Crib Chatter is on Vacation This Week
The beach is calling once again.
As usual, please try and refrain from calling each other names while I’m gone. Although most of you have been pretty civil this year. That must mean the housing market is boring. Lol.
The rest of this year, one of the big stories will be all the luxury condos that are still being built.
Have they over built the market? Could some buildings get into financial trouble due to lack of sales?
They are converting the Tribune Tower, sales or not. It is expected to open late next year (or early 2021.) That’s not much time to sell over 100 luxury condos.
What will happen in the Vista? It’s getting closer to completion as well.
There’s a lot going on.
We’ll be chattering about all of this, and more, for the remainder of 2019.
See you then!
Sabrina
Have fun on vaca!
On that note. To anyone in the south loop, don’t send your kids to south loop montessori, which is in the same building pictured, dearborn station.
Speaking of wanda vista..A *reasonable* 3 bed had popped up for around 1.7 – much lower than normal. I inquired but they were pretty sketchy about what views or exact floorplan was. Has anyone bought / looked into this building?
why not send them there Riz?
Mike,
During our visit, kids (especially the ones not crawling / walking yet ) were kind of left to their own devices. Seemed a bit dirty and disorganized in general.
A guy in a ‘supreme’ hoodie introduced himself as the owner. I’m all for the trendy skater culture or whatever…but seemed unprofessional – Giving tours to parents in a 700 dollar hoodie.
Disclaimer being I’m not a daycare fan in general. tried it for about 5 days with my kid before switching back to nanny, for a lot of reasons.
“left to their own devices”
That’s what Montessori education is all about…
“a 700 dollar hoodie”
It’s a $200 hoodie that idiots pay $700 for on the secondary market.
And it’s “street” owned (ok, only 50%) by The Carlyle Group.
I think it’s fine to let a 1-2 year old figure stuff out on their own a bit, if that is what Montessori is about. But when I visited this place there were multiple infants / little toddlers crying, chewing on crap on the floor, falling over, ignored. Maybe that is all day cares?
I won’t name names but we recently enrolled our 11 month old in a ‘prestigious’ daycare that was EXTREMELY expensive for afternoons only – while paying full-time rate. We wanted to ‘socialize’ him.
In the week he was there, he went 2 afternoons without being fed or given any water from 1-5. Got a diaper rash for the first time in his life, and a bad one. Came back home with scrapes on his arms and a bruised eye on day 4, no explanation.
On the last day, my wife stayed back and watched him from the monitor in the lobby – He was constipated and crying – the teacher put him facing towards a wall in a corner for 40 minutes , no intervention. This is a 11 month old.
I was disgusted. On the app they gave us to follow his progress, they were continuously posting untruthful updates / pictures that did not reflect his actual care.
Again, I can imagine for a 1 ‘teacher’ to 3 or 4 baby ratio, you can not personalize and coddle every child. But when i’m paying that much money, I expected more.
We pulled him out and gave his nanny a raise to stay later in the afternoon.
Everyone has their parenting style – and i’m sure some of the kids at even the worst daycares turn out absolutely fine (heck, I went to a ‘home’ daycare as a baby), but if you can afford it, I suggest sticking with a good nanny until preschool. (Not that they don’t come with their own issues).
Anon,
It may be a 200 dollar hoodie, but it’s not always so easy to get it at that price.
Same story applies to my off white jordan 1’s. I’m one of the idiots that paid the resale price, lol.
“not always so easy to get it at that price”
Guy runs a montessorri school. Probably has a lot of time to stand in line with a bunch of overprivileged stoner douches.
Or he pays one of them a $500 finders fee for the privilege of looking like an overprivileged stoner douche.
I didn’t even know what a Supreme Hoodie was, let alone that hoodies could be that expensive without being made of gold.
Riz, if all that is true, I hope you reported the daycare. What you describe certainly sounds like child abuse. All daycares are subject to certain rules, regulations, and guidelines with very little room for interpretation.
Our first daycare treated our twins like separate units. We had to have a set of bottles and backup bottles for each of them. Their own baby tylenol and lotions and whatnot, even though they would share this stuff at home. it was annoying to say the least.
Icarus,
In my experience daycare is probably fine for a kid that’s 2 or older and can talk/communicate, feed themselves, etc. Younger than that and you’re taking a gamble in my opinion.
