Is Central Harlem the ghetto?

To people who live in NYC, Fly Over Country is the ghetto.

Well, black people = ghetto to people from the midwest.

But being an upper-middle calss black person myself, I can say that many Manhattanites (and even some Brooklynites) ask "WHY!!?!??!?!?!?!" when they find out I live in Harlem, because they assume I can afford to live below 96th or whatever. Then they see how absurdly new and large my apartment is versus what they have, and say "OHHHH I GET IT!!!!!"

To white suburbanites, anything with a little color & ethnic flavor is the ghetto; they just don't know any better, they're ignorant.

Ghetto - 1. a section of a city, esp. a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships.
2. (formerly, in most European countries) a section of a city in which all Jews were required to live.
3. a section predominantly inhabited by Jews.
4. any mode of living, working, etc., that results from stereotyping or biased treatment: job ghettos for women; ghettos for the elderly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Origin:
1605–15; < It, orig. the name of an island near Venice where Jews were forced to reside in the 16th century < Venetian, lit., foundry for artillery (giving the island its name), n. deriv. of ghettare to throw < VL *jectāre; see jet 1

ValB,

You live in one of, if not the best ghetto on earth.

i have the occasional friend that visits from out of town, sees parts of the village, soho, gramercy, and remarks: what is this? so dirty! ghetto!

Is it racist to call Harlem a ghetto because mostly black people live over there?
I can see how out of towners call Harlem a ghetto. Shopping on 125th street ain't West Broadway if you see what i mean... Today's Harlem is not 1970's Harlem, yet it has not gentrified enough so white folks can call it home.
You will always cross path with someone giving you THAT look to remind it to you!

You might want to remind your MIL that inhabitants of this "ghetto" have produced some of the greatest works of art, literature, and music of the century. Can the same be said of her milk-sop midwestern town? Doubtful.

Its definitely a ghetto even by New York standards. I am definitely more aware of my surroundings and double check my car doors when i drive through there at night time. You can see drug deals happening all over the place in wide open.

Now she won't visit again. Congratulations.

Brownsville and East New York, Brooklyn are the ghetto.
Mott Haven and Crotona Park East, The Bronx are the ghetto.

Central Harlem is definetly no the ghetto.

Right, what SHE said. My younger brother moved FROM Harlem TO BedStuy when he was younger because "Harlem was too expensive." The market-rate units are comparable, on a like for like basis, to LIC, Prospect Heights, Wburg or Hoboken, and pricier than Greenpoint. Yet I guarantee you that if you lived in Hoboken with a bunch a white ex-Frat/Sorority kids walking around in their Villanova and SUNY shirts, or goateed white hipsters in Wburg she would NOT have called it "Ghetto." Even though the rents (and home prices) are about the same. And a LOT more than the ACTUAL ghettos in NYC.

yes, anything above 110th St. is ghetto. South Harlem is not that bad. Any neighborhood you can't hail a cab in is a ghetto.

I just saw a listing in harlem, a condo for over 2 million. Doesn't seem a ghetto price.
Alpine, you can get a gypsy cab in a second in Harlem, there are tons of them, they have 2 letters in the license plates that identify them. Don't talk if you don't know.

Hey mimi, they probably call it " ...a diamond in the rough..." The first time i've seen brokers used that expression, i cracked up, so funny!

It definitely sounds better than Blood diamond , doesn't it?

Harlem is not a ghetto.

You can hail a YELLOW cab in Harlem MUCH MUCH easier than in Wburg or LIC, in addition to gypsy cabs. At least where I live (below 125th.) Not that Wburg isn't nice, but so far, other than there being a lot of black people in Harlem, we have not established why its a ghetto and other similarly priced but mostly white areas are not.

And the $2mm condo point applies to all of those areas too. Astoria has similar average income, lower rental and sales prices, and NONE of the high-end homes for sale that Harlem does. Yet no one woudl call Astoria a "ghetto." Same for greenpoint, Staten Islans or other, mostly white, but actually MUCH cheaper areas than Harlem.

Just because there are million dollar apts. here does not mean its not a ghetto. These people have no idea what they are getting into. They have to coexist with all the bums and the drugs on the streets. The scenario changes from one block to the next. Its too scary to walk around there at night time especially if you dont know the problem blocks.

