I hate how when there is any picture of Soviet blocks it's always shot in autumn or winter when it's overcast. I live in an ex Soviet country and when these bad boys are maintained they can outperform new apartments, be it in functionality, amenities or price.
Memes
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
The world will never recover until poverty is seen not as a character flaw, but as a failure of society itself to provide for the most vulnerable.
They wouldn't be vulnerable if they just overcame their own biology and lifetime of trauma. Its that simple, they arent trying hard enough.
What do you mean by "overcame their own biology"?
Literally people born with or contracting disabilities that leave them permanently destitute due to you not being able to eat or house yourself without work you can't do because your disabled.
I don’t think anybody thinks that.
Not explicitly, maybe, but implicitly, absolutely, and in multiple ways:
- Supporting the system that creates one over the other
- Having 'bootstrap' attitudes about the poor
- Worrying about property value over utilization
- Complaining about the homeless rather than the lack of action on housing
- Voting against people who run on public housing
In so, so many ways, people say they prefer the latter over the former. Usually just with the caveat that the homeless people also be invisible.
Capitalism has you thinking that these are our only options
I'd gladly live in one of those apartments in the first picture if it meant that everyone could have a home
Don't worry, they've outlawed homelessness. Problem solved!
Literally though. And there's a whole practice of hostile architecture that makes it harder and more uncomfortable to be homeless.
The point of hostile architecture isn't to solve homelessness, just to send them to the next block/town over (not saying you don't understand that, just pointing it out).
I wonder if hostile architecture also kills people. Increasing exposure to cold and reducing opportunities to rest doesn't seem good for your chances for survival. I guess that would solve homelessness, but in the worst most morbid way possible.
You're absolutely right in your suspicion. Like so many "let's punish the poor and vulnerable so they'll stop being poor and vulnerable" policies that people think are just a "righteous" inconvenience, hostile architecture DOES kill people.
It's social murder just so the more fortunate don't have to look at the consequences of an unjust system.
This more because of the local planning in a lot of western countries. Authoritarian countries force housing through much easier
China has 300m homeless people though?
Depending on how one defines homelessness, China has either a very tiny homeless population or an extremely large one. Compared to other countries, there very few vagrants: people living on the streets of China's cities without means of support. But if one counts the people who migrated to cities without a legal permit (hukou), work as day laborers without job security or a company dormitory, and live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on the edge of cities, there are nearly 300 million homeless
The source of your source