Shithole Cities

[MickAK]

Or maybe it's because drugs are enjoyable, and some people prefer the homeless drug addict lifestyle over being sober and gainfully employed?

People are physically enslaved by opiates. Once people are addicted to opiates they lose the ability to choose. Through overwhelming and superhuman effort the best thing they can become post opiate addiction is a table that's missing a leg. It can sort of perform as a table if it doesn't get pushed slightly. If it gets pushed slightly it will fall over.

I understand what you're getting at and those people certainly exist but I think it's really important to differentiate between a society destroying disease and people that like drugs and don't like paying rent.

[RevolverRob]

Or maybe it's because drugs are enjoyable, and some people prefer the homeless drug addict lifestyle over being sober and gainfully employed?

I definitely think such people exist. I also think certain aspects of our society allow people like that to exist and maybe even increase in number.

But to be fair - I like mind-altering substances and not paying rent as @MickAK points out. But I guess the difference between me and some is I also like living in a nice house, and I enjoy my work. Also, admittedly, my mind-altering substance use is limited to caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco - each of which have significantly lower addiction profiles compared to say...heroin.

[Clusterfrack]

People are physically enslaved by opiates. Once people are addicted to opiates they lose the ability to choose. Through overwhelming and superhuman effort the best thing they can become post opiate addiction is a table that's missing a leg. It can sort of perform as a table if it doesn't get pushed slightly. If it gets pushed slightly it will fall over.

I understand what you're getting at and those people certainly exist but I think it's really important to differentiate between a society destroying disease and people that like drugs and don't like paying rent.

Great post. It's easy to lose sight of the humanity underlying addiction when my formerly prosperous and safe city has been invaded by 1000's of fighting age males, living on the streets and acting amorally.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I hear you. I have lived in three locales that were quite nice and then changed for the worse. Our nice middle class neighborhood in Brooklyn changed with crimes and muggings. Portland, home for many years - as Clusterfrack mentioned has changed. Family in WA says the same for their town. In San Antonio, we lived out towards the country but urban sprawl swamped over us with problems. Bad people, Shootings on our street with new people, the 'nice' shopping areas started to have attacks and gang shootings. Now, we live in a small town in a crappy gun law state (was doable until the Bruen counter attack and Scotus doing nothing - save me the proceduralist apologia) but one of the lowest crime rates in the country.

I've said this before, the inability to supply good jobs for nuclear families (yes, you can have your own life style, but kids need good homes), discrimination, crappy education to give people a boost up the economic ladder - led to a cultural disintegration in many demographics. The focus on stock price and quick profits for the economic elites will bring us down. Increasing separation of elites from everyone else has destroyed civilizations.

The drug usage and urban crime comes from the failure to enable people to provide well. The poorer subsets are turned against each other with ginned up social issues and hateful use of religion by a political class that is only self-interested and in the pocket of the monied classes.

[Joe in PNG]

I've said this before, the inability to supply good jobs for nuclear families (yes, you can have your own life style, but kids need good homes), discrimination, crappy education to give people a boost up the economic ladder - led to a cultural disintegration in many demographics. The focus on stock price and quick profits for the economic elites will bring us down. Increasing separation of elites from everyone else has destroyed civilizations.

The drug usage and urban crime comes from the failure to enable people to provide well. The poorer subsets are turned against each other with ginned up social issues and hateful use of religion by a political class that is only self-interested and in the pocket of the monied classes.

The whole Educational Industrial Complex isn't really helping things for the younger people, either. Starting adulthood is hard enough as it is, because people at that age typically don't really have the skills or experience to get a job that pays the big bucks right out of the gate. That means they have to work lots of hours at the menial jobs to get a 'living wage' until they have accumulated enough skill, experience, and trust to get a promotion to something better. And that has been part of working for wages since forever.

The problem lies in pushing every high school student to go into massive student loan debt, even those who really shouldn't be in college. So you still have someone who's still not really got the skills or experience to get a high paying job, who still has to work lots of hours for low pay, but also has a great big debt to cover too.
And it is even worse for the young person who drops out- now they have the debt but no degree.

[cheby]

Great post. It's easy to lose sight of the humanity underlying addiction when my formerly prosperous and safe city has been invaded by 1000's of fighting age males, living on the streets and acting amorally.

Well, treating this as a disease is how we got to this point. These "fighting age males" are not victims. They are responsible for their decisions. And we and our children should not have to suffer the consequences. It is getting worse and worse every year. If we really want to save at least some of those people, it is about time to accept the fact that whatever policies San Francisco, Portland, and other shitholes are pushing are not working.



https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics...rdose%20deaths.

At the end of this documentary, there is a discussion of some solution. It may be not perfect, but it is definitively better than passing Measure 110 in Portland.

[rob_s]

Spent the last flew days in chicago. Didn’t get “out” much, but I had two impressions:
1) I really do love cities. If certain circumstances were a little different for me I’d want to live in one. I’ll have to settle for a “town” (eventually, hopefully). And I wish I could visit more often.
2) chicago seems not to have the same issues I’ve seen in some other cities recently. Yeah, I walked past some dude sleeping face down slumped over in his wheelchair, but I didn’t see any “camps” in the areas I was in.

[mmc45414]

Spent the last flew days in chicago. Didn’t get “out” much, but I had two impressions:
2) chicago seems not to have the same issues I’ve seen in some other cities recently. Yeah, I walked past some dude sleeping face down slumped over in his wheelchair, but I didn’t see any “camps” in the areas I was in.

Have visited there for business a bunch, but have not been since the Vid and Floyd, curious exactly what part of town were you in?

[rob_s]

Have visited there for business a bunch, but have not been since the Vid and Floyd, curious exactly what part of town were you in?

[mmc45414]

Palmer House is my favorite, but the Congress has a nice view of the park.