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Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

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Re: Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

#271

Post by LordKano »

fixermark wrote: post #52
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even fairly recently libertarian organisations like the Cato Institute have been fighting against regulation of lead and against compensation for those poisoned. That's shocking and tragically sad.

Oh yes. The history of the Ethyl Corporation and Dr. Clair Patterson is fascinating, right up there with Rachel Carson and "Silent Spring." There's a very disturbing correlative graph between the banning of anti-knock lead additives from gasoline and the drop in violent crime rates in the United States. Correlation does not imply causation, but in this case it points feverishly at causation while wiggling its eyebrow…

Freakonomics suggested that the crime drop the US experienced in the 1990s was due to Roe v Wade but there is more evidence that it was because of the society-wide drop in lead exposure we experienced at the same time period.

Re: Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

#272

Post by paulddraper »

henrikschroder wrote: post #202
paulddraper wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm at a loss for words > To me, there's something really heartbreaking about abandoned and decaying houses. You're at a lost for words because of some old houses? At least there aren't gangs roaming the capital, looting, killing, and burning for days. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2328952/Sweden-riots... I'm not saying either US or Sweden is a nightmare; just that every place has its uglier side. If you'…

> gangs roaming the capital, looting, killing, and burning That's quite the hyperbole compared to what actually happened.

Multiple buildings (including two schools) and hundreds of cars were burned, at least one elderly man was killed.

IDK of anything comparable in the US in this century.

It's hyperbole only in that the area affected was small compared to the rest of Sweden, in the same way that one street is small compared to the rest of the US.

Re: Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

#273

Post by tptacek »

logicalmind wrote: post #231
tptacek wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South side Chicago does not look like Flint. The streets are tree-lined, the worst buildings are boarded up, the houses are solid and most of them are brick bungalows. Many tens of thousands of people live there. The worst neighborhoods, like Englewood, are still kept up, and they're bracketed by middle-class neighborhoods like Chatham --- you might not feel comfortable in Chatham, especially if you're from lily-whit…

I assume you are strictly referring to within the city limits. If you include the burbs, then check out Robbins: https://goo.gl/maps/ompv1Df5aqT2

I used to live right next to Robbins. Robbins isn't the most pleasant place in Chicago, but it's nothing resembling Flint- bad either. It's more like a low-income Texas town.

(It's also microscopic).

Re: Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

#274

Post by up_and_up »

fein wrote: post #221
andrelaszlo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to see what Flint looks like, so I dropped the little yellow streetview guy randomly. I ended up on Asylum Street (!). I'm at a loss for words: https://goo.gl/maps/UuPPKQK5MoF2 https://goo.gl/maps/KunFSxxRFWA2 https://goo.gl/maps/yg1NH6ZMkFJ2 https://goo.gl/maps/xVi2n8muHV32 https://goo.gl/maps/pAQEyZSAEw92 https://goo.gl/maps/ssGZRAdiQak (memorial garden?) https://goo.gl/maps/B2waNiVfeut https://goo.gl/maps…

Flint is more of a well known place for being an absolutely shattered industrial waste infested area, but parts of East Cleveland would make me want to live in Flint. https://goo.gl/maps/wMnbyeu5GeH2

Pretty sure this house in Detroit has you beat: https://goo.gl/maps/Z2fGbLJkiYx

Re: Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

#275

Post by paulddraper »

grobbles wrote: post #153
andrelaszlo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to see what Flint looks like, so I dropped the little yellow streetview guy randomly. I ended up on Asylum Street (!). I'm at a loss for words: https://goo.gl/maps/UuPPKQK5MoF2 https://goo.gl/maps/KunFSxxRFWA2 https://goo.gl/maps/yg1NH6ZMkFJ2 https://goo.gl/maps/xVi2n8muHV32 https://goo.gl/maps/pAQEyZSAEw92 https://goo.gl/maps/ssGZRAdiQak (memorial garden?) https://goo.gl/maps/B2waNiVfeut https://goo.gl/maps…

One unique aspect of the United States is that it's a huge country, where more than half of the land is livable/arable[1]. When an area isn't working, the economic forces that would revive it out of raw necessity just don't have the force that they do in many other countries, so areas can just hollow out as people move to other cities, to the endless suburbs, and so on. These pictures are primarily just abandoned are…

Exactly. In one sense, it's like seeing a phone "abandoned" for a newer model.

People don't live in the same place for centuries, because they don't need to.

Re: Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

#276

Post by unprepare »

Ocerge wrote: post #117
hellofunk wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not far from Flint, the city of Detroit now has the world's largest collection of urban ruins, even greater in size and quantity than Rome. Amazing, truly, what you see in that part of Michigan. I lived 2 hours away from there in Central Michigan from end of 2008 - 2010. One of the sadder experiences I had was, one day while out on my daily walk around the neighborhood, there were a mass of people standing around…

I spend a lot of time in Michigan as my company is based in Grand Rapids. It's almost like East and West Germany at times with how much better off Western Michigan is.

yeah... i definitely wouldn't go that far.

