Cities, big cities, are great and exciting. Potentially at least. When they're allowed to fall apart, as often seems to be happening, they can be kind of a drag.
I remember first seeing pictures of La Sombrita, a mesh-y little metal wall that looks like it does absolutely nothing. It's one example of many of public features being reduced to nothing, even as they officially continue to exist.
As Arnade says, this is in large part a way to avoid the homeless from taking over bus stops, train stations, etc. But there are other things that could be done without any new legislation. Most big cities already have public nuisance laws on the books, but many have stopped enforcing them.
That would be one way of addressing the problem. But those for whom the problem is a problem aren't really the people for whom the cities are being run.
2 comments:
It seems No. American cities in particular are falling into squalor faster than ever would have been believed. Of course when you consider just a few of the problems that have left so many without homes of any kind to live in, greed being so rampant, you must conclude it's either deliberately arranged or was never a consideration.
I know it's complex and that there are any number of reasons for the disaster - drug addiction, untreated mental illness, the fact that jobs are so scarce etc. - but a huge factor is that the low rent neighborhoods that used to exist not that many years ago have been gentrified. Zoning laws encourage developers who are all too willing to build and sell high end properties. Naturally, it's preferable not to have to live where there are fire hazards and vermin but I think city officials have gone a bit too far in enforcing codes. At least with tenements and rooming houses people had a roof over their heads and neighbors who knew them.
I loved looking at and reading some of Chris Arnade's Substack articles and was seriously considering buying a subscription until the day I opened the site and found almost every post of his was locked to all but paying customers. Anyone who's wealthy enough to do the kind of traveling he does could afford to be a bit more generous.
I'd say your theory is pretty sound. The gap in both wealth and overall wellbeing has grown to disastrous proportions. You can do something about it or you can do your best to distract the people on the wrong side of it. In general they've done more of the latter, but how much longer will it work?
The thing about gentrification is that there is an initial financial payoff. You get the initial sale of the property or rent on high-class apartments once the lease is signed. Someone makes out then. But it's a case of diminishing returns. You can't build an economy just on rent. It would be nice to have at least some manufacturing going on, which you don't see much of within the American coasts. Retail as well, and frequently the stores and restaurants left over are unaffordable to most urban residents. And of course as you point out there just aren't enough places for people with low and medium incomes to go. It's a bad pattern.
Some Substackers are better than others about letting readers sample their blogs/journals/whatever. Some paywalling is, I'm sure, necessary to keep the revenue flowing in. But if no one can read anything without subscribing most will probably just pass on the whole thing.
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