selophane.blog

Planetizen has an article about a new online mapping website by CNT that tracks housing prices and transportation costs as a function of the geographic median income. While I am leery that this information will always skew in favor of the urban centers, I do think that this website starts a dialogue about why the housing crunch is affecting so many people. When you overlay the data of housing costs and transportation costs in Northern Virginia alone, its easy to find areas where the total monthly average expenditure is approaching 50%. In a healthy economy this would be dangerous, but in our unstable tables this is a scenario rife for trouble.

In light of this week being Passover, I figured I would phrase the current (impending?) recession in the mode of Daiayanu – which translates to “It would have been enough”).

• If it was just the sub-prime mortgages and not the regular mortages, Daiyanu.
• If mortgages just represented too much of the american income and gas prices hadn’t risen, Daiyanu.
• If gas prices rose but the dollar had stayed strong, Daiyanu.
• If the dollar was weak but inflation was not so high, Daiyanu.
• If inflation was high but milk and egg subsidies kept the price down, Daiyanu.
• If dietary staples were expensive but we all had healthcare, Daiyanu.
• If we didn’t have universal healthcare, but social security was stable, Daiyanu …