Can we all agree on this forumla? Preppy high school kids + great academics = future gentrifiers - California (CA) - Page 3 - City-Data Forum

bigdumbgod · 02-19-2016, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blueskywalker

Seriously? You want to "measure" human behavior via mathematics? Why?
People with gobs of money can buy what they want and where they want. Simple.

For what it's worth (not much) i wrote this on another forum. I'm sorry but it has nothing to do with math or "preppies" (do they still exist?)

Any special place (city or not) attracts people and the people with money want to buy into that magic. They want to own it. And so they buy it (property). It starts in a particularly "charming" and vulnerable neighborhood and then it often spreads. What these moneyed people don't realize (which is kinda like duh, it's so obvious) is that when they do that, the magic of the place is ultimately lost. Then it just becomes a shell of itself and the essence is no longer. And vapid fools that they are, they don't even realize it ... they never truly realized that the essence of a place is not something that you can buy. But you can mess with it / destroy it by interfering with the culture that created that magic in the first place.

Often that kind of energy comes out of a culture that is not materially wealthy. Creativity, in its many forms (but first and foremost JAZZ!) is what gives New Orleans it's power and uniqueness. Creativity often (usually?) comes out of struggle and suffering and the more "unseemly", "darker" and chaotic aspects of life.

But people with money (i'm speaking generally) don't want the shadow. They just want the light. But it doesn't work / happen that way. That kind of person wants order, protection, safety, control, no crime, no chaos, no shadows. So anyway, they try to buy it - the power, the magic (the funky artist loft in the rundown part of the city, the house in a N.O. neighborhood that the owner couldn't return to, etc., etc.) and when other people with money catch wind of this they do the same and then it's all lost and the poor fools don't even know that it's gone even though the people who created the magic that they thought they could buy all left because who can afford those driven up prices and what true creative person wants to live amongst a bunch of vapid zombies.

I've seen this happen in quite a few places. It's happened, and continues to happen (in a very different way than say, New Orleans but same principal) where i live in Santa Cruz, CA. It's funny. S.C. has had, for quite a long time (since the cultural revolution of the 1960's) a reputation for being a place with a lot of weirdness and chaos and wildness. Well, those days when things were really crazy are long gone but it's still a place where there is a lot of freedom to be oneself despite the "yuppie" invasion of Silicon Valley.
So there's a bumper sticker that says, "keep santa cruz weird" but guess who's cars those stickers are on?

+1
Bingo!

Silver spoon entitled life doesn't foster much soul. Such culture tries to belittle and stamp out such, since acquisition, prestige, and envy are the qualities glorified by the snob class. They can have it. But don't think that kind of milieu intruding into an established neighborhood will be met with hugs and kisses. Send your scared little Young Republican cherubs to private school, if you must. Wouldn't want to catch the "commoner" disease.

blueskywalker · 02-19-2016, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

+1
Bingo!

Silver spoon entitled life doesn't foster much soul. Such culture tries to belittle and stamp out such, since acquisition, prestige, and envy are the qualities glorified by the snob class. They can have it. But don't think that kind of milieu intruding into an established neighborhood will be met with hugs and kisses. Send your scared little Young Republican cherubs to private school, if you must. Wouldn't want to catch the "commoner" disease.

Yowzy .... and i thought i had attitude.