10 Reasons Not To Move To Tucson (Phoenix: real estate, apartments, health insurance)
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I believe the original "purchase" of SoCa, AZ & NM was the Treaty of Guadelupe, where we "bought" those lands with a gun to the head of the Mexican who "sold" it to us. Literally.
twixcookie - As an individual, I can only change my own behavior. As an American, I can [mostly] only influence my govt's behavior. Pointing one's finger at another person, or nation, rarely solves any problem. If everyone thought this way it would no longer be "business as usual" as LordBalfor describes. This may sound naive, but it's the only way. It's what Christ, Buddha and so many other religious figures have been trying to tell us for so long.
Your enemy is so often the shadow that you yourself cast.
This is easy. I don't know if 10 reasons is enough not to move here, but here's a few of the reasons why my family and I are leaving Tucson:
1 - Increasing segregation against the non-spanish speaking population. Which goes hand in hand with...
2 - Horrible illegal immigrant problem
3 - #4 in the country according to CNN - property crime and vandalism
4 - #6 in the country according to CNN - drug-related and gang related crime and violence
5 - Worst schools in the country, education here is a joke
6 - Housing prices WAY out of control and in no way comes close to being commensurate with...
7 - One of the lowest paying areas in the country. There are a few worthwhile employers if you're an engineer or in the medical profession, but that's it.
8 - Primitive road system is a cruel joke. There is no such thing as an easy way around town. And god forbid there be an accident on the interstate, that clogs up the town for hours.
9 - Not being able to go out of doors between the hours of 9am and 8 pm 6 months out of the year due to the heat. 3rd degree burns are common just for touching a steering wheel or seat belt, or falling on the asphalt.
10 - Water and utilities are steadily increasing, with water being a real problem that is not being addressed. The water level is already below the "Uh oh" level and is still decreasing (but hey, the city made a deal to get cheap water to the golf courses, so that helps. *snicker* ).
11 - Having to watch for every poisonous snake, spider, and scorpion in the world isn't much fun on those occasions where you can safely venture outdoors, and way too often those critters make their ways into your home.
12 - Not much to do. It's not a diverse place if you don't like to hike or eat Mexican food (which there is some of the best I've ever had here, I'll say that), or hit one of the few bars or clubs here (if you're in to that).
I'm sure there's much more, but it's late and those were the first ones that popped into my head. Tucson's a slum for the most part, unless you can afford foothills living. I can't wait to leave, to be honest, and neither can my wife. Stay away!
People either truly love or hate Tucson.
As for me: I tried living down there twice and was quite disappointed-------Bohemian I may be; the place does not set right with me and your reasons pretty much summed it up.
Yet; despite the slams agains the Phx area--------at least the older enclaves seem to offer more to me.
Now for wierd: note that I am not Gay either........one would think that Tucson would be Gay friendly-------evidently not: several Gay friends of me vastly prefer Phx for much, much better amenities.
Last edited by ArizonaBear; 09-15-2007 at 02:33 PM..
More on "stolen from Mexico"
the U.S. paid Mexico $10 million (equivalent to about $230 million in 2004 dollars[1]) to secure the land
Yes; we (the USA) did take the northern half of Mexico----------and, the Spanish many years earlier conquered the Native Americans so the Hispanics have no moral high ground.
As for Mexico's pathologies today: other countries were injured much more severely (both working age population loss as well as infrastructure) yet rebuilt their truncated countries into economic powerhouses with one generation. Germany and Japan come to mind after WW II.
Yes; we (the USA) did take the northern half of Mexico----------and, the Spanish many years earlier conquered the Native Americans so the Hispanics have no moral high ground.
As for Mexico's pathologies today: other countries were injured much more severely (both working age population loss as well as infrastructure) yet rebuilt their truncated countries into economic powerhouses with one generation. Germany and Japan come to mind after WW II.
Needless to say: my sympathy for Mexico is zero.
Hmmm American rebuilding after a major war....$13B sounds like a nice round number...
