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This article was co-authored by Nation contributing editor Joel Rogers. It originally appeared in the September 17 issue of the New Statesman.
On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to champion America's cities and help them help themselves. So how are they faring under his presidency?
America is a metro nation. About 80 per cent of the US population now lives in metropolitan areas, which together cover about 20 per cent of the country's land and create roughly 90 per cent of GDP. The top 100 metros alone, on 12 per cent of American land, account for 65 per cent of the population, 75 per cent of GDP, and comparable or greater shares of critical infrastructure, education and research institutions.
While cities have long been to a large extent invisible in American public life, the country now has a president who actually likes them and understands their centrality. He recognises that almost all the big trends in US demographics (smaller households, ageing), culture (more tolerant, less racist), economics (the need for innovation, less waste, greater self-sufficiency) and the environment (dying) either predict or recommend the growth of cities. And he thinks their present dysfunction - the source of most of the country's main domestic problems, such as inequality, unsustainability and declining competitiveness - can be cured.
During his campaign for president, Barack Obama promised to champion cities and, most urgently, to change the way that federal programmes tackled their multiple but often interrelated problems. For years, initiatives touching many of the same people and places but originating from different departments - housing and urban development, energy, education, transport and environment - had too little shared purpose and co-ordination to get much done, and enough red tape to strangle innovation. They were victims of a bureaucracy driven by process rather than outcome.
Since taking office, Obama has made good on his pledge to address this. After a series of strong appointments, and with firm instruction, the various government agencies are collaborating as never before. Having formalised working agreements and joint staff teams, they are synchronising complementary interventions (on matters of housing and transport, for example, or - to be more specific - regenerating homes and installing broadband access at the same time), and they are asking cities to match that co-ordination with their own.
This is still small-scale and, admittedly, good government on a pretty basic level - as is Obama's recent request that the Office of Management and Budget should carry out a formal review of the effectiveness of all urban programmes (the first time this has happened in 30 years) and make recommendations on strategy. Yet, in this particular area of US government, it is a spectacular breakthrough to common sense. It has limits, however. One is that nobody in the administration has defined what success in a city means. Should it be measured by improvements in sustainability, such as reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions; or productivity, such as asset appreciation; or equity, such as the declining significance of family background, race or sex for educational attainment, income, wealth or health? Or some combination of all three?
The more glaring and urgent problem, however, is the stiff resistance that Obama has run into over his substantive domestic investment agenda. The original strategy was "do everything at once" - to spend his political capital while it was at its height in order to push through reforms in health, climate, transport and education, after which the direction on taxes would be clear. But this was immediately slowed down by two things.
The first was the continued mop-up of the financial disaster and Obama's deference to his Clinton redux treasury team in handling it. This led to a series of poorly defended and predictably unpopular decisions - to bail out favoured banks and insurance companies but not others; to sell off good assets to hedge funds while keeping the worst for taxpayers; to approve colossal bonuses for those who nearly wrecked the economy; to decline providing direct relief to distressed homeowners - and has put unstated limits on the terms of future domestic spending.
The second spanner in the works was the Republican Party's decision to go into near-total opposition, attacking anything that Obama proposed. This was evident from his first piece of legislation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Widely proclaimed as gargantuan but in truth almost certainly too small, this was a straightforward effort to help an economy in free fall through tax cuts and public spending.
Virtually all economists (including former advisers to the Republican presidential candidate John McCain) agree that the act has done the trick, thus far saving several million jobs and about2 per cent of GDP growth in a huge contraction. When it came up for approval in February, however, it was denounced by Republicans as wildly irresponsible. Larded with tax cuts to lure their support, the act got only three votes from Republican senators.
Things have only gone downhill since. The Republican Party's opposition to Obama now amounts to an all-out war, in which it is prepared to enlist and support any willing lunatics and liars, such as a "birther" movement questioning Obama's citizenship, and others screaming about his plans for concentration camps and mass euthanasia of the elderly. These antics are aired 24/7 on Rupert Murdoch's Fox network, where right-wing populists such as Glenn Beck feed their audiences a steady diet of rage and character assassination. Fox/Beck's latest campaign, against the White House's "green jobs" adviser Van Jones, ended with Jones's resignation early this month.
So it is an uncertain time for cities. They won't go down if Obama goes down. The 2010 budget, all but approved, maintains support for the government agencies of greatest concern to them. But a defeat on health care and climate, and a failure to reform transport, will make things a good deal tougher for cities. And at the moment, nobody is certain that anything - not health care, not climate, not transport - is on track to success.
There is a deeper problem, too. Despite the new president's concern for and engagement with America's cities, there is a stubborn legacy of hostility and indifference towards them. There is, for a start, racism. Postwar federal housing policy encouraged a distinctly white suburbanisation. From the urban freeways of the 1950s, to Lyndon B Johnson's Great Society reforms, to latter-day New Orleans or Oakland, urban renewal has meant black removal. Then there is the indifference of the mainstream left. Labour unions in effect dismantled their central labour councils and, outside the building trades, turned all their attention to industry or employer bargaining, without regard for spatial context. There is the immense power of the auto-industrial complex, the single biggest source of employment throughout the postwar period, and its unremitting hostility to any place or alternative in its way. There is political and cultural conservatism. The electorate in US cities, as in cities throughout the world, is more progressive than elsewhere. It believes in public goods, but it also admits vice, outlandish behaviour and other interruptions to middle-class order. As Jane Jacobs observed, cities create the middle class, they don't attract it.
A further obstacle is the fierce competition fostered among local governments, which severely hinders them from working together constructively on metropolitan or regional schemes. Public spending in the US, as a percentage of GDP, is about 10 points lower than the OECD average, and about 15 points below the EU one - that's roughly $2trn not spent in the US on the social wage and public goods. As a result, a citizen in need of assistance in the US is not first and foremost a concern for local government, but a cost. The federal government compounds this public poverty by encouraging states and local governments to compete for business capital through tax, regulation and subsidies. Last year alone, states and local governments handed out more than $70bn in relocation subsidies to lure firms (or keep them from moving) across jurisdictions, often only a few miles apart. Only in a handful of cases - San Francisco, Portland, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - has regional government emerged from and survived the stranglehold of such divisively competitive local politics.
Despite all these difficulties, however, there is hope for US urban policy, and for the president most likely to reform it. First, there is widespread recognition among the elite that the irrationality of the current system is creating costs that will eventually be unbearable to social peace, competitiveness or the environment. Second, the demographic and cultural trends are on the side of cities, and the property market tells us that ordinary people - not just Generation Y computer graphic artists and designers - prefer to live in them. At some point, it just gets hard to move the mountain of consumers who would like something other than empty suburbs and rural McMansions.
But the greatest cause for hope is the development of far more positive and successful metro politics. This can be seen in the huge success of referendums on funding more city transport; the speed at which organised labour and communities of colour (for so long divided in US cities) are joining together in vast regeneration projects; the emergence of pro-planning/pro-tax business groups; and the astonishing range of innovation and experiment by communities and local political leaders on issues encompassing schools, public safety, health-care delivery, new property forms and types of financing.
