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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

#21

Post by ndiscussion »

marcinzm wrote: post #4
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…

>With increased crime, corruption, and decay, the taxpayers leave (NYC). Do you have numbers to back that up? Pre-COVID. Personal income tax numbers have increased until 2018 (last year I can find) which indicates that taxpayers were coming in rather than leaving.

I believe these things come to a boiling point... covid has perhaps accelerated that boiling point in NYC's case.

NYC was also kind of a bad example for me to use because actually, it's a really clean city. When I visited in 2016 I couldn't believe how much cleaner and safer it felt than my hometown (Portland Oregon).

I went to all areas, manhattan, brooklyn, the bronx, harlem, queens, and I just didn't see the sad human decay (Giuliani kicked them all out I guess).

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

#22

Post by ndiscussion »

VLM wrote: post #14

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, sinc…

The difference to me is that rural ghost towns kind of just disappear.

Urban ghost towns require billions of dollars every single year: https://detroitmi.gov/sites/detroitmi.localhost/files/2018-1...

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

#23

Post by Simulacra »

This article sounds like it's written by someone who read everything in a book, and painfully smacks of elitism. Big industrial cities like Detroit have fallen, and urban decay is abound, but it's not always a "major" industrial center. Take any moderately sized down in rural America and you will find a place that was once a boom-town. Employment, prosperity, and great strides in the live of its citizens, slowly evaporated as rail lines were cut, highways were built around, manufacturing jobs exported, and you will find not only urban collapse, but abandonment.

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

#24

Post by Simulacra »

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.

Growing up in Mississippi I often heard of the phrase "bombed out building" to describe old buildings and infrastructure that had decayed so much it looked like it had been bombed.

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

#25

Post by Simulacra »

ndiscussion wrote: post #17
gspr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 alw…

Is San Francisco a special case, though? It's a one party government that tends to tilt towards the extreme in its decision making, with an extraordinarily wealthy class of citizens, and a very difficult homeless and drug population, all compounded in a small area. I'm old. I remember San Francisco of the 80s, prosperous, wild, open armed, and beautiful. Today it's a concrete jungle with terrible management.

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

#26

Post by 8fGTBjZxBcHq »

VLM wrote: post #14

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, sinc…

Quick question where do you think the huge population growth in large cities over the last few decades came from?

Cities are full of people who lived through part of those declines and left, or grew up in those places after and left. Part of what "decline" means in this context is "your young and ambitious people all left for the nearest very large city or NYC."

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

#27

Post by [deleted] »

Simulacra wrote: post #23

This article sounds like it's written by someone who read everything in a book, and painfully smacks of elitism. Big industrial cities like Detroit have fallen, and urban decay is abound, but it's not always a "major" industrial center. Take any moderately sized down in rural America and you will find a place that was once a boom-town. Employment, prosperity, and great strides in the live of its citizens, slowly evap…

[deleted]

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

#28

Post by cronix »

I know what it looks like; I live in Portland, Oregon.

In 4 years, we went from 3rd most desirable city, to 66th. They're facing a 17% budget shortfall and are getting rid of people in the permitting department which means it will take longer to get permits for new construction. We are in desperate need of high density, cheap apartments. We have a housing crisis.

https://www.wweek.com/news/2021/01/20/a-key-indicator-of-rea...

https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/10/18/why-portlands-homeles...

We had over 150 days of protests, most of which turned violent at some point. Here's an article going over the first 100 days.

https://apnews.com/article/b57315d97dd2146c4a89b4636faa7b70

Gun violence has risen 166% in a single year. Back in July, at the height of the riots, the Mayor and City Council got rid of the Gun Violence Reduction Team and "defunded" the police department by $15M.

https://www.kptv.com/news/gun-violence-in-portland-continues...

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/defunding-po...

Pedestrians visiting downtown drop 80%.

https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2021/01/oregon-insight-p...

Many businesses are facing increased insurance costs, and some facing not being renewed, after the violence and destruction of property in the city. They also found out most of the damage was not covered by insurance due to "not covering civil unrest."

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/downtown-portland-bus...

The violence is still going on. Last night, as with the last several nights, they attacked the Federal ICE facility. The week previous, they attacked the Democrat Headquarters.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/portland-rioters-attack-ic...

The district attorney chose not to prosecute many of the people arrested during the "peaceful" protests. Many have been arrested multiple times at multiple events now. 90% of those arrested by the police had their charges dropped.

https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/08/multnomah-county...

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/oct/7/portland-dro...

Not unlike San Francisco, we have a large poop problem on the sidewalks.

https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2019/06/portland-has-a-p...

And a massive drug problem. Don't worry though, the solution was to decriminalize all hard drugs across the state. Will that decrease the homelessness and crime? We will see. Something tells me it won't.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54809825

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

#29

Post by ndiscussion »

Simulacra wrote: post #25
ndiscussion wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alw…

Is San Francisco a special case, though? It's a one party government that tends to tilt towards the extreme in its decision making, with an extraordinarily wealthy class of citizens, and a very difficult homeless and drug population, all compounded in a small area. I'm old. I remember San Francisco of the 80s, prosperous, wild, open armed, and beautiful. Today it's a concrete jungle with terrible management.

Portland, Seattle, Austin, Chicago, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Columbus, LA... I guess you're right, it's all in one-party cities.

But, that's like, almost all of the biggest cities?

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

I'm sure there's some cities on that list that occasionally vote for the other party, but I think cities inherently become democrat-leaning because the people inside cities tend to be poor.

NYC seems to be doing alright because they had extreme hardass policies in the 90s (kicking out homeless, literally) but that probably won't last much longer.

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

#30

Post by ndiscussion »

cronix wrote: post #28

I know what it looks like; I live in Portland, Oregon. In 4 years, we went from 3rd most desirable city, to 66th. They're facing a 17% budget shortfall and are getting rid of people in the permitting department which means it will take longer to get permits for new construction. We are in desperate need of high density, cheap apartments. We have a housing crisis. https://www.wweek.com/news/2021/01/20/a-key-indicator-…

My city... look what they've done to my boy...

So sad growing up here. I imagined I would live life as an artist in a cheap flat. It was safe, beautiful, fun, and cheap.

Then Portlandia aired and the worst of the worst came to the city flooding out the local residents.

Growing up, I never understood why being poor was considered a problem. People in our city were poor, but we were decent people. I was one of them.

At some point, I realized that the new poor coming to our city on a dream fucking sucked. They shared none of my ideals and seemed to want everything for nothing.

edit: not to mention the gentrification.. holy smokes, it was a mix of these terrible people with no impulse control, and extremely rich playboys that would overpay for everything. Caused rents, restaurants, and everything else to glamorize. Even after a tech employer gave me a chance, I struggled to afford much here. I'm now happily living away.

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