There are million dollar mansions in Newark, NJ. Need I say anymore?

Recently, I drove through Harlem in my Bentley and felt safe. Some parts do look ghetto though.

She sounds like an a-hole, no offense.

Oh, and the ghettos (even just the "undersireable" neighborhoods) in the Midwest are the most decrepit and nasty looking ghettos I've ever come across in my entire life. They made Central Harlem look like the Dalmatian Coast.

Damn charity work!

Why is it people are so scared of harlem?? Maybe its the girlie-man types that come to NY then disappear into their pretentious cottonwool-bubble worlds that they share will their cool freinds - occasionally they look uptown and squeak like mice. New York makes up for its abundance of alphas by the number of weak males clearly evidenced on this board.

Yeah, I was just so shocked when my husband told me what his mom has been telling his siblings. When she was here, she seemed to really like our apartment! I mean, I come from the midwest too; in my town, poor and underserved areas that are mostly minority are called the inner-city. But in NYC, where college graduates live 3 to a one-br apt and there's public housing down the street from multi-million homes--well, I just didn't think there was an "inner city" or "ghetto" here...I'm really upset with my mil. But I don't know why....

'They have to coexist with all the bums and the drugs on the streets. The scenario changes from one block to the next. Its too scary to walk around there at night time especially if you dont know the problem blocks."

You mean EXACTLY like Tribeca, Chelsea, the East Village, and the UWS?

Oh, and BTW as anyone perusing the RE section of the NYT can see, they post FBI crime stats by neighborhood. And Harlem is safer than NYC on average, including when compared to HK, Chelsea, and the UWS. All of the above are FAR safer than the real "ghettos" mentioned in earlier posts.

Here is the new york crime rate by neighborhood. Harlem is overwhelmingly higher crime than rest of the city.
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ny/new-york/crime/

or i should say rest of manhattan

ValB, she's your MIL so just laugh it off - "those bumpkins! Ha ha ha!" ... just don't let her hear you calling her names.

The whole freakin city is a ghetto. All you need to do is choose your "flavor" of ghetto, we got it all. You want to live in the milky way, then leave.

how comfortable do you feel walking around at 2 or 3 in the morning. Do you have the same feeling walking around central Harlem as say Gramecy? Sutton Place?
I think when you answer that, you have your answer

iamlooking, I don't know the methodology used in that crime map, but I think I'll rely on the neighborhood crime data available on nytimes.com

brokersSTINK, individual comfort levels have little to do with actual safety. They have to do with personal fear, among other things. Fear of flying doesn't make cars safe.

Central Park is not safe at 2-3am either!

yeah, I like that: the whole city is a ghetto. I was going to confront the mil--but wasn't sure what was legit to be indignant about. But now I think I'll just drop it. I feel better after reading all your comments. Thanks!

the word ghetto is so old ever for people from the mid-west...

Ghetto...Ghetto...Ghetto!!!
I'll show you a Ghetto, put a fence around the Upper East Side!!!!!

Well we're movin on up, To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.
Fish don't fry in the kitchen;
Beans don't burn on the grill.
Took a whole lotta tryin'
Just to get up that hill.
Now we're up in teh big leagues
Gettin' our turn at bat.
As long as we live, it's you and me baby
There ain't nothin wrong with that.
Well we're movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.

Wheeze, kick this honkey's ass off this site!

FYI,

Ghetto - 1. a section of a city, esp. a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships.

Harlem is not a slum anymore. A Ghetto is not limited too black folks as originated and defined. If a bunch of white folks in the midwest or bust in America reside in "a section of a city, esp. a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships." they live in a ghetto. Looking over your back in a neighborhood does not mean its a ghetto it means you have a fear of the people in the neighborhood because of there social and/or economic restrictions when they are possibly not thinking of you.

ValB, you live in the greatest city on earth there's no need to address your MIL. Your current property value speaks for itself. Don't forget Harlem has come a long way from 10 years ago.

