"Skimping on maintenance" is capitalisms main and really only play. So many issues (housing, transport, utilities) are because "the market" won't ever pay to maintain.
Agreed. When I moved to the US from Australia 19 years ago, the road condition here blew my mind. The potholes, tree roots, all of that? There'd be protests at City Councils for a fraction of that in Australia. Here, just "the way it is".
No, it's not. The article is nothing but a complete lie and a ragebait against scapegoats. This is similar to how conservatives are raging against trans people.
Starting from this:
> The United States is short 4 million housing units
It's a lie. The US has more than one housing unit (1.1) per family.
We don't have a housing problem. We really really don't.
We have an urbanism problem, that made the dense hellscapes the only viable housing location.
I.e the kind of stuff everyone wants to do but can't justify flying so close to the sun on because they don't have a legal army say "we are in compliance and here's why" on their behalf when the municipal government comes looking for fine money or the slip and fall lawyer tries to make something their fault.
In "reasonable" (note for the bottom feeders, I did not say "free", I said "reasonable") markets the big guy has to do things to higher standards because his big pot of money will attract vultures looking for a quick buck if he does even slightly wrong.
It's usually the opposite. In a lot of rental markets the small time landlords do even less than the minimum in terms of maintenance and upkeep, whereas the big corporate landlords at least have some basic level of organizational competence. Most local governments don't have the resources to do much enforcement so only the most serious violations are ever punished.
I remember there was once a guy who just went around fixing potholes with no official authorization or anything (he did it properly), and I think he got arrested but then released with a warning.
