[Knork-and-Fife]

I agree with your assessment on the high end of China's development and the lack of awareness of that from people in the US. But I think the story on the low end /lower class is more interesting and I think there is lack of awareness there too.

Even within the US a lot of upper class people don't know what it's like for lower class people here. It's so easy to slip into homelessness because there aren't reasonable options available to many people to live anymore.

In China they still have a huge amount of their population in a developing stage so they still have ample tools and options and knowledge for how to maintain a reasonable life in a less developed state. So it's easier to fall back to a cheaper lifestyle, and culturally it's easier too.

But in the US were generations removed from these other ways of life, so there's no options or cultural acceptance of not living a highly developed way of life. So people just go straight from a nice house or apartment with modern stuff to being homeless with little to no tools to survive.

Just my probably naive thoughts. Would love to hear others takes on this.

[danaris]

I think your assessment of homelessness in the US misses some things, though (or at least leaves them unstated):

First, that it's not just that people "don't know how to live more simply", and thus cling to their homes too long when they "should" otherwise be downsizing and cutting expenses. For a lot of people, the fall is sudden—some medical emergency drains all their savings and leaves them unable to work (at least for a time), and there it goes.

Second, what are they going to downsize to? We don't have whole rural villages in the US that are living, essentially, pre-industrialized lives (except with the Amish, I suppose, but that's a whole other kettle of fish). (Also, I don't know for sure that such places exist today in China—I know that they did not too many years ago, but my information is not current.) There isn't really anywhere you can go in the US to live securely, but simply, on $100 a month or whatever. And even if there were, that would involve leaving whatever job you had to begin with, which removes the "securely" part.

[heathrow83829]

i agree with that. It's as if they tried to outlaw poverty. i mean look at all the insane housing regulations (zoning laws, regulations, permit costs, land usage policy) that prevent low cost housing from being built.

I've seen in thailand, how even the poorest can just build a small hut on a piece of land they own and actually live in it. You'd be risking jail time if you did that in the US.

[vonneumannstan]

As someone living in a city with a significant homelessness problem I think this comment misses the point. The vast majority of homelessness in the US is not people falling on hard times and needing a boost to get back into a home. They are drug addicts or the mentally ill. A completely different problem that also needs to be addressed. Few other nations that I can see allow blatantly mentally ill to roam their streets or let people do drugs openly on the streets...

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Wow. Sounds like Mega-City One.