Take a walk around downtown Seattle. You will be shocked by a shuttered, dystopian city and made angry by the inaction and ineptness of its political leadership. It is simply beyond words.
…
I swung by the infamous McDonalds* on Third Ave– infamous for both drug dealing and violence, and I could not believe what I saw: an obvious drug deal going down right in front of me.
…
What didn’t I see on my two-hour walk? Not a single police officer. Not one police car.
A boarded up central core of a major U.S. city was being left to the homeless, drug dealers, and security guards. Even the most notorious, crime-ridden corner of the city had no police. The streets of the city had become a fearful abandoned place.
Cliff Mass
August 5, 2020
Seattle: A City in Fear Can Be Restored
[Mass concludes with some suggestions and hope that Seattle can recover. I’m not so certain.
This morning I spent most of an hour talking with daughter Jaime about the death spiral of Seattle and other major cities. We’re not so sure Seattle can be saved. A significant part of the success of cities the last 200 years has been because most of the best jobs were in cities. Part of the response to the pandemic, many workers being able to work from home, has proven that reason is no longer valid. And just the existence of the pandemic is a deterrent to city life. Another attraction of city life was the restaurants and nightlife opportunities. Those were among the first casualties of the pandemic. So, why should people stay in the cities?
Many have already left. The people staying are those who contribute the least, if not a net drain, to the tax base. In New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been begging rich people to return to New York City from their second-home retreats so they can pay taxes to help offset the state’s growing coronavirus-related revenue shortfall. The people the politicians want to come back are those most sensitive to the loss of police protection for their property. So what is their motivation to return?
Add violence and property destruction to the ability to be prosperous and safe outside the mega cities and we may have a death spiral for Seattle, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other large cities. Those cities have been accepting and even encouraging the terrorists who have been making the cities less desirable. So what are the plausible outcomes?
Add mega cities to the list of causalities of 2020..—Joe]
* This is ground zero of Mugme Street.
The rich people who pay taxes aren’t just the ones most sensitive to the lack of police protection — they are also the ones most enthusiastically vilified by the extremists and their political supporters.
They are also the most able to pack up and leave.
I agree. Detroit is the future of all big cities in the USA.
I’m not so sure about the exurbs and the dying rural towns. Will people spread out or just around the big metros? Today the exurbs have high-speed cable and delivery services while many of the rural towns do not.
What Cliff is seeing is NOT beyond words. In fact, it’s been predicted and well-understood for a while. It’s the toxic end-state of modern Democrat progressive/left/liberalism. He just can’t admit that to himself yet, or at least out loud, or he’d be lynched (and he knows fighting Woke is bad for a man’s health and career).
For some things, high density of some sort will still be needed. A steel mill with 5000 employees will need 5,000 households and relevant support structure nearby, for example. A shipyard needs to be pretty near the coast, and have a fair number of people within commuting distance; they are “captive,” as it were. Many efficiencies are to be had with high density employment, but there comes a point where the efficiency is dehumanizing, and we are well into that point now. They also increase the profitability of corruption and dishonesty, while also decreasing the chance of getting caught and prosecuted because of anonymity and being just another face in the endless, faceless bureaucracy.
Could the cities recover? Yes, possibly. Maybe. But it would require massive arrests among the corrupt political elites, banking / financial elites, union elites, media elites, transnational elites,and a few other toxic controlling groups. (and I use the word “elites” advisedly; they are calling the shots via corruption and compromised blackmail, but they are not out moral, intellectual, or spiritual superiors/ leaders in any way). Simple assassination won’t work, and they’ll be replaced before the corpse is cold by someone else in the network. They must be exposed and publicly humiliated, and the corrupt networks destroyed.
Cliff Mass has been aware of the descent of Seattle into madness for a long time. As a leading climate researcher he has also been truthful about the causes and effects of climate change in ways that dissent from the narrative. He’s been censored for those, and now his weathercast has been kicked off the local NPR station because of his comments on BLM/Antifa, etc.
All good comments. And would add that human nature being what it is. Humans will rebuild for the same reasons they were there in the first place. Once the danger has passed. Getting rid of the danger and restoring peoples confidence is the problem.
And while all that’s going on. One can see a vested interest in keeping your rural area 2G.
Depends on who wins the coming civil war and how much destruction there is.
In 1900, Saint Louis was the major manufacturing and business center in the Midwest. The same issues caused businesses and the wealthy to flee for more friendly areas. Auto production went to Detroit. Airplanes went to Wichita. Smaller manufacturers that supplied these companies went elsewhere. Politics, inflexibility and outright corruption is what reduced Saint Louis to the pale imitation of what it once was. If Saint Louis and Detroit are used as examples, major cities are dying and unwilling or unable to make the changes to revive themselves.
55 years after the Watts riots Watts has never returned to what it once was. Of course Watts is still a Democratic stronghold. It appears that the Democratic Party perspective is that it is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven and the party will create dystopias to remain in power..
Looks like he’s out at a Tacoma NPR station where he gave long-range weather commentary (more than just a “weatherman,” who opposed people who act like The Weather Underground.)
https://thepostmillennial.com/npr-fires-weatherman-for-comparing-seattle-riots-to-germany-in-1938