We had a serious talk with the daycare owner regarding everything that had happened. Forget abuse, they were still trying to charge us 1 month of tuition as a cancellation fee. Place was ridiculous. We were just happy to get the heck out of there.
“I didn’t even know what a Supreme Hoodie was, let alone that hoodies could be that expensive without being made of gold.”
They *are* nice hoodies (the hoodie itself). Far nicer than your typical champion/nike/whatever, and probably about properly priced at the ($150-$200) retail.
Supreme makes some nice stuff. Some of their collaboration with LV has been a bit loud for my taste.
Unfortunately now that i’m getting into my mid 30’s my wife has really cut down on letting me spend that kind of money on hoodies and air jordans. I sold 20 pairs in the past year :-/
“I sold 20 pairs in the past year :-/”
That’s why you think you can’t afford 30% of gross for housing!!
““I sold 20 pairs in the past year :-/”
That’s why you think you can’t afford 30% of gross for housing!!”
This, and his entourage of his brother-in-law, his college roommate, his best friend in high school and two mistresses he takes care of. and maintenance on the yacht, the crew to take care of the winter home, and his expensive art collection.
“I sold 20 pairs in the past year :-/”
“That’s why you think you can’t afford 30% of gross for housing!!”
I think we need to know the rate of return. On the entire shoe (and maybe supreme clothing) portfolio.
I first heard about supreme clothing (underwear of all things) a couple weeks ago.
lol @homedelete, you literally made me laugh out loud. Some things don’t change.
My wife doesn’t have any brothers. Both my brothers are physicians…I never had a roommate in college, my high school best friend is WAY richer than me, and my wife is a lawyer – which means I could never get away with having a mistress, no matter how hard I tried – nor would I ever want to, she’s the best.
And art is cool, but the kinds of art I like is WAY beyond my means as a physician.
No yacht either. We had a boat growing up, makes a lot more sense to rent one for a long weekend than to own one.
I imagine you were being facetious though.
@anon I didn’t get the 30% gross housing comment though – Looking back, regarding the 20-ish pairs of my coveted jordans ( mostly very rare releases, I won’t get into details) – that got me about 13k…Not really impacting my lifestyle too much.
— On that note –
Do you guys actually put 30+% of your PRE-tax income into housing costs? That still absolutely blows my mind. That means over half of post-tax income to me. No way in he*l I’d spend that on housing, especially in a city where the weather sucks 7 months out of the year.
“Do you guys actually put 30+% of your PRE-tax income into housing costs?”
No one here puts 30 percent of pre tax into housing. Maybe clio did.
DZ,
Rate of return can be reasonable if you’re in it for the investment – which a lot people are. I was / am a genuine sneaker geek, which is what got me into supreme and other street brands. I probably spent about 7-8k on the 20 pairs of jordans I sold for a total of around 13k.
That being said, now that i’m older and the money gain doesn’t matter as much, I focus more on pieces I think will maintain value over time – like the off white / louis vuitton line that had a pop up in the west loop this past summer. I bought a bunch of that stuff.
We’ll see how that works out.
On the other hand, the 25 year old version of me bought a pair of off white / nike air jordan 1’s and vapor max’s that are probably equivalent to most people’s mortgages. I won’t see a return on that, but, it makes me happy. life is short.
Haha,
Dang. Kind of miss clio. Still on the lookout for his red/maroon lamborghini outside the palmolive, where he apparently lived.
“like the off white / louis vuitton line ”
————————
Line of what?
Hoodie = Mobile Safe Space
“They *are* nice hoodies (the hoodie itself). Far nicer than your typical champion/nike/whatever, and probably about properly priced at the ($150-$200) retail.”
This almost makes me think you’ve had reason to buy one of these at list price…
But seriously, what are these made of? Can materials plus labor really exceed $50? Plus some markup etc should be $100 max.
@johnc,
Sorry if this is a double post, internet is being a bit whacky.
In response to your question – there was no off white / LV ‘line’ but his pop up shop in chicago this past summer was obviously directly inspired by much of the off white aesthetic, as is nearly all of LV’s men’s fashion this current season. Thats what I was referring to.
Although not directly available to the public, there have certainly been off white / LV pieces put out this past year.
Also been some off white / ikea rugs and stuff. He’s a busy guy.
Tbh aside from a few of his nike collabs, none if it is to my taste.
