Dead Body Theatre

[James A. Donald]

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On 27 Jul 2003 at 17:19, Tim May wrote:

> On Sunday, July 27, 2003, at 04:18  PM, James A. Donald
> wrote:
>
> >     --
> > On 27 Jul 2003 at 14:22, Tim May wrote:
> >> As for the standard of living issue, I _do_ think the 
> >> standard of living has declined over the past 40 years,
> >> aside from some availability of high tech products and
> >> medical care. Most of my employed friends are working half
> >> again as many hours as my father worked, are spending
> >> twice as much time sitting in traffic, and are living in
> >> smaller houses than my parents and my family lived in. And
> >> they are paying several times the tax burden. If the wife
> >> works, which was rare in the 1950s and into the early 60s,
> >> and they have children, then they may be paying a further
> >> substantial hit on childcare and nannies.
> >
> > When Palo Alto was developed, it was for the most part
> > where the poor people lived, while the rich people in San
> > Francisco could no longer afford their parents houses.
>
> This is so untrue as to be ridiculously silly. I don't know
> for certain which decades you are referring to as "when Palo
> Alto was developed," as it was developed from the decades
> when Stanford was being established, then when Varian and H-P
> were being established,

By "developed" I mean when orchards became housing.

> then when Lockheed and Fairchild were going strong, then when
> the chip companies of the 60s and 70s were operating, and so
> on. However, since Palo Alto was essentially "built out" by
> the late 1960s, when the last of the Eichlers (*) were
> finished, I'll address several of these periods:
>
> (Eichlers are a style of house laid on a slab, with
> relatively little insulation, lots of glass, etc. These
> typically sold for about $20K during most of the late 50s,
> early to mid 60s.)
>
> * during the build up of "Professorville" and the other 
> professional-oriented parts of PA, the houses were built by
> well-paid (for the time) professors. Numerous mansions along
> University Ave., for example. With lesser houses near
> Colorado, California, Embarcadero, etc. Even at this time
> relatively few of the residents were "unable to afford San
> Francisco."
>
> * during the post-WWII employment by Varian, H-P, Fairchild,
> and others, a typical engineer made about $12K per year
> (varied over the years, of course) and the houses cost about
> $20K. Taxes were a very small fraction, maybe $1.5K per year,
> total, including federal, state, local, sales, energy, road,
> etc.
>
> * when I moved to the area in 1974, salaries were about $15K,
> averaged over educational status, and houses were about $30K.
> Taxes were dramatically higher, even for lowly-paid starting
> engineers. The welfare state was in full swing, with more and
> more people ("of color") simply not working at all, or
> claiming disability, or hacking the system to extract more
> handouts for having more children, etc.

That, Tim, is my point.   Think about it.

If you look at the statistics for any one area, it becomes
harder and harder to afford.

However, if you look at the statistics for America as a whole,
it becomes easier and easier to afford, as manifested by the
ever increasing proportion of people that own their own houses.

This is a consequence of the fact that in any one area, you run
out of legally available land for houses, but for America as a
whole, we are very far from running out of land for houses. 

    --digsig
         James A. Donald
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