The Italians have a word for it dietrologia*, literally the study of [what’s] behind.  Nothing is what it appears to be; there’s more to it than meets the eye. *(dee-eh-tro-lo-GEE-ah)

I used to roll my eyes at such Italian cynicism, but the ensuing decades have taught me the value of that ancient Italic trait.  On the extreme end are conspiracies—which exist, accompanied by gaslighting—but the operative word would be skepticism.  What’s behind the curtain?

One subject for greater scrutiny is ‘affordable housing.’  Yes, the prices of homes have skyrocketed.  The solution, government says, is to build more apartment houses and 2-family homes in the suburbs.  Single family homes are a 20th Century relic that need to go.  As to the cause of the shortage, they point to White privilege able to bid up suburban prices and to gentrify minority neighborhoods in the cities. Partly true.

My extended family –aunts and uncles- lived in Brooklyn apartments, typically seven people in three rooms (including the kitchen), until after the Korean War.  Many eventually found one-families on Long Island where potato farms once reigned.  There were open spaces for the Italians, Germans, and Irish who lived in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx to settle on Long Island, in New Jersey, and even on Staten Island and in Queens (boroughs of NYC).  Every area had ‘affordable’ housing even when mortgage rates rose to 7%, as they are now. 

The difference was we married early and saved money – no cable/streaming bills, one car, road trip vacations, no cell phones, little if any student debt, and home cooking.  More importantly, very few immigrants.  That’s not xenophobia, just a fact.  Chain migration beginning in 1965 brought, and still brings, immigrants who had strong family values and money to invest.  They essentially took over Queens, as an example; East Asians and South Asians were able to pool family money and buy out Euro-Americans who, in turn, moved to the suburbs.  Now, those suburbs are full and Queens is priced out-of-sight as small capes were renovated by Asians into ‘McMansions.’  These newcomers are entrepreneurial (Ubers, food trucks, Subway stores, Seven-Elevens, Dollar Trees) and often medical professionals who can accumulate capital.

The NYTimes reported back in 2015 about a Queens neighborhood that was transformed by Asian buyers.  One tore down an affordable home and extended it 14’ into her front lawn and built upwards—all legal under loose NYC residential codes—cutting off the sunlight to her neighbor’s home.  That neighbor feared for his other side: “I’d be living in a tunnel, right?”  He sold and moved to New Jersey.

Now come the less wealthy illegal aliens looking for permanent ‘affordable’ housing.  If increasing the supply of housing and destroying suburbia is the answer to this unrelenting demand, then we must be not only skeptical but cynical.  How about curtailing demand?  What is behind this rush to make America into a megalopolis?

Beside the skyrocketing prices for homes is the outrageous climb in real estate taxes and property insurance.  Real estate taxes are actually public school taxes, as they are 60-70% of the bill.  Still, many school districts are broke and have a student body more suited to vocational training than academic. What’s behind such exorbitant taxes?  Not just the salaries of policemen, teachers, and civil servants, it’s their pensions that are making homes unaffordable.  It’s common practice now for civil servants to exploit overtime just before retirement to jack up lifetime pensions.  New York State guarantees 8% growth in these pensions.  If the stock market performs well, no problem, when it doesn’t real estate taxes rise.  A modest suburban home can carry $15,000 in taxes and $3,000 in insurance.  No wonder people are moving South.

These are times that require dietrologia rather than partisan politics. -JLM