“I didn’t get the 30% gross housing comment though”
That you had 20 pairs of AJs to *sell* means you spend a ton of $$ on that sort of stuff (I mean, its not surprising–you aren’t shy that that sort of spending is/has been your super jam). And that sort of spending makes spending more on housing seem “impossible”–which it isn’t, it’s just that the compromises inherent aren’t palatable.
But, anyway, it was just a joke–I, as noted, agree with you that seems whackadoo to spend that much on housing.
“No one here puts 30 percent of pre tax into housing.”
No one here who is undeniably UMC/UMC+, as Riz is. I’m not sure whether some of our MC friends on here might (or close).
We were ~20% at acquisition–when Riz was in HS. Lot lower now, but feel rather over-allocated to our long position in real estate.
“My wife doesn’t have any brothers. Both my brothers are physicians…I never had a roommate in college, my high school best friend is WAY richer than me, and my wife is a lawyer – which means I could never get away with having a mistress, no matter how hard I tried – nor would I ever want to, she’s the best. ”
That’s too bad, you need some degenerate friends or family members. They’re the most fun.
“Lot lower now, but feel rather over-allocated to our long position in real estate.”
Anyone who owns property in IL is over-allocated in a long position in real estate.
Anon,
haha spending is definitely my super jam. life is short , right?
HD,
Funny thing is, until I had a baby, I *was* the degenerate friend, haha. I still am if I can get a babysitter.
“Anyone who owns property in IL is over-allocated in a long position in real estate.”
Ken Griffin and the Guv probably aren’t.
But I think we’re somewhere north of 15% of net worth in home equity (all in IL), which is not my ideal scenario.
Riz, real question, not trying to be a dick. Do you wear the jordan’s, display them? Just keep them in boxes in the closet?
AC,
Other than the *extremely* limited ones, I wear them. I keep them in pretty good shape or whatever. I have the entire color way collection of the jordan 11’s, which are my favorites – these resell for what, 4-500 at most, so not too crazy and I don’t feel bad if they get a bit beat up.
I have a few pair of the off white/nike collabs and the kaws/nike collab that are 1500-2500 range. That’s expensive enough where I wear them pretty gingerly.
I used to be pretty timid about wearing my yeezy’s but got pretty turned off by kanye during his whole mental breakdown / trump fan boy stage and sold every pair.
My collection is probably down to 30 pairs or something now. While we were living in a condo I think my peak was 100-ish pairs, they took up our entire spare bedroom. It was crazy.
Can’t do that kind of stuff with a baby.
“But I think we’re somewhere north of 15% of net worth in home equity (all in IL), which is not my ideal scenario.”
Short of v drastic changes, there’s not much you can do about this. And it’s really the value of your property (not even the net equity you have, unless walking away is a realistic option) that measures your exposure. So hard to avoid unless you don’t own or own elsewhere.
And even a worse case impact on 15% is really not that bad (I mostly exclude home equity when I think about net worth). I have an unreasonably concentrated position in one stock that is prob high single digit percent of net worth and that I don’t particularly want to hold. Probably stupid but I don’t really want to the pay the cap gains either. Guess I’m waiting for the step up in basis.
That’s awesome Riz. Thanks for the insight into the mechanics of being a sneaker head. Always fun to read stuff like this.
DZ,
That doesn’t sound too bad. If you’re overweight and worried about capitol gains, the stock has probably been one of you better performers. Kind of a natural outcome of a successful investment. Unless your original thesis is broken, I wouldn’t feel bad about holding it at it’s current allocation. As you save more and other investments appreciate, it will likely rightsize itself. I to prefer to let these types of things work themselves out rather than pay the taxes now.
My advice is to get out of Illinois as quickly as you can. Take a look at places like Rockford, Peoria & Joliet to get an idea of where things will be headed for the rest of the state. Rockford is bad bad bad abandoned buildings everywhere, Joliet has a terrible downtown and is impoverished and Peoria has one of the highest foreclosure rates. Half of Effingham is considered bad enough to get social equity credit under the new weed laws. My new motto is:
Very soon all of Illinois will look like the rest of Illinois.
hey Riz, you mod your Turbo cab at all yet?
Sonies,
Wow, you remembered my 911. I miss that thing.
Sadly, it’s gone post – baby. Was just too hard to coordinate when only 1 car could fit the baby and all his crap.
