RENT

Living in America: a Guide for the Perplexed Chapter 17

I often tell my friends that I have a bad job habit that's enabled by my addiction to having a roof over my head. Most of us are still serfs because we don't own any property. And that's still basic denominator number two, in this brave new world. Landed gentry or hoi polloi.

Renting is an interesting dodge. Leasing a room. In a world where run down architecture is the dessicated husk of a more daring age, we are the new nomads, roving this country in massive unorganized packs, following weather or the ghost of Jerry Garcia or next year's financial boomtown or whatever it was they all thought they had pinned down in the sixties. Some drift into little towns and never drift out again, and that's fine. But listen: Owning property is the secret. It's your first step if you choose to go that path. If you're living in some shitty apartment in some shitty neighborhood, then you might as well be buying some shitty little house.

klik if you demand tedious explanations of every little thing.