This new politics breaks with many of the divisions that largely defined city politics and urban decline during the second half of the 20th century: the endless wars between business, labour, environmentalists and communities of colour. Now, by virtue of learning and necessity, these groups recognise that they cannot succeed with their old strategies. At least some parts of business recognise they cannot for ever divest from a society on which they depend; labour knows that it must be productive as well as redistributive; environmentalists understand that they need economic power and an economic argument for saving the planet, not just a moral one; communities of colour know that protest has diminishing returns when the society in which they've only sought respect might finally be prepared to give it. And although these four groups are by no means at complete peace with one another, they do have a shared political project, centred in the economy.
That project is to develop cities as "high road" places. That means valuing economic self-sufficiency; competing on distinctiveness and performance, not commodity price; recognising the productive use of democracy and the value of place; and developing by using democracy to organise places to better add value, reduce waste, and capture and share the benefit of doing both. This project is Obama's own (if not that of all of his advisers) - to develop our metro nation in ways that make it more self-sufficient, productive, sustainable and inclusive - and those now pursuing it across the country provide his real base. If they get a bit more mobilised, we think, we're going to be all right.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Thoughts on politics, current affairs, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
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how about more trains and cheaper tickets?
I used to live between Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA. Establishing more stops on the line, and more frequent stops, means I could travel to NYC without driving down I-91 to New Haven. Plus, even if I drive there now; it's an expensive round trip ticket.
We want more interconnectivity (and less driving)--let's get the trains going...and at more affordable prices.
Posted by urmygyro at 09/17/2009 @ 2:47pm
Katrina, As long as politics as usual go on in D.C. and the democratic party shows no difference to their counterparts overall, nothing will change. The dems had a chance to take the lead with or without the republicans and turn things around, but instead chose to play ball with the healthcare industry, pharmaceutical industry, banking and wallstreet and everything but the welfare of the American people.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 09/17/2009 @ 2:48pm
Posted by libzRfreaks2 at 09/17/2009 @ 2:57pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--I suppose saying "settle down" won't actually get you to converse with even a slight modicum of civility. oh, and that's not even an original post. why waste your time and talents here?
Posted by urmygyro at 09/17/2009 @ 3:01pm
With all due respect...I WONT settle down one damn bit while these MARXIST TRAITORS are destroying my country... Sorry...I stand by 100% in what I say Posted by libzRfreaks2 at 09/17/2009 @ 3:05pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--you might be more effective if you dropped the ALL CAPS (like you did when you responded to me); drop the constant cursing (again, like with me) and engage in giving some reasons why "marxist traitors are destroying your country"...
Posted by urmygyro at 09/17/2009 @ 3:08pm
While cities have long been to a large extent invisible in American public life
posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 09/17/2009 @ 2:39pm
What is it that I keep banging into when I reach the end of the Brooklyn Bridge? I can't see anything, but my car seems to get damaged every time.
Posted by Mistral at 09/17/2009 @ 3:09pm
Thanks for your suggestions...But I will express my feelings my way...
Just as you express yours your way...ok
Posted by libzRfreaks2 at 09/17/2009 @ 3:10pm
Thanks for your suggestions...But I will express my feelings my way... Just as you express yours your way...ok Posted by libzRfreaks2 at 09/17/2009 @ 3:10pm | ignore this person | warn this person
--question: what are you getting out of posting here? do you feel better after an all caps, profanity-laden post? if so, that's fine. just wondering...
Posted by urmygyro at 09/17/2009 @ 3:13pm
Cities are bad for human beings. It is an unnatural way to live and separates us from our connection to the earth (ooh, that sounds lib). But I do feel that way.
Cities are destructive to the human spirit.
Cities promote waste, materialism, and excess
Cities also are the most likely places for political corruption. Power is a destructive force in the hands of most politicians.
And finally, as I noted on another thread, Katrina's figures are wrong according to the USDA and the Census Bureau.
Urban residential land occupies 3% of US land space
Rural residential occupies 4% for a grand total of 7%. Not 20%.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 3:25pm
KvH & JR: The original strategy was "do everything at once" - to spend his political capital while it was at its height in order to push through reforms in health, climate, transport and education, after which the direction on taxes would be clear. But this was immediately slowed down by two things.....
Looks to me, and 8 months later, the results prove, BHO & his team is full of hubris and lack common sense. Not surprising given how little Magic himself had EVER accomlished.
All of us have several To-Dos, in fact, I am in the middle of one right now-painting the doors of my two son's bedrooms now that they are out and I finally got my ass moving by removing all remnants of stickers and residuals-how many of us, let's limit it to those who know they are smarter than The Annointed One, would try to tackle all those TDs, "at once"?
BTW, I also am an experienced painter....now, is HusseinO & team experienced at "reforms in health, climate, transport and education"?
Do I hear Amens....that Dear Leader maybe "sort of God" to some but is just plain stupid to many!
Posted by Happy at 09/17/2009 @ 3:42pm
KvH & JR: "....the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Widely proclaimed as gargantuan but in truth almost certainly too small, this was a straightforward effort to help an economy in free fall through tax cuts and public spending."
If the ARRA is "almost certainly too small", why wasn't all that `smallness' streamed into the economy at once instead of phased-in with over 80% directed to the point AFTER the "free fall" has splatted on the canyon floor? Yeah....it's Wily Obama splatted 6-ft under with HAPPY Runner standing over the hole....beep, beep!
Posted by Happy at 09/17/2009 @ 4:03pm
Cities are bad for human beings. It is an unnatural way to live and separates us from our connection to the earth (ooh, that sounds lib). But I do feel that way.
Cities are destructive to the human spirit.
Cities promote waste, materialism, and excess
Cities also are the most likely places for political corruption. Power is a destructive force in the hands of most politicians.
And finally, as I noted on another thread, Katrina's figures are wrong according to the USDA and the Census Bureau.
Urban residential land occupies 3% of US land space
Rural residential occupies 4% for a grand total of 7%. Not 20%.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 3:25pm
For all of the the things you point out that are wrong with cities, and I do not disagree win principal with any of them, it also fails to recognize the benefits of cities. Like she said the majority of economic activity in this country goes on in the major cities. I don't think this country would be nearly as wealthy if it had not to some degree embraced urban living.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/17/2009 @ 5:46pm
Well now I truly understand. Santi is going to live with the Amish out in the countryside. The herion addict LGBT2 is going to go to the top of the Sears Tower and scream forb 6 hours. Then he will realize he got his political philosophy from "A Clockwork Orange". Droopy will just think hes smart to he looks in the mirror,then he will be like all of us and realize it was just a dream.
Posted by whatizz at 09/17/2009 @ 5:51pm
Katrina Vanden Hueval really had to beat the bushes to find this tidbit about Obama ...
In the meantime Too Big to Fail Banks are leveraging up once again, 40,000 more troops are destined for the AfPak War and Obama is undercutting the public option as fast as he can ...
Nice going Katrina ... bringing us this important news about why Obama is so great for us ...
Posted by mmckinl at 09/17/2009 @ 5:57pm
Just want to pass along this pinko unAmerican Leftist Trotskian paranoid gay communist parasitic inspiration:
This morning I was awakened by my alarm clock, powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly, regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC -regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watch this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration. At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress, and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.
