Detroit in Ruins • Hacker News Board

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#101

Post by tptacek » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 9:35 PM UTC

winestock wrote: post #99

tptacek wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were Rhodesia and South Africa ruined by a sudden and deliberate demographic shift that decimated the region's tax base and created dysfunction in the regions politics, followed by three decades of setbacks for core economic engine for the region mixed with offshoring? Because I thought that's what did Detroit in. Not drug dealers. We have those in Chicago too, but also Boeing and stuff.

That begs the question: What caused that sudden and deliberate demographic shift? What shifted in? What shifted out? Whatever caused millions of people to move out of their neighborhoods must have been intimidating.

Whatever force caused people to sic dogs on elderly women marching for the right to vote must be very powerful indeed, because it sure would take a lot to make me do something so horrible.

Are you sure you want to chase this conversation down this path? I'm happy to just have us agree that economics are what fucked Detroit over.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#102

Post by winestock » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 9:35 PM UTC

temphn wrote: post #88

winestock wrote: post #31

My brothers run a property service company that maintains foreclosed homes in Detroit and parts northwest of it. When they need extra help, I ride along with them. Detroit and Pontiac are not the kinds of places that one would care to go by oneself, even for muscular young men. On more than one occasion, we would be approached by "youths" (one of them wasn't even that young) who were clearly drug dealers. One of my b…

At the end of World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. They were rebuilt into gleaming cities because they were inhabited by the Japanese. Today it's Detroit that looks like it was nuked. Except it was the inhabitants that nuked themselves, with quaint festivals like Devil's Night. No one has the courage to say what ruined Detroit, or Rhodesia, or South Africa. You have to pretend like it just happened. Peopl…

Your comment is closely connected to what Paul Graham wrote about in his essay, "What You Can't Say."

If no one has the courage to describe what is in front of our faces, then pointing at it must suffice.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#103

Post by cosgroveb » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 9:41 PM UTC

winestock wrote: post #102

temphn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. They were rebuilt into gleaming cities because they were inhabited by the Japanese. Today it's Detroit that looks like it was nuked. Except it was the inhabitants that nuked themselves, with quaint festivals like Devil's Night. No one has the courage to say what ruined Detroit, or Rhodesia, or South Africa. You have to pretend like it just happened. Peopl…

Your comment is closely connected to what Paul Graham wrote about in his essay, "What You Can't Say." If no one has the courage to describe what is in front of our faces, then pointing at it must suffice.

OK so we should come right out and say it then rather than beating around the bush. What you're trying to say is the one thing Detroit, Rhodesia, and South Africa have in common is large numbers of black people, right?

If we're going to be racist dicks we might as well get to the point, eh?

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#104

Post by cosgroveb » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 9:46 PM UTC

winestock wrote: post #31

My brothers run a property service company that maintains foreclosed homes in Detroit and parts northwest of it. When they need extra help, I ride along with them. Detroit and Pontiac are not the kinds of places that one would care to go by oneself, even for muscular young men. On more than one occasion, we would be approached by "youths" (one of them wasn't even that young) who were clearly drug dealers. One of my b…

>> On more than one occasion, we would be approached by "youths" (one of them wasn't even that young)

What does this even mean? I am seriously confused.

"The smell of marijuana was another tell." Wow, the few times I tried weed in college everyone must have thought I was a drug dealer, too.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#105

Post by winestock » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 9:46 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #96

winestock wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dibble's First Law of Sociology: Some do; some don't. Accentuating the positive is cold comfort. Tenth-century Rome hosted the development of Gregorian chant and papal charters for the first universities. Focusing on those positive developments doesn't change the fact that Rome was a step or two above a cow town compared to contemporary Constantinople or, better yet, first-century Rome. Of course Detroit has nice pla…

Urban renewal and racial integration are to blame, and not the destruction of the entire regional economy? Or, not to put to fine a point on it, did black people kill the auto industry too? I grew up on the south side of Chicago, by the way, and I don't know what you're talking about, unless your suggestion is that any metropolis that has bad neighborhoods is evidence of the failure of racial integration.

The key word is ethnicity. The book that changed my way of thinking about the subject is _The Slaughter of Cities_, by E. Michael Jones.

http://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Cleans...

"In his meticulously documented book, he proves that urban renewal had more to do with ethnicity than it ever had to do with design or hygiene or blight. Urban renewal was the last gasp attempt of the WASP ruling class to take control of a country that was slipping out of its grasp for demographic reasons. The largely Catholic ethnics were to be driven out of their neighborhoods into the suburbs, where they were to be "Americanized" according to WASP principles. The neighborhoods they left behind were to be turned over to the sharecroppers from the South or turned into futuristic Bauhaus enclaves for the new government elites. Using political tactics like eminent domain and "integration," the planners made sure that the ethnic neighborhood got transformed into something more congenial to their dreams of social engineering than the actual communities of people they saw as a threat to their control."

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#106

Post by winestock » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 10:03 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #100

winestock wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American automobile industry didn't really get hit by imports until the Oil Shocks of the 1970s. By then, the productive population of Detroit was already fleeing to the suburbs. Also, if the decline of the American automobile industry explains the decline of Detroit, then the suburbs of Detroit would have declined as well, instead of expanding. Furthermore, the decline of the American automobile industry does no…

The suburbs of Detroit are also in decline. For how many years now has Michigan been in the bottom quartile for unemployment? The fact that Twelve Oaks Mall is nice and has an Apple Store doesn't mean that that the Detroit Suburbs are proof of a functioning greater Detroit metro economy.

