The Over Housed and the Under Housed

Judith Warner of the New York Times, blogged this week about Affluenza.

My thoughts after reading Warner's post tended to questions of the bloating of the American home in an era when a growing proportion of the population faces "housing insecurity" following the mortgage crisis and the economic downturn. Is the over-sized American home another symptom of Affluenza? Did the Mcmansion cause the lack of adequate housing for working folk?? Probably not, but to my mind, the Affluenza Warner describes is part of a larger ill in which the haves and have nots in this nation grow farther apart and the working middle class loses its foothold on security.

In a community such as Charlottesville-Albemarle, blessed by a stable underlying economy, the advantages of a University town and all the attendant issues of growth, development and labor, these questions are particularily relevant. The landscape is dotted with large homes and comfortable middle class neighborhoods, historic farms and amenity filled new subdivisions. This is a great place to live for many reasons. Yet the University of Virginia does not pay a living wage to its lower tier employees and many of the working people of our community struggle to find decent housing, let alone to buy a home, even with house prices down 15%+ in the last year. Affordable Housing remains a challenge in Charlottesville, and with gas at $4/gallon, we now have to factor the cost of commuting into the housing equation.

Where is the balance for our community and for each of us as individuals?