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1990 - Crumbling buildings in the Detroit suburbs and city of Detroit, no sight to grow career oriented jobs available for the future in the tri-counties (Oakland, Wayne and Macomb.)
2009 - Crumbling buildings in the Detroit suburbs and city of Detroit, no sight to grow career oriented jobs available for the future in the tri-counties (Oakland, Wayne and Macomb.)
Location: Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
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Huge difference between NYC in 1990 and 2009. I remember even in the nice parts of Manhattan, there were bums and garbage everywhere. Nowadays, the bad neighborhoods are cleaner than the good neighborhoods then.
^ The recession made some cities return to the early 90's. The economy is actually worse now than then, since its said to be the worst since the Great Depression, however the crime rate is much lower now than it was back then. I think the crack epidemic was the largest contributing factor for the high crime rate of the late 80's/early 90's, more than the economy.
People also seem friendlier now than back then (I don't know about recently since it's been about a year since I've been in the States). I noticed that people are more passive and do most of the trash talking on the internet, and less out on the streets in peoples faces, which often times lead to fist fights. Then again it could be because I'm older so I'm not hanging around a crowd that's looking for trouble.
Locally in Atlanta, things are better and worse. Better in that it has grown, more progressive, more things to do, and many neighborhoods have cleaned up; but worse as far as the higher crime rate throughout the metro area (back in 1990 crime was concentrated in certain inner city neighborhoods that most people stayed out of, like other cities), and also more disturbing crimes.
Interesting observation, but I gotta disagree on the crime thing. While I personally believe that crime continues to be a problem down here, it's no where near the level that it was back in the early 90s at the height of the drug wars and crack epidemic.
depends on who you talk to.
we are very into writing our own reality these days.
crime stats are useless so are inflation stats. just way too much lying going on.
imho this is about as close to the 1st 1/2 of "road warrior" as i have seen, society meltdown.
the level of denial about it is numbing.
There's no doubt that many American cities are in far better shape now than they were in 1990. By the time 1990 rolled around, many cities had already experienced 3 straight decades of ongoing population loss, disinvestment and urban decay; and in 1990 there appeared to be no end in sight for this trend. New York was all but written off as ungovernable, and even some of the swankier parts appeared to be on the verge of destabilizing. It's interesting to watch old episodes of "All in the Family" and hear the sense that New York was rapidly fading. And now it's practically a giant boutique city.
Shortly after 1990 is when the urban renaissance started to happen for New York and many other cities. Some cities haven't quite seen a renaissance, but most have at least stabilized and the sense of hopelessness that things were going to continue to get worse indefinitely no longer pervades. Cities that feared they had no future now have hope and optimism. I think this is a good thing, it was not healthy to see our major urban centers continuing to decay.
Everyone is too dependant on phones and mp3s.
Soon we will be cyborgs.
soon.
Interesting observation. To piggyback on that, everybody is more impersonal. I mean people actually PREFER to text message their friends rather than talk to them. And these are supposed to be their FRIENDS.
And everybody acts as if they HAVE to answer messages IMMEDIATELY, the crackberry HAS to be used every 4 minutes or it will explode or something. Or if they don't answer a text message within 1 minute their head will explode or something.
Nothing wrong with depending on technology like you might depend on your car to get you to work. But NOT dependency like you might depend on the crack pipe and you just about get the jitters and shakes if you don't take your hit soon.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MantaRay
Interesting observation. To piggyback on that, everybody is more impersonal. I mean people actually PREFER to text message their friends rather than talk to them. And these are supposed to be their FRIENDS.
And everybody acts as if they HAVE to answer messages IMMEDIATELY, the crackberry HAS to be used every 4 minutes or it will explode or something. Or if they don't answer a text message within 1 minute their head will explode or something.
Nothing wrong with depending on technology like you might depend on your car to get you to work. But NOT dependency like you might depend on the crack pipe and you just about get the jitters and shakes if you don't take your hit soon.
Tell me about it, today's teens have their thumbs stuck to the buttons of their cellphone.
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