Equitable housing

Dear Editor:

It was great to hear Roger Marolt's perspective in his Friday morning column. The most absurd "haves/have-nots" divide in Aspen, in my view, is not between the "rich" and the "not rich," but between those who were able to buy employee housing, and those who were not.

Of course, never again to be "voices at the table" in the Aspen housing debate are the voices of those who have moved downvalley as a result of not being able to wait four years (or maybe much longer) simply to play a lottery. Don't get me wrong - I prefer it in Carbondale - but for most everyone else in my situation who aspires to own a home, preferences do not factor into the equation.

In my four years in NYC, I saw and documented the inequities bred by the city's rent-control system. Rent control (and Aspen employee housing) is great and democratic in theory, but only if access to it is equitable once minimum stipulations are met. The debate up there needs to remain over increasing the supply of employee housing, not improving the lots of those who already have it.

Jeremy Simon
Carbondale