives in the Highlands in Seattle, Washington. It is a gated community with a guard house at the main entrance. There are other gates which can be accessed with a remote control that residents get with the homes. It used to be the most exclusive neighborhood in the Seattle Metro area. The founder of Boeing created the enclave. You can't even see any of the spectacular homes from outside its fences. This is heavily wooded area. Some of the homes line the private Seattle Country Club. Others are on the hill or cliff overlooking Puget Sound. Spectacular views of the Sound and Olympic Mountains.
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A friend of mine rented a place in Tuxedo Park, which was one of the first gated communities in the USA. The word "tuxedo" comes from there and apparently it was quite swanky back in the 1920s-1940s, but by 1980s when I visited, it was pretty tired. Looking it up now, there are some real mansions, but apparently the median home price is only about $900K, which in the NY metro area means pretty cheap.
 
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