tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post1689469105582994703..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: Student scrappiness as class signifierPhoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-27792208401548551802013-06-18T15:45:07.174-04:002013-06-18T15:45:07.174-04:00Possibly of interest, there's an interesting p...Possibly of interest, there's an interesting post on Language Log about the language in real estate ads:<br />http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4681<br /><br />And, yes, Phoebe is right, we should judge the article by what it is, not what random reader (i.e., me) thinks it should have been about. I hate when people do that to me, so I should have the same courtesy to others! For once, I also read this article <i>on paper</i> so initially missed out on the comments. I'm currently catsitting for a friend with a ridiculously nice apartment, so living the life of the 1 percent, which includes NYT home delivery. That, to me, seems another class marker. Only fancy people read the real paper these days... fourtineforknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-59723312480961880792013-06-18T08:57:25.028-04:002013-06-18T08:57:25.028-04:00Matt,
Wikipedia seems to be saying that "lux...Matt,<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_real_estate" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia</a> seems to be saying that "luxury" is subjective. It's that which is directed at rich people. But because location and all kinds of idiosyncratic factors play into housing, one might end up paying less for "luxury," as was indeed my experience once in NYC. No-frills walk-ups are maybe just part of the city's romance, so there are enough people for whom those are actually preferable to amenity-having buildings. Or something.<br /><br />Also, there are on the one hand buildings marketed as luxury (as in this case), and on the other, whichever colloquial uses of the term. These might not be the same. Some buildings will be the first but not the second, and vice versa.<br /><br />Britta,<br /><br />Bourdieu, yes - one of the biggest influences on my amateur sociology! What's funny here, though, is that one is meant to view rage at the luxury-building-dwellers as the 99% against the 1%. What's between the lines, though, is this <i>other</i> category of people - many a NYT reader among them - for whom a granite countertop rental in Missouri is let's just say <i>not</i> the height of luxe. But it's more socially acceptable to object on behalf of the kids at that university who can't afford $700/month than to straightforwardly say, 'tacky'. Conveniently, I suppose, this Niedermeyer capital-b Building is also apparently cheaper to live in.<br /><br />I think you're absolutely right re: the unknowns/unknowables. The problem with these sorts of ragefests is precisely that not everyone - indeed, no one - has gone and actually posted their full financial information. So any interpretation ends up plausible. And of course the commenters themselves aren't signing any kind of document to the effect of, they spend $0 on unnecessary primping/indulgence as is expected in whichever milieu <i>they</i> live in.<br /><br />I'd also add another category, which would be the students who live in "luxury" - or dorms - because their parents are paying for all/some of their schooling, and have insisted that this is what they're willing to pay/chip in for. I had a situation along these lines - I worked during college, but not to the point of financial independence. My parents felt (and I'm not sure they were right, but they meant well, and in all fairness, the friends I was planning to live with did get broken into a reasonable amount) that the dorms were safer than the cheaper off-campus housing. It ended up being effectively up to them, so apart from one summer, I lived on-campus, with the lowest possible rip-off meal plan, but still not none at all. And then, as a self-supporting adult, I had plenty of opportunities to live in dingy walk-up apartments. It's not so hard for me to imagine that some of these Missouri students are living in "luxury" for similar reasons.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-51131203267430286212013-06-17T23:54:01.902-04:002013-06-17T23:54:01.902-04:00What's tuition at U Missouri? What is average ...What's tuition at U Missouri? What is average rent? I could see a UMC parent agree to pay for a more expensive apartment in return for their kid going somewhere with vastly cheaper tuition. Lets say a cheap place would be $400/month, a parent might think $2700 ($300 difference x 9 months) was worth it to save $10,000+ on tuition at an out of state or private school. Similarly if the kid gets a merit scholarship to U Missouri, the parent might be willing to take some of the money they would have spent on tuition and spend it on housing. I have a friend who got a full ride merit scholarship to an expensive school, and her parents definitely were more generous with their cash than they would have been had they been paying tuition. Even so, she was still saving them huge amounts of money. <br /><br />Something I've realized about Americans is 1) we can't stand the idea of anyone not wealthy living well/enjoying life. We only like to give out charity if we can actively watch the people receiving it suffer. If students aren't malnourished in rat infested apartments, then they deserve to be burdened with a lifetime of student loans. Also, 2) whatever you spend money on is justified and necessary, and whatever anyone else spends money on is a frivolous waste. The idea that people might have different spending priorities never seems to occur to people. It's highly likely the people railing against tanning beds might be spending money in a way that Courtney thinks is irresponsible, but she doesn't have a friend whose a journalist at NYTimes to write about it. *<br /><br />*And of course, Bourdieu has covered the class based factors of this in "Distinction"Brittahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02224221011978374915noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-35211515326359703112013-06-17T23:43:42.784-04:002013-06-17T23:43:42.784-04:00"luxury" is a funny word when used in re..."luxury" is a funny word when used in relation to apartments. I assume it's a sort of technical term that means...something...but I don't know what. All I know is that many apartments I've looked at, in several different cities, have been listed as "luxury" apartments despite being distinctly lacking in anything I'd normally associate with luxury. Wikipedia suggests that it means that the building is less than 10 years old, but if that's so, no one is making sure the term is properly used, it seems to me. <br /><br />(I had occasion to drive near the University of Missouri while driving cross country one time. I must have needed gas or food or something. The area near the university was pretty dumpy, so I can see why people might want to live further away. Going anywhere there will require a car anyway.) Mattnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-48503804942807226182013-06-17T17:21:55.554-04:002013-06-17T17:21:55.554-04:00Caryatis,
