The sad plight of the children of privilege:

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Even though my friend and her husband – both professionals like their parents – earn the considerable joint salary of £140,000 a year, the bourgeois ease of their youth seems unthinkable. In spite of their undisputed professional status and more-than-respectable earnings, they are downwardly mobile...
A headhunter who is often asked by his friends how they are meant to get by on, say, an MP’s salary of £60,000 a year, has no answer. “I just don’t want to think about it,” he told me.

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As the never-to-be-sufficiently-praised Chris Dillow notes,

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A household income of £140,000, even with two children, is more than 97% of the population gets. Even on £60,000, you're doing better than 75% of people in the UK.

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[ 29 April 2007: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
They're rising muh faster than inflation... I think in Canada 10% a year is typical. This is very much unsustainable, as eventually this will mean it's impossible for anyone start a family.

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Are you assuming that you have to own a house in order to start a family? I didn't. Still don't. Started a family 9 years ago.

I think creative solutions are going to be needed in the future. More people are going to have to start thinking about co-operative housing and such.

writer has mentioned on babble that she lives in a single-house co-op with several other people. Well, I visited that house the other night and had a lovely evening with her and her roomies. And it was such a great experience.

Another babbler who isn't around much these days, andrean, did something similar and wrote about it on babble - she and her best friend bought a house together, and her best friend filled the house up with a husband and two kids. They invited their other best friend to come and live with them in the house. Altogether there were six people in one house, comprising three families.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
I think more families are going to have to start thinking about living in intentional communities rather than doing the single-family-home-dream.

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[ 30 April 2007: Message edited by: Makwa ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:

Are you assuming that you have to own a house in order to start a family? I didn't. Still don't. Started a family 9 years ago.

I think creative solutions are going to be needed in the future. More people are going to have to start thinking about co-operative housing and such.

writer has mentioned on babble that she lives in a single-house co-op with several other people. Well, I visited that house the other night and had a lovely evening with her and her roomies. And it was such a great experience.

Another babbler who isn't around much these days, andrean, did something similar and wrote about it on babble - she and her best friend bought a house together, and her best friend filled the house up with a husband and two kids. They invited their other best friend to come and live with them in the house. Altogether there were six people in one house, comprising three families.

I think more families are going to have to start thinking about living in intentional communities rather than doing the single-family-home-dream. Problem is, there isn't all that much infrastructure in place for planning that sort of thing, nor is it overly commonplace, so if you want to do it, you kind of have to make it up as you go along. I would love to do something like that, but after years of living a pretty atomized existence, not only would I not know how to go about starting something like that, I don't even know whether any of my friends or acquaintances might even be INTERESTED in such a thing.

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I don't know of new co-op housing that is being planned and/or built, in Toronto. The rumours are that the new Regent Park will be so-called "mixed income" housing, but I remain skeptical.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
It does seem obvious to me though that if more and more people wanted coops the price would go up and up and up.

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Downtowns are bursting at the seams with crime and with smog.

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[ 30 April 2007: Message edited by: bigcitygal ]

I admit there's a lot of variations between downtowns. In Montreal for example I feel very safe, but I'm a relatively tall and fit 23 year old male who never carries a lot of money and doesn't own a car to get stolen. I don't really know which North American city I'll end up in, and I presume this is the case for a lot of people in my age group. Seattle, for example, which is a city I visited last summer, is one whose downtown I found not safe at all. I hink it's fair to say that in a typical north american city crime is far more concentrated in downtown cores.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
I don't really know the specificities of Toronto to well, but I'm not inclined to trust a population comprised of Maple Leaf fans.

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Hockey fans are idiots.

Hockey players are overpaid thugs.

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Are you arguing co-op housing is more affordable btw? Are you also arguing not enough people want co-op housing? Because when I see those two arguments together, I draw a single link. That the second more people want co-op housing, the price will skyrocket.

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This is not necessarily true.

First, in my own experience in the labour and cooperative movements, I have found that it's not that not enough people want co-ops--either as business ventures or as housing. Rather, it's that far too few people even know this is an option.

Second, market pricing depends on what kind of co-op housing you're talking about. There are many types of housing co-ops. But it seems they generally boil down to about three major categories.

In a regular open-bond equity strata-council (also known as "yuppie co-ops"), where individual units are bought and sold between individuals totally apart from the co-op association itself, then capitalist-dominated market pricing is the main determinant in the price of a unit.

There, the old oppressive demand-vs.-supply rule is the main factor, and, as 500 apples suggests, price can shoot up or down leaving people in the lurch either way.

With limited equity co-ops , the purchase of individual units involves buying stock equity in the cooperative association as a whole. When someone sells and moves out, they sell back to the co-op, in effect selling their unit, as a whole, at a pre-set rate determined by the democratic vote of the membership as a whole.

Often, equity co-ops vote on what is sometimes called an "80 per cent policy"--as in fixing share price at 80 per cent of the lower end of market rate. Others simply use a cost-revenue formula that looks at building and grounds maintenance costs, wear and tear and depreciation, etc.

These measures, while still being influenced to some degree by housing market prices, have a buffering effect against the harsh conditions and fluctuations.

Equity co-ops also offer a more democratic and accountable environment than stratas, since residence and ownership are subject to abiding by the rules of conduct set democratically by the co-op. In a strata, for example, it can be almost impossible to kick out a noisy, violent or destructive resident. But in an equity co-op, ownership is subject to abiding by co-op rules.

Of course, there are the non-equity ILM or c131 co-ops , which are sort of a half-way between a strata or equity co-op and rental housing.

These require a share purchase in the cooperative, but no equity is obtained. Rather, members pay monthly housing charges, similar to maintenance fees in stratas or E-co-ops, which are used to service the property and pay the mortgage.

Usually these monthly fees are higher than in stratas or e-co-ops, but far more is covered in terms of service and maintenance, since the members do not own their own units, as they remain the property of the co-op as a whole, which then assumes the responsibility for maintenance.

The fee are often based on a fixed percentage of a member's gross annual income--often 25 to 30 per cent, in order to keep members as affordable to as many people as possible.

These co-ops are often entitled to federal or provincial shelter subsidy programs, which provide funds to offset the monthly fees, depending on a person's income. Low income earners can qualify for this assistance; or in many cases, the co-op itself gets lump sum payments to use at its discretion.

Dang, missed my spot in line again.

[ 30 April 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]

Housing charges have nothing to do with how much demand there is for co-ops. They depend on the cost of running the co-op. In high demand situations this is a good thing, since the co-op will be full and have waiting lists for when people do move out. In low demand situations this is a problem since the vacancy loss must be carried by the members who stay.

The older the co-op is the more likely housing charges will be below market rents, since initially a large fraction of the costs will be the mortgage, which is largely fixed.

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Housing charges have nothing to do with how much demand there is for co-ops. They depend on the cost of running the co-op.

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Hockey players are overpaid thugs.

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• How market housing charges are set varies from program to program. But, in most co-ops, they will be at or lower than the prevailing market price
• Co-ops (at least those in Canada) are non-profit and the housing charges are established by members, so there is not only little incentive to raise housing charges inordinately, but members would be hurting themselves by doing so

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I think it's fair to say that in a typical north american city crime is far more concentrated in downtown cores.

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Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
Really? SO just what would you consider a reasonably paid thug?

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Good question. What's Mike Harris doing these days?

(I think I've thread-drifted enough for now. Thanks for the co-op info, SA, jrootham and Scott!)

[ 01 May 2007: Message edited by: bigcitygal ]