On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school. After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on DOT roads, to a house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.
Posted by winyahn at 09/17/2009 @ 6:16pm
I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Aministration, read the neocon "logic" about how SOCIALIZED medicine is BAD because the Government can't do anything right.
Posted by winyahn at 09/17/2009 @ 6:18pm
Excellent post KVH. It is true that America is a metro nation. Not surprisingly, cities persist for thousands of years because their advantages offset their disadvantages. They reduce transportations cost for goods, people, and ideas. They benefit from having a large local market, sharing of natural resources, a wider variety of social activities, greater diversity, a larger labor market, more specialized tradesmen/craftsmen, and by concentrating human activity into one place they limit environmental damage on other places. President Obama was correct in championing cities. Personally, I would like to see even more public transportation options(subway/metro, trams, trains, light rail, trolleys) in all major American cities that at least rival their European peers and less of a focus on cars.
As an example, if anyone here has ever visited Stockholm, you can get 30-day travel card for about $110 greenbacks which will allow you to use any mode of transportation in all of Stockholm county.
Posted by hdthoreau at 09/17/2009 @ 6:19pm
Posted by winyahn at 09/17/2009 @ 6:16pm
Wow! I guess you are incapable of doing anything on your own.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 6:28pm
Excellent post winyahn and oh so true, whats to not understand, health care now.
Posted by Denise29 at 09/17/2009 @ 6:33pm
Posted by winyahn at 09/17/2009 @ 6:16pm
Wow! I guess you are incapable of doing anything on your own.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 6:28pm
Actually if you read his examples you will find that all of those things are things you do. Do you pump your own water or make your own electricity? Do you drive off road? Do you drive any packages or letters that need to be delivered across the country over personally? If you say that to him then you must not do anything on your own either. I doubt the water provided to your house is well water from a well you dug yourself after all.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/17/2009 @ 6:51pm
Wow! I guess you are incapable of doing anything on your own.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 6:28pm
Let's put it this way. If you drive a car, eat food that you don't grow yourself, use water that you didn't gather from a stream, use any weather service, postal service including UPS and FEDEX then you are using a service regulated by the government.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/17/2009 @ 6:55pm
Let's put it this way. If you drive a car, eat food that you don't grow yourself, use water that you didn't gather from a stream, use any weather service, postal service including UPS and FEDEX then you are using a service regulated by the government.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/17/2009 @ 6:55pm
I was making a point about hyperbole.
At least 1/2 of what he stated was services that should not have any govt involvement.
And as you know, I have consistently stated that there is a role for state and local govts.
It is the intrusion of the Federal govt that most concerns me.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 7:07pm
Settlements, developing into towns and later cities are the basis of human social growth and progres. To anyone wanting a good overview of how cities work, I recommend Edward Banfield's " The Unheavenly City Revisited."
Posted by balataf at 09/17/2009 @ 7:36pm
Posted by winyahn at 09/17/2009 @ 6:16pm
Excellent post winyahn and oh so true, whats to not understand, health care now.
Posted by Denise29 at 09/17/2009 @ 6:33pm
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/17/2009 @ 6:55pm
<If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.>
Thomas Jefferson
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 7:40pm
And as you know, I have consistently stated that there is a role for state and local govts. It is the intrusion of the Federal govt that most concerns me.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 7:07pm
what's the difference?
GREAT POST, WINNIE.
<If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.>
Thomas Jefferson
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 7:40pm
<If people let greedy people decide what to secretly put in the foods they eat and what effects the medicines they take have, they will soon be dead.>
Frostwith Zoomworth
Posted by frosty zoom at 09/17/2009 @ 9:43pm
Well it is good to see that Santi is reading "Thomas Jefferson Quotes on America"this week. He had some good ideas for his time. He was one of the people who could be quoted.I guess the reality was that he was one of the original political elites. Its interesting to note that part of his wealth was derived from his slaves economic worth. Also it is interesting that he lived on a plantation,a new worlds feudal baron.
Posted by whatizz at 09/17/2009 @ 9:50pm
We have a president with deep ties to ACORN, the best known community organizing group......
We have a president who rose from being a community organizer....
We have a president who lawyered for ACORN.....
We have a president who appointed another community organizer, Van Jones, to be a Czar (slick move, btw, to bypass the pesky Senate confirmation process).....
The Nation is constantly touting various community organizing/protesting/activism.....
Now....that ACORN has been humiliated, defunded 83-7 in the Senate and 275-75 in the House.....
Shouldn't there be a thread or two about....ACORN...
Unless of course, TN is part of that Legacy Media that doesn't know about the collapse of ACORN, in a reprise of it's didn't know about Van Jones, who by the way, was finally thrown under the bus by Magic (in case you didn't know).
Posted by Happy at 09/17/2009 @ 10:32pm
The constitution, the bill of rights, and the American citizens demands for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are all such bothersome loathing things to leftist who want to rule with an iron hand those they consider ignorant peasants!
KVH would be so much happier in the free societies of Russia , China, and Cuba yet like so many they remain here wishing to transform us to the misery, poverty, and futile existences of such leftist utopias!
Posted by BigPasture at 09/17/2009 @ 10:57pm
Little p so good of you to wake up. Lets see the Russians are mapping the ocean floor at the North Pole. They are doing this since they and China have no rules on pollution of the atmosphere. This in turn has helped warm up our planet.This warm up has allowed Russia,Norway,and the U.S. amongst others to map the ocean floor at the North Pole due to a receding ice cap. Approximately 30% of untapped oil deposits on Earth are at the Poles. So I guess the Russians are trying to be capitalists like us. I wish that we the ignorant peasants here in the United States could get our largest trading partner and largest bond investor to treat us better. Please Red China TREAT US BETTER. Just think now the Chinese are going to develop Africa. Why,because they have the money to do so . That is what its about today. Since we have been sold out since Ron and friends quit you're complaining. With the exception of (conservative Democrat) Dollar Bill every administration since 1980 has been Republican and look at the disaster we are in .
Posted by whatizz at 09/17/2009 @ 11:19pm
Wake up KVH, the Obamanation that makes desolation and the Demoncrats could care less about the people of the U.S.A.! All they are about is consolidating their power and you know it!
All they have done is reward all their supporters bailing out the unions and assure them of jobs while giving them ownership of the companies they work for! All the other bailout money went to the financial institutions and banks that heavily subsidized the Demoncrat takeover of our government!
What did we get? Oh yea, cash for clunkers to buy cars manufactored by the unions from companies owned by them and the government! Wow, what economic genius!
We also got 16.8 percent actual unemployment, 15,000,000. jobless Americans, and over 100,000 plus small business failures in an economy where 50% of the GDP is small businesses! How are those business and employees to be assisted, well lets force them to buy healthcare or FINE them out of business!
If we get anymore help from the Obamnation and Demoncrats it will be cemetary lots and coffins!
