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1. What's your point that diversity is a good thing or that white people should be thanked for buying cheap housing, updating it and gentrifying cities?
2.Hard drugs have always been present in urban life? Nope not really until crack was introduced in the 1980s and that ended epidemic in the late 90s. Then you insinuate that drugs are just recently a problem in small towns....Hmmmm that sounds like a completely fabricated assumption based on your own bias- not facts. And I can tell you with hard hitting facts why it seems drugs have "ALWAYS" been a problem in urban communities.
From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people
Inner city crime prompted by social and economic isolation
Crime/drug arrest rates: African Americans represent 15% of current drug users, but comprise 32% of persons arrested for drug possession.
African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months), as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). (Sentencing Project)
African Americans serve harsher sentences average first time marijuana charge for an African American is (52.5 months) and average second meth charge for whites (39.2 months).
Mandatory minimum sentencing, especially disparities in sentencing for crack rock and powder cocaine possession.
In 2004, blacks constituted more than 80% of the people sentenced under the federal cocaine laws and served substantially more time in prison for drug offenses than whites who did different drugs.
3. But if the small towns are such a safe haven for businesses and have plenty of opportunities why would one need to drive 90 minutes to this scary urban metros to work for $14/hr?
1. Liberal hypocrites, so tolerant but NIMBY.
2. There was something called opium dens once, not a big thing in small towns.
In the late 60s & 70s big cities like New York were crime and drug pits. Heroin was a city problem. Small townies smoked low quality weed and drank Pabst beer, crime was cow tipping and doing donuts in the 7/11 parking lot. Things have gotten worse in small towns and suburbs but not as bad as urban areas outside the bubble. We have a lot of cultural and social problems in the US that is widespread. Add financial stress and long commutes to crappy jobs that may go away at any time, of course it is problematic.
3. Small towns have no opportunities now, that is the problem, haven't you heard the voice of the people? You cannot live in some cities without exposing your family to crime and poor quality of life, gentrification did not take like in Portland and its lovely havens of hipster cool. Regular people don't want that anyway, they want safe, clean middle class areas which don't exist in a lot of cities, not pretentious planned urban fake bubbles of smug hypocrisy.
Money is not prosperity - it's not even real.
It only has value if there are others who WANT IT.
Reality mode:
Prosperity is based on production, equitable trade and enjoyment of surplus usable goods and services.
Those things rely on people's labor, amplified by tools, multiplied by powered machines.
It's probably because you need money to buy food? Or gas for your car? Maybe to pay the electric bill?
Go to the grocery store and discuss equitable trade with the cashier, you'll find that they aren't interested in things like that. They just want the money due, nothing else.
It's probably because you need money to buy food? Or gas for your car? Maybe to pay the electric bill?
Go to the grocery store and discuss equitable trade with the cashier, you'll find that they aren't interested in things like that. They just want the money due, nothing else.
I live in the US and that's the way it is here.
Yep, barter ain't real efficient.
Money facilitates the exchange of goods. It is absolutely required in any large economy.
Trump is bringing out the totalitarians on the left. What, are you going to round up all of the people in small towns and force them to live in ghettos in the big cities?
No ghettos anymore, those are just closely situated "suburbs". No gangs or anything.
I find it interesting that some are fine with supporting urban people on welfare but against any level of assistance going to poor rural areas. The people are supposed to pick up and move to urban areas for work, but people already living in urban areas are not being told to get jobs where they already live, or being insulted as stupid and lazy.
You know all of these sad, economically depressed, former mill/mining towns? There's no reason for them to exist. Once upon a time, Americans moved for economic opportunity. They didn't demand that jobs come to them. If the only reason your town existed or group was the presence of some factory or mine, then in the absence of said factory or mine, your town has no reason to exist. We have let people who feel that they are entitled to an unsustainable, small-town lifestyle dictate the political and economic fate of our nation. They'd rather gamble on someone who promises to reopen the factories then re-train or go to the major population centers where the work is.
