Why does it happen in the barrio…
Posted Monday, September 4th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
…that people who live in one side of duplex on the “wrong side of the tracks” drive new luxury cars? There are three new BMWs parked on my street - and all are from residents. I wouldn’t put my money into a BMW anyway, but even less if I was renting in my neighborhood.
September 5th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Lots of theories about that going around. My own take is three-fold: 1) poor people buy expensive cars because most of ‘em see no point in saving money or investing it since they feel their chances for a better life are pretty slim; 2)those poor folks who do want to invest in the future don’t understand what a poor investment cars are because they don’t understand good investment; 3) when you’ve got crappy stuff in most areas of your life its nice to have something that seems top drawer
September 6th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
There must be something in “Freakonomics” about that…I haven’t finished the book yet. Maybe it’ll be in “Son of Freakonomics.”
September 7th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
It’s the ‘Madison Ave.’ version of the American dream. Everyone should have and is in fact entitled to have a BMW and a big screen TV. This perpetuates itself as the ‘barrio’ version of keeping up with the Jones’s. Everyone has ‘one’. What no one realizes is that the barrio Jones’s couldn’t really afford it and are now ruining their financial wellbeing by buying ‘it’. It happens in the suberbs too, but there tends to more financial security so the purchases do not cause the same problems (though not always). I also agree with what Tom said.
September 7th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
I have this crazy theory, that can probably amended to think about how the BMW fits into it. Warning, it sounds a little blunt:
You can measure poverty by this ratio: The size of the TV (or cost of the tv) divided by the square footage of the dwelling. The higher the ratio, the more severe the poverty.
September 8th, 2006 at 5:03 am
Tom, #3 sounds the most accurate of the three (though #1 & #2 hold a lot of water). I think that often the same status games that get played among the rich get played by the poor, only the futility or vanity of the game is more clearly revealed.
I think that’s what you are saying Chris. I think the (often) frivolous spending of those with wealth - on cars, clothes, cribs and comforts - looks foolish and empty, whether your Paris Hilton or just like to stay in the Hilton.
But it looks even more ridiculous when there is an incongruity between an empty status symbol and the standard of living of the urban poor in my barrio.
Eddy, your urban math adds up to me, even if the BMW formula still needs to be worked up.
September 8th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
I’m afraid we might be overlooking something here.
Let’s assume a great majority of the people in the varrio do not drive BMWs bc they cannot ‘afford’ one. Doesn’t the fact that this woman has the BMW mean she CAN afford it?
And what of this second-guessing the consumption habits of the ‘poor’? bordering paternalism?
September 8th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Woman? What woman? I fear that a gender-biased read of the circumstance has taken place..
September 8th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
I like it when my favorite philosophers use the feminine pronoun bc it feigns a commitment to egalitarianism.