2. (formerly, in most European countries) a section of a city in which all Jews were required to live.
3. a section predominantly inhabited by Jews.
4. any mode of living, working, etc., that results from stereotyping or biased treatment: job ghettos for women; ghettos for the elderly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Origin:
1605–15; < It, orig. the name of an island near Venice where Jews were forced to reside in the 16th century < Venetian, lit., foundry for artillery (giving the island its name), n. deriv. of ghettare to throw < VL *jectāre; see jet 1

alpine292

"yes, anything above 110th St. is ghetto. South Harlem is not that bad. Any neighborhood you can't hail a cab in is a ghetto."

I live on 111 St and FD Ave and I guess it's fair to say "ghetto but not that bad" as a description. Maybe even, "it's the ghetto, but pretty nice"... Now that sounds like someone from the Mid West.

But hailing a taxi is no problem (gas station on FD and 110) so maybe we're not a ghetto after all...

falcogold...that was great...you're terrific!

"Here is the new york crime rate by neighborhood. Harlem is overwhelmingly higher crime than rest of the city.
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ny/new-york/crime/"

The NYT crimes stats are from the FBI, the exact same sources your website lists. Your site takes the same exact raw data and interprets it differently (for example, your site subjectively weighs different crimes differently). The NYT, on the other hand, uses the FBI's own equal weighting, so this is why I think its more accurate. You can read each neighborhood's crime stats under the profiles here

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/manhattan/index.html

You can break it down by specific zip code if you want. (So 10007 in BPC has a 117, and 10280 in the same area a 16 - a huge swing, BTW)

With 100 = the US average, they give NYC as a whole a 115, Morningside H 102, Harlem a 104, SugarH a 70, EH a 93, and Hamilton Heights an 85.

Comparitively, Chelsea 10001 is 153, 10011 is 141, Midtown east (10017) a 104, where I work 10022 (Lenox Hill/Midtown East a 140, 10028 (Lenox Hill/UES) a 92, higher than SUGAR hill, BTW, the UWS (10023) 134, 10027 a 133, and 10025 a 102.

ALL of these areas are safer than most American large cities, even in the safest neighborhoods.

Well - when I moved to New York from Scandinavia I thought UWS around 75 looked ghetto.

People outside NYC often don't expect the rough edges around all the neighborhoods here.

The UWS in 75 was ghetto.

Well - when I moved to New York from Scandinavia I thought UWS around 75 looked ghetto.

People outside NYC often don't expect the rough edges around all the neighborhoods here.
______

Maybe for people living in a cornfield or a tiny town, but to most people who live in large cities, Chicago/Los Angeles/Philadelphia/Houston we see all have our Harlem equivalents (and I've seen far worse).

I would say Central Harlem is Ghetto FAB these days !

"The UWS in 75 was ghetto."

No she said AROUND 75. Like 75th street. Not 1975.

"the" ghetto? a ghetto if she wants...

let me guess... is she a white redneck? cause my mother in law thinks the same way about our neighborhood. my father in law even got scared when "sharing" the side walk with what he called a "negro". i told him here they are called "african-american" and he gave me the look. it's not only a geographical issue (minorities are all together 8% of the population). it's an age issue. people that didn't even share restaurants once upon a time don't adapt associations easily (no elderly that i've met does, they only get worse imho). i'm talking 70 and older.

"To people who live in NYC, is this the ghetto? "

Yes. Harlem is most certainly "the ghetto".

So is pretty much everything in Brooklyn east of Flatbush Avenue, and most of the Bronx.

"i told him here they are called "african-american""

Only by the politically correct, and often inaccurately.

What if that BLACK MAN was visiting from France?

"I would say Central Harlem is Ghetto FAB these days !"

Everyone says that ... until they have enough money to move back downtown.

sure it's 100% inaccurate. we are all from africa as far as science can explain at this point, some left earlier than others.

Matt trashes everything he doesnt know. Harlem is a very vibrant, interesting and safe place to live.

And they don't call them Adam Clayton Powell Junior Boulevard Bums ... the call them Bowery Bums.

Enough money to move back downtown my ass!

"Harlem is a very vibrant, interesting and safe place to live."

And the streets are paved with gold, milk and honey flows from the faucets, and money grows on trees!

"Enough money to move ... my ass!"

There you go.

Can we all just agree that there are slack-jawed yokels who come to NYC and mortify their relatives with their ignorance?

