Downtown LA

[_Markk]

We are in a period of wide urban revival rather than decay due to a huge inflow of college-educated young people into urban centers. Different areas of cities go through periods of uplift and decline. There's always areas of major cities that are in decline due to things like aging housing stock, loss of employment anchors, zoning changes etc. But the other half of the story is there always are areas of major cities that are improving either through revitalization or expansion. It's interesting to know where these areas are, why, what can be done, and what the balance is. Trying to explain the general decline of urban areas is based on a false premise. Cities generally speaking aren't in a downward spiral. Quite the contrary, we're in a period where wealth is increasingly concentrating into our urban areas. Creeping gentrification currently is outpacing creeping ghettos for the majority of urban America. I'd be far more worried about the decline in rural areas. Wealth and economic opportunity is flowing out of already poor towns and country areas into cities.

The natural mirror of Markk's video would be a simple tour of rural poverty filled with dilapidated, unkempt properties. I'm not sure if if he explains that too in terms of immigration policy he doesn't like and lack of moral upbringing. Either way, it's incorrect to portray the problem as quarantined to cities.

Markk seemed to completely miss my original point, but others have pointed that out.

Well in So Ca, it is happening in large cities and small cities, and actually rural areas are growing in certain areas. LA is booming in central downtown, and urban growth is crazy..."100 cranes" is a slogan used downtown with the boom, even though there are only about 50.

But it is pushing it into the rural areas and smaller business districts. That is why I often use Boyle heights as an example.

I was going to upload more videos today, be we had a injury on a project so I did not have a chance...but I find this a interesting subject thanks.

by the way, in your town and/or state, are you seeing what we are seeing down here?

[_Markk]

It appears that police are allowing camping on the street which in years past has not been allowed in many places. But that has varied back and forth as communities decide how they might deal with people who cannot pay the rent.

It is not camping, it is living, these are their own little worlds...in one of the videos I was turn the corner and there was a booth set up for phones, not for folks like you and I, but for those that live in these tent and street communities.

In some areas, in residential neighborhoods...there are "vendors" that have their own corners. One may be a igloo cooler full of coffee, or tamales, or cigarettes. On the city sidewalks they sell just about anything you can think of.

A few years ago me and some buddies went to a restaurant for lunch, very basic Mexican food place, benches etc. Anyways...as we were waiting for our food a lady came in and sent some cheap hard candy on our table, we said thanks, and she walked toward the door and stood there...one of my buddies ate a piece and then she came over and demanded money. Which was okay, be gave her 5 bucks, but it is how these communities are developing.

Scroll through the pics, and now that it is legal in LA to just set up shop on a street, it is pretty interesting.

https://www.google.com/search?q=street+ ... 52&bih=566

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

It is only in-forced in upscale business districts, like LA live.

[_EAllusion]

Madison, while the second biggest city in Wisconsin, isn't that big. The city proper is around a quarter million. The surrounding metro area probably doubles that.

The city is generally very beautiful. Its economy has been very strong since forever. Being a city, it has pockets of poverty and its associated problems. I have no idea if poverty is getting worse in the city, but it isn't apparent enough to show up in my anecdotal experience. Maybe we've had a influx of poor Chicagoans seeking economic opportunity increasing poverty in some neighborhoods? You definitely don't see sprawling ghettos. Just pockets of problems. You probably missed it in another thread, but I literally was almost accidentally shot in a driveby earlier this week going to one of those areas for work.

There's been a change in the behavior of the homeless over the last two years or so. Madison's homeless used to concentrate in the downtown area and especially around State St. A while ago, Mayor Soglin made a concerted effort to push them out by aggressively enforcing anti-loitering provisions. Despite his reputation as a pinko-Commie, Soglin is constantly trying to crush visible homelessness even if that makes the problem of homelessness worse. This response, of course, doesn't fix homelessness, so it fanned them out. We have several shelters in the area that were managing to absorb this until there was a temporary close down before another day-center went on online. During that time, the homeless started panhandling on random busy traffic stops with signs. Even though the new day-center is operational, this hasn't stopped this behavior. Subjectively, I think this could look like a massive increase in the homelessness problem in the city, but it's actually shortsighted policy that made just made it more visible.