Posted by BigPasture at 09/17/2009 @ 11:31pm
That the acceleration of disaster promoted by you and your brethren can be cited by you is laughable. The financial companies threw in the towel on you and ypour pals and supported the Democrats . It happens a lot after Republican disasters. Cash for clunkers helped the economy Albert. Our unions, they are a third as powerful as they used to be. Oh ,that's right when we made products here in this country and we had a real economy. Small business,oh you mean the guys getting strangled by insurance costs? Wake up and smell the coffee. That is like telling seniors that the Democrats are going to take away their Medicare. You know the entitlement that you Republicans have torn apart for 30 years. Now you Republicans are going to save it. How can you look in the mirror you fraud.
Posted by whatizz at 09/17/2009 @ 11:48pm
Cities are bad for human beings. It is an unnatural way to live and separates us from our connection to the earth (ooh, that sounds lib). But I do feel that way. Cities are destructive to the human spirit. Cities promote waste, materialism, and excess +++
Have you ever lived in a city, my friend?
(I feel as connected to the Earth right now as I did when living in the woods of New Hampshire. I feel more connected to my fellow human beings.)
-- posted from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, baby!
Posted by Citizen54 at 09/18/2009 @ 12:16am
Posted by whatizz at 09/17/2009 @ 11:48pm
Do you get stoned before you start posting?
I'm beginning to wonder, because your posts reflect the incoherency of a stoner.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 01:29am
Urban policy has been neglected for several decades as we have watched white flight and now gentrification - both products of white racism - define America's cities.
Busing contributed to the white flight, as white parents did not think there was any value in having their kids study with black children. This isolation of the races just fueled more racism.
Gentrification accomplishes the same thing by moving blacks out of the city by driving up property values and taxes. It is more subtle than white flight, in that it is "assumed" that most blacks cannot afford to live in the city anymore, and this obviously affects other poor people in the city who are not black.
So where do we go from here?
I have always been a big fan of multi-use and multi-income residential places. In Seattle, for example, I remember conscious efforts in the city planning scheme to "mix" low income residents and high-income residents in the same building. A penthouse unit with a view of the Puget Sound may go for +1m, while low income subsidized Section 8 units would be placed in the same building, usually without any water or skyline view.
But real urban renewal must be much more than changing to progressive housing policies, there must also be serious efforts to close income gaps, which is part of a much broader strategy of providing living wage jobs to those at the bottom. <----This I think Team Obama gets very well, and efforts are under way to use the emerging Green Technology sector for this purpose.
Posted by Metteyya at 09/18/2009 @ 02:54am
<If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.>
Thomas Jefferson
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 7:40pm
You would also have mad cow disease because a lack of government overcite is what allowed that.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 04:53am
Oh and on the note of madcow even though they KNOW the cause of that one. They are still trying to figure out ways to feed cows other cows. They don't care that it is a problem that could have brought us a widespread plague. They just want to keep trying because its cheap.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 04:54am
Santi- Why is it in coherent? I think I throw out a lot of points when I get extremely irritated. The personal economy for the vast majority of Americans is poor. It was lousy under GWB and it has just about stopped its downward spiral. Financial institutions drastically changed their support levels of Democrats versus Republicans per the figures you supplied. Our labor unions have been beaten down year after year but posters such as you and littleP continue to call them detrimental to the American society. I commented point by point about a post. I don't sit at home with my feet up telling everyone how socially active I was and then say that helping people is wrong. There are plenty of points that apply to what is happening today. I just said it ion a rambling sort of way. The simple explanation is that for every viewpoint expressed there are four that come back at you.
Posted by whatizz at 09/18/2009 @ 05:38am
LIBSR -- URM is exactly right that you should settle down but that it's unlikely that you'll ever learn civility, much less reason and common-sense. And it's not okay for you to express your feeling anyway you want here. We don't need to countenance your efforts to defame and sabotage any conversation thread here. You're lucky that we've even put up with your obscene idiotic ranting for this long. So we'll start taking your comments down and quickly banning you if you persist in ALL CAP obscenities and personal attacks.
Posted by Peter Rothberg at 09/18/2009 @ 05:53am
Posted by antisocialist at 09/17/2009 @ 3:25pm
Modesto, California
Population: 225,156
Hardly "Mayberry", is it, Larry???
Posted by Mask at 09/18/2009 @ 07:31am
Hardly "Mayberry", is it, Larry???
Posted by Mask at 09/18/2009 @ 07:31am
I'd take the city any day. There's variety in everything and people with different views and cultures bring a vibrant life to cities. Living out in the burbs is great if you don' t like exploring.
I grew up in the burbs and missed out on Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Greek and just but any other style of "foreign" food. Meat, potatoes and veggies was the meal of choice and if you wanted to spice the meal up, add more salt and pepper. Get's old after a while. Everything else works pretty much the same way. Same people everyday, same stores, same everything....boring!
If you don't like to see things from another perspective or learn anything new, the burbs are the perfect place to live.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 09/18/2009 @ 07:44am
actually,
the cities are turning back into countryside.
SAVE FLINT!
Posted by frosty zoom at 09/18/2009 @ 08:19am
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 09/18/2009 @ 07:44am
Larry's first instinct is to post something hypocritical...like an attack on cities, while living in a "rural village" of 225,000 people....and then "explain it" later.
Also naturally, why he's got me on Ignore...cuz I notice that stuff.
Posted by Mask at 09/18/2009 @ 08:44am
PeterRothberg: "LIBSR -- URM is exactly right that you should settle down but that it's unlikely that you'll ever learn civility, much less reason and common-sense."
--woah Mask...Peter agreeing with me! The "urmy has a style" post you love to copy has a new buddy..."URM is exactly right"! heheh
Posted by urmygyro at 09/18/2009 @ 08:46am
Use the Ignore button folks and I say that as someone whose forced a few here to put ME on Ignore for simply pointing out their hypocrisies and contradictions.
Posted by Mask at 09/18/2009 @ 07:39am | ignore this person | warn this person
--yeah, right! "simply pointing out..."...uh, uh! give yourself a big old pat on the back, for telling it like it ain't!
Posted by urmygyro at 09/18/2009 @ 08:51am
Also naturally, why he's got me on Ignore...cuz I notice that stuff.
Posted by Mask at 09/18/2009 @ 08:44am | ignore this person | warn this person
--when people notice stuff about your contradictions and weak points in your "arguments" you first attempt to bring them down by calling them "stalkers" and saying you fear for your child's pets...so your patting yourself on the back a bit prematurely for your supposed high mindedness and civility...
Posted by urmygyro at 09/18/2009 @ 08:53am
city renewal is part of the new green industrial revolution we have the means and opportunity to pioneer - and from which we may profit greatly...
step one - support progressive business but ignore the failed satano-aynrando ideology that got us in our mess. the new green industrial revolution is not a quick fix - its a long term, wise investment that will pay dividends monetary and "quality of life".
and indeed in that so many of us live in urban areas - no duh that cities are ground zero in the retooling we need...
gone are the days when our urban planning seperates commercial from residential, even in areas with poorly developed public transportation. existing buildings, residences and commercial, need to be retrofitted, insulated, and rebuilt. new construction needs to incorporate common sense energy efficiency at the least, distributed power generation capacity in reality...
educational initiatives need to focus o this reality.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/18/2009 @ 09:04am
cities need to zone smartly, money need be made available for public works to implement new, renewable, technologies and ideas.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/18/2009 @ 09:07am
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/17/2009 @ 5:46pm | ignore this person | warn this person
cities are a place of culture. cities are places of diversity. in my city it is easy to live without a car, a boon for the environment.
you clodhoppers are just envious.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/18/2009 @ 10:30am
actually,
the cities are turning back into countryside.
