As U.S. 'superstar' cities thrive, weaker ones get left behind

First off, a caveat... I haven't lived in that area in about 15 years.

If you're downtown, and want a good music venue, The Station Inn is always a good choice. It's crazy to me that it's now a very swank, brand new neighborhood. Used to be a bunch of grimy old warehouses that had been converted into music venues. However, the Station Inn remains and is unchanged. Go there.

Similarly, the Exit/In is still the icon it's always been. If you're not into bluegrass (station inn) go to the Exit/In.

Those are just the famous places. There's plenty of good music if you just move away from Broadway. The area around Vanderbilt used to actually have a lot of neat little dives (The End was always fun, but I haven't been there in years). East Nashville has somehow become both expensive and pretentious (I can't describe how crazy that statement is to me...), but there are a lot of good bars to see local bands at there.

Prince's is really great, but try the random gas station hot chicken as well. Plenty of good places other than Prince's and Hattie B's. They won't be on Google Maps, though. Look for signs on storefronts. Expect cash only, to go only, leg quarters in styrofoam containers. Eat slowly.

A lot of the places I'd point you to for food are gone now... However, Nashville Biscuit House is still there and assuming it's still what it used to be, I'd highly recommended it.

I don't think our population is that apathetic, and I don't think a return to 60s & 70s levels of political violence is really that farfetched. It's what was normal just one generation ago! Small scale groups could conduct random bombings, lone wolf types can carry out assassinations, etc.- this was my parents' generation in a nutshell.

The US has political radicalism (including but not limited to religious fanatics), a violent population relative to other developed countries, obviously lots of weapons (over 300 million firearms!), a very high level of military training/combat experience/institutional military knowledge from 80+ years of wars, loosely organized 'militia' groups, tons and tons of rural areas to hide in, a sympathetic population in those rural areas, etc. We literally check every single box that countries with insurgencies check. I expect a return to small-scale political violence in my lifetime (with gun control, not immigrants, as the flashpoint). Look at a group like Oath Keepers as a great example of who's potentially the most dangerous.

Honestly, my biggest fear are not insurgents but far right-leaning police & military personnel. That's how countries move from insurgencies into coups

What typically happens is that either national government baols out the fund, retirees get squeezed, or both. The true beneficiaries are past taxpayers who benefitted from government service delivery based on promised pension benefits to employees, but who skipped on paying the bill at the time.

Oddly, you hear far less about private sector failures in this regard. In part because defined-benefit plans are largely extinct, but the abysmal failure of individualised defined-contribution (401k / IRA) programmes is just the same problem undrr a different flag. But private sector has been dodging this far more than public.

There's more to this, yes. Some of it is government corruption and graft. Mancur Olsen's "The Logic of Collective Action', describing both pensioners' and taxpayers' (mostly a small group of highly-motivated wealthy) very self-interested lobbying to maximise commitments whilst skirting payments is far more instructive.

You have a bunch of struggling cities without any funding for basic services, that spend massive amounts in attempt to attract businesses without a way to recoup losses. Which causes a sort of nasty cycle where people move towards cities which have more resources.

Since the word 'taxes' is essentially a forbidden word, the only option is for these cities to receive federal assistance. Or else get left behind even further.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20460509