Madison is famously a very safe city, but recently there has been a noticeable uptick in violent crime, at least for Madison. It's not clear why that is yet. It could just be statistical noise. My favorite theory is the heroin epidemic has brought in more organized crime. Madison has traditionally been very lax about marijuana enforcement, so this discouraged organized crime associated with the drug trade. Heroin enforcement is more intense, and this might be bringing in more crime associated with heroin distribution as demand spikes. I'm not sure. Another possibility locals are fond of bringing up is the local gun restrictions were usurped by a radical shift in gun policy at the state level after the Republican takeover. Guns might be more prevalent now as a result of that. I'm not sure if that really is a driver here.

There's already been 7 homicides this year, which isn't a lot, but it does put us on pace for bad year. Still, if you are worried about violence in Madison, you'd be wiser to look out for drunk students looking to pick a fight after bar time than getting mugged or something like that.

We do have farmers markets and street carts all over the place, but they're the sort of thing you'd put on a brochure. Just yesterday, I bought some tacos from a dude selling them from his bicycle cart. They were delicious. Madison is very big on local, cooperative entrepreneurialism.

[_EAllusion]

Race wise, Madison is a very segregated city. Black and Latino populations, while small, tend to be poor and concentrated in specific poor neighborhoods. You can draw a ellipse around the lakes and map out both concentration of blacks and latinos and poverty. There is a very small black middle and upper class in the city. Ditto for Latinos. Despite the city being liberal, it has a well-known problem of massive disparities in how police treat different racial groups. Profiling in traffic stops is so obvious that it's easy to pick up just by anecdotal observation. Tensions are going to boil over about this some day.

[_Markk]

Madison, while the second biggest city in Wisconsin, isn't that big. The city proper is around a quarter million. The surrounding metro area probably doubles that.

The city is generally very beautiful. Its economy has been very strong since forever. Being a city, it has pockets of poverty and its associated problems. I have no idea if poverty is getting worse in the city, but it isn't apparent enough to show up in my anecdotal experience. Maybe we've had a influx of poor Chicagoans seeking economic opportunity increasing poverty in some neighborhoods? You definitely don't see sprawling ghettos. Just pockets of problems. You probably missed it in another thread, but I literally was almost accidentally shot in a driveby earlier this week going to one of those areas for work.

There's been a change in the behavior of the homeless over the last two years or so. Madison's homeless used to concentrate in the downtown area and especially around State St. A while ago, Mayor Soglin made a concerted effort to push them out by aggressively enforcing anti-loitering provisions. Despite his reputation as a pinko-Commie, Soglin is constantly trying to crush visible homelessness even if that makes the problem of homelessness worse. This response, of course, doesn't fix homelessness, so it fanned them out. We have several shelters in the area that were managing to absorb this until there was a temporary close down before another day-center went on online. During that time, the homeless started panhandling on random busy traffic stops with signs. Even though the new day-center is operational, this hasn't stopped this behavior. Subjectively, I think this could look like a massive increase in the homelessness problem in the city, but it's actually shortsighted policy that made just made it more visible.

Madison is famously a very safe city, but recently there has been a noticeable uptick in violent crime, at least for Madison. It's not clear why that is yet. It could just be statistical noise. My favorite theory is the heroin epidemic has brought in more organized crime. Madison has traditionally been very lax about marijuana enforcement, so this discouraged organized crime associated with the drug trade. Heroin enforcement is more intense, and this might be bringing in more crime associated with heroin distribution as demand spikes. I'm not sure. Another possibility locals are fond of bringing up is the local gun restrictions were usurped by a radical shift in gun policy at the state level after the Republican takeover. Guns might be more prevalent now as a result of that. I'm not sure if that really is a driver here.

There's already been 7 homicides this year, which isn't a lot, but it does put us on pace for bad year. Still, if you are worried about violence in Madison, you'd be wiser to look out for drunk students looking to pick a fight after bar time than getting mugged or something like that.

We do have farmers markets and street carts all over the place, but they're the sort of thing you'd put on a brochure. Just yesterday, I bought some tacos from a dude selling them from his bicycle cart. They were delicious. Madison is very big on local, cooperative entrepreneurialism.

I can only assume that it gets really cold in the winter...where do the homeless go?

[_Markk]

Race wise, Madison is a very segregated city. Black and Latino populations, while small, tend to be poor and concentrated in specific poor neighborhoods. You can draw a ellipse around the lakes and map out both concentration of blacks and latinos and poverty. There is a very small black middle and upper class in the city. Ditto for Latinos. Despite the city being liberal, it has a well-known problem of massive disparities in how police treat different racial groups. Profiling in traffic stops is so obvious that it's easy to pick up just by anecdotal observation. Tensions are going to boil over about this some day.

