On Mon, 20 Nov 2017 14:16:17 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 11/20/2017 8:44 AM, AMuzi wrote:
http://beta.latimes.com/local/lanow/...118-story.html

Yesterday I talked to a friend who had just returned from a vacation in
Scotland, with an added day or two in London. He loved Scotland (where
he once lived) but didn't like London. "Too dirty, too crowded, and
homeless people everywhere."

So I wondered about England's homeless population compared to the U.S.,
and found this claiming they are roughly the same, percentage-wise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ess_population

(The UK as a whole is much higher.)

But the differences by nation are extreme, even among relatively wealthy
countries. What makes the difference? (And why, for example, is New
Zealand's so high?)

Seems to me that for the past couple hundred years, engineers have done
whatever was reasonably asked. Too bad economists and sociologists
haven't kept up.

I wonder how accurate some of the homeless numbers are. See
https://homelessworldcup.org/homeles...atistics/#asia
note that in every case some of the numbers are "estimated".

Another point is, at least in India, there are whole settlements that
live on the streets. From what I read, and was told when I was in
India, these are largely people that moved into cities from the
country in order to get better paying jobs, or perhaps more
accurately, jobs that paid some money. One might almost say, "homeless
by preference".

Thailand, for example, has in excess of 100% employment - based on
the number of workers as a percentage of citizens - and yet has some
"homeless", or at least people that appear to be without a "home". But
in the cases that I see these people aren't exactly destitute but are
actually self employed, usually in gleaning trash receptacles and
collecting scrap metal and plastics - there is a very active plastics
and metal reclamation industry in Thailand.

I'm guessing here, but given that there are more jobs in Thailand then
there are citizens, that the "homeless" are homeless for some reason
other then simply a lack of jobs.
--
Cheers,

John B.