Your thread title is "The small-town way of life is unustainable". But then you restrict it to "these sad, economically depressed, former mill/mining towns"
So what is your topic? Small towns or former mill/mining towns? They are quite different.
How does portland drive the economy compared with some small town in texas with natural resources and oil and aerospace or the west with mining? Most engineers I know dont like big cities and dont want to move there after school, thats certainly true with aerospace.
Well, to start, there's manufacturing jobs in Portland, and the white collar jobs to run those (and other elsewhere), and then the support and infrastructure jobs to maintain those and provide for their workers, then the public works jobs to maintain those, and then the workers all need to eat, have shelter, and be kept healthy, so then you have restaurants, grocers, etc. popping up to feed them, the real estate industry and all the immensely complicated subsets of it (legal branches, property management, property development, brokerage, etc.), and then the massive healthcare industry to provide for those needs. And then there's the entertainment industry too. And I could go on and on.
All of these are productive activities which in one way or another contribute to GDP. As you can imagine, that stacks up quickly.
All these things become orders of magnitude easier for providers and users alike the closer people are together, which is why cities are important as a natural and complex economic function. Concentration leads to more concentration.
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I am not just talking about aerospace , petroleum, electrical or nuclear but even computer engineers. Even silicon valley is basically little small towns like mountain view, palo alto, cupertino etc. The idea that wealthy or middle class people love and all want to live in traffic and crammed in our nations dysfunctional cities isn't true at all.
Silicon Valley is anything but a bunch of "small towns" nowadays. It is essentially a city that refuses to build up like one. The region is a collection of San Francisco and San Jose suburbs; they are not small towns, and haven't been for a while.
I'm not saying everyone wants to live in a city, and I'm not saying everyone should, but if you want a job nowadays, you almost have to. Or at least live near one. Yeah I know that's not the case for you and your buddies, but there's 300 million Americans besides you and your buddies, and most of them live in metropolitan areas.
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Certainly there are huge differences with military involvement and masculinity between the alot of small town and rural america and more effete left wing cities, and military spending is a huge part of what drives american research. Go look at how rich all the small towns are around DC are, the wealthiest counties in the country by far and its filled with small towns in northern virginia and maryland. I lived most of my life in one
Nearly all those small towns saw population explosions in the 1950s and 1960s due to suburbanization, and a fair amount likely still have residents working in DC. Those are not the small towns anyone is talking about here, those are DC suburbs through and through. They are within DC's sphere of influence, make no mistake about it.
Also, all that military spending takes place in cities big and small. Tanks are made in Lima OH, ships are produced in Norfolk, fighter jets are made in St. Louis. Not in some field in Bumpkinville, KY. You're welcome.
And if you're so tough, go show those effeminate city-slickers what you're made of and go for a stroll in South Side Chicago for a night.
You seem to be confusing "isolated small town" with "small town suburb" which is a pretty significant discrepancy. The former is an actual small town, with a small, tight (if cliquey/exclusive) community and very little outside connectivity in terms of roads, railroads, and airports. The latter is tied into the overall area of a larger city and its suburbs and is no longer its own entity. For better or worse it has "sold out" to its surroundings and is just the same as any other suburb, with easy access to nearby connecting highways, rail lines, and major airports.
If you have any more misconceptions or blatant stereotypes I need to nip in the bud, lay them out for me now. Next time think twice before you jump to rag on America's bastions of knowledge and productivity on a website that's about cities.
Trump is bringing out the totalitarians on the left. What, are you going to round up all of the people in small towns and force them to live in ghettos in the big cities?
Who said anyone was gonna force you to do anything? OP said that small towns are dying. Ultimately he's suggesting that moving is the wise thing to do but nobody's gonna make you do it.
This country isn't about telling people how to live their lives. Now I'm gonna have to excuse myself and go roll a blunt.