Its a very expensive ghetto for market rate units...

You can literally rent an apartment in the flats of Beverly Hills for less than the same sized market-rate unit in Harlem. Its funny (me being from California) how absurd Manhattan's view of the world is. Try it - go on Craiglist right now and see what a 2 bed 2 bath apt runs you in the actual city of Beverly Hills (not 'adjacent' or Beverlywood or WeHo - BH proper.) Try also in Santa Monica, Newport Beach, Redondo, and Studio City/Touluca Lake while you are it.

Then look on SE and see what market rate units are in Harlem. My relatives from CA - even the ones from SF - simply cannot believe what people will pay to live in a 'ghetto' in NYC - or for that matter the prices in LIC, Hoboken, or Park Slope.

True, Jason. It's astounding how much New Yorkers pay to live in this city.

I just moved to the central Harlem ghetto. Frankly I'm disappointed because no one has offered to sell me crack yet. Maybe they think I'm a narc?

My parents are from a nice town in CT. I believe that they think this is the ghetto.

Julia is right about the quaint aspect of the word "ghetto" -------
It's more properly called the 'hood. And it's chic to live there, as all Manhattan is relatively chic (as compared to places like Peoria or Dubuque or Dallas-Fort Worth).

"And it's chic to live there"

Until you can afford to live in a neighborhood that's MORE "chic".

Certainly people in Harlem might often rather live in Tribecca or Meatpacking or Lincoln Center if they could find the exact same apt for the exact same price.

However, people be the same to live in market-rate units in harlem as they do in comparable places in Riverdale, Hoboken, Prospect Heights, Park Slope, and more than to live in Astoria. But because those places are not predominately black and Latino, they are not called "ghettos."

It's not "the ghetto", it's "The 'Hood".

is it the ghetto?

yes...as ghetto as you please.

FYI!

Ghetto - 1. a section of a city, esp. a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships.
2. (formerly, in most European countries) a section of a city in which all Jews were required to live.
3. a section predominantly inhabited by Jews.
4. any mode of living, working, etc., that results from stereotyping or biased treatment: job ghettos for women; ghettos for the elderly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Origin:
1605–15; < It, orig. the name of an island near Venice where Jews were forced to reside in the 16th century < Venetian, lit., foundry for artillery (giving the island its name), n. deriv. of ghettare to throw < VL *jectāre; see jet 1

Harlem has surpassed being a ghetto or some of you revised the definition of a ghetto.

1) People in market-rate units in harlem are not FORCED to live in Harlem, nor are they restricted from living anywhere else
2) few jews live in Harlem anymore
3) see number 2.
4) NA

2) few jews live in Harlem anymore
-----------------

jason, where are the young jew families choosing to live within the city? i'd love to move to a neighborhood with a lot of academic-loving jews and koreans cause they have a very positive impact on the level of public schools in the area imho. goes such a place exists at all?

"where are the young jew families choosing to live within the city? such a place exists at all?"

Kensington.
Midwood.
Williamsburg.
Hudson Heights.

admin - when you go looking I would advise you not to use the phrase "young jew families" - sounds sort of offensive - go with "young Jewish families"

omg, thanks ph41 for letting me know. i do use jewish actually, but i haven't slept a whole lot last night (and those days my writing is really sloppy).

thanks matt! i was hoping for non religious cosmopolitan young jewish families (i'm not religious myself). do Kensington and Midwood have mostly orthodox jewish? just saw that midwood has a great high school. thanks again!

my gut feeling is that young jewish and korean parents have a higher parental involvement in their kids education which is really positive for public schools. maybe following them is a good trick to get a livable area with a good public school.

"non religious cosmopolitan young jewish families"

Oh.

You might want to concentrate on Hudson Heights, then.

omg matt, you just gave the best review of the place! thanks so much.

non religious cosmopolitan young jewish families"
Isn't that the UWS? Well some young, some not-so-young and some not so non-religious....But definitely families and very heavily Jewish.

all of NYC is a ghetto; we're all Venetians now.

true liz, but the UWS seems to me to have more old people than young families and doesn't provide livable apartments to newcomers (square footage wise, they seem tiny to me). chances are, the older residents live in much bigger digs than what i saw my friends living in.

UWS is perfect for young families.

