... or why its getting weirder in America ...
Almost 17 years ago, my wife and I moved our family into a larger house in a new neighborhood. We needed the space desperately to avoid the appearance of hoarding. Although if I'd known the commercial appeal that 'real life' hoarding stories would one day generate, maybe we'd of stayed and gotten rich by being the pack rats we (seemingly) are.
But let me not digress. This piece is about that larger house and the neighborhood around it. A nice place, don't you know.
When we moved in, it was a place full of people mixing across a large swath of the economy, from the LA wealthy to the LA poor(-ish), and all between. There were long-time resident ethno-cultural groups here cheek by jowl with the usual SoCal majority mix of whites/Hispanics. Streets were lined with mom-and-pop one-off shops and independent restaurants among the car body shops and senior living complexes. An interesting place to live. Not splashy, but comfy.
During the big housing bubble prices for homes in the area became expensive out of proportion to any real value, but hey, the banks were giving away jumbo loans at 0 down. In much of the outlying areas of LA, the Great Home Ownership Rush was On. In my neighborhood it was there, but more subdued since the people who already lived there weren't in the mood to sell, and not much new was being built. Besides, if we sold, where would we move? We liked it where we were.
Then the bubble burst and everywhere you looked house prices were dropping like those Turkey's in WKRP's Thanksgiving Giveaway. They dropped where I live too, but not as much.
And now, 8 years after that bubble burst, with other areas still recovering, LA housing prices have been rising with a bullet, nowhere more so than in my neighborhood. They now stand at triple (or more) the price they fetched 17 years ago, beyond even the crazy highs of the bubble. This extreme rise in value has led some locals to finally sell-up, grab the profit, and move to cheaper climes and buy a retirement mansion. Good for them, I would say, only the people who are buying up and moving in are not the same kinds of people as those leaving, so the personality of the neighborhood is changing.
And how could it not? People who can afford to pay 1 million and up for homes that were half that 10 years ago are not like me - and probably not like you. They are Rich. Not billionaires, but certainly millionaires, multiply so. Either that, or they are far more skilled in managing their money than the average American, sadly including me.
I don't know exactly where they are coming from; another part of LA, refugees from even higher prices in the San Francisco Bay Area, or hillbillies who struck Texas Tea, Black Gold, Oil that is!
Wherever they are coming from they are changing the place. Everywhere you look long-time businesses are closing and trendy, hip places are opening up, in chase of the money they just know is there. Sometimes they close too, and another trendy spot takes its place. It's like America has acquired ADHD, or at least a shortening attention span.
Ok, I'll admit, I can't directly tie the rapid increase in house prices (and apartment rents) and their new richey owners to the change in businesses, but hey its a pattern that LA has seen elsewhere. Like that nice place I used to live with my family in the too-small house I sold to to get into the bigger house. That older place is even trendier and hipper now.
People who held on there and here, and have not sold into this booming market, really like where they live and don't want to leave. But these places are changing around them into something increasingly unrecognizable and weird.
Whether we, the residents of those places where a rising tide of incredible (and to me inscrutable) affluence is leaving us as beachcomber's on a strange shore, can adapt and love the new normal, is a question without any clear answer. I plan to stay until every other restaurant is trendy-casual and all burgers are gourmet, and/or until Home Owners Associations rear their intrusive, ugly heads. Even then I'll probably stay, since, like I said, it's a nice place.
Almost 17 years ago, my wife and I moved our family into a larger house in a new neighborhood. We needed the space desperately to avoid the appearance of hoarding. Although if I'd known the commercial appeal that 'real life' hoarding stories would one day generate, maybe we'd of stayed and gotten rich by being the pack rats we (seemingly) are.
But let me not digress. This piece is about that larger house and the neighborhood around it. A nice place, don't you know.
When we moved in, it was a place full of people mixing across a large swath of the economy, from the LA wealthy to the LA poor(-ish), and all between. There were long-time resident ethno-cultural groups here cheek by jowl with the usual SoCal majority mix of whites/Hispanics. Streets were lined with mom-and-pop one-off shops and independent restaurants among the car body shops and senior living complexes. An interesting place to live. Not splashy, but comfy.
During the big housing bubble prices for homes in the area became expensive out of proportion to any real value, but hey, the banks were giving away jumbo loans at 0 down. In much of the outlying areas of LA, the Great Home Ownership Rush was On. In my neighborhood it was there, but more subdued since the people who already lived there weren't in the mood to sell, and not much new was being built. Besides, if we sold, where would we move? We liked it where we were.
Then the bubble burst and everywhere you looked house prices were dropping like those Turkey's in WKRP's Thanksgiving Giveaway. They dropped where I live too, but not as much.
And now, 8 years after that bubble burst, with other areas still recovering, LA housing prices have been rising with a bullet, nowhere more so than in my neighborhood. They now stand at triple (or more) the price they fetched 17 years ago, beyond even the crazy highs of the bubble. This extreme rise in value has led some locals to finally sell-up, grab the profit, and move to cheaper climes and buy a retirement mansion. Good for them, I would say, only the people who are buying up and moving in are not the same kinds of people as those leaving, so the personality of the neighborhood is changing.
And how could it not? People who can afford to pay 1 million and up for homes that were half that 10 years ago are not like me - and probably not like you. They are Rich. Not billionaires, but certainly millionaires, multiply so. Either that, or they are far more skilled in managing their money than the average American, sadly including me.
I don't know exactly where they are coming from; another part of LA, refugees from even higher prices in the San Francisco Bay Area, or hillbillies who struck Texas Tea, Black Gold, Oil that is!
Wherever they are coming from they are changing the place. Everywhere you look long-time businesses are closing and trendy, hip places are opening up, in chase of the money they just know is there. Sometimes they close too, and another trendy spot takes its place. It's like America has acquired ADHD, or at least a shortening attention span.
Ok, I'll admit, I can't directly tie the rapid increase in house prices (and apartment rents) and their new richey owners to the change in businesses, but hey its a pattern that LA has seen elsewhere. Like that nice place I used to live with my family in the too-small house I sold to to get into the bigger house. That older place is even trendier and hipper now.
People who held on there and here, and have not sold into this booming market, really like where they live and don't want to leave. But these places are changing around them into something increasingly unrecognizable and weird.
Whether we, the residents of those places where a rising tide of incredible (and to me inscrutable) affluence is leaving us as beachcomber's on a strange shore, can adapt and love the new normal, is a question without any clear answer. I plan to stay until every other restaurant is trendy-casual and all burgers are gourmet, and/or until Home Owners Associations rear their intrusive, ugly heads. Even then I'll probably stay, since, like I said, it's a nice place.
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