Surveyer-,
that isnt the whole story and you know it. I couldnt follow your link to the second article, but I do know atleast some of the stuff you are citing in the PBS. That is INCOME based improvements, not housing based. Hell the link takes you to something titled “Is inequality making us sicker”. They explore racism, immigration and nurtition comparing the poorest of our society to the richest to see how being poor negativly effects your wealth. Lets compare apples to apples here huh?
Smarter people tend ( I said tend, no guarentees) to be more educated and have higher incomes which allow higher standards of living. They also tend to own their houses (Gov tax rule if for no other reason), and as such overstate the health and behavioral value of owning. In the case I was talking about I am useing a well educated and high income earning couple having their first baby. They were not recient immigrants living in abestos lined apartments eating fast food everyday.
I would be interested to see them compare the high income renting families to the high income owning families and see what comes out. I doubt they will find enough high income renting families to make it work, but that is what was ment by causality vs. correlation.
If we really want to get into that lets find out about the health and behavior problems of children raised in households where a reduction in the standard of living is taking place even if income is comparable. Find out if all the foreclosures of people who trusted what you posted are having a negative effect on their children as stress and arguments in the household rise, parents are gone more to work second jobs, and things like health insurance starts getting droped to make the morgage payment. See what starts happening then.
It breaks down to the fact that because it is cheaper signifiantly more of our poor rent than own. It also happens that being poor has largeer numbers of social and developmental consequences than being well off. That doesnt mean that owning a house will make your kid better off.
