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Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

theatlantic.com

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Re: Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

#11

Post by gspr »

ndiscussion wrote: post #3

Our cities won't become "lost" like Angkor. Our cities have already collapsed. There's crime, corruption, decaying buildings. Detroit looks like it was hit by a nuclear bomb. There's not enough money for two reasons. The city overspends on everything due to contract corruption and misled ideals. The money doesn't go where it needs to go, and when it goes to the wrong place, it's like a black hole. The second reason i…

> Our cities have already collapsed.

Pardon me, but that's the dumbest thing I've read so far in 2021.

> There's crime

Broadly speaking, there's less serious crime than in a long time.

> corruption

Do cities have more corruption than society in general?

> decaying buildings

Are city buildings in a particularly bad state?

> Detroit looks like it was hit by a nuclear bomb.

Detroit has become famous for precisely that, but it's hardly representative.

Re: Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

#12

Post by xxpor »

blr246 wrote: post #5

>Instead, what kills cities is a long period in which their leaders fail to reckon honestly with ongoing, everyday problems—how workers are treated, whether infrastructure is repaired. Unsustainable, unresponsive governance in the face of long-term challenges may not look like a world-historical problem, but it’s the real threat that cities face. The feels correct to me. I lived in New York City for 15 years. Until l…

And this comment proves the point about why this stuff is hard: the paragraph about living in NYC for 15 years is entirely wrong.

Re: Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

#13

Post by finiteseries »

ndiscussion wrote: post #3

Our cities won't become "lost" like Angkor. Our cities have already collapsed. There's crime, corruption, decaying buildings. Detroit looks like it was hit by a nuclear bomb. There's not enough money for two reasons. The city overspends on everything due to contract corruption and misled ideals. The money doesn't go where it needs to go, and when it goes to the wrong place, it's like a black hole. The second reason i…

The entire point of the article is that there is no solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist, Angkor was rocked by certain changes but ultimately “collapsed” to time and repurpose over a span of centuries.

Obviously the parallel is not perfect—no real-estate companies bought up land in Angkor for redevelopment—but we see the same pattern of locals repurposing older parts of the landscape. Detroit could continue thriving for centuries, revising its 20th-century land-use patterns to suit new populations.

“Our cities” is also the wrong word to use considering I can’t purchase a home in or around my city without 70 competing bids tens of thousands of dollars over asking price at the moment. And we’ve got hefty property taxes.

Re: Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

#14

Post by VLM »

The point of the article is to normalize that "americans" is synonymous with "urban new yorkers" and the rest of the population doesn't count.

Clearly, rural mining ghost towns are familiar with the concept of slowly shutting down a boomtown. See also the rust belt cities which were de-industrialized about three generations ago, and continue a slow decline, or at least slower growth than the rest of the country, since then. Some like Detroit are going to something like ghost town status, others like Janesville are doing OK ish, it all seems to depend on demographics. Compare Flint MI and Janesville WI pre and post their respective GM plant shutdowns.

Re: Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

#15

Post by diplomatpuppy »

tyleo wrote: post #7
ndiscussion wrote: post #3

Our cities won't become "lost" like Angkor. Our cities have already collapsed. There's crime, corruption, decaying buildings. Detroit looks like it was hit by a nuclear bomb. There's not enough money for two reasons. The city overspends on everything due to contract corruption and misled ideals. The money doesn't go where it needs to go, and when it goes to the wrong place, it's like a black hole. The second reason i…

When you say, “Detroit looks like it was hit by a nuclear bomb.” What are you referring to? I’d love if you could share a link. Out of curiosity I searched images of Detroit after reading your comment but couldn’t find anything like what you describe.

Theres also the snarky meme that Hiroshima is in better shape now 70 years after having a nuclear bomb dropped on it than Detroit is after 70 years of bad governance.

https://www.reddit.com/r/libertarianmeme/comments/3qv79l/hir...

