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The past four decades, possibly even five, have been a time of increasing inequality. Few issues pack the emotional punch more than does urban gentrification. The pluses include revival of once God-forsaken neighborhoods within our cities. This leads to lower crime rates and better safety. But the big minuses are lead by the forced displacement of long-time residents who can no longer afford to stay in their homes. Emotions often get the best of those especially on the losing side of the gentrification equation.
Such is part and parcel of a vast upscaling trend which began in earnest with the arrival of the Yuppies during the middle third of the 1980s. And even though by 1987 it became just as fashionable to bash Yuppies as it had been to be one, the damage had pretty well be done as gentrification on their behalf had transformed many urban neighborhoods to be unrecognizable by those who hadn't been in or to them for some time. By most liberal estimates those who fit the Yuppie demographic of the time amounted to no more than 7 percent of the population. Wannabes may have increased the total to around 20 percent, yet the craze was so vast that anywhere from 80 to 93 percent were basically treated as outcasts.
Boomers who during their youth were very vocal in denouncing the trapping of wealth and privilege suddenly took such to a whole other level. IOW a significant number ending up becoming everything they had previously ridiculed and then some. And even though the Yuppie craze only lasted about a third of a decade the trend toward upscaling of damn near everything has continued as many more areas have gentrified more in recent years. In Chicago I would say that now at least 20 percent of the city has been retrofitted as to displace not only people but the more modest restaurants and shops that were there previously. Harsh words have been spoken about the negative effects of such retrofitting and yet the march toward more and more seems to continue. There still are some areas of the city where there is gang warfare and are relatively impoverished, but most of these areas though aren't quite as God-forsaken as they once were. The south suburbs of Harvey and Chicago Heights have much more dilapidation than these areas do. Said to be starving for investment but the poor residents remain fearful that if even a Starbucks were to open up shop, gentrification and displacement won't be far behind.
Why has the upscaling trend continued despite the fact of over 60 percent of the populace living paycheck to paycheck?
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The "economic cleansing" of the most desirable, and therefore the most expensive cities - e.g., New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston - has been going on for three decades, causing a "relegation" of relatively low-income Xers to secondary cities - e.g., Des Moines, IA, Lincoln, NE, Madison, WI - and more recently, even tertiary cities - e.g., Enid, OK, Duluth, MN, Fargo, ND.
Interestingly, the exact same thing has been going on in Russia since the Soviet Union broke up - the working class has been pushed out of the cities of the Russian Core (e.g., Moscow and St. Petersburg; even Archangel, which is on the Arctic Ocean, has become pricey) and have been forced to reinvent themselves in Siberia (e.g., Omsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk).
So this appears to be a global trend - at least in countries with relatively laissez-faire economies (Russia has had a flat tax, with no standard deduction, since 1998).
"These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation" - Justice David Brewer, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 1892
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Unless one is to completely write off whole classes of Americans one still needs certain people to make the system work. Let's start with one of the least glamorous of occupational groups: domestic servants. Rich people need them because they are too busy to do their own cooking, cleaning, and grounds care. We obviously need people to clean buildings, do oil changes and tune-ups, and wash cars. We need people to do delivery work. Obviously the hospitals need orderlies.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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In some of these large cities, which still have mostly Democratic voters, a combo of educated and poor, have some policies of mixing economic class levels within neighborhoods, and providing some affordable housing. This is a good trend, but it needs to be ramped up.
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So basically people physically necessary to do certain work, like those that I mentioned in low-status jobs must be where they work. Maybe it would be possible to "farm" such a task as auto-body repair from a high cost-of-living [COL] place like San Francisco to a low-COL place like Modesto. Likewise much of the administrative work, as with banks, insurance companies, and government agencies. If one is priced out of greater Dee Cee because of housing costs for one's skill, and much data is processed on line anyway, then doing such work in West Virginia might make life more affordable. Some jobs can be done by distance. Some can't.
That may soon shape much of American life.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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03-28-2022, 08:57 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-28-2022, 08:57 PM by Eric the Green.)
(03-28-2022, 05:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: So basically people physically necessary to do certain work, like those that I mentioned in low-status jobs must be where they work. Maybe it would be possible to "farm" such a task as auto-body repair from a high cost-of-living [COL] place like San Francisco to a low-COL place like Modesto. Likewise much of the administrative work, as with banks, insurance companies, and government agencies. If one is priced out of greater Dee Cee because of housing costs for one's skill, and much data is processed on line anyway, then doing such work in West Virginia might make life more affordable. Some jobs can be done by distance. Some can't.
That may soon shape much of American life.
Maybe, and it's happening, but I'd still rather live in San Francisco than Modestro, or DC than West Virginia. There is THAT. Being near work isn't the only reason to live somewhere.
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03-29-2022, 01:21 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-29-2022, 05:51 PM by pbrower2a.)
(03-28-2022, 08:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (03-28-2022, 05:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: So basically people physically necessary to do certain work, like those that I mentioned in low-status jobs must be where they work. Maybe it would be possible to "farm" such a task as auto-body repair from a high cost-of-living [COL] place like San Francisco to a low-COL place like Modesto. Likewise much of the administrative work, as with banks, insurance companies, and government agencies. If one is priced out of greater Dee Cee because of housing costs for one's skill, and much data is processed on line anyway, then doing such work in West Virginia might make life more affordable. Some jobs can be done by distance. Some can't.
That may soon shape much of American life.
Maybe, and it's happening, but I'd still rather live in San Francisco than Modesto, or DC than West Virginia. There is THAT. Being near work isn't the only reason to live somewhere
.
True. But if one wants children to have a place in which they can play, or if they want to be able to drive a car without facing traffic jams, then living in a low COL location may be an alternative to brutal rents and taxes. Modesto is of course a horrible place to live even if it looked good in American Graffiti. Well, that was about sixty years ago (1962) when much was better in America (the 1T-2T cusp). People must make choices in life, some of them stark. Pampered children or being "where the action (even if the "action" is culture)? Spectacular achievement (as Malcolm Gladwell convinces me, 10,000 hours of professional preparation to achieve the standard of excellence suitable for commercial success in something not simply raw toil or living a normal life? Being on the fast track to economic success or doing non-alienating work for an employer who lets one work fewer than 55 hours a week?
Life is mostly trade-offs. Some management programs require the sort of dedication suitable to a recognized profession or to starting a small business, and the work 9cold-call sales, customer retention, and collecting debts) is soul-crushing work, especially if it requires 60 or more hours a week. That may be one of the few career ladders available, and that employer can get away with it because everyone knows by now that the Japanese-style black company ( burakku kigyō) that exploits its workers, often in IT, with huge loads of unpaid overtime, is all too often the American norm. It's good for low labor costs and maximizing revenue, the highest objectives (irony intended) of the neoliberal era.
(Many IT workers could use strong, effective, militant unions -- but to much of Corporate America, membership in a union is the equivalent of singing
"Arise, ye pris'ners of starvation!"
To get out of the mess that we are in we will need radical changes from labor-management relations to tax policies to land use. We will need to make communities like Modesto, California livable again. It won't be easy or cheap, but what big, positive change ever was cheap? The biggest expense in the degradation of life comes from neglect of needful change.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(03-28-2022, 08:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (03-28-2022, 05:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: So basically people physically necessary to do certain work, like those that I mentioned in low-status jobs must be where they work. Maybe it would be possible to "farm" such a task as auto-body repair from a high cost-of-living [COL] place like San Francisco to a low-COL place like Modesto. Likewise much of the administrative work, as with banks, insurance companies, and government agencies. If one is priced out of greater Dee Cee because of housing costs for one's skill, and much data is processed on line anyway, then doing such work in West Virginia might make life more affordable. Some jobs can be done by distance. Some can't.
That may soon shape much of American life.
Maybe, and it's happening, but I'd still rather live in San Francisco than Modestro, or DC than West Virginia. There is THAT. Being near work isn't the only reason to live somewhere.
Those places exist because there is an economic ecosystem to support them. Will that be true in 50 years? Probably more yes than no, but a lot less than today. I live in the exurbs and most of my neighbors are locals with minimal schooling and very conservative ways, yet there are others here too. I can find a sizable contingent of likeminded people, but much of that is due to the recreational resources here.
That's something that's reproducible elsewhere and will be more and more as time goes on. Mostly, it will be driven by the obvious: keystone cities are expensive places to live and getting moreso with time. Eventually, you will either be very rich, a long timer or an inheritor to live in most of them.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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Surprisingly, Modesto could be flooded into oblivion in the event of a significant rise in the sea level. Maybe there would be more moisture in the a hot semi-desert. ir when winter rainstorms pass over Sacramento Bay Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto are surprisingly low. Heck, there might be some places with wonderful climate around the equivalent of Chesapeake Bay in the middle of California instead of a hot semi-desert. There wouldn't be so much water needed for irrigation.
Exurbs are the next new tier of suburbs, the parts of rural America next to become urbanized. I think of Chelsea, Manchester, and Saline, Michigan. Exurbs are close enough to have access to the culture of a great city (even if it is a hell-hole like Detroit, Detroit has culture). Being within walking distance of the opera or symphony hall if one does not attend it regularly.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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In the last week, the most important news story in my local paper was on the weather page: a large piece of the Antarctic ice shelf broke away on the "stable" side of Antarctica. If it continues, along with the calving on the unstable side, sea level will rise by 160 feet. It won't happen soon, but the fact that it may happen at all is devastating. Go around the world, and color everything below 160 AMSL as lost. It's most of the inhabited world.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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Missouri's minimum wage is $11.15 an hour, the highest of any red state - and according to some measures, Joplin, MO, has the lowest housing costs of any city its size or larger in the entire United States.
"These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation" - Justice David Brewer, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 1892
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(03-29-2022, 06:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Surprisingly, Modesto could be flooded into oblivion in the event of a significant rise in the sea level. Maybe there would be more moisture in the a hot semi-desert. ir when winter rainstorms pass over Sacramento Bay Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto are surprisingly low. Heck, there might be some places with wonderful climate around the equivalent of Chesapeake Bay in the middle of California instead of a hot semi-desert. There wouldn't be so much water needed for irrigation.
Exurbs are the next new tier of suburbs, the parts of rural America next to become urbanized. I think of Chelsea, Manchester, and Saline, Michigan. Exurbs are close enough to have access to the culture of a great city (even if it is a hell-hole like Detroit, Detroit has culture). Being within walking distance of the opera or symphony hall if one does not attend it regularly.
In the Chicago area prime examples are Huntley and Woodstock. Possibly even such 60+ milers as Kankakee and DeKalb. I was raised around Aurora and Batavia in the Fox Valley, and at that time they were considered too far out to be suburbs. Even all of DuPage County. The suburb line was drawn right around where the Tri-State Tollway now sits, hugging the DuPage/Cook County border.
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(04-06-2022, 12:48 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (03-29-2022, 06:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Surprisingly, Modesto could be flooded into oblivion in the event of a significant rise in the sea level. Maybe there would be more moisture in the a hot semi-desert. ir when winter rainstorms pass over Sacramento Bay Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto are surprisingly low. Heck, there might be some places with wonderful climate around the equivalent of Chesapeake Bay in the middle of California instead of a hot semi-desert. There wouldn't be so much water needed for irrigation.
Exurbs are the next new tier of suburbs, the parts of rural America next to become urbanized. I think of Chelsea, Manchester, and Saline, Michigan. Exurbs are close enough to have access to the culture of a great city (even if it is a hell-hole like Detroit, Detroit has culture). Being within walking distance of the opera or symphony hall if one does not attend it regularly.
In the Chicago area prime examples are Huntley and Woodstock. Possibly even such 60+ milers as Kankakee and DeKalb. I was raised around Aurora and Batavia in the Fox Valley, and at that time they were considered too far out to be suburbs. Even all of DuPage County. The suburb line was drawn right around where the Tri-State Tollway now sits, hugging the DuPage/Cook County border.
Former (and disgraced) Speaker of the House Dennis Hsstert was seeking to get a freeway built close to Illinois 47 on behalf of well-connected speculators. The highway made some sense except for the stench of corruption.
With people able to telecommute but also the need to be within 100 miles (or 80... or 60) we may soon find many small towns becoming exurbs. One might need to spend one day a week at the office, but one pair of round-trip excursions to that office may be enough to do what is needed. Such may be a big change in life.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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