So you think that all the folks in economically depressed areas of the United States can just learn how to write HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL and then move to San Francisco, where a 1-bdrm apt costs $4,000+/month and will cost more if more people move there, and will be hired by the companies who require 10+ years of experience and tend to hire H1B Visa workers or hip-looking males in their 20s?
Sounds like "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" nonsense.
Or you could stop looking at the popular solutions that you read on click bait media and move somewhere like Detroit or Cleveland where CoL is low and entry-level manufacturing jobs with training are making a resurgence. No it's not always 60 degrees out here, the coffee is below $20 a cup and you can't Instagram your surroundings every twenty seconds, but there are solid cities to live in outside the coasts that are affordable and can give you everything you need (including a SFH 5-10 minutes from downtown, so I don't want to hear anyone complain about how living in a city would exclusively be cramped and overcrowded apartment living).
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Originally Posted by tamajane
I find it interesting that some are fine with supporting urban people on welfare but against any level of assistance going to poor rural areas. The people are supposed to pick up and move to urban areas for work, but people already living in urban areas are not being told to get jobs where they already live, or being insulted as stupid and lazy.
That's definitely a fair argument. I myself as a urban advocate find that I can't fight keep my integrity and fight urban poverty without also doing so for rural poverty. Poverty is poverty.
That being said, you don't think the urban poor are insulted for being poor or lazy?!! Do you read any other thread in this forum???!!
It's probably because you need money to buy food? Or gas for your car? Maybe to pay the electric bill?
Go to the grocery store and discuss equitable trade with the cashier, you'll find that they aren't interested in things like that. They just want the money due, nothing else.
I live in the US and that's the way it is here.
Ironically, most Americans have never seen money. All they've seen are worthless notes (since 1933) and counterfeit coin (since 1965).
Worse, they've lived under a state of emergency that bypassed the U.S.Constitution, and have suffered under a money drought that has strangled economic prosperity. . . but made the usurers immensely rich and powerful.
. . . . . . . . . . http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12773.htm
Q: How much U.S. currency is in circulation?
A: There was approximately $1.45 trillion in circulation as of April 6, 2016, of which $1.4 trillion was in Federal Reserve notes. ($4,375 per capita)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financ..._United_States
". . . The financial position of the United States includes assets of at least $269.6 trillion and debts of $145.8 trillion to produce a net worth of at least $123.8 trillion."
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET...T-2015-BUD.pdf
2015 Federal Deficit $312 billion (estimate)
2015 Debt Service $252 billion (estimate)
2015 Unified budget deficit $564 billion (estimate)
2015 Gross Domestic Product $18,454 billion (estimate)
. . . versus . . . $1.4 trillion in circulation.
Still, when you tally up the numbers, it is absolutely insane. No one is going to be able to "cash out" when the "music stops playing."
BTW - contrary to popular belief, a dollar bill is not money. And Congress has no power to create money. Art. 1, Sec. 8, USCON states that Congress has the power to COIN MONEY (stamp bullion) or BORROW MONEY. If Congress could create money, why would it need to borrow it?
A federal reserve note ("dollar bill") is an IOU (debt). But Congress repudiated redeeming their notes in 1933 (House Joint Resolution 192, June 1933). Ergo, they are worthless notes.
MONEY - In usual and ordinary acceptation it means coins and paper currency used as a circulating medium of exchange, and does not embrace NOTES, bonds, evidences of debt, or other personal or real estate. Lane v. Railey, 280 Ky. 319, 133 S.W. 2d 74, 79, 81.
- - - Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Ed. p. 1005
In plain Inglitch, a paper certificate is money, but a Federal Reserve Note is not. And the government admits that they're worthless.
". . .Federal Reserve notes are not redeemable in gold, silver or any other commodity, and receive no backing by anything. This has been the case since 1933. The notes have no value for themselves...."
Do not believe me - go read the law for yourself. Write a polite questionnaire to your public servant.
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