Quote:
Originally Posted by JET
Can’t agree, everything should be about affordable housing. It benefits everyone.
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"Affordable" doesn't necessarily mean priced for the poor. It can be defined in different ways but a common one tends to be something like no more than 30% of the median net income. But that's not accessible to the poor and is instead very middle class territory.
In terms of housing accessible to the poor, I agree that it doesn't necessarily need to be right downtown. But there should certainly be some in fairly central areas. There are a lot of people working low wage jobs downtown such as retail, hospitality, and janitorial positions, and it isn't practical to push them all out to the fringes where they're stuck with long commutes and poorer job or education options. And it's not just bad for them, but also bad for the organizations who hire them since the workers are more prone to delays and it's harder to find them to begin with. And it's bad for the city because those people end up needing transportation subsidies. Transit farebox recovery ratios tend to be much worst in outer suburban areas compared to in town, while poor people in town are often capable of walking or biking which saves the city money and improves the health of the poor. And really, suburban areas just don't have a good quality of life for people who don't have access to cars, and poor people have difficulty affording them.
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