Point taken re: Marshall Plan........remember the most important component of any socisty is 'human capital' i.e. being sober, punctual, accepting/believing in education, the rule of law, etc.
To be frank: the biggest reason for the Marshall Plan was to diminish the chances of Europe (at least the parts not under Soviet military domination) falling under Communism. That was a real threat in especially France and Italy in the late 1940's.
Besides: Marshall Plan aid was dispensed from ca. 1948-52 only.
Well, one thing to keep in mind when you are discussing how Mexico fares is the dreadful legacy of Spannish rule. The fact is Spain was a TERRIBLE colonial master when compared to England. A big part of the reason for this was admittedly simply the circumstances of their rule. Spain had the misfortune (yes the MISFORTUNE) of colonizing an area that was incredibly wealthy. The well-developed native empires of Mexico and South America had large caches of gold and silver readily on hand and ripe for the plundering. This led to a "looting" mentality in the Spanish government rather than the "developing" mindset the English adopted with their colonies in North America. The colonization philosophy of the Spannish was "take, take, take" and put as little back as you absolutely need to - simply because there was so much wealth that was so easily secured with very little effort (why bother to put anything back?).
So much was this the case that among the colonies, civil servents at almost every level were paid no salaries. It was expected that those folks would simply "skim something off the top" - in other words they would make their livelihood through graft and thus there was no need for the Spannish Crown to pay them (in much the same way that waiters are paid less here in the US because it's expected that they will receive tips). The Spannish government considered this to be an ideal situation as it was assumed the graft would happen anyway whether the officials were paid or not. The problems was, this INSTITUTIONALIZED corruption at almost every level in Spannish colonies and this corruption has plagued these areas ever since, becoming simply an expected fact of life (police are corrupt, city hall is corrupt, the military is corrupt, etc etc etc). Once institutionalized for so many hundreds of years it's really hard to get rid of it since it is everywhere and had been an accepted fact for centuries.
In addition, since these Spannish controlled lands had a large population of conquered labor readily available it was relatively easy to simply utilized the natives there to again exploit the land in the cheapest manner possibly (force them to work the mines, work in the fields etc). Since people generally are unwilling to be freely exploited, force was necessary and thus a legacy of repression was established and strict class structure was enforced and ingrained into the people. With no strong roots of individual freedom being ingrained into generations of locals is it any wonder that true Democracy has been very slow to come to these areas? Inequality had long been the rule.
All in all, Spannish rule wrecked their colonies on many, many levels and the countries of Central and South America at still paying the price even today.
The truly ironic thing however was that all this easy wealth pouring into Spain actually hurt them in the long run - developing an "easy money" mindset. It was felt that the incoming wealth would never end, thus there was not such a need (it was felt) to actually develop Spain itself for the long run. In some ways Spain became like the spoiled rich kid with a trust fund - spending like crazy but never doing anything to really further themselves. Once the money for the colonies started to run out, Spain found that it had largely wasted all that wealth and had blown the opportunities it had had - leaving it relatively poor in Europe.
In the English colonies of North America on the other hand, there was plenty of wealth to be generated, but it was not nearly as easily secured, and required a lot more work to make it happen. Since gold was not just lying around for the looting, the land needed to be improved in various ways in order for England to start exploiting the colonies. In addition, because native population of the area was so much smaller than the population in the Spannish colonies, there was not a large conquered labor force available to be exploited.
These factors really forced England to take a long-term approach to colonization in America - encouraging English men and women to immigrate with the hopes of starting a new life in a new land. Thus the whole mindset of the American colonies was completely different than those of the Spannish colonies to the south and the English traditions of relative individual liberty (compared to the Spannish) were able to take root and further develop.
Note that I'm not mentioning this history to justify the many problems in Mexico, just to explain how they came about. Just as, as individuals we are molded by the upbringing our parents gave us, nations too will be molded by the practicies of their original colonial masters. Thus the problems the US is having with illegals immigrants flooding across the border from Mexico (many of the folks are in fact from Central and South America actually) is to a large degree a direct result of the nature of the rule enforced by our colonial masters centuries ago. Spains' poor rule way back then has left their former colonies relatively poor and mismanaged to this very day, while England's less exploitative approach generated the most powerful and wealthy country the world has ever seen.