I’m rolling around town in a range rover with a car seat in the back like every other yuppy right now. It’s slow and glitchy, but at least it looks good. Definitely leasing it though.
haha smart move… I miss my land rover LR3 I had for some reason, that thing was starting to fall apart and would have cost a fortune to repair but it drove so nice. smart move to lease as they depreciate at an insanely fast rate
sorry to hear you had to get rid of your 911, i’m enjoying the open roads here a lot more than I ever did in Chicago
“i’m enjoying the open roads here a lot more than I ever did in Chicago”
It’s looking like I might and try and hit Squaw midweek this season (will depend on there being a good plane ticket deal and an approaching storm). Will let you – maybe consider rolling up for the day.
sounds good to me! I’ll have a season pass at Rose again, a change of scenery would be nice, squaw is awesome
Sonies, what are you driving nowadays?
And where did you move?
Also, are you guys talking about Squaw valley? Hear it’s awesome.
“And where did you move?”
Sonies moved to the Reno area.
“Very soon all of Illinois will look like the rest of Illinois.”
What’s “very soon” HD?
Next year?
5 years?
10 years?
What will cause the businesses who are here to leave?
I’m not saying it can’t happen. St Louis is a good example of it happening. They once had 20 corporate headquarters. Now they’re down to 8.
Chicago has some advantages that will get even more pronounced due to climate change. It’s not going to get super hot here, for instance. Dallas gets 15 days over 100 degrees right now but by 2060, it’s supposed to have over 55 days that warm.
Chicago has the lake and fresh water although a lot of suburbs don’t have access so be careful where you live.
Chicago doesn’t have earthquakes or hurricanes. Tornados could get worse though.
Do you see the urbanization trend turning? If so, where will all the GenZers go who want the urban lifestyle? Will they still move to California? Will it be Atlanta, Nashville and Texas?
Chicago has one of the highest percentages of college educated populations in the nation. Where will they all go?
“especially in a city where the weather sucks 7 months out of the year.”
Why do people keep repeating this lie?
Does it suck right now? It’s October. No, it does not. Does it suck in November? That’s the month the temps drop the most. From 50 to 30 by the end of the month. Does it “suck” or is it fall?
Let’s say the entire winter sucks for you Riz. Many people actually LIKE winter (skiing, ice skating etc.). You must not be one. So let’s say that “sucks.”
That would be:
December
January
February
March
That’s 4 months of the year. Not 7 months.
Are there cold springs? Sure. But it’s still spring. Does every April, May and June suck?
You can’t make Chicago’s weather be like the weather in, say, Nashville, where they get a much earlier spring and blooming plants by March. The real argument isn’t that Chicago’s weather “sucks” but that it’s different than Nashville, Louisville, Indianapolis etc. which get warmer earlier. And it does get snow and cold. Nashville gets ice and some snow. It doesn’t get as cold. That might be more to your liking.
But there are a lot of fans of the Midwest’s four seasons.
Sabrina,
I’ve lived here my entire life. The weather DOES suck.
TRUE/REAL Summer is really June, July, August. May and september are hit or miss.
Does the mostly cloudy days in october and november suck? Yeah I think it does. sure, the 2 weeks of fall are great.
It’s not the snow that bothers me…Its the continuous gloomy weather and clouds in december, january, february.
Who is skiing in chicago? LMAO.
*as a P.S. –
To say the weather doesn’t suck, to a normal person who hasn’t grown up here, is asinine.
You yourself are literally comparing our weather to INDY, Nashville, and louisville. Really. Are these world class cities and climates?
C’mon man.
I heard a comic say a while back:
“I hear people in the midwest always talk about how much they love seasons…I do too. That’s why I live in southern california and skip the seasons that suck.”
I’d be happy to vacation for my skiing/ice skating, in exchange for not living somewhere where literally HALF THE YEAR is CLOUDY. You can check me on that, but i’m pretty sure i’m right. I believe over half of our days are cloudy year round.
Chicago is an amazing town. Our summers are incredible. Please don’t try and make an excuse for the weather the rest of the year. Makes us look bad to people that live in places with normal temps.
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/cloudiest-cities.php
The weather in Chicago is not good compared to most places. The ancient Romans – those Mediterraneans basking in the warm Italian sun – stopped at the Rhine not only because of a few lost battles, but because the weather in Germany really sucked. It was too cold, too snowy, too cloudy, too humid.