SAVE FLINT!
Posted by frosty zoom at 09/18/2009 @ 08:19am | ignore this person | warn this person
Indeed.
As a resident of the City of Detroit, I can now see urban farming up close. Maybe that's a god thing, I dunno. I actually see kids with the grandfolks, picking tomatoes.
SAVE DETROIT!
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 10:36am
whoops. "good" thing.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 10:37am
SAVE DETROIT!
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 10:36am
Can't be done even with Repub mayor and city council! It will continue to shrink as your retiring Boomers, white or blue collar, move away.
Why would any young or new business-not sucking on the subsidy teats-locate there? Give me 3 solid reasons.
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 10:40am
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 10:40am | ignore this person | warn this person
Happ, as to your first paragraph, you're talking ANCIENT history. City depopulation began in the late 1950's as an outgrowth of the interstate freeways which chopped up the neighborhoods while making the commute to cheaper, larger plots outside the city feasible for large numbers. Again, ancient history.
As to your second paragraph, not to challenge your manufacturing-industrial excpertise, of course, but I can't think of ANY business that would forego incentives. Be those incentives in Detroit, in Tennessee, or elsewhere.
So, not quite sure what you're saying there.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 10:45am
Besides, I ws plugging the urban farming phenomenon (from what I've seen so far) as being, possibly, good for the city.
Certainly I was not implying, in any way, that reindustrialization would save 'er. Not at all. We won't see large scale manufacturing ever again , I think that's plain.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 10:48am
Well, that and fixing the damn school system. But I'll leave that to Robert Bobb.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 10:50am
Bet I'm one of the FEW on this blog who experienced armored personnel carriers up close and personal-----that is, rolling down his street as a kid!!!!
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 10:59am
1. region and climate specific distributed power generation. a solar panel or wind turbine or biomass septic system or hydroturbine - it matters not. all existing structures need to be retrofitted with some form of distrubuted power generation and all new construction need be designed thusly as well. SOME folk are very afraid of this, by the way, and ot for the right reasons.
2. insulation, alternative sustainable construction techniques and materials, energy saving design. not only have most of the buildings we've flung up in the devil-may-care boom bubble of the last decade or so been designed with archaic or poor energy efficiency ratings, most are flimsy, wasteful, semi-permanent garbage - doomed to be flattened or nearly rebuilt on site within a decade or two at most. alternative material and techniques hold not only the promise of more permanance and energy efficiency, but sometimes at a lower price, especially once a few entrepeneurs dare take some of that gubbamint and progressive private money becoming increasingly available and running with it.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/18/2009 @ 11:11am
So, not quite sure what you're saying there.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 10:45am
You didn't shed any light there....I was in corp. RE and was part of the suburbanization movement and creating multiple city centers (in one big city).
Perhaps you need to change your cry: Save Detroit since you know it can't be `saved' to what it once was.
May I suggest:
Shrink Detroit (w/care)
Change Detroit (to a farm town)
Merge Detroit (w/Windsor)
Move Detroit (to Memphis or Nashville)
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 11:27am
3. logical zoning; cheap, effective, public transportation; sane road planning. the days of seperating commerce from residence are fading. new developments need be planned on the village model, with easy access to commerce and service. existing suburban areas need to rethink zoning restrictions. tasteful commercial zones that blend well with aesthetically pleasing residences are not so hard to design or concieve. many newly urbanized areas are plagued with atrociously inadequate public transportation options and lord help the rural populace which could serve as a labor pool for cities.
4. municipalism. by this i mean that successful and sustainably profitable communities must look out for themselves and beware accepting help from on high if such would compromise the overall welfare of the community, regardless of the source of such largesse. local food growers should be promoted and patronized by public entities, as well as all other sorts of local and small businesses - common sense trumping foolishness, of course, as in all advice.
5. creativity, innovation, and aesthitic sensitivity. there is currrently an explosion of possibilities, both good and scary, in the form of "miraculous" innovations in all areas of technology. though we should beware depending on high tech to solve all our problems, neither should we ignore realistic, even if avante-garde, application of these technologies. certainly appropriate technology should be considered and implemented when such would be better, but all sorts of possibilities are available to us which were not to our parents. finally any consideration should involve an eye to aesthetics. art is important, and living in a beautiful place is preferable to living in an ugly place for many bottom line reasons.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 09/18/2009 @ 11:29am
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 11:27am
So HAPP, have movement conservatives such as yourself fully abandoned the idea of "manufacturing centers" (like Detroit) EVER coming back to the United States???
Posted by Mask at 09/18/2009 @ 11:38am
May I suggest:
Shrink Detroit (w/care)
Change Detroit (to a farm town)
Merge Detroit (w/Windsor)
Move Detroit (to Memphis or Nashville)
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 11:27am | ignore this person | warn this person
You're late to the party.
The first has happened already;
The second is happening now;
The third presents an interesting international law issue which maybe we should look at, but don't think Windsorites will go for, so it's out of our range of possibilities;
The fourth I'm not quite sure is possible, and I wouldn't give up our water for anything anyway.
But thanks.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 11:47am
I wouldn't say `abandon'....it just won't happen with private capital on any scale.
And you know what I think of using `incentives', subsidies, tax credits to lure such "manuf centers".
Until this country realizes that the world really, really WANTS you Libs to strangle this country's commerce while committing hari-kiri, few private capitalists, including Dem favorites Warren Buffet or George Sorros, will fund major manuf. centers in the US.
Intel, Boeing, and the Caterpillars are still in the mix since those businesses are disproportionately capital-intensive where labor costs are of lesser weighting. Even there, the trend is fairly clear....more expansions abroad than here.
This is the future your kids face and you need to be HAPPY in 20 years, that you helped to bring it about.
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 11:48am
Move Detroit (to Memphis or Nashville)
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 11:27am | ignore this person | warn this person
P.S., our music is better.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 11:49am
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 11:27am
So HAPP, have movement conservatives such as yourself fully abandoned the idea of "manufacturing centers" (like Detroit) EVER coming back to the United States???
Posted by Mask at 09/18/2009 @ 11:38am | ignore this person | warn this person
Mask, somewhere, somehow, Happ read my posts as bemoaning the fact that the industrial base isn't locating here. Duh. I was just mentioning the urban farming phenomenon, as I've seen it, for what it is, in its infancy.
In fact, with some irony, I noted that the automobile both built AND destroyed this city--as I've mentioned above, it's the freeways that chopped the city up AND made cheap commutes possible.
The automobile as friend--and as foe.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 12:04pm
In fact, when it was probably at its industrial PEAK--
--this city was on fire.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 09/18/2009 @ 12:14pm
cities are a place of culture. cities are places of diversity. in my city it is easy to live without a car, a boon for the environment.
you clodhoppers are just envious.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/18/2009 @ 10:30am
Actually I live in Los Angeles. So no I'm not envious. I ride my bike most places.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 12:47pm
Cities are bad for human beings. It is an unnatural way to live and separates us from our connection to the earth (ooh, that sounds lib). But I do feel that way. Cities are destructive to the human spirit. Cities promote waste, materialism, and excess +++
Have you ever lived in a city, my friend?