Do you have many minority neighbors? What I am getting at are the neighborhoods segregated strictly by race, or more of class? In other words do wealthy Latinos live with poor Latinos? Visa versa?

[_EAllusion]

Race wise, Madison is a very segregated city. Black and Latino populations, while small, tend to be poor and concentrated in specific poor neighborhoods. You can draw a ellipse around the lakes and map out both concentration of blacks and latinos and poverty. There is a very small black middle and upper class in the city. Ditto for Latinos. Despite the city being liberal, it has a well-known problem of massive disparities in how police treat different racial groups. Profiling in traffic stops is so obvious that it's easy to pick up just by anecdotal observation. Tensions are going to boil over about this some day.

Do you have many minority neighbors? What I am getting at are the neighborhoods segregated strictly by race, or more of class? In other words do wealthy Latinos live with poor Latinos? Visa versa?

My neighbors across the street are black. Based on my anecdotal experience and extrapolating from the racial dot map, I'd say my neighborhood is about 70% white. Asians make up the largest minority. There's plenty of Indians in my neighborhood who have high-skill jobs.

I'm not sure if you can separate the two in Madison's case. I'm sure there are studies on this, but I haven't read them so I'm not positive. Madison is heavily segregated based on class compared to other urban counterparts. I know that from local reporting. But Madison has a larger than average class distinction based on race too. So without the benefit of knowing the research, it looks chicken/egg to me. It's a good question. I don't know.

There are absolutely alarming outcome based disparities on race in the region. I remember a stat from a few years ago that something on the order of 75% of black children in the area live in poverty while the same is true of only 5% of white children. Think about that. It's night and day.

[_EAllusion]

I can only assume that it gets really cold in the winter...where do the homeless go?

Shelters. Tough it out. Die.

[_subgenius]

perhaps you should have been more accurate with your sentiment and said - "Man, Free will has failed..."

I think you're confusing will to power versus marketplace realities.

nope, the freedom to choose is an essential characteristic of a marketplace reality.

Capitalism is supposed to benefit everyone, consumers and producers.

Sez who? It seems that capitalism is something distinct from whatever Utopian economic view you are trying to impose upon it. Capitalism provides success and failure, profit and loss, winners and losers....note every "start-up" deserves to endure. Through both the success and failure the "benefit" is realized and cannot be dumbed down in such absolute black/white concepts as "supposed to benefit everyone". That is a narrow and naïve view of an economic system...and that sort of lowest common denominator thinking belongs to the economic system of socialism, not capitalism.

Consumers get quality product through competition and availability. Producers get wealth through providing the best product at reasonable prices. That, I'm sure, we can agree on.

Yes, i agree...but you see how what you are agreeing to means that "benefit everyone" is a rather inappropriate term. Capitalism provides the greater benefit to the greater number of people both individually and collectively.

The problem with capitalism, especially deregulated capitalism, is human greed.

Human greed is just a problem, and it is a problem that exists within and without capitalism. Human greed is also the problem with countless other economic systems. It is not the economic system that creates human greed nor is it the system that destroys human greed. I do not see how more/less regulation can be argued as being a cure for human greed.

Throw enough money at beating your competition (advertisements, smear campaigns, hostile take-overs, non-compete markets, etc.) and monopolies are bound to arise.

true sometimes and not true other times. Your generalities are not convincing. There are many ways to "beat your competition", and as you stated above - "Consumers get quality product through competition and availability". Now arguably, fairness is competition would seem to bring about the "best" result, but "fair" is rather subjective (a.k.a. not so black/white) and the history of great achievements is rich with examples where fairness had little influence on the benefit drawn from a result.

When companies grow so large that they dominate through sheer overwhelming numbers (think Walmart vs Mom & Pop), they tip the balance of consumer and producer towards the producers.

What an abstract example that seems to be more applicable to a movie script than real life. Consumers brought about the demise of mom/pop not companies - this is the undeniable "marketplace reality" that you have already conceded.

When the giant companies have such leverage over pricing, wages, logistics, location, and product quality, they will inevitably exploit it for further profits.

So? Are you trying to equate some sort of intrinsic consequence to "more profits"?

The purpose of producers is no longer to produce products for success through quality. It is now to provide profits for shareholders. The consumer is no longer part of the equation.

What? The consumer is always a part of the equation, without the consumer you really have no need for a supplier. This is not a chicken/egg dilemma, the want has always preceded the supply.

