tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3664872774352256800.post3132209298171950182..comments2023-10-16T07:47:14.662-07:00Comments on Yooper's Trails: Future apartments?yooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11297259993402713368noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3664872774352256800.post-71316948295995746362009-01-23T13:46:00.000-08:002009-01-23T13:46:00.000-08:00Nudge, the WPA and other public works projects wer...Nudge, the WPA and other public works projects were put in place in the 30s to create jobs & leave something useful behind. A <I>lot</I> of the public infrastructure (parks, bridges, rural electric grids) was built during that time. WW2 came later, and FDR was attempting to avoid direct involvement (although helping out Britain through Lend-Lease, etc.) until Pearl Harbor forced the issue.<BR/><BR/>Archdruid made a very good point in his current column, though: <I>rhetoric no more heated than today’s … did much to create an atmosphere of collective hatred … to single out one group within society as the source of all its problems</I>. From there, it's one step away from war with some Other. Or worse, a civil war vs. a perceived Enemy Within.<BR/><BR/>There are attempts at substitutes: Johnson attempted a War on Poverty, with some early successes, then Reagan unconditionally surrendered and started a War on Drugs. A War on Stupidity would be worth fighting, although the stupid would fight like cornered rats.Larry Kollarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08317037795075278427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3664872774352256800.post-58932083887047449782009-01-23T08:36:00.000-08:002009-01-23T08:36:00.000-08:00I can't agree more, Nudge. It's especially heartbr...I can't agree more, Nudge. It's especially heartbreaking when we seen this man with the sign, we were taking "Little Louly" over to Petco, so she could pick out some "city bones".... There was a segment on the news down there, where one man was making over $100 a day, panhandling...<BR/><BR/>Funny you should bring up the house of cards thing. As this is how I described the collapse would be like in, "The Royal Flush in Spades" series.<BR/><BR/>At the time a friend of mine Kentar, described a slow decline scenario, being like a house that finally collapsed slowly from being gutted out from the inside. But that the roof might be left intact for future use.<BR/><BR/>I'm in agreement with this concept however, as you've seen it's decay in the roof, windows and doors open, that let the elements in for decay to take hold inside the building. This also happens to a lot of barns up here, until one day when a good wind comes through, the whole structure suddenly comes down, leaving nothing intact...yooperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11297259993402713368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3664872774352256800.post-1500106884655792009-01-23T04:48:00.000-08:002009-01-23T04:48:00.000-08:00Yooper, that whole thing about “will work for food...Yooper, that whole thing about “will work for food” signs is so wrong .. and so depressing. I remember seeing that sort of thing in Boston in the early 1990s, when I had a series of addresses in some rather unsavory parts of Southie, Dorchester, Cambridge, Jamaica Plain, Somerville, Jamaica Pond, Framingham, etc.<BR/><BR/>It's hard to guess when we, as communities or as a whole country, come to a full reckoning of exactly what kind of life we can afford to live. When you see things that disappear easily and rapidly (Detroit's 50% population haircut you mentioned above) it is a definite marker that it was a bubble thing dependent on a temporary and unsustainable arrangement.<BR/><BR/>Normally a returning serviceman or -woman would be accorded some respect for having served the country abroad and endured danger to life & limb. Maybe the way we can tell we're near the “bottom” is when the arrangements start going from worse to better. Right now they're all going from worse to way-worse as the current house-of-cards set of arrangements unwinds / detoxifies / whatever.<BR/><BR/>I for one do not envy Obama and his team the problems they must solve with the meager tools at their disposal. The more clever folks in Washington realize that an even more fundamental problem than foreclosures, or home re-valuation, or the credit crunch, etc, is the issue of job stability and earned income. Since they can neither prevent foreclosures, not artificially maintain stupidly-inflated house values, or supply enough credit without also tanking the economy in the process, they are already looking at massive job creation. Historically this has always come about through mobilization for war .. so .. who's gonna be the new enemy?<BR/><BR/>Sorry to digress.Nudgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01513472441473206482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3664872774352256800.post-35054018971201542182009-01-22T15:10:00.000-08:002009-01-22T15:10:00.000-08:00You bet, Far. There was one that was added to here...You bet, Far. There was one that was added to here, maybe 30 units altogether this year. But you know how rinky dink it is here and only going up because the population is aging... Gee, there are times when I'm even thinking about throwing the towel in and move into one of 'em... ha! Then I wake up...<BR/><BR/>There was a couple of rules that I set for myself with this project or series. One being, not to discuss race in any matter. Two, only stay within Detroit's city limits. However, even the suburbs for the most part, construction has halted every where... You know something's up when you see ex-vets holding up signs proclaiming they'll work for food on the streets of Ann Arbor.... Very sad.yooperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11297259993402713368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3664872774352256800.post-83199814517144385412009-01-22T13:50:00.000-08:002009-01-22T13:50:00.000-08:00Not much residential development going on anywhere...Not much residential development going on anywhere. "They" <A HREF="http://farmanor.blogspot.com/2007/05/there-goes-neighborhood.html" REL="nofollow">started something</A> just down the road from FAR Manor nearly two years ago… and about the only thing that has changed since then is that there are vines climbing the sign.<BR/><BR/>I expect that the commercial developments going on down here, that I wrote about a week ago, won't be followed up by many more… and the ones already built will continue to sit empty until "infiltrated."<BR/><BR/>I'm not sure *when* I last saw apartments being put up. I'm sure it happens, but not recently & not around here.Larry Kollarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08317037795075278427noreply@blogger.com