Zoning restrictions for houses are detrimental to the well-being of low-income households

In the USA the values of the American Dream are still prevalent in the hearts of its inhabitants. When people talk about their future most of the time you will find a consensus amongst the majority: They want to find true love, marry them, have kids together, build their dream home, and buy a Golden Retriever that will grow old with them.

 If everything works out as planned at some point they will find themselves in a pit of helplessness after they come upon the pile of zoning restrictions that are supposed to increase their quality of life whilst planning their house.

 Or, maybe, they will push all the work over to a local land use attorney to go through pages and pages of legal jargon that depicts every part of constructing a building.

 The question one might ask themselves is how someone with a smaller wallet is able to afford everything you need to follow this manual. The answer is simple. They are not.

 Not only is there the burden of taking out a huge loan for their dream home itself, but there are all kinds of extra rules to play by while designing it. Minimum height, length, and width, as well as the thickness of the walls or the type of windows or even the utility of the land are only just the start of a book written by the legislator.

 Most of the low-income families back down after stumbling upon this barrier and have to make sacrifices that mean refraining from their original dream house for their children and their Golden Retriever.

 These families are robbed of their opportunities to live their dream life, which in my opinion is only counterproductive to increasing the quality of life in these cities.

Aaron's Edit:

In the USA [P,Gr - ^,] the values of the American Dream are still prevalent in the hearts of its inhabitants. When people talk about their future[P,Gr - ^,] most of the time you will find a consensus amongst the majority: They want to find true love, marry them, have kids together, build their dream home, and buy a Golden Retriever that will grow old with them. 

If everything works out as planned[P,Gr;foc - ^, they will one day break ground on that  ] at some point they will find themselves in a pit of helplessness after they come upon the pile of zoning restrictions that are supposed to increase their quality of life whilst planning their house.

[St - run back this sentence; no half-paragraphs]Or, maybe, they will push all the work over to a local (land use) [St,P - ^land-use] attorney to go through pages and pages of legal jargon (that depicts) [Gr;W - delineating every part of constructing a building.

The question one might ask themselves is how someone with a smaller wallet is able to afford everything you need to follow this manual. The answer is simple. They are not. 

[St - run back this sentence; in academic writing, if you have three short, closely-related simple sentences, they function more life one sentence, and you want to have more information in a paragraph] Not only is there the burden of taking out a huge loan for their dream home itself, but there are all kinds of extra rules to play by while designing it. Minimum height, length, and width, as well as the thickness of the walls or the type of windows or even the utility of the land are only just the start of a book written by the legislator.

Most of the low-income families back down after stumbling upon this barrier and have to make sacrifices that mean refraining from their original dream house for their children and their Golden Retriever. 

[St - run back this sentence; son single-sentence paragraphs] These families are robbed of their opportunities to live their dream life, which in my opinion is only counterproductive to increasing the quality of life in these cities.


Corrected version:

 In the USA, the values of the American Dream are still prevalent in the hearts of its inhabitants. When people talk about their future, most of the time you will find a consensus: they want to find their true love, get married, have kids together, build their dream home, and buy a Golden Retriever that will grow old with them.

 If everything works out as planned, the couple will one day break ground on that house, and at some point they will find themselves in a pit of helplessness after they come upon the pile of zoning restrictions that are supposed to increase their quality of life whilst planning said house. Or, maybe, they will push all the work over to a local attorney to go through pages and pages of legal jargon delineating every part of constructing a building. The question they might ask themselves is how someone with a smaller wallet could possibly be able to afford everything they need to follow this manual. The answer is simple. They could not.

Not only is there the burden of taking out a huge loan for their dream home itself, but there are all kinds of extra rules to play by while designing it. Minimum height, length, and width, as well as the thickness of the walls or the type of windows or even the utility of the land are only just the start of a book written by the god of legislation. Most of the low-income families back down after stumbling upon this barrier and have to make sacrifices that mean refraining from their original dream house for their children and their Golden Retriever.

These families are robbed of their opportunities to live their dream life, which in my opinion is only counterproductive to increasing the quality of life in these cities.

Is the American Dream Dead?

What is the American Dream? For many people, it’s a house with a white picket fence where the children can safely play after they come home from a good school and where the family gathers to celebrate the small joys of life, i.e. birthdays and holidays. So many people grew up believing that if they worked hard enough they could live the American Dream. The last decades have shown, the American dream is no longer obtainable.

The people living the American dream were those living in the suburbs, far enough from the cities to be safe, but usually close enough to be able to commute for work. According to WNYC’s podcast “Who owns the Deed to the American Dream” from September 19, 2016, it is the people in Suburbia that own the Deed to the American Dream. The people who left the cities, starting in the 1950’s, are those living the American Dream, or at least they thought they were. Lawrence Levy of Hofstra University claims that the middle-class white nuclear families believed that “they were safe; they were secure; and, they were segregated”. No one thought their dreams would end or change so and it is these changes that are making so many people anxious. They are anxious of what their futures and those of their children hold. Statistics indicate that on the one hand the costs of maintaining a home have risen, while at the same time the incomes are no longer constantly increasing. Politicians are also increasingly pushing the idea of security, which finds an audience in the suburban homeowner. Whether their fears are substantiated or not is irrelevant. The deep belief alone is enough to feed the paranoia.

I grew up in a suburban town about an hour from New York City and an hour from Philadelphia, much like the one in Long Island from the podcast. The town once occupied by Native Americans until it was bought by a settler in the late 17^th Century. Until the 1930’s my hometown was a farming town, then the “white flight” began. After the second World War housing for veterans was built around Main Street. Just like in the podcast the population surged in the 1950’s and 1960’s. During this time the population tripled. The last census in 2010 reports that the racial make-up of the town is still predominately white/Caucasian. My High School graduating class of approximately 550 students had no more than a dozen African-American students. My parents still live in the house I grew up in and are considering moving, because of the high property taxes. My Dad’s police pension seems to be shrinking, which will probably make the decision to move inevitable. My brother and I have not followed the American Dream; I left the country looking for adventure and my brother lives with his wife in a city at New York's doorstep. Maybe they’ll move out of the city when the have kids.

Links:

http://www.wnyc.org/story/united-states-of-anxiety-podcast-episode-2/

Wikipedia, 08 January 2017.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Brunswick,_New_Jersey 

PPACA – Health Insurance for Everyone

PPACA – Health Insurance for Everyone

PPACA is the abbreviation for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This law regulates access to health insurance and is therefore an essential aspect of the US health system. PPACA is considered a central component of the policy of US President Barack Obama, why it is also referred to as Obamacare in the political debate.

PPACA aims to ensure that every US citizen is obliged to take out health insurance. In order to assure this, the reform offers first, subsidies for the people who cannot afford insurance and second, incentives for companies to establish health insurance. The basic idea of ​​this reform is to provide every US citizen with access to good, affordable medical care.

In order to find the most suitable and most affordable insurance, comparison portals were set up. This ensures both transparency and monitoring of the legislation.

Finally, the reform regulates that people who do not take out health insurance have to pay a fine. Uninsured persons must pay the equivalent of their insurance premiums to the state. Companies and insurers that do not comply with the Act also have to pay a fine. This regulation is intended to ensure the enforcement of the insurance obligation. However, there are exceptions, i.e. if the lowest-cost healthcare plan overspends eight percent of an individual's income, this person does not have to pay a fine. 

Source:

Mauk, David; Oakland, John: American Civilization: An Introduction. Sixth Edition. Abington, Oxon: Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.