Back in the colonial days, the continental Europeans believed that the new world weather of the east coast was awful and inferior to that of the old world. These are people from rainy, dreary London who thought that Boston had inferior weather!
https://publicdomainreview.org/2014/02/19/the-founding-fathers-v-the-climate-change-skeptics/
“……New England was expected to be as mild as England, and Virginia as hot as Italy and Spain. Surprised by harsh conditions in the New World, however, a great number of the early settlers did not outlast their first winter in the colonies. Many of the survivors returned to Europe, and in fact, the majority of 17th-century colonies in North America were abandoned….”
In modern times, New Englanders – with bad weather themselves – look down upon our weather in the midwest! Our idea of bad weather, comparatively, is to look up north to Minneapolis & Edmonton with a average January high of 19 degrees. Chicago’s average winter in high January is a ‘balmy’ 32 degrees compared to our friendly neighbors up north!
So yes, Chicago weather does suck. However, there are other reasons to live here, primarily water and agriculture. We have so much water fall from the sky and flow from the river banks that most homes have at least one or two pumps plus a snow blower just to get it away from the foundations of their home. ANd it’s not Houston’s 40″ rains either, just the right amount to grow some of the worlds best crops on feritle farm land without much irrigation. Couple that with the great lakes and Chicago is about as good as you can get for a natural site for an inland city.
Well said, HD.
I love Chicago.
Amazing architecture, beautiful lake and river, amazing restaurants, culture, and history.
And although this may be changing,an incredible cost of living when compared to other major cities.
I’m brutally honest with people from out of town when I list pros and cons. For me, the pros I listed outweigh the cons. For some people, 65% of your days being cloudy, absolutely insane property taxes, crime, etc are not worth the trade off. I have many a friend that have moved and are far happier living in dallas, austin, scottsdale, heck even Houston, which i’m not a fan of.
“Sonies, what are you driving nowadays?”
still have the V8 Vantage… after what I got quoted as a trade in value I’m going to keep it forever and just mod it to my liking lol
“I’ve lived here my entire life. The weather DOES suck.
TRUE/REAL Summer is really June, July, August. May and september are hit or miss.”
ain’t that the truth, although I really enjoy September in Chicago, the last few years were fantastic, the rest of the 3 seasons can go fuck themselves.
Weather out here in Reno is pretty nice, you get a perfect 4 seasons (3mos each) with extremely low humidity year round and it barely ever rains/snows… worst season is probably spring but when its cloudy or raining here it means its snowing up in the Sierras and that means snowboarding!
Winter to Spring in Chicago is hands down the most depressing time, ugh its just awful
“Also, are you guys talking about Squaw valley? Hear it’s awesome.”
Yes, and it is indeed awesome. Or least when the snow is good. I realize that could be said about anywhere, but at places like Squaw, Snowbird or Jackson, it can be pretty brutal if it hasn’t snowed in a while (or isn’t at least slushy late season conditions). It’s not like Vail/Steamboat/Breck/Winter Park (or I suppose North Star, to keep it in Tahoe), where there are endless blues/groomers that can make for a fun day, even if it hasn’t snowed. I’ve been to Squaw three times (actually four, but the first was late summer of 91 to see Jerry atop the resort): two huge powder days and one bullet-proof hard-pack day. Rough. As we used to say (I’m sure the crazy kids these days do too), at places like the Bird/Squaw/Jackson, on a powder day you spend more time in the air than on the mountain. But with no snow it’s just a struggle to get down. That’s why it’s a trip to book once you see the storm forming over the ocean (or if you’re lucky like Sonies you can just drive up last minute).
“Weather out here in Reno is pretty nice, you get a perfect 4 seasons”
You mean the 29 degrees you’re about to get in, oh, two days sonies?
Sounds perfect to me. Rock on.
If Reno was such nirvana, everyone would have moved there. Heck, San Francisco weather blows worse. Why didn’t everyone just move to Reno? But they don’t. I wonder why? Hm….
Also, on the weather, many people actually like the snow. That’s why they live in places like Maine and Minnesota and have for generations.
And the whole “it barely rains or snows” thing gets old really fast. When I lived in California I desperately missed thunderstorms. I ran into a fellow Midwesterner at a party once and before I could even say anything he was like, “you know what I miss most? The summer thunderstorms.”
It was strange to someone who grew up with seasons to go 6 months with NO rain (as you do in Northern California.) You get that damn fog so it’s cold and gloomy, but no rain. You go your whole life with no “warm” rain. When it’s rain, it’s always cold because it happens in the winter.
