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How to know if where you live is “up and coming”: fried chicken vs. coffee shops

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Re: How to know if where you live is “up and coming”: fried chicken vs. coffee shops

#131
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an American, but I believe they are referring to the racist meme that associates fried chicken to Americans of non-white ethnicities. This differs from the UK where fried chicken is more associated with the lower classes than a particular race.

I've never really understood the nature of this stereotype - who doesn't at least like fried chicken? It's like saying, 'You know the Mexicans, they just love ice cream.' Of course they do, it's ice cream.

Symbols don't make sense without context.

If you paint a swastika on a synagogue people will be upset, but not because they dislike shapes with 90 degree angles. If you say that black people love fried chicken people will be upset, but not because liking fried is unique to black people or inherently bad. It's mostly because it's a stereotype associated with a period in US history when it was socially acceptable for a white mob to lynch a black man for being rude.

Re: How to know if where you live is “up and coming”: fried chicken vs. coffee shops

#132
post #7

You put a fried chicken shop in a place where lots of people go while you put a coffee shop in places where there are few coffee shops. I'm sure that correlates with 'up and coming', but it's not necessarily a signature. Some up and coming places will have neither.

>you put a coffee shop in places where there are few coffee shops Not where I live. Coffee shops (and bakeries, for that matter) over here usually cluster together, and when one opens, you can expect another one or two to open nearby, sometimes even next doors (in areas like "artistic" neighborhoods or next to universities). In the end there's like four to five coffee shops/bakeries next to each other with no possibl…

this may explain: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1213048...

Re: How to know if where you live is “up and coming”: fried chicken vs. coffee shops

#133
post #49

> Poor on average take worse care of their health and fitness Not intended to be snarky, as I grok the intent of your comment, but poor also don't typically have time to come home and go for an hour jog with frequency during the week.

In my experience they have the time, but they don't have the knowledge. Also, weight loss is a battle fought and won far more in the kitchen than in the gym. While I would expect a correlation between jogging and eating healthier, I would say the reason that the poor are less healthy has far more to do with eating habits than with exercising habits.

Re: How to know if where you live is “up and coming”: fried chicken vs. coffee shops

#136

There's no justification for the assumption of a high coffee-to-chicken ratio implying up-and-coming. It's not an unreasonable assumption, but it's definitely anecdotal.

It's anecdotal, but enough reliable anecdotes do actually turn into "data". My personal marker has always been, when visiting a city for the first time, to pay attention to the roadside advertisements I see on the ride from the airport to the city center. Aside from obvious things like payday/title loan shops, the most reliable indicator I've seen of a neighborhood being badly off is ads for cheap dentures and dental…

I live in one of the more affluent areas of my town. In is a dental implant center a single title loan store. In the same area are 5 starbucks and a few locally owned coffee shops.

The title loan shop I always wondered why it was there since I assumed it didn't get much business. What I'm confused about though is the dental implants. Perfect teeth are completely disposable income.

Re: How to know if where you live is “up and coming”: fried chicken vs. coffee shops

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this true? The general stereotype when I lived in the UK is that the poor were mostly non-workers who subsisted based on public assistance. If true, then they have plenty of time. In the US this is certainly true. The lowest earning category has 30 minutes/day more leisure time than the highest. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t11.htm Anyone know where to find the UK equivalent of the ATUS?

In addition to the people working multiple part time minimum wage jobs to get by, there are other time costs associated with being poor. Poor often don't have a personal vehicle, so many hours per week can be spent on a bus, bike, or walking, especially in places with less public transport. Now the following probably doesn't apply to poor in cities, where you often have amenities in easy walking distance, but in the…

This is specifically what I was thinking about. Try commuting via public transit for 100% of your daily needs and keep a tally of how much time you spend sitting at stations or stops waiting for connections.

Obviously the city and infrastructure would cause this to vary, but my experience using public bus transit anywhere in the US would be a good hour less (at minimum) of jog-possible leisure time every day. And that's if you live in a relatively convenient transit location (typically not cheap).

You may be able to read a book at a stop, but you aren't jogging / spinning / doing yoga.

Re: How to know if where you live is “up and coming”: fried chicken vs. coffee shops

#139

A more interesting indicator that authors may consider is how many people living in the area do jogging. When I moved to London's SE4 postcode three years ago (it's pretty close to Peckham, FWIW), the regeneration of the area has just started and the more middle-class looking people appeared around, the more men and women in running gear were visible in the streets in the morning. Poor on average take worse care of t…

Poor on average take worse care of their health and fitness I think it can be primarily attributed to the low income jobs being more physically and emotionally draining which result in them being sapped by the time they reach home. This can also be witnessed in the amount of nurture they can provide to their offspring. An interesting argument in one of the Quora thread about being rich was that financial freedom let'…

It could be that, but it could also be a general approach towards life.

Certainly people are born into poor circumstances and have many misfortunes. At the same time some people (for whatever reason) are just lazy, sloppy and don't take care of their lives. This approach likely produces both poverty and poor health and almost certainly entails lack of exercise.

We can't excuse every bad thing that happens as an event out of people's personal control. There is too much of that going on lately and it doesn't help anyone imop.

Re: How to know if where you live is “up and coming”: fried chicken vs. coffee shops

#140

A more interesting indicator that authors may consider is how many people living in the area do jogging. When I moved to London's SE4 postcode three years ago (it's pretty close to Peckham, FWIW), the regeneration of the area has just started and the more middle-class looking people appeared around, the more men and women in running gear were visible in the streets in the morning. Poor on average take worse care of t…

> the more men and women in running gear were visible in the streets in the morning.

People who are fit enough to run:

-are probably healthy and fit enough to regularly do yard maintenance and landscaping

-probably don't smoke, leaving more available disposable income for home maintenance and improvements

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