Not sure who that was meant for, but I&...Caryatis,<br /><br />Not sure who that was meant for, but I'm with Courtney on this one.<br /><br />Fourtinefork,<br /><br />Yes, 100% yes, re: anything seeming luxe after various urban (esp. urban student) environments. Where I live now, in my husband's postdoc housing, seems palatial to me, which I've been told makes me strange. But... we have a study! A dishwasher! Air conditioning! <br /><br />There was a bit in the story (or maybe just the comments?) about cheaper neighborhood apartments. $700 a person would almost have to be steep, given that this is a semi-plausible NYC per-person rent. But you're right that we don't seem to know how available those apartments are. Nor whether they're bare-bones or all-out dangerous.* Also, it's my recollection of dorm-life that those on the most financial aid often had to live in the dorms, because scholarships paid for that but not off-campus housing, even though the latter was far cheaper. So the kids living in the $1000 housing might not actually be wealthier than the ones in the cheaper "luxury" apartments.<br /><br />Anyway, there's a ton that would be interesting to sort out here, but I suppose I find it interesting as well to just look at the fact that this was the chosen angle. Obviously, for a NYT audience, student life among state-school students in Missouri isn't going to be all that posh. These kids' crime seems to be that they aren't students at Oxford or Cambridge, although it's of course laid out as if their crime is being richer than some other students at their university, which, I mean, I'm sure they are, but I'm not sure that's the article's concern.<br /><br />*One of the placed I ended up living in NYC had some of the ridiculous amenities (marble bathroom, and eventually, thanks to the landlord's growing desire to sell the place, stainless-steel appliances, as well as a gym I'd have had to pay to use and never actually saw), but I moved there from the previous same-rent apt. because <i>that</i> place - a top-floor Brooklyn walk-up with no amenities - had a bit of a carbon-monoxide problem. Sometimes "luxe" is what you end up with when you leave squalor, even if all you set out to find was non-squalor.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-68022816768637426322013-06-17T13:56:17.870-04:002013-06-17T13:56:17.870-04:00It would be interesting if the Times had included ...It would be interesting if the Times had included more information about other housing prices. Dorm/meal plans have always been insanely overpriced (and generally crappy) everywhere. Back in the old times (well, the 90s), mandatory room & board when I was in college was $6,000/year. Off-campus housing was certainly cheaper.<br /><br />What are the other options in Columbia? Are there waiting lists for on-campus housing? What does a non-"luxury" rental go for, and is there enough of that to go around anyway? What does it cost to live in a sorority/fraternity? I assume there are various crummy apartment complexes, lacking in tanning beds and fitness centers, where students could be living. Are these students taking out student loans to live in these luxury developments? <br /><br />In other words, it's an underreported Styles piece: there are a lot of interesting questions about luxury versus asceticism, life of the mind, housing bubbles, etc etc., but this article mainly served as a way to mock the poor Courtneys, their tans, and their supposed lack of taste.<br /><br />Plus, it was of interest to me as I taught at a large, midwestern state university (not Missouri!), and the only thing I liked about the location was the affordable housing. I paid a bit more than $500/month for a 2 bedroom apartment, within walking distance of campus. It included internet, cable TV, a parking space (which I didn't use, since I didn't have a car), and access to some offsite fitness center, which I also never used. Laundry was in the basement. Appliances were 80s-era and my countertops were cheap formica. I could have lived someplace much swankier, but as a young VAP coming from NYC/Boston, crappy midwestern housing was so much nicer than the horrible places I'd had on the east coast that it didn't seem necessary to live in a "luxury" development. (Honestly, most mobile homes-- and not even a double-wide!--are nicer and bigger than my previous Brooklyn and UES apartments.) I had two bedrooms, central air, and a dishwasher, what more did I need? <br /><br />My frame of reference, though, is quite different from a 20-year old student from Missouri who is used to a nice suburban ranch (or McMansion.) fourtineforknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-69234952544072311432013-06-17T13:39:34.068-04:002013-06-17T13:39:34.068-04:00Bet you'd feel differently if your name were C...Bet you'd feel differently if your name were Courtney.caryatisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-90663803285344165952013-06-17T13:32:23.222-04:002013-06-17T13:32:23.222-04:00Sigivald,
But I find it interesting! Like, as tex...Sigivald,<br /><br />But I find it interesting! Like, as text. I'm not tormented by it. Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-40567784956015351652013-06-17T13:27:59.665-04:002013-06-17T13:27:59.665-04:00Ironic that the bearer of such an infamously aspir...<i>Ironic that the bearer of such an infamously aspirational, tacky and upwardly-mobile-stock-broker-fave name as "Courtney" would dispute the notion that student residents of these upscale off-campus resize denies are entitled and spoiled jerks. </i><br /><br />Yeah, that's brilliant in ten different ways.<br /><br />Choosing the cheaper housing? Spoiled, obviously. Non-spoiled people don't care about money.<br /><br />This is, again, why one should simply ignore the Times, especially the lifestyle section.<br /><br />Go cold turkey.Sigivaldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16152366541957466049noreply@blogger.com