Opinion: If Change Must Come Let’s Change It To The Way It Was

The winds of change blow through the east end of Long Island daily. It is a combination of young people with new ideas and old folks trying to hang on to their best memories of the past. Somehow in the end, the future happens.

The older one gets the more change he can see. He knows where the change has happened. The young on the other hand see clearly what must change and why. The very busy just go to work to make ends meet and pay the bills. Then there are those nomads who blow in and out of the east end towns like the ocean breezes.

There is a love of home. A pride of what it is and it has always been. If you are unhappy home sucks. If you are happy home is awesome. For many living on the east end of Long Island it is awesome. For others existing on the east end it is becoming a struggle they feel they are losing. The reality is it is becoming more expensive to thrive in the Hamptons for folks who work on the east end. The NY Times recently stated earnings of $150,000 per year now puts some folks in many locations in the lower working class category. With two earners in a household anything is possible but for some it’s becoming a formidable struggle.

In Telluride, Colorado the town has just launched an affordable housing project to build housing so they can have teachers for their schools. It seems a teacher’s salary is not enough to live anywhere near the schools. Does this sound familiar?

Those of us blessed with children and grandchildren seem to know they will have a tougher time finding housing. They may have a better way of life with all the new devices, inventions and electronic technological breakthroughs but will they be able to afford the homes and second homes many of us have had?

Some believe too many are riding the current real estate wave to maintain a high flying expensive Hamptons life style. Not many folks can own a home on their earnings without using it to rent in the summer. Then there are those who can purchase three homes as well as those who are losing their only home.

How have we all created a situation where our children and grandchildren will have to be far more successful than we were to live somewhere as well as we did? Some say, that’s not my problem. Perhaps it’s not. Others are definitely now experiencing the accumulative sting of prices and cost rising faster than earnings and wages.

Who has the answers or better yet who is even searching for answers?We do live in a growing “every man for himself” environment. The Hamptons have the achievement of collecting record amounts of donations for the under served these last few years. That is to be applauded but the flip side is the number of those needing that assistance is growing at a dangerous pace.

The face of America is becoming very Dickens-like. It is the best of times it is the worst of times.