{"id":6889,"date":"2015-10-29T12:51:48","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T12:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/10\/29\/boston-a-great-town-for-the-young\/"},"modified":"2015-10-29T12:51:48","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T12:51:48","slug":"boston-a-great-town-for-the-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/10\/29\/boston-a-great-town-for-the-young\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston, a Great Town to be Young in, but . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John-hancock-tower\"<\/a>Fond are the memories of my years in  Boston as a graduate student in the mid-70s, '73-'78 to be exact, with a year off to study in Freiburg im Breisgau of Husserl and Heidegger fame.  Even after securing a tenure-track post in the Midwest in '78 I would return to Boston in the summers, '79-'81. What a great town for running, for philosophy, for love.  A wonderful compact  town to be young and single in.  Young, supported by a teaching fellowship, on the dole (food stamps!), not owning any real property and hence paying no real estate taxes, not making enough money to pay income tax, no car, no stereo, not TV, not even a radio,  owning nothing outside books and some battered pots and pans, sharing houses and apartments to keep expenses down . . . . it was a rich and exciting if impecunious existence along the banks of the river Charles in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.<\/span><\/p>\n

But when it comes time to make money and own things and pay taxes and begin the transition from liberal foolishness and student sans-souci<\/em> to adult Sorge<\/em> and conservative Good Sense, the charms of Boston-on-the-Charles begin to fade, the Commonwealth takes on the guise of the People's Republic of Taxachusetts, and it is time to head West — but not so far West that you end up on the Left Coast — and land in some beautiful place like Arizona where one can afford to buy a house.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is buying a home<\/span> house around Boston worth it any more<\/a>? (You can't buy a home, the bullshit of realtors notwithstanding.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The real estate data company Zillow<\/a> recently reported the Boston metro area is one of the most expensive places to own in the United States. \u201cYou\u2019re talking twice the national average for the Greater Boston area,\u201d says Svenja Gudell, Zillow\u2019s chief economist. \u201cAnd Boston itself is even more expensive.\u201d The firm reports that the median cost of basic expenses around here, including things like insurance, taxes, and utilities, tops $9,400 a year. That\u2019s before mortgage payments\u2014\u2009and homeowners spend nearly 22 percent of their annual income on those.<\/span><\/p>\n

Renters have it even worse, according to Zillow, giving almost 35 percent of their income to landlords who may or may not fix leaky faucets or respond to complaints about the loud dog in Unit 3. In New Orleans, by comparison, homeowners spend less than 16 percent of their income on mortgages. And life in Cincinnati, the Queen City, is even easier, with homeowners on average allotting just 11 percent of their income to monthly mortgage payments.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fond are the memories of my years in  Boston as a graduate student in the mid-70s, '73-'78 to be exact, with a year off to study in Freiburg im Breisgau of Husserl and Heidegger fame.  Even after securing a tenure-track post in the Midwest in '78 I would return to Boston in the summers, '79-'81. … Continue reading “Boston, a Great Town to be Young in, but . . .”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-money-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}