Gimme SHELTER!
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” – and certainly Australia, officially the happiest of OECD nations, presents no exception to Rousseau’s general observation. For all I know, Melbourne probably is one of the world’s most liveable cities, despite the gross overvaluation of properties and their associated rents.
The sun shines on rich and poor alike, but only the wealthy are immune from maddening heatstroke and dehydration, safely ensconced within the air-conditioned comfort of numerous mansions. Their profit is assured, many times over; they are free to be fruitful, to multiply and to enjoy their virtually criminal returns on property investment.
But outside, beyond the landlord’s security fence, the condition of rental properties (housing for the people) as well as municipal infrastructure, continues to languish in neglect. The disruption of families and communities, suburb by blighted suburb, is no obstacle to the juggernaut of private profit.
Our living arrangements become increasingly tenuous, desperate, irrational: commute further, downsize, switch schools, pay double for fewer services. Live less. Be forced to compete, to beg and grovel and even bribe your way into that rental property you can’t afford, in a suburb you don’t particularly care for. No smoking. No pets. The landlord will require periodic access to the storage area. A tenant not paying through both nostrils is not yet paying enough. The price of the rent is fixed – but not for long, never long enough to get truly settled – by a megalomaniac dictator seeking to maximize private profit, aided and abetted by fawning real estate agents, most of whom couldn’t be bothered to return the telephone calls of the tightly constrained, yet inquisitive, faceless underclass renter.
It’s always an owner’s, never a renter’s, residential property market.
But maybe that's just Australia: lucky for some.
The sun shines on rich and poor alike, but only the wealthy are immune from maddening heatstroke and dehydration, safely ensconced within the air-conditioned comfort of numerous mansions. Their profit is assured, many times over; they are free to be fruitful, to multiply and to enjoy their virtually criminal returns on property investment.
But outside, beyond the landlord’s security fence, the condition of rental properties (housing for the people) as well as municipal infrastructure, continues to languish in neglect. The disruption of families and communities, suburb by blighted suburb, is no obstacle to the juggernaut of private profit.
Our living arrangements become increasingly tenuous, desperate, irrational: commute further, downsize, switch schools, pay double for fewer services. Live less. Be forced to compete, to beg and grovel and even bribe your way into that rental property you can’t afford, in a suburb you don’t particularly care for. No smoking. No pets. The landlord will require periodic access to the storage area. A tenant not paying through both nostrils is not yet paying enough. The price of the rent is fixed – but not for long, never long enough to get truly settled – by a megalomaniac dictator seeking to maximize private profit, aided and abetted by fawning real estate agents, most of whom couldn’t be bothered to return the telephone calls of the tightly constrained, yet inquisitive, faceless underclass renter.
It’s always an owner’s, never a renter’s, residential property market.
But maybe that's just Australia: lucky for some.