Well, one thing to keep in mind when you are discussing how Mexico fares is the dreadful legacy of Spannish rule. The fact is Spain was a TERRIBLE colonial master when compared to England. A big part of the reason for this was admittedly simply the circumstances of their rule. Spain had the misfortune (yes the MISFORTUNE) of colonizing an area that was incredibly wealthy. The well-developed native empires of Mexico and South America had large caches of gold and silver readily on hand and ripe for the plundering. This led to a "looting" mentality in the Spanish government rather than the "developing" mindset the English adopted with their colonies in North America. The colonization philosophy of the Spannish was "take, take, take" and put as little back as you absolutely need to - simply because there was so much wealth that was so easily secured with very little effort (why bother to put anything back?).
So much was this the case that among the colonies, civil servents at almost every level were paid no salaries. It was expected that those folks would simply "skim something off the top" - in other words they would make their livelihood through graft and thus there was no need for the Spannish Crown to pay them (in much the same way that waiters are paid less here in the US because it's expected that they will receive tips). The Spannish government considered this to be an ideal situation as it was assumed the graft would happen anyway whether the officials were paid or not. The problems was, this INSTITUTIONALIZED corruption at almost every level in Spannish colonies and this corruption has plagued these areas ever since, becoming simply an expected fact of life (police are corrupt, city hall is corrupt, the military is corrupt, etc etc etc). Once institutionalized for so many hundreds of years it's really hard to get rid of it since it is everywhere and had been an accepted fact for centuries.
In addition, since these Spannish controlled lands had a large population of conquered labor readily available it was relatively easy to simply utilized the natives there to again exploit the land in the cheapest manner possibly (force them to work the mines, work in the fields etc). Since people generally are unwilling to be freely exploited, force was necessary and thus a legacy of repression was established and strict class structure was enforced and ingrained into the people. With no strong roots of individual freedom being ingrained into generations of locals is it any wonder that true Democracy has been very slow to come to these areas? Inequality had long been the rule.
All in all, Spannish rule wrecked their colonies on many, many levels and the countries of Central and South America at still paying the price even today.
The truly ironic thing however was that all this easy wealth pouring into Spain actually hurt them in the long run - developing an "easy money" mindset. It was felt that the incoming wealth would never end, thus there was not such a need (it was felt) to actually develop Spain itself for the long run. In some ways Spain became like the spoiled rich kid with a trust fund - spending like crazy but never doing anything to really further themselves. Once the money for the colonies started to run out, Spain found that it had largely wasted all that wealth and had blown the opportunities it had had - leaving it relatively poor in Europe.
In the English colonies of North America on the other hand, there was plenty of wealth to be generated, but it was not nearly as easily secured, and required a lot more work to make it happen. Since gold was not just lying around for the looting, the land needed to be improved in various ways in order for England to start exploiting the colonies. In addition, because native population of the area was so much smaller than the population in the Spannish colonies, there was not a large conquered labor force available to be exploited.
These factors really forced England to take a long-term approach to colonization in America - encouraging English men and women to immigrate with the hopes of starting a new life in a new land. Thus the whole mindset of the American colonies was completely different than those of the Spannish colonies to the south and the English traditions of relative individual liberty (compared to the Spannish) were able to take root and further develop.
Note that I'm not mentioning this history to justify the many problems in Mexico, just to explain how they came about. Just as, as individuals we are molded by the upbringing our parents gave us, nations too will be molded by the practicies of their original colonial masters. Thus the problems the US is having with illegals immigrants flooding across the border from Mexico (many of the folks are in fact from Central and South America actually) is to a large degree a direct result of the nature of the rule enforced by our colonial masters centuries ago. Spains' poor rule way back then has left their former colonies relatively poor and mismanaged to this very day, while England's less exploitative approach generated the most powerful and wealthy country the world has ever seen.