(I feel as connected to the Earth right now as I did when living in the woods of New Hampshire. I feel more connected to my fellow human beings.)
-- posted from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, baby!
Posted by Citizen54 at 09/18/2009 @ 12:16am
I've never lived in a major metropolitan city and have no desire to ever do so.
If I want, I can drive in to see a play or visit an art museum.
And New York (I've been there many times) is one of the worst. The only big city I ever enjoyed at all was Chicago. But even there, I can only tolerate a few days at a time.
Too many people, lots of concrete and buildings, not much that is natural (not saying people aren't natural).
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 1:00pm
Why would any young or new business-not sucking on the subsidy teats-locate there? Give me 3 solid reasons.
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 10:40am
Ain't going to happen.
Check out FDIC and FHA in need of bailout.
Posted by OneVote at 09/18/2009 @ 1:03pm
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 11:48am
So unless we live in some Libertarian Utopia...we can't have manufacturing?
Historically, speaking when, in your opinion, was the GREATEST period of American manufacturing jobs....and what was the domestic/economic policy in place then???
Posted by Mask at 09/18/2009 @ 1:41pm
Too many people, lots of concrete and buildings, not much that is natural (not saying people aren't natural).
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 1:00pm
Love central park in New York but that's besides the point. Again I agree the city can be taxing on people. But cities are just as neccesary as rural areas. Rural areas provide for food. Cities provide for the rest of our economy. Cities are production centers. New York holds Wall Street and most of the banking industry. Los Angeles handles many banks and has the nations largest port in Long Beach. Althought you may dislike them they are are absolutely essential to this country.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 1:45pm
And New York (I've been there many times) is one of the worst. The only big city I ever enjoyed at all was Chicago. But even there, I can only tolerate a few days at a time.
Too many people, lots of concrete and buildings, not much that is natural (not saying people aren't natural).
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 1:00pm
Totally red, white and blue agree! Cities are unAmerican socialist government grubbing handouts for gay unpatriotic Americans who hate the flag and lack pioneering independent initiative, deny God, seek only hedonistic materialist pagan pursuits. Cities will deservedly doom all their inhabitants - as the rapture's only descending on the great wide open - just not Anwar and Yellowstone where we need to drill drill drill.
Posted by winyahn at 09/18/2009 @ 1:59pm
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 1:45pm
I'm not big on materialism, so some of that doesn't really mean anything to me.
And you don't have to have large cities to have a port like Long Beach. Nor do you have to have large cities for production centers.
I prefer small home based mfg combined with a barter system.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 2:20pm
Cities that become dependent on large businesses that squeeze their employees of their benefits who then become dependent on government to bail them out and banks that rob them of their ability to own their homes are doomed to fail. Community banks and businesses that have a local investments can make the difference in the betterment of the maintenance of a city. They re-invest in it's immediate environment. Wallmarts and other parasitical businesses don't. As a matter of fact, they deplete their surrounding environment. City planning should be active in allocating funds for small, local businesses with it's local population's characteristics. The credit based economic depletion of the resources that fed it had a similar basic error in it's intrinsic, parasitical identity. If government is to have a positive influence in the improvement of quality of life it would be in controlling the excesses of businesses that put profits above community concerns and the welfare of its consumers.
Posted by Gustav at 09/18/2009 @ 2:41pm
New words in a new fantasy.
The green picture of a tenderness overtakes your melody, actually, like an infinite meadow that presents in a singing the sweet and sincere relief.
Francesco Sinibaldi
Posted by Sinibaldi at 09/18/2009 @ 2:54pm
All historical attempts at establishing new paradigms have been naive of what would have defeated them otherwise. Thanks for poetic freedom and your beautiful criticism. Katrina opened a forum that can include pure forms of thought and even cynicism with the right intention.
Posted by Gustav at 09/18/2009 @ 3:14pm
Historically, speaking when, in your opinion, was the GREATEST period of American manufacturing jobs....and what was the domestic/economic policy in place then???
Posted by Mask at 09/18/2009 @ 1:41pm
Historically speaking, no country of size was left standing with an intact industrial base after 1945...
Historically speaking, everybody spoke English only and nobody needed to print multiple-language instructions....
Historically speaking, many large manuf. cos. ran company towns with little interference....
Historically speaking, nobody was against drilling for oil or that smokestack ringed their cities....
Historically speaking, nobody was directly supported by others via Gubber theft (ie taxes)....
Historically speaking, nobody was capable of duplicating US products and sell knockoffs for pennies on the dollar......
Historically speaking, MASK and the Libs weren't around to impede American business!
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 3:25pm
From AnnArbor.com:
Duke Energy CEO says Michigan's rush to manufacture 'green' products is another race with China
Posted: Today, 2 hours ago
The head of one of the nation's largest electric utilities suggested Friday that states like Michigan that want to build green-energy economies face tall odds as China races ahead on developing and using renewable energy.
James Rogers, the chairman, CEO and president of Duke Energy Corp. [NYSE:DUK], said during an appearance at the University of Michigan that China was "far ahead" of the U.S. in manufacturing and utilizing solar panels and wind turbines.
At the same time, renewable energy manufacturers face a bloated inventory of both solar panels and wind turbines, Rogers told reporters....
"It's two points: the glut (of inventory) today, and the fact that they are putting significant money in the development of manufacturing facilities in China, and they're doing it on China time," Rogers told reporters.
Where the U.S. could have an advantage, Rogers said, is in the ability of researchers and universities to develop more efficient technologies.
"The way we get ahead is not deploying existing technology with existing efficiencies, we get ahead by creating more efficient solar panels, new ways to do it," he said.....
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 3:49pm
I am doing research on how to build my own solar panels as we speak. Totally feasible. A problem I encounter is that the electrical provider is not interested in transferring back the excess energy I produced and buying it. Using the existent greed is the most immediate form of incentive to the proliferation of solar power by home/land owners. If it was made a requirement for electrical companies to purchase solar power through their greed, the future would be a present reality. They could get tax a deduction from that form of electrical production and reduce their dependency on coal and other fuels that pollute the environment. Why not now? That's community oriented business practice. Am I missing a point?
Posted by Gustav at 09/18/2009 @ 4:12pm
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 1:45pm
I'm not big on materialism, so some of that doesn't really mean anything to me.
And you don't have to have large cities to have a port like Long Beach. Nor do you have to have large cities for production centers.
I prefer small home based mfg combined with a barter system.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 2:20pm
It's a nice thought but it would never work. Cities weren't built by the government they were built by industry. Obviously industry thinks they serve a purpose. The method you advocate would cut into their profits which is why they don't do it. There is a reason industries tend to centralize themselves. There's a reason for places like silicon valley. There's a reason bankers mostly are in New York. It would be nice if we all spread out and had nice big plots of land of our own, but it's unrealistic. Every major country has major cities that are the center of their economies. It's not coincidence it's just been proven to be the better method so far.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 4:38pm
Am I missing a point?