"Decline" means different things when applied to Detroit and to its suburbs. The suburbs are much safer and have much better infrastructure, among many other things.

Higher up in this thread, I referenced the book The Slaughter of Cities, by E. Michael Jones. That is the book around which my views have gelled.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#107

Post by tptacek » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 10:07 PM UTC

winestock wrote: post #105

tptacek wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urban renewal and racial integration are to blame, and not the destruction of the entire regional economy? Or, not to put to fine a point on it, did black people kill the auto industry too? I grew up on the south side of Chicago, by the way, and I don't know what you're talking about, unless your suggestion is that any metropolis that has bad neighborhoods is evidence of the failure of racial integration.

The key word is ethnicity. The book that changed my way of thinking about the subject is _The Slaughter of Cities_, by E. Michael Jones. http://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Cleans... "In his meticulously documented book, he proves that urban renewal had more to do with ethnicity than it ever had to do with design or hygiene or blight. Urban renewal was the last gasp attempt of the WASP ruling class…

"The largely Catholic ethnics" (I'm a Catholic of Irish and Eastern European descent) were not "driven out" of their neighborhoods. They left them as a reaction to integration and the beginning of the end of redlining policies. The "control" they lost was "the ability not to live next to ethnic minorities other than their own".

Moreover, upon leaving the white Irish Catholic and Polish enclaves, mortgage lending moved with them, leaving the neighborhoods to be filled with residents who were systematically denied ownership of their own homes. The attending decline in property values and upkeep were entirely predictable.

Again: we have a situation clearly explainable through economics, and you seem intent on injecting race into it. Why?

Drive a few hours south from the (gradually but painfully resurging) south side of Chicago to southern Illinois and you'll find predominantly white towns that have been similarly devastated by the rural economy and the decline of small-scale midwestern manufacturing jobs, and methamphetamine.

Also: you're not a little concerned that the "book that changed your way of thinking" about urban decay was written by a guy that has a whole section on the ADL's website, who has written of a "Jewish takeover of American culture"?

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#108

Post by tptacek » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 10:08 PM UTC

cosgroveb wrote: post #104

winestock wrote: post #31

My brothers run a property service company that maintains foreclosed homes in Detroit and parts northwest of it. When they need extra help, I ride along with them. Detroit and Pontiac are not the kinds of places that one would care to go by oneself, even for muscular young men. On more than one occasion, we would be approached by "youths" (one of them wasn't even that young) who were clearly drug dealers. One of my b…

>> On more than one occasion, we would be approached by "youths" (one of them wasn't even that young) What does this even mean? I am seriously confused. "The smell of marijuana was another tell." Wow, the few times I tried weed in college everyone must have thought I was a drug dealer, too.

In fairness: if you're a white guy a predominantly African American lower-class neighborhood --- particularly Detroit --- and a group of young men smelling of weed are giving you the evil eye, they probably don't want to debate Wittgenstein with you.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#109

Post by temphn » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 10:16 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #94

temphn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. They were rebuilt into gleaming cities because they were inhabited by the Japanese. Today it's Detroit that looks like it was nuked. Except it was the inhabitants that nuked themselves, with quaint festivals like Devil's Night. No one has the courage to say what ruined Detroit, or Rhodesia, or South Africa. You have to pretend like it just happened. Peopl…

Were Rhodesia and South Africa ruined by a sudden and deliberate demographic shift that decimated the region's tax base and created dysfunction in the regions politics, followed by three decades of setbacks for core economic engine for the region mixed with offshoring? Because I thought that's what did Detroit in. Not drug dealers. We have those in Chicago too, but also Boeing and stuff.

The "sudden and deliberate demographic shift", also known as white flight, may indeed have happened because whites were and are irrationally racist. This is certainly the conventional wisdom. And by the end, there was surely no dearth of white racists, especially among the Polish community after the confrontation with Coleman Young.

But is it legitimate for people to state that there may be other factors as well, in addition to pure white racism? Or should they be verbally assaulted and shunned for expressing the view that history is complex?

EDIT: For example, incidents like this may have played a role in promoting white flight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2NEzu8cQgs&t=0m55s

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#110

Post by tptacek » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 10:18 PM UTC

temphn wrote: post #109

tptacek wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were Rhodesia and South Africa ruined by a sudden and deliberate demographic shift that decimated the region's tax base and created dysfunction in the regions politics, followed by three decades of setbacks for core economic engine for the region mixed with offshoring? Because I thought that's what did Detroit in. Not drug dealers. We have those in Chicago too, but also Boeing and stuff.

The "sudden and deliberate demographic shift", also known as white flight, may indeed have happened because whites were and are irrationally racist. This is certainly the conventional wisdom. And by the end, there was surely no dearth of white racists, especially among the Polish community after the confrontation with Coleman Young. But is it legitimate for people to state that there may be other factors as well, in…

No, it's not illegitimate to state that. Racism was a small factor. There was virulent racism in Chicago as well. The big reason is economics.

The viewpoint that will (rightly) get you shunned is the one that says "black people" were a factor (or, worse, "an international Jewish conspiracy to take over American culture").