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A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

stories.californiasunday.com

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Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#101

Post by haroldp »

pkaye wrote: post #95
haroldp wrote: post #28

W00h! I grew up in Whittier, AK. Ask me Anything! Haha, seriously, I moved to Whittier at the age of 2 in 1974 and lived there until 1986. The big change there since I left has been the tunnel. When I was there you had to drive your car up onto a railroad flatcar (and pay a steep ticket price) to get out. Anchorage is only 55 miles away, but really it's two mountains away. The railroad sold passenger service only as…

How much does it cost to live there? Like that guy who is running a grocery store? Seems like he could spend his whole day with browsing the web given the customers to expect!

One of the attractions is that rent is REALLY cheap. Everything else is really expensive, but that is true for most of Alaska.

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#102

Post by cossatot »

onezeno wrote: post #6

I googled the location, expecting it to be in the far north of Alaska, given the description. But it's just southeast of Anchorage. Is the weather really that much worse?

I was there doing some geology this May, and one of the AK geol. survey guys mentioned that the previous summer, some of his colleagues were working directly across the fjord on the hillside on a clear, sunny day. A snowstorm sprang up pretty suddenly and they got stranded for several days. IIRC one of them had a little deployable shelter but the other had to hide under some boulders.

As a side note, Whittier has a huge tsunami risk, not from typical undersea earthquakes but because the mountainside on the north side of Whittier Sound is unstable and some very big blocks of rock (100s of m) are slowly breaking off from the bedrock. If (when) these fall, they could create a pretty massive wave that could devastate the town. [1]

[1]: http://137.229.113.30/webpubs/dggs/ri/text/ri2011_007a.pdf

edit: added tsunami info

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#103

Post by ceejayoz »

pluma wrote: post #61
ceejayoz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge, EMP has killed precisely zero people in human history. I'd be curious as to why you think people living in a high-rise can't defend themselves.

Probably because an EMP would fry most electric devices? I'm not sure it would affect the heating (there's likely electricity involved, but I'm not sure how an EMP might affect it precisely), but the GP might have thought along those lines.

An EMP means we're at nuclear war with a superpower, and Alaskans likely defend themselves with guns, not lasers.

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#104

Post by munificent »

haroldp wrote: post #87
pcthrowaway wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were there people moving in to replace the deceased? Is the building shown in the article at maximum capacity? And finally, I'm extremely curious about the criminal justice system. The brief article mentions a Sheriff and I assume there may or may not be a deputy also. It also mentions a pot bust. What happens to people arrested? Are they detained until they can be transported to a nearby town with a court system, or…

> Were there people moving in to replace the deceased? The population has varied considerably over the years. It looks like it's somewhat lower than when I lived there. In a lot of ways, Whittier is not a nice place to live, so people where always moving away, but it had certain appeals that always drew new people in as well. > The brief article mentions a Sheriff and I assume there may or may not be a deputy also. I…

> had certain appeals

Like what?

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#105

Post by marssaxman »

tracker1 wrote: post #92
erroneousfunk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is essentially what college campuses do already, to some extent. My current apartment complex also hosts activities, movie nights, brings in nurses so residents can meet and ask about health problems. This is in addition to the playground, tennis/basketball court, computer room, gym, small theater, and other amenities that help to create a "community" atmosphere. Also, I think a big reason this model is so "succ…

I live in the city, because I want to be with people like me, not because I want forced socialization with people who just happen to live together. That just sounds like a contradiction...

Only if you assume that physical proximity is the most significant attribute two people can have in common!

Aside from my housemates, I don't know so much as the first name of any other person on my block; but I live here because dozens of my friends live within a mile of my house.

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#106

Post by [deleted] »

bennettfeely wrote: post #75
lucaspiller wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you got that Helsinki is the coldest city, I'm not even sure it's the coldest capital. There are plenty of colder cities, take a look at Kiruna as an example (which was also featured here a few weeks ago): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiruna#Climate Edit: Ah I think I understand, my original comment was referring to being cold in the depths of winter, not the average temperature. Right now I'm in Viln…

Just as a little fun fact Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongola is the coldest capital city in the world. Right now Accuweather says it's -18°F (0°C). It regularly dips below -40°F/C in the winter.

[deleted]

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#108

Post by megablast »

ehmorris wrote: post #9

Photographer has more photos here: http://reedyoung.com/project/whittier-alaska/r-young-whittie... Also the full version of the article in OP's link

There are some great images here: http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Whittier.htm

This one gives a great aerial view of the town: http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Aerial_Photos_Whittier.htm

It is one huge parking lot.

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#109

Post by [deleted] »

jnellis wrote: post #86
haroldp wrote: post #28

W00h! I grew up in Whittier, AK. Ask me Anything! Haha, seriously, I moved to Whittier at the age of 2 in 1974 and lived there until 1986. The big change there since I left has been the tunnel. When I was there you had to drive your car up onto a railroad flatcar (and pay a steep ticket price) to get out. Anchorage is only 55 miles away, but really it's two mountains away. The railroad sold passenger service only as…

I was in Whittier in 1991, two years after the oil spill. I'll say that even then there was other housing and not everyone lived in the one building. You can easily see housing dotted around the area and the building sits back a bit from the water. The pictures in this article shows a remodeled building but when I was there it was in some disrepair. And as fishermen from around the prince william sound used to say, "…

[deleted]

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#110

Post by toyg »

nmrm wrote: post #51
noobermin wrote: post #14

It would be interesting if someone tried this in one of these larger cities with high rises like Singapore. You'd create a smaller groups with a sense of community while still giving members the benefits of living in a large city. The reason I thought of this is it reminded me of a strategy of using small bible study groups being employed in a large church that was part of my alma mater. The idea is that it was easie…

This was the concept between some subsidized housing in the mid 20th century, and was for the most part a failed experiment in architecture. The two significant differences here are 1) government officials and law enforcement are part of the housing complex and not external; 2) since they aren't housing projects, the buildings don't have automatic class stigma.

> was for the most part a failed experiment in architecture.

More like a failed experiment in social organization. The same model works fine in Singapore because the government aggressively routes around social problems: for example, they assign ethnic and income quotas in each building in order to maintain a mostly even distribution of population groups, impeding the rise of ghettos and basically forcing different people to get along[1].

The failure of '70s/'80s "projects" in most countries was due to an excess of faith in the ability of mankind to live together given communal spaces, and incomplete information in terms of social dynamics likely to develop in such settings (and around them, e.g. "white flight" was in full swing but it was not completely understood at political level [2]).

[1] Singaporean housing policies are not entirely benign: they are also used to break out political organizations and silence critics of the government. Central planning, as usual, is a double-edged sword.

[2] ... to be kind. A more unkind reading is that upper echelons knew perfectly well what was happening, saw the future coming, and just let it be.

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