The only problem is, those young families need to have a household income of at least $500K before they can even think of buying a "family-sized" apartment.

Even renting a proper three-bedroom apartment puts you squarely in the $3800+ range, and you'd need a minimum HHI of $150K. Don't know how many "young families" are pulling down that kind of money. And if you need two incomes to reach that level, now you're looking at having to pay for a nanny ... so push that income up another $30K or so.

"The only problem is, those young families need to have a household income of at least $500K before they can even think of buying a "family-sized" apartment. "

disagree Matt, a young family is better off putting that $ away for retirement and college. remember, this is generation x (no pensions, no social security, no medicare super expensive education, housing and health). overspending in housing could be lethal imho for this demographic. if the housing values the previous generation got show up again (a huge long recession would be needed for this imho), then yes, it'd be a good place. otherwise, it's asking too much for what it is.

"Don't know how many "young families" are pulling down that kind of money."

i know many with that income (with either finance and law background) but still, it doesn't make sense. the issue is that the size of their student loans is not negligible and most owe for both adults. they are even postponing having kids (childcare, time commitment to the career, ...). taking a huge mtg is a big risk in this economy. many of my friends in their 30s value mobility and would like to relocate to greener pastures if the opportunity shows up (not only abroad, but to FL or CA too). i might be among deadbeats though, cause prices in the UWS don't reflect this reality (that of those in their 30s) at all.

"disagree Matt, a young family is better off putting that $ away for retirement and college. remember, this is generation x (no pensions, no social security, no medicare super expensive education, housing and health). overspending in housing could be lethal imho for this demographic."

Actually, I disagree with THAT.

A) There are plenty of Gen-Xers (myself included) who are fully vested in old-fashioned defined-benefit PENSIONS. (And before you all start clamoring about underfunded *COMPANY* pensions, let me remind you those aren't the only kind of pensions out there -- the best pensions are still UNION pensions that cover entire industries. My union pension won't "go away" or become "underfunded" because it's owned collectively by its members, not a corporate entity run by an elite group of directors who have no vested interest in the long-term health of the organization. And and industry-wide union pension ensures viability as long as the INDUSTRY remains viable ... meaning until we stop using electricity, the IBEW's pension is fully intact. Same thing with other trade unions, as well as my union, which covers a broad scope of the entertainment industry.)

B) I never understood this obsession with saving for kids' education. I paid my own way. My parents paid their own way. It built character and a solid work ethic. Seriously -- Gen Xers would do much better to save for their own retirement, and let their kids figure out college on their own. They'll survive. They always have.

Lincoln Towers, UWS.

Look, all I know is the last time I went up to central Harlem (in October2009); I almost got caught in the cross-fire of a shoot-out. Not a cop in sight.

A nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

How exciting for you....
I keep looking for such exciting activities in the area that I have been walking around in -- below 125th west of fred doug and so far no luck in the last 2 years...
where were you in Oct 2009?
Was it a law and order shoot?

I saw Matt included Hudson Heights. care to elaborate? thx

A) There are plenty of Gen-Xers (myself included) who are fully vested in old-fashioned defined-benefit PENSIONS.
B) I never understood this obsession with saving for kids' education. I paid my own way.

--------------------

Matt, situations had changed in both areas.
A) pensions are totally unfunded, even most baby boomers are aware of this and don't expect to get the benefits. 80% of gen X don't even expect SS and Medicare. corporate pensions and public pensions are not in better shape.
B) students loans since early 2000 became draconian, you cannot discharge them at all. so it's a long position on nothing bad happening to you. it's not the student loans you enjoyed back in the day.

Same thing with other trade unions, as well as my union, which covers a broad scope of the entertainment industry.)

------------

which one is it? you mean that even if the economics of your sector absolutely change (like what is happening with music and movies) your pension is just intact? the biggest one (even bigger than the big 3) is the phone companies. they are in dire situation in every developed country. it's in your own best benefit to be realistic about this.

check out the situation of the airlines. who would have thought 4 decades ago that they were at risk? deregulation did the trick there. lack of landlines is doing it for the phone companies. anyway, imho longevity and demographics was enough to break them. new technology just makes the changes happen more quickly.

"To white suburbanites, anything with a little color & ethnic flavor is the ghetto; they just don't know any better, they're ignorant."

White suburbanite here...

White suburbanites are actually very big fans of diversity. They are strong advocates of ethnically diverse neighborhoods just as long it is NOT their neighborhood. Most proponents of diversity live in all white neighborhoods. When their neighborhood becomes diverse, the for sale signs start popping up like weeds.

"i'd love to move to a neighborhood with a lot of academic-loving jews and koreans cause they have a very positive impact on the level of public schools in the area imho. goes such a place exists at all?"

Jews live in Borough Park and Crown Heights. Koreans live in Flushing. However, religious jews send their kids to Yeshieva so you will never see any of them in a public school.

read that 15% of color is as much as white neighborhoods willingly tolerate. but i'm afraid i don't believe it with younger whites. it feels to me like an older white thing (like research done during the 70s or 80s). young whites have friends that are not white. not so much the older whites. their schools and everything else was segregated when they form their idea of what's normal for them.

anyway, my mother in law is from the midwest, a town where 90% of the people are white church goers. ValB, each time I listened to her remarks regarding the social pecking order, i remind myself and my husband that she's just trying to run away from her own ultra poverty status during her childhood.

"making it" was all they had in mind and it means things that are ridiculous to me right now like making choices that force you to live paycheck by paycheck. one is carrying a huge mortgage and other "catching up with the jones" types of debt. the other is to work as much as possible till retirement. both are just not optimal choices imho if you are 30 or younger. the older you get, the less you can adjust to changing environments imho.

Wow, why is it always assumed that all white suburbanites are ignorant red necks? Give people a little more credit. Why do a lot of people who live in NYC think that they are far superior to anyone living outside NYC? I've met people from NYC and NYS that have never traveled abroad or who still won't try Indian food - talk about ignorance. Besdies, NYC, Manhattan at least, has become one giant suburban town. We have all the big box stores AND costco. We also have chain restaurants...go figure.

"A) pensions are totally unfunded, even most baby boomers are aware of this and don't expect to get the benefits."

Wrong. Most union pensions are more than 100% funded.

"Wow, why is it always assumed that all white suburbanites are ignorant red necks? Give people a little more credit."

Thank you, East71.

I had the privilege of working on a project down in Tuscaloosa last year (it's a major city in Alabama, and it's sad that it's a word not even recognized by Streeteasy's spellcheck, but whatever). The people I met and worked with were among the hippest and most "cosmopolitan" I'd been around in quite a while.

Matt, using data from 2006 (before the recession after which the avg pension lost more than 25%) half of union pensions were either endangered (less than 80% funded) or in critical condition (less than 65% funded). which one is yours? non-union pensions do much better in general (35% of non-union are fully funded versus 17% of the union pensions). if you are young, you might be better off keeping the pension contributions on your own account.

"Matt, using data from 2006 (before the recession after which the avg pension lost more than 25%) half of union pensions were either endangered (less than 80% funded) or in critical condition (less than 65% funded). which one is yours?"

Mine, actually, is 120% funded.

That is, my PRIMARY union pension.

My other union pension is close to 100% funded.

you are the luckiest youngster with a pension, so it's great. but you get my point, your A) and B) comments are not the reality for most generation x & y on which optimal exposure to RE depends.

Actually, it CAN be the reality for most Gen-X and Gen-Y workers if they'd get off their butts and ORGANIZE.

And by the way, most BABY BOOMERS put themselves through college WITHOUT student loans. It's called WORKING. It might take a bit longer, but it can be done.

baby boomers got almost free housing and almost free college education in comparison. the financial reality for each of these generations is very different. which makes the optimal allocation of resources very different too. that's all. was this the only way? of course not! but it is what it is.

if RE is a generational transfer (which for the most part, it's always had been) and the previous generation reaped a bounty with it. isn't it true that it might just not be good for the next generation to allocate more than what's absolutely needed? RE has very long cycles.

i don't have it 100% clear, otherwise i'd write a book on the topic. but it's quite fascinating that parents tell their kids "it worked for me, so it should for you" while giving possibly the worse advice ever (unknowingly). there should be way much more research on RE cycles and generational transfers in finance, very interesting (at least to me).