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Comment by googlryas | Hacker News Reader

Isn't it more accurate to say the Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Lisbon(or Porto, or some other desirable city)?

If you have a city with X housing units, but 5X people from within the city + all over the country/world want to live there, and for whatever reason no one wants to/can build 4X more housing units, how do you fairly determine who gets to live there and who doesn't?

* Is it fair if you were born in Lisbon you get to keep living in Lisbon?

* Is it fair if people early in their career get to live in Lisbon because it will advance their career much more than if they lived in the countryside?

* Is it fair if a rich person gets to live there because they can pay a lot of money to do so?

Whatever policy is in place, it will be deciding the winners and the losers, or the people who get to live in Lisbon and those who don't.

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Using a word as subjective as "fair" allows for people to propose solutions you don't agree with, but that they think are fair.

The author of the article says:

> Digital nomads, retired foreigners, and millionaires searching for Gold visas are pushing the Portuguese to another place.

> Is this really that fair?

We are obviously supposed to say "no", but I think the answer is yes. I really hate this form of argument by rhetorical question that only works if you _already_ agree with the author, if my answers are different the whole article just doesn't work.

It's hard to empathize with a belief system that thinks pricing a native population out of their own country is fair. I suppose if you hold that everything should be subordinate to economics, including community and nationhood?

Fair is generally defined to mean in accordance with established rules and without bias. Offering preferential renting rights or pricing to certain cohorts such as people of a given age, nationality, etc. would clearly not be fair under this definition.

If a nation cannot give preference to its own people, then that nation effectively does not exist. As for "established rules", the idea that nations should be reduced to economic zones is relatively novel, and not something most voters (i.e. the people nominally deciding on those rules) agree with.

It is something a lot of voters in the US agree with, which is where most commenters on HN are from.

The US as a nation is incredibly new and imported millions of people to build its population from almost nothing.

Communities being born and dying due to economics is something that has been happening in the US constantly, at a large scale, for its entire existence.

Maybe that's why some people are okay with this.

But it isn't actually pricing the native population out of the country, just the most desirable cities. But, that was already happening to a huge swath of the native population beforehand by the native population, so what is different for majority of Portuguese who could never move to Lisbon or Porto? Not much. They couldn't afford to move to lisbon 20 years ago, and they can't move there now.

I see the same dynamic at play here in Boulder. People are claiming there is a housing affordability crisis because outsiders(commonly pejoratively referred to as Californians, Texans, and New Yorkers, even if they're not) are moving in and jacking up the prices, but commonly you'll see those people complaining have been here for, say, 10 years. But, 10 years ago when they moved here, the previous locals were saying...there's a housing affordability crisis and these newcomers are jacking up the prices!

Salami slicing. No single step will ever make much difference for the majority of Portuguese, until they suddenly find themselves a minority in their own capital, as happened to the English.

> until they suddenly find themselves a minority in their own capital, as happened to the English

When you say "the English" can you be more clear? Are you suggesting it's a problem if Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish people move to the capital of their own country, the UK? I don't think that's what you meant.

44.9% of people in London were white British according to the 2011 census, but 63% were born in Britain. The British are still a majority in London (according to the latest data). I don't think the 2021 census numbers for London by ethnicity are out yet (maybe I'm wrong).

The only way your comment makes sense is if you're suggesting it's a problem that white British being a minority is a problem.

I hope that's not what you meant to imply.

> The only way your comment makes sense is if you're suggesting it's a problem that white British being a minority is a problem.

Why don't you tell me - do ethnic minorities without a country of their own face any challenges or dangers due to that? Is there reason to believe that native Britons won't face those same dangers? Perhaps because they are so beloved by other nations they now share their country with, there are yearly riots of gratitude held in their honor?

They're not even a minority yet, and we already have a preview of what's to come:

RAF ‘Pauses Job Offers for White Men’ to Meet ‘Impossible’ Diversity Targets - https://news.sky.com/story/raf-pauses-job-offers-for-white-m...

BBC bans white people from job - but workforce already reflects country's ethnic make-up - https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/670266/BBC-advert-white-pe...

> But it isn't actually pricing the native population out of the country, just the most desirable cities.

Most of my family have lived within the same 10km for at least 4 generations... It's not the same thing to live where I grew up and close to my friends and family or 50km away. Especially on normal Portuguese salaries which seriously restrict travel.

Sure, if you're in tech (like I am) you can just work remotely from anywhere and you can afford the gas and tolls, but you can also just rent in the city.

> If you have a city with X housing units, but 5X people from within the city + all over the country/world want to live there, and for whatever reason no one wants to/can build 4X more housing units, how do you fairly determine who gets to live there and who doesn't?

The phenomena that honestly pisses me off, is that all of these countries touting their immigration policies are lying to immigrants. They're selling them on a quality of life that existed 20 years ago and is no longer possible even to the people who have lived there all their lives.

It's absolutely fraudulent and exploitative behaviour by this countries.

It's not though, not entirely at least.

For an immigrant from eastern europe, yes, Lisbon is not the great place it was 20 years ago.

But for an immigrant from US/Canada, Germany, UK, or whatever rich country. Yes, it's a great place to go to. A high rent in Lisbon is nothing to them, and the rest (utilities, restaurants, commerce) is still pretty cheap.

Good weather, good food, cheap lifestyle is quite attainable... just not for everyone.

> how do you fairly determine who gets to live there and who doesn't?

Well, we live in a democracy here, and so we vote.

Our government announced their intention to ban residential investments in Porto, Lisboa, and the Algarve for the golden visa, and adjustments to the taxes for long-term v. short-term letting that went into effect this year.

It will take time to see if it is actually fair or not, but the cool thing about democracy is we can always vote again in the future!

Too bad for people "all over the world that want to live in it" when said country has sovereignty and can vote to prevent locals to be displaced by them. People of each country decide what is fair or not, not people outside of it.

Is it fair that someone, by sheer accident, was born in SF, is SWE and now wants to take advantage of that stupidly high income and dislodge people who have lived their whole lives in a certain place? Probably worked much harder and for longer? Where all their family and friends live and always lived for more than a century? Their culture and life? You seem to forget Portugal is not the US. They have more than 3 times your history and with it each place has a markedly different personality and much deeper roots not only culturally but also relationally.

Maybe you're used to a capitalistic emotionless everything-is-replaceable view and that in life all is fair and square, the ends justify the means, but perhaps you should rethink it.

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