american dream housing

. why would the american dream be about owning a home?
that situation is really only good for the self-employed!
-- now that's the american dream .
. one commentary (marketplace 6.24) pointed out that
one of the reasons for the financial crisis today
was the clinton-era transition in laws
making it easier for the common joe to get a home loan .
. the implication was that renting is unamerican:
ownership promotes accountability,
and prevents landlords from getting filthy rich from
collectively monopolizing a vital commodity .

. if a society is going to promote mobile occupation systems
(ie, nationwide job searches, bring the wife and kids
-- leave the inlaws behind )
then they should also promote mobile residential systems:
this is where the infrastructure could cheaply provide
just utility hookups rather than houses;
and landlords could have a much cleaner pricing structure
because there's much less damage the occupant can do
now that they own their own cubicle .

. while private landlords could monopolize mobile home parks,
a city could provide a much cheaper and more scalable alternative,
where you pay separately for parking and utilities:
the parking can be anywhere since it provides no utilities,
and then you make a weekly trip to the city's service center,
where you would pay to dump blackwater, and refill utilities .
. when people go on welfare, we help pay for cheap campers,
and from there, the costs of sustaining them become much cheaper .

. one reason we wouldn't do things this way
is that it could be attracting many unemployed criminals
who use car-camping as a way to lurk .
. the way around this is home licensing:
just as cars need to have valid plates,
a mobile home would need a license plate,
which you could get only by showing that you had some income;
either a local job, or some other steady check,
and a good credit rating .

. going beyond the american dream,
the ideal mobile infrastructure would be
commune based:
. it would work something like church denominations
which try to have a church in every town,
so that the members can find their extended family
wherever the mobile occupation system takes them .
. communes are really just churches where the service
never ends;
there are no free loaders, just more child bearers,
and more child bearer supervisors,
all happily sharing tasks, of course .