But the country is big and you can go with whatever weather floats your boat. It’s going to be a really, really important question to ask with climate change. Is anyone going to want to move to Miami or New Orleans? Forget Houston.
In California, they are starting to have the debates now about what to do about the loss of the seawalls/beaches in many towns. No one has wanted to retreat. What will they do in Malibu, for instance? Those homes on the beach are going to be completely underwater in 5 to 10 years. Already, at least one beach is basically gone.
“You yourself are literally comparing our weather to INDY, Nashville, and louisville.”
I’m comparing them based on the weather. The number one complaint people have about Chicago is winter. In all three of those cities, you get seasons and the winters are shorter and more mild. So if you want seasons without the cold of Chicago’s winter, you can head to some of those cities and you’ll probably be happier.
I’m not “excusing” the rest of the year. It simply isn’t that bad Riz. If you think it is, it’s only because you expect something else. Kind of when Londoners say their weather sucks yet there are palm trees that grow year round there next to the tube stops. It’s all perspective and expectations. Many Londoners would rather be in Barcelona and its Mediterranean climate.
Similarly, San Francisco weather basically sucks for 2 seasons as well. Winter is cold and rainy and the homes don’t have the proper insulation or heating systems. You sleep with your socks on. Spring is okay but summer sucks again with the nasty fog. Fall is good but it’s fire season so that sucks.
But it depends on your expectations. If you don’t expect a warm summer (as I do), then San Francisco is fine. You don’t care if you are wearing a winter coat in August.
If you want sun, by the way, move to Denver. It’s the sunniest of the large cities.
Sorry, I had a new post ready to go today but it failed to publish. I’ll try again tomorrow.
“You mean the 29 degrees you’re about to get in, oh, two days sonies? Sounds perfect to me. Rock on. If Reno was such nirvana, everyone would have moved there.”
I never said it was nirvana, but we get a perfect 3 seasons here which is nice, all of which are way more mild than Chicago… and the 29 degrees is in the middle of the night when you’re sleeping, and its dry so it doesn’t really feel like it… during the day it will be 54 and sunny which is actually quite pleasant here due to the high elevation and SUN. Any day its sunny and over 50 its real damn nice and that is most days of the year. I didn’t have to bust out my winter parka once last winter and that was considered by most around here to be a rough and cold winter lol
We actually got a thunderstorm once this summer, it even hailed and tons of lightning, but afterwards clear skies, so refreshing not to have gloomy grey bullcrap for months on end, it certainly has improved my mood!
Weather here is nothing like San Francisco, it is much nicer due to the rain shadow effect of the mountains.
As for your complete nonsense regarding sea level rising… the entire US has had a pretty linear rise of about 1mm per year over the last hundred+ years
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/mslUSTrendsTable.html
how could they ever prepare for a 1mm rise per year in sea level!!! ALARMING!
“As for your complete nonsense regarding sea level rising… the entire US has had a pretty linear rise of about 1mm per year over the last hundred+ years”
Wrong again. Damn you guys don’t know a thing that is going on out there with the environment.
It is ALREADY happening. Miami used to have like 5 days a year with King Tide. They will have 20+ in the next 10 years. It is a FLOOD with the sun shining. Similarly, in Charleston, they have already met with Netherland scientists to come up with a plan to try and save the historic downtown which is already flooding continuously.
The Pacific Ocean has been in a hundred year “calm” period which it is now coming out of. During that time MILLIONS of humans moved right along the coast thinking, “this is so beautiful and fabulous.”
But now it’s out of the “calm” period. So that beauty is coming with a price.
The entire coast of California is likely in danger now, at least if they have built right up to the ocean.
The LA Times has devoted a reporter solely to writing on the issues surrounding this. A few months ago they had an excellent article describing what’s to come and why the cities are basically doomed. They had an online “game” where you could be the mayor of one of these coastal towns.
It gave all the options and you could “play” it and see what the results were including:
1. Putting up a seawall on the beach (would have to raise taxes to pay for it and would “destroy” the beach)
2. Bringing in more sand (due to the erosion many of the beaches will be lost) but literally within days, if there is a big storm, all that new sand could be lost. This is also expensive.
3. Retreating (the rich people along the coast are already fighting this even though the government will buy them out)
There were a few other options. The game was like the old movie War Games where the computer keeps trying to win the nuclear war. You can’t “win” against the ocean either.
But Californians are sure going to try.
Del Mