Has capitalism failed, or have you?
Excellent article in
Reason magazine
bq. Last week, Los Angeles Times reporter Mary MacNamara wrote a damply sympathetic, ain't-it-awful column entitled, "An Urban Pioneer's New Claim," about a guy who'd been priced out of Echo Park and forced to rent new digs in Lincoln Heights. For those not familiar with the dizzying altitude L.A. real estate has reached these days, even in locales where polite society often fears to tread, Echo Park is a funky bohemian barrio slightly northwest of downtown, while Lincoln Heights (slightly northeast) is still basically just a barrio—albeit one that realtors and "urban pioneers" hope will soon be funky and bohemian.
and it goes on
bq. Many people missed out on taking advantage of the L.A. real estate recession through no fault of their own. But others, like Jim Priest in the Times's sad Tale of the Downwardly Mobile Renter, just failed to seize the day. I knew others like him. At around the same time I bought my new house, a friend and his wife went into escrow on a Koreatown duplex, but backed out after encountering "nightmare contractors." The nightmare in question turned out to be a contractor who showed up a little late to give an estimate for repairs.
Interesting viewpoint...
Posted by DaveH at November 20, 2003 9:28 PM