Posted by Gustav at 09/18/2009 @ 4:12pm
In some states, utilties are required to buy `surplus' electricity from folks like you.....
I am neither for or against it since in time, solar power will be a factor when it's truly competitive....when storage is solved. But, just to open your mind a bit, how would you feel if you were forced to buy `surplus' electricity from the utility? Or, you grew your own tomatoes and your local grocer is forced to buy your `surplus'?
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 4:49pm
It's a nice thought but it would never work. Cities weren't built by the government they were built by industry. Obviously industry thinks they serve a purpose. The method you advocate would cut into their profits which is why they don't do it. There is a reason industries tend to centralize themselves.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 4:38pm
Everything you said was true. However, that doesn't mean that we have to buy into it.
this is a subject with which I have long found myself more in agreement with elements of the left/environmental movement. In some areas of the Northeast and down in the Carolinas, people are using the barter system and even "local" money that is created by a municipality rather than the dollar and buying from large corporations.
It is also an area of agreement I believe between SRJ and myself.
I frankly prefer a mix of both as a libertarian. I like being non dependent on the big corporations, whether for healthcare, or my fruits and vegetables. Back in my hippie days, my wife and I made and sold products like sand candles, baked goods, etc, in much this same fashion.
You can see examples of this in some of the programming on Link TV (which is a progressive station) my wife and I watch daily.
One of the people I have been very impressed with is L Hunter Levins who is CEO of Natural Capitalism. I became impressed after watching a seminar she gave at the University of Washington .
http://tinyurl.com/nxoup9
http://www.natcapinc.com/core_hunter.htm
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 5:10pm
riding a bike in LA, CC? one of the more dangerous pastimes.
as a city dweller you are not a clod hopper.I know that.
the true treasure of cities are the people, both indigenous and visitors. I can stand on a street corner and watch the river of humanity flow by. that is not an experience that can be duplicated elsewhere.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/18/2009 @ 5:19pm
in my opinion LA can not call itself a world class city until it developes a decent public transportation system.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/18/2009 @ 5:21pm
But, just to open your mind a bit, how would you feel if you were forced to buy `surplus' electricity from the utility? Or, you grew your own tomatoes and your local grocer is forced to buy your `surplus'? Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 4:49pm
If the market allows as remarkable a profit as that generated by power companies... yes I feel it is totally acceptable to expect them to buy back a certain percentage of electrical (produced by means that is environmentally clean) as long as their own energy is being generated by burning coal and fossil fuel. It's the most economical way to induce power companies to go green... and start cleaning the environment, finally.
Posted by Gustav at 09/18/2009 @ 5:31pm
Everything you said was true. However, that doesn't mean that we have to buy into it.
this is a subject with which I have long found myself more in agreement with elements of the left/environmental movement. In some areas of the Northeast and down in the Carolinas, people are using the barter system and even "local" money that is created by a municipality rather than the dollar and buying from large corporations.
It is also an area of agreement I believe between SRJ and myself.
I frankly prefer a mix of both as a libertarian. I like being non dependent on the big corporations, whether for healthcare, or my fruits and vegetables. Back in my hippie days, my wife and I made and sold products like sand candles, baked goods, etc, in much this same fashion.
You can see examples of this in some of the programming on Link TV (which is a progressive station) my wife and I watch daily.
One of the people I have been very impressed with is L Hunter Levins who is CEO of Natural Capitalism. I became impressed after watching a seminar she gave at the University of Washington .
http://tinyurl.com/nxoup9
http://www.natcapinc.com/core_hunter.htm
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 5:10pm
Oh I don't disagree with you. I would recommend reading the chapter in predictably irrational where he talks about Burning Man. I assume you are aware of the festival in which no money is exchanged. Every exchanges services or whatever they happen to have. I think a barter system is great. I think it promotes community. The problem is I don't think it would work on a national and especially not on a global scale. Again I love the idea but I just don't think it's realistic.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 5:45pm
That is to say, I think it works on the small scale but is not realistic on the large scale.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 5:46pm
"riding a bike in LA, CC? one of the more dangerous pastimes. "
It's not so bad if you are aggressive. The mistake people make is they get too scared of the cars and try to stay out of their way. My goal is to get in their way and in their lanes so that they make no mistake that that thing in front of them is my big butt and they better not hit it. When you try to hide you make yourself less visible and therefore more likely to get hit.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 5:47pm
in my opinion LA can not call itself a world class city until it developes a decent public transportation system.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/18/2009 @ 5:21pm
It will never be then. It's too spread out. It would cost such an absurd amount of money to create it. I guess they could build above ground rails but even still it would come at such an exorbitant price tag. They would rather just spend less to expand the freeways which they are doing now. I know it sucks but on the plus side I can get pretty much anything I need within 5 minutes of my house.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 5:52pm
in my opinion LA can not call itself a world class city until it developes a decent public transportation system. Posted by emile duBois at 09/18/2009 @ 5:21pm |
It used to have a decent one, before GM...
http://www.trainweb.org/mts/ctc/ctc06.html
Posted by snowball777 at 09/18/2009 @ 6:08pm
Posted by winyahn at 09/18/2009 @ 1:59pm
Coffee much?
Posted by winyahn at 09/18/2009 @ 6:23pm
Also Larry, I know you don't want to be beholden to the corporations but that is the side price of capitalism. It is a system that allows for a lot of growth but at the same time it is a system that stokes the fires of beast. Creatures who's only purpose is to consume the maximum amount possible which means they will do everything they can to make us beholden to them which is why consumerism is more rampant in this country than any other. It's the ugly side of capitalism. It's goal is to consume and companies spend billions on making sure we are beholden to them.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 6:27pm
Posted by snowball777 at 09/18/2009 @ 6:08pm
Ain't that the truth.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 6:28pm
Oh and the other reason it's not possible LVL is because everything you do that is a gain concedes something else to the companies. If we all live in rural areas where everything is nice and spread out then you automatically concede to automobile and oil companies because no one is going to walk 10 miles to buy groceries. Your gain to not participate in medicine has you make a concession, you give money to aspirin to deal with pain caused by choosing not to get things handled by a doctor. Everything you gain is a concession to some other industry. Industry has secreted itself into our lives so that we no longer function as a society without it.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 6:36pm
Also Larry, I know you don't want to be beholden to the corporations but that is the side price of capitalism. It is a system that allows for a lot of growth but at the same time it is a system that stokes the fires of beast. Creatures who's only purpose is to consume the maximum amount possible which means they will do everything they can to make us beholden to them which is why consumerism is more rampant in this country than any other. It's the ugly side of capitalism. It's goal is to consume and companies spend billions on making sure we are beholden to them.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 6:27pm
You are defining capitalism within a very small definition.
I don't impose those kinds of limitations. I believe that in a free society, the market which is the people make the ultimate decisions. That means we get to shape how capitalism looks. It is only when you surrender that power as most Americans have done that the corporations get to define by default.
I partially control my participation by not giving in to materialism. I would prefer to take it further as people are willing to liberate themselves.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 6:45pm
It's the most economical way to induce power companies to go green... and start cleaning the environment, finally.