Just something to consider,
Ken
I tend to agree:
And: from a citizen of Mexico's perspective; I copied/pasted from another website that I help moderate:
There is an inferiority complex dating back to the days of the conquest and subsequen Spanish colonization. The Spaniards themselves refered to the Arabs as Moors, "Moros" in Spanish which means "dark-skinned". A black eye in one's face in Spanish Spanish is "ojo moro", in Mexican Spanish is "ojo morado" or "violet eye".
The Spanish conquest in Mexico was successfull on three counts: first, the locals had never seen horses before and thought that horse and rider were one being, and the second, the Aztecs managed to be hated by everyone else, as they subjugated a number of other nations under them to build their empire. These nations allied with the Spaniards to topple the Aztecs, but alas, the Spaniards' plans were different. Third, the Spaniards brought with them smallpox, which decimated the local population during an epidemic that was second to none in Europe; millions perished.
The first "mestizos" were born when Hernán Cortés himself had a child with Malintzin or "La Malinche", his interpreter. A couple of Spanish sailors that came with Columbus were stranded in the Yucatán peninsula when Cortés came to Mexico, and they had already had children with Mayan women. Cortés' child was the first kid from a European father and an Aztec mother. Soon a number of "mestizo" kids were born and thus the Mexican nation was born with them. The Spaniards treated them badly, as "hijos de la chingada" which is the worst offense you can make to a Mexican, because "la chingada" means "the raped woman", which indeed was the destiny of many Native Mexican women during the three centuries that the Spanish colonial period lasted.
Mexican society was divided in castes which determined the socio-political and economic level of the people: first, there were the Europeans, mostly Spaniards, who had all the wealth, government positions (conveniently far from Spain, they could loot the country at will) and were the entrepreneurs and landowners. Some among them were nobles too and were styled counts or dukes or barons. Then came the "criollos" or creoles, the children of European fathers and mothers born in Mexico. Then came the "mestizos", as explained above, and a host of others like the "mulatos", children of a white father and a black mother, as we did have slaves from Africa too, but not to the extent of the USA.
The "mestizos" were way below in the food chain, most were children of single mothers and were not recognized by their fathers. Last names or family names had to be given when the kids were baptized, and since the mothers didn't know the last name of the fathers of their children, they used his first name as the kids' last name. The "mestizos" were the children of the powerful, exploiting European father and the subjugated, powerless, raped Mexican mother.
This is how the Mexican inferiority complex was born, and this is why the country is white supremacist, as another poster has adequately described it.
Another country is very wealthy today yet suffered much like Mexico hundreds of years ago would be Ireland of all places. One of the places where the language/customs of the conquerers (England) sowed the seeds of incredible success.
My gut tells me that Mexico is fast approaching the 'tipping point' of becoming a truly affluent and democratic country. For one thing; it is already the 14th weathiest country in the world, its per capita income is above $10K a year. Too; its birthrate of 2.4 children per woman is barely above replacement level (2.1). Finally, Mexico's education level as a group is much greater than even 30 years ago.
Precedent also has been set due with both Italy and Spain; both countries with Latin based cultures going from poverty to solid First World lifestyle standings within my lifetime, I will be age 50 in a few days.
Last edited by ArizonaBear; 09-16-2007 at 02:40 PM..
Pretty interesting. The comment about Smallpox reminded me of a detail I'd meant to post - if you have the time and interest there a very interesting book out there called "1491". It's a study of the Americas in the days before Columbus and the authors main contention is that even in North America there were far more native peoples than we currently believe. The typical American's view of what is now the US back in pre-Columbian times was that it was a largely empty land just waiting to be populated. The author of the book contends (successfully I think) that actually what is now the US was actually fairly heavily settled. The very first Spannish explorers such as Desoto - who sailed up the Mississippi - reported scores of villages along the shores and thousands upon thousands of inhabitants. A century later when the next wave of European explorers came to the same areas they almost always reported vast areas as completely vacant of human habitation. The belief is that several common deseases left by the very first explorers spread like wildfire all the way across the North American continent, leaping from one tribe to the next and effectively wiping out as many as 90% or more of the natives before they had even laid eyes on a white man.