We live in a mostly-post-scarcity environment. Products are now readily available. In America, at least, it's not difficult to walk down the street and buy a loaf of bread, some meat and cheese, and go home to feed your family. This is a positive end-goal of capitalism.

Nope, there is no "end-goal" of capitalism. That sort of binary thinking is akin to the foolishness of thinking that everyone can be rich or that everyone should be poor - it requires the demise of free will, the slaughter of choice - not just choice as a consumer but as a human being.

"Late stage" capitalism, however, is what is happening on the consumer side of the consumer/producer equation. Producers have their end-game, they are making their profits and all is right in their world.

huh?

Consumers, however, are struggling to be able to buy from producers.

Then how is it possible for your previous statement to be true?

Wages have stagnated for decades.

arguable, but hardly a condemnation of capitalism.

Education is both losing the value it once had AND becoming more expensive to attain.

you mean the highly regulated system of education? Talk about a market where there is a lack of competition and choice.
Nevertheless
It is silly to think about an education system as a "business" - perhaps that is a different topic altogether - but again, irrelevant to the merits or failures of capitalism.

This is causing a problem of a lack of a skilled workforce AND a workforce incapable of readily buying the products they produce for the producers.

again, a myopic view and a connection that you have not established as being the result of "capitalism". There are many other economic systems that have identical circumstances as you describe here.

People are literally living in the streets while corporate executives have multiple yachts.

Again, this occurs in other economic systems as well, so it cannot be attributed to "capitalism". In fact, because capitalism encourages and requires free will, it can be said that some of this "effect" is a result of compeition...and as you have already conceded that competition is a good thing, then you recognize that there are winners and losers inherent in every competition.

Poor people are derided as lazy and moochers while lobbyists are convincing the government capital gains shouldn't be taxed as much. A high school graduate shoveling coal used to be able to buy a house; now, software engineers are sharing apartments.

Many poor people are lazy and moochers - that is how the DNC prefers them to be. And spare me the "good ole days" routine, because ni the "good ole days" women and coloreds knew their place, amiright?
Anyway, your point here is an idea of stagnation which is tantamount to death. The marketplace reality is dynamic, evolutionary, and unable to exist in a state of stagnation/predictability.

It is currently easier to turn $1mil into $10mil on the stock market without ever producing a single product, than it is to create a product that will sell enough to earn you $1mil.

So? who are you to suggest some sort of arbitrary morality for measuring what is good and what is bad when someone makes money? Where are you getting this abstract sense of "fairness"? Is it from that other deadly sin that is good pals with greed - known as "envy" ?

There is nothing left on the consumer/producer equation. When a corporation can sell you completely defective products and services (phones that explode, airlines giving seated passengers concussions, pharmaceutical companies selling highly addictive opioids, oil that comes from sponsors of state terrorism, cars that don't pass emissions tests, Big Box stores that pay their employees so little that they require food stamps and then accept federal assistance from those food stamps) and those corporations don't go out of business, the consumer/producer balance has failed. This is late stage capitalism and this is where we're at right now.

Totally disagree. You a contrary to your own position. Either competition is good or it is not - either success is good or it is not - either failure is good or it is not....your position dances between these affirmations on whims and flights of fancy.
Your position is simple and rather du jour - Corporate bad, hometown mom/pop bad - yet you have no basis for this valuation other than your own personla preferences...personal preferences that we can only assume you chose freely - and chose them from a competitive marketplace....a marketplace of ideas and values that will either form the next product...or will not.....or maybe you would rather control this marketplace? leverage what you deem as profitable and force upon others because the corporation of DocCamNC4Me takes care of its shareholders....
i digress, sorry.

Nevertheless, I understand your position and it is certainly reasonable on many points...but none of these can be attributed as being caused by, intrinsic to, or inherent in capitalism as an economic system. Capitalism is the best possible system for allowing free will and freedom of choice, whether that choice be in color, flavor, or even regulation....it also allows for the free choice of greed at many levels,,,greed is an available option for both the consumer and the producer, and this greed surely influences the marketplace to varying degrees at varying times under varying circumstances.
So, i assert, again, that your issue is not really with capitalism but with free will.

[_The CCC]

Nonsense.

Capitalism isn't based on Free Will among equal players. Capitalism is based on the idea that if you make a product that I desire. That if I have the means to acquire that product, and do so, we both benefit. IE;There is a reason why buggy whips aren't the big sellers they were about 120 years ago. It has nothing to do with Free Will.