Posted by Gustav at 09/18/2009 @ 5:31pm
Let's say in your city, with years and years of heavy Gubber subsidies (tax credits, etc.) for solar panels......by 2015, 30% of the homes have solar panels that on average, make these homes self-sufficient...meaning they sell back to the utility co. during daylight hours just as much as they buy back during nights and cloudy days.
Now, should the utility maintain the same amount of generating capacity in 2015 as they do today even though their volume will be 30% less by 2015? Common business practice would be to cut back capacity and retire older, less efficient boilers or whatever.
What happens if the weather goes funky and you get 40 days & nights of rain? Or, what happens if a big ass volcano blows and blocks out 50% of the sunlight for 3 years? On top of that, the utility used some of the same tax subsidies and converted 40% of its own generating capacity to solar?
What am I getting at?
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 6:48pm
You are defining capitalism within a very small definition.
I don't impose those kinds of limitations. I believe that in a free society, the market which is the people make the ultimate decisions. That means we get to shape how capitalism looks. It is only when you surrender that power as most Americans have done that the corporations get to define by default.
I partially control my participation by not giving in to materialism. I would prefer to take it further as people are willing to liberate themselves.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 6:45pm
Yes capitalism is shaped by the participants. The problem is you over estimate human beings. People have proven throughout the history of our existence to be selfish materialistic beings. We fight constantly over land, resources and money since the beginning of written history. Capitalism in the end is just a system where the strong swim and the weak sink. The system in the end is defined by the strongest and the most organized which is always going to be corporations. People like you will always be in the minority and because you choose to not abide things like unions, will always be disorganized.
If humans were rational and benevolent creatures then yes we could abolish our need for corporations. But history has shown we are neither rational or benevolent. Therefore the market is neither rational nor benevolent.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 6:55pm
Oh and the other reason it's not possible LVL is because everything you do that is a gain concedes something else to the companies. If we all live in rural areas where everything is nice and spread out then you automatically concede to automobile and oil companies because no one is going to walk 10 miles to buy groceries. Your gain to not participate in medicine has you make a concession, you give money to aspirin to deal with pain caused by choosing not to get things handled by a doctor. Everything you gain is a concession to some other industry. Industry has secreted itself into our lives so that we no longer function as a society without it.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 6:36pm
Everything you write speaks of capitulation and ignoring creativity, inventiveness, and a self sustaining lifestyle. Again, that's one of the reasons I appreciate some of the programming on the far left Link TV. They promote these ideas very strongly.
Nor do I buy your posting on the level of necessity of autos and thus the oil industry.
Where is your creativity,your embrace of developing technologies? WHERE IS YOUR VISION?
People limit themselves and then you end up under the control of materialism, corporations, and big govt.
BTW, I mostly use natural remedies for my headaches. things like ice, hot green tea, massage, reflexology, and aromatherapy. Rosemary, lavender, and chamomile are other essential oils that may also help ease your headaches. For quick comfort, gently rub one drop of oil on the place where it hurts the most. Sometimes, just sitting in a relaxed position in a dark room with just candlelight, some hot tea and some quiet music (Keith Jarrett always works for me) will do wonders.
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 6:55pm
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 6:55pm
You call it capitulation I call it a recognition of the unfriendly reality. I embrace developing technology fully. Electric, Solar and Hydrogen cars will be a blessing when they emerge. But guess where you will get your hydrogen from. Until they manage to properly align the atoms in solar panels you will get your electricity from corporations too. I am not concedeing in that I try to free my life from corporations as much as I can. I try to get my food from farmers I try to drive as little as possible. I use electricity as little as possible. I don't spend very much money on material things. But I am a realist and a pragmatist. I see the way the world is and while I hope that it can change I can look at human nature and see what's actually going to happen. I am not conceding to corporations. I am conceding to the basest instincts of the people around me.
How can we advance out of consumerism as a society when people are willing to trample others to death to be the first to reach a sale at Wal-Mart? When companies like Costco and Target move into neighborhoods and strangle the independent businesses that exist because they can't afford to compete with Targets prices. What you are asking for is for massive deprogramming of 100 years of consumerism. You are the one who believes in miracles not me. I believe in humans. I believe that they will continue to act as they have for the last several 1,000 years.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 7:18pm
Posted by Happy at 09/18/2009 @ 6:48pm |
Watch out for those dangerous trees...50M without power, 8/14/2003
<On November 19, 2003, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said his department would not seek to punish FirstEnergy Corp for its role in the blackout because current U.S. law does not require electric reliability standards. Abraham stated, "The absence of enforceable reliability standards creates a situation in which there are limits in terms of federal level punishment."[9]>
At least when your 'volcano' (what is it with you and Bobbity Jindal?) blocks out the sun, the solar panels will simply stop delivering power.
Posted by snowball777 at 09/18/2009 @ 7:19pm
And space-based solar works around most of your silly arguments anyway; get with the 21st century.
Posted by snowball777 at 09/18/2009 @ 7:22pm
Posted by antisocialist at 09/18/2009 @ 6:55pm
You want proof of all of this look at the Internet which is now barely holding onto it's freedom. Companies are trying to censor content and bottle neck bandwidth. People are fighting tooth and nail. I can almost guarantee you that in the end that corporations will win out.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 7:27pm
What we are talking about here Larry in military terms is the American military fighting loosely knit militants. yes the American military may have set backs and may suffer a defeat here and there. But it has time and resources on it's side. Hell the military might even be outnumbered. But it is trained for these types of situations. That's how corporations work. They find every single loophole and exploitable trick to make sure you are as dependant on them as possible.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 7:31pm
It's too spread out.
LA developed the spread out way it did, BECAUSE of light rail, trolleys and the like. you, and others obviously, are thinking small.
take a look at the regional rail system that has developed around NYC, covering Long Island out to Montauk and East Hampton, up the Hudson to Albany, out in New Jersey to the Poconos and to Philadelphia.
surely even greater LA is not as large as this.
public transportation uses far less energy, and fosters a sense of community, which a single person commuting in his car does not. even electric cars do not alter that dynamic.
we, as a country have starved rail, while lavishing our tax money on the roads and car culture. I think both modes of transportation have a lot to offer in the future.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/18/2009 @ 8:42pm
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/18/2009 @ 5:47pm | ignore this person | warn this person
I tried that on Sunset BLVD, and was told by a nice lady in a Mercedes convertible that I would get killed if I persisted.
far too many bicyclists and pedestrians too are killed every years in my city, human sacrifices to the car moloch.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/18/2009 @ 8:45pm
Regardless of the danger inherent, bicycles and motor scooters will be the most efficient way to get around... very soon. The change will be obvious when corporations install facilities to park these vehicles safely in their buildings. When executives will be hanging their helmets in their office walls... next to their priced bikes... and trophies from company sponsored tournaments line their shelves. When the view outside the window will show a clear sky. Except when an impromptus volcano erupts and ruins the whole scenario... for everybody.
Posted by Gustav at 09/18/2009 @ 10:18pm
yes, ELECTRIC bikes and scooters. in NYC the chinese food delivery guys ride electric bicycles.
Posted by emile duBois at 09/19/2009 @ 08:52am