The reason for this (the author claims) is the unique biology of the immune system of the native peoples of North American as compared to the immune system of Europeans. Taken as a group, native North American's apparently have much less diversity in those systems when you campare one individual to another - that is, they tend to all be very similar in what their bodies battle well versus what their bodies don't battle well. This means that an a large group ALL the people will either be more or less immune to a particular disease - or nearly EVERYONE will be terribly suseptable to it. Soi whereas the in the case of the Europeans (who had a lot more diversity in their immune systems) maybe 10-25% of the people may be affected, in the native people of North America's case, more like 80-90% would be effected (or very few at all). Needless to say, once this group of folks encounters a disease (or series of diseases) that their immune systems are weak against, the consequences are devastating.
As you've mentioned in the other post the native people of Mexico (and South America as well) were decimated by the spread of many European diseases - so much so, that native populations after the Spannish conquest fell by over 90% (at least by some estimates).
This MAY be due to the fact the original group of settlers who crossed the Bering Strait thousands of years ago was probably a relatively small number of individuals - who were then cut off for genetic mixing with others. The Europeans on the other hand were the end result of a great deal of genetic mixing over the thousands of years since the Native Americans were isolated.
Anyway, it's a pretty interesting book and reading it will probably change how someone views the Native peoples of North America and the spread of the Europeans out across the continent.
Pretty interesting. The comment about Smallpox reminded me of a detail I'd meant to post - if you have the time and interest there a very interesting book out there called "1491". It's a study of the Americas in the days before Columbus and the authors main contention is that even in North America there were far more native peoples than we currently believe. The typical American's view of what is now the US back in pre-Columbian times was that it was a largely empty land just waiting to be populated. The author of the book contends (successfully I think) that actually what is now the US was actually fairly heavily settled. The very first Spannish explorers such as Desoto - who sailed up the Mississippi - reported scores of villages along the shores and thousands upon thousands of inhabitants. A century later when the next wave of European explorers came to the same areas they almost always reported vast areas as completely vacant of human habitation. The belief is that several common deseases left by the very first explorers spread like wildfire all the way across the North American continent, leaping from one tribe to the next and effectively wiping out as many as 90% or more of the natives before they had even laid eyes on a white man.
The reason for this (the author claims) is the unique biology of the immune system of the native peoples of North American as compared to the immune system of Europeans. Taken as a group, native North American's apparently have much less diversity in those systems when you campare one individual to another - that is, they tend to all be very similar in what their bodies battle well versus what their bodies don't battle well. This means that an a large group ALL the people will either be more or less immune to a particular disease - or nearly EVERYONE will be terribly suseptable to it. Soi whereas the in the case of the Europeans (who had a lot more diversity in their immune systems) maybe 10-25% of the people may be affected, in the native people of North America's case, more like 80-90% would be effected (or very few at all). Needless to say, once this group of folks encounters a disease (or series of diseases) that their immune systems are weak against, the consequences are devastating.
As you've mentioned in the other post the native people of Mexico (and South America as well) were decimated by the spread of many European diseases - so much so, that native populations after the Spannish conquest fell by over 90% (at least by some estimates).
This MAY be due to the fact the original group of settlers who crossed the Bering Strait thousands of years ago was probably a relatively small number of individuals - who were then cut off for genetic mixing with others. The Europeans on the other hand were the end result of a great deal of genetic mixing over the thousands of years since the Native Americans were isolated.
Anyway, it's a pretty interesting book and reading it will probably change how someone views the Native peoples of North America and the spread of the Europeans out across the continent.
Ken
That is quite possible:
Even in Europe the various Plagues killed sometimes as much as 40% of the indigenous 'White' people at times.
Ghastly I know; but, things happen through history whether right or wrong.
And; oftentimes 'man' is innocent due to the 'Law of Unintended Consequences'.
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