Re: Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

#16

Post by nate_meurer »

xxpor wrote: post #12
blr246 wrote: post #5

>Instead, what kills cities is a long period in which their leaders fail to reckon honestly with ongoing, everyday problems—how workers are treated, whether infrastructure is repaired. Unsustainable, unresponsive governance in the face of long-term challenges may not look like a world-historical problem, but it’s the real threat that cities face. The feels correct to me. I lived in New York City for 15 years. Until l…

And this comment proves the point about why this stuff is hard: the paragraph about living in NYC for 15 years is entirely wrong.

Why is it wrong?

Re: Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

#17

Post by ndiscussion »

gspr wrote: post #11
ndiscussion wrote: post #3

Our cities won't become "lost" like Angkor. Our cities have already collapsed. There's crime, corruption, decaying buildings. Detroit looks like it was hit by a nuclear bomb. There's not enough money for two reasons. The city overspends on everything due to contract corruption and misled ideals. The money doesn't go where it needs to go, and when it goes to the wrong place, it's like a black hole. The second reason i…

> Our cities have already collapsed. Pardon me, but that's the dumbest thing I've read so far in 2021. > There's crime Broadly speaking, there's less serious crime than in a long time. > corruption Do cities have more corruption than society in general? > decaying buildings Are city buildings in a particularly bad state? > Detroit looks like it was hit by a nuclear bomb. Detroit has become famous for precisely that,…

Check out the map here. "Serious" crime may be down, but quality of life has gone down the toilet, even in our richest cities.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/san-francisco-poop-patrol

Who wouldn't want to enjoy the fine scenery while stepping around HIV-infected needles and fresh poop? Ah, this hamburger tastes so much better when I get to interact with the local people while eating it - they are so quirky, they always ask me for a dollar with a threatening gaze.

Re: Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

#18

Post by jariel »

blr246 wrote: post #5

>Instead, what kills cities is a long period in which their leaders fail to reckon honestly with ongoing, everyday problems—how workers are treated, whether infrastructure is repaired. Unsustainable, unresponsive governance in the face of long-term challenges may not look like a world-historical problem, but it’s the real threat that cities face. The feels correct to me. I lived in New York City for 15 years. Until l…

Massive investment and ever increasing market value of abodes is generally the opposite problem of 'urban collapse' - I mean, unless the bridges are falling down, which I doubt.

NYC in the late 1960's and 1970's underwent a kind of urban collapse.

Detroit underwent urban collapse and never came back.

I think this is maybe what the author meant by 'we don't know what this means'.

If companies, middle class and power flee a city, there is a 100% chance of urban collapse due to the lost tax base.

A thriving city like NYC or SF that are a dysfunctional mishmash of 'barely effective' - well that's another kind of problem but it's not quite urban collapse.

Re: Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

#19

Post by ndiscussion »

u678u wrote: post #9
tyleo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say, “Detroit looks like it was hit by a nuclear bomb.” What are you referring to? I’d love if you could share a link. Out of curiosity I searched images of Detroit after reading your comment but couldn’t find anything like what you describe.

I think they mean like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/7h077... At 70k, the median house price is still very cheap. https://www.redfin.com/city/5665/MI/Detroit/housing-market

Yes, like that... but that's only after the "blight removal".

Imagine those green spaces looking a bit more like this (pardon the crass title, it's the first one I could find): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWEdjiEJg0U

edit: this article also has some really nice aerial shots https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/07/opinion/sunda...

Re: Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Looks Like

#20

Post by imtringued »

waynesonfire wrote: post #6
ndiscussion wrote: post #3

Our cities won't become "lost" like Angkor. Our cities have already collapsed. There's crime, corruption, decaying buildings. Detroit looks like it was hit by a nuclear bomb. There's not enough money for two reasons. The city overspends on everything due to contract corruption and misled ideals. The money doesn't go where it needs to go, and when it goes to the wrong place, it's like a black hole. The second reason i…

Kinda like when cities build roads but fail to budget for their maintenance costs? .. but keep building new roads.

That's a problem with suburbia. You need a lot of road per house. The tax money you receive doesn't cover maintenance. Even the worst city blocks bring in enough tax revenue to maintain their roads.

https://youtu.be/VVUeqxXwCA0

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