Aging Housing Stock

Three simple, innocuous words, combined into a phrase, used in a particular context, that is being used to perpetrate a most slippery and destructive collectivist notion.

The notion is that government is the real owner and controller of that property you call home and believe you own. It's a notion that enabled the destructive eminent domain abuse that has swept the nation. It's a notion that, despite angry citizen reaction to eminent domain, is still being used to increase government power and decimate private property rights.

Let's examine this simple phrase and its implications

The phrase is always used to describe a problem, as in

[A] comprehensive plan designed to rehabilitate New York state's aging housing stock and revitalize neighborhoods. -or-

Columbia Heights is attacking its aging housing stock from two fronts. -or-

the city has prioritized to address its aging housing stock. -or-

Mayoral candidate Shirley Sanfilippo has made the city's aging housing stock a priority

Notice that "aging housing stock" is not only presented as a problem, but as a problem for government to "solve". Doing a Google search on "aging housing stock" gives 19,800 similar references.

The term "aging" is a ridiculous problem-defining word. Note that it is not even "aged" or "old", but aging. Disregarding the obvious fact that everything that exists, regardless of age, is aging... aging is presented as the problem in this context. Housing is aging... no longer new... and that is a problem?

The age of a house, or an apartment building, is not a problem; the Midwest has many hundred-year-old homes and apartment buildings in use, and the Eastern states have many far older than that. Other nations have buildings in use that are a thousand years old.

"Aging", in this context, refers to some sort of average, and the term "aging" is deliberately chosen to promote the idea that the "problem" of aging will naturally become "worse" if action isn't taken. Regardless of the age, or condition, of housing, it WILL get worse as "aging" inevitably continues. It's a problem that cannot ever be stopped, it can only be abated temporarily.

The word "housing" is a collective term; referring to whatever individual buildings the "problem-solvers" choose. It never refers to specific individual buildings until action is being implemented and brought to bear; by presenting a collective problem, everyone is allowed to believe that the "problem" is housing of "others".

Then we have the word "stock" that wraps up the "aging housing" and ties it into a neat tyrannical bundle.

American Heritage Dictionaries defines "stock" as:

1. A supply accumulated for future use; a store.

2. The total merchandise kept on hand by a merchant, commercial establishment, warehouse, or manufacturer.

Stock implies ownership of goods on hand, and that is exactly how the term "aging housing stock" is used; as property owned by a governmental organization... property the government has responsibility for and has the authority to control and dispose of as it chooses. You will find the term "housing stock" as part of many city charters.

Thinking of property within the borders of a governmental jurisdiction as "stock" belonging to and controlled by that agency is common for elected officials. They are often bound by charter to maintain and control housing stock within their borders. They are induced, by the simple phrase "housing stock" to ignore individuals and their property rights, and to replace them with a collective, autocratic goal. Individual rights and property rights are, by the collectivist charter language, subjugated to whatever actions government officials decide to take to "maintain housing stock".

Thus, the simple phrase "aging housing stock" has become among the most totalitarian phrases in use today. It should produce the same reaction as when government often refers to our children as "resources" to be molded, guided, and manipulated as government sees fit.

Governments must have no such vague right or responsibility over property within their borders. They must not be allowed to inflict arbitrary standards to condemn or destroy individual properties in the name of the completely false dictate of maintaining house stock. Any reference to "housing stock" should be removed from charters. It is the antithesis of individual liberty.