The west side of the state is nice, but it doesnt really compare to the larger (and wealthier) markets on the East side of the state:

Birmingham, Bloomfield hills, Troy, Ann Arbor, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Grosse pointe, etc.

The far more obvious dichotomy is Oakland county vs Wayne county.

Wayne county(county where Detroit is located):

>About 18.6% of families and 23.7% of the population were below the poverty line

Oakland county (county just north of Wayne):

>About 3.80% of families and 5.50% of the population were below the poverty line

Kent county (grand rapids location):

>8.90% of the population and 6.30% of families were below the poverty line.

Re: Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

#277

Post by toomuchtodo »

humanrebar wrote: post #269
toomuchtodo wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that's how the state/federal financial model works. Some states are a burden (usually poor conservative states), some states pay for more themselves (New York, California, to name the biggest). "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." as it were.

> Some states are a burden (usually poor conservative states) Yeah, I'm not sure the math is simple enough to say that definitively. People from those states are disproportionately represented in the military, for example, and there's no way to add "deaths in overseas wars" to help balance the books. There's also a tendency to count infrastructure projects for states as being for those states. But good highways throu…

> Yeah, I'm not sure the math is simple enough to say that definitively.

Its pretty well studied:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_...

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/americas-f...

> People from those states are disproportionately represented in the military, for example, and there's no way to add "deaths in overseas wars" to help balance the books.

Who weren't drafted, and voluntarily went.

> There's also a tendency to count infrastructure projects for states as being for those states. But good highways through the Midwest, for example, are also used for shipping goods coast-to-coast. The locals in Podunk, WY certainly wouldn't choose a superhighway as their first infrastructure project if they were handed 10 million dollars.

Goods can be delivered to New York and California far more efficiently by water than over the continental US. Flyover country influence continues to wane as citizens continue to migrate to major urban cores.

Re: Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

#278

Post by logicalmind »

tptacek wrote: post #273
logicalmind wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you are strictly referring to within the city limits. If you include the burbs, then check out Robbins: https://goo.gl/maps/ompv1Df5aqT2

I used to live right next to Robbins. Robbins isn't the most pleasant place in Chicago, but it's nothing resembling Flint- bad either. It's more like a low-income Texas town. (It's also microscopic).

I was born and raised in the town next to Robbins. My family still lives there. Robbins is the worst of many notorious, small, south-side suburbs (Markham, Harvey, Phoenix, etc.). It is next to an oil refinery. It has an abandoned incinerator. And plenty of other nasty corporations covering the place in pollutants. You will find plenty of burned down houses not closed off, etc. It just gets worse and worse:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/December-2014/The...

Of course, as with any "no true scotsman" argument, it isn't as bad Flint in every way.

Re: Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

#279

Post by dalke »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #256
dalke wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a US citizen who moved to Sweden. I've done a decent amount of cycling across the Swedish countryside, and think I can explain. The sights in these photos that you (and I, who grew up in Florida) think are pretty common, are quite rare in Sweden. That is, it's rare to find houses with boarded up windows, or missing part of its siding, or burnt down and in a state of decay. Suburban areas are almost all immaculat…

I don't know if it's terribly useful to compare the entire US with Sweden. Sweden is about as populous as the Bay Area. If you're going to make comparisons with the worst places in the US, you should compare with the worst place in Europe. Drop a street view guy in the middle of Donetsk and have a look around.

But we aren't talking specifically about the 'worst places in the US'. I and others have commented that many of those shots don't "look significantly different from the town I grew up in", nor "markedly different than some places I've been", and that "this could easily be images from parts of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, etc" or "from any town across much of the North."

Re: Flint, MI: So much lead in children’s blood, state of emergency declared

#280

Post by thephyber »

samstave wrote: post #196
StillBored wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago before the oil boom in west Texas, I was going to run a camera through some of the towns that were off major highways, and compare them with some of the little towns in a Mexico or some other place we consider poor. In many ways the ones in Texas look worse because the population was dying as well, houses with the roof caving in, main streets without a single open business, etc. I'm often surprised by…

Brick and timber buildings would be beautiful I. California, and may even be affordable to literally deconstruct them and move them. Look at the last sale price of this building, $535.00 five hundred!! http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/530-Kenilworth-St-Detroit-...

Unreinforced mortar doesn't cut it in California building codes. It would crumble in either a moderate earthquake or over time during lots of small ones.

Sale prices obscure some of the more expensive parts of a sale -- leins on the title and back taxes. Sometimes you do get a property for cheap, but always do your due diligence.

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