this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
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Turned everything into a co-op and killed all the landlords?
Maybe we should try that outside of a video game, too.
Aren't coops basically democratic condos? In Sweden we have "bostadsrätt" which are condos governed by a democratic resident association. They're good for democratic control over housing, but they still require a mortgage and they're still subject to market speculation. Some of the apartments can be rentals, but that still means you have a landlord, just that your landlord is your neighbors.
Having the city or the state as your landlord seems like it would be more ideal, or at least a balance of coops and public housing.
The major benefit is that a co-op is owned by the people who live there.
That's still a MASSIVE improvement over outside ownership by someone who is just there to make money.
It's a step in a better direction, if maybe not the ideal solution.
For the U.S. at least:
With condos, there's a condo association that owns all the common areas. Then the association itself is owned by the owners of the units, and the management is elected by the owners.
With co-ops, the unit owners directly own the common areas in common, and the management is also elected by the owners.
Functionally speaking they're very similar, and co-ops tend to exist in places where this legal structure predates the invention of homeowner associations (basically New York).
https://youtu.be/_TiSUBMCJ90?si=jHsqdJx2tVe1MIIB
It's called an HOA...you don't want any part of that.
HOAs exist to maintain home resale value, and little else. They protect the "investment" of owning land and the homes on them. The laws around the practice are draconian and overreaching.
But theres no reason a superificially similar institution couldn't be built for equitable reasons and then only be given reasonable amounts of power.
Good luck with that...we've tried it since the beginning of time...those institutions invariably turn into HOA like cluster fucks of bad management.
I don't know what country your perspective is based on, but if it is the US, where HOA shittyness is the norm, then yeah, that makes sense.
But that's not because the structure of a co-op can't work or do good things. It's because the culture, zoning laws and regulations over there are UTTERLY FUCKED which means real change is slow as hell to realize, since it involves changing course on decades of legislation, and convincing a LOT of minds to look at home-ownership differently.
HOAs are rare where I live, but we often have property management that oversees multiple units to take care of and fund common elements.
They're not all perfect, but most aren't nearly as bad as what I've heard about HOAs.
We have strata, or group ownership of the land and structure of a housing complex. Each owner owns what's inside the walls of their apartment but the strata owns rye rest and is jointly owned by all owners. Each pays a fee to cover maintenance, upkeep and a sinking fund for major repairs. It works pretty well, for the most part.
However there is quite an administrative burden and many homeowners dont want the hassle of doing the admin so the busybodies tend to do it and overstep their boundaries often. Many use an external company to manage it. The biggest company was just in the need today as it was fsvouring its own insurance product for all the buildings it manages. Conflict of interest for profit isn't quite the joint ownership plan strata envisions.
Sounds similar to where I live. The busybodies can be annoying, and fraud (etc.) can be a problem. But I won't let perfect be the enemy of good to my opinion.
Yes, definitely. But important to not have annidealised view of outcomes either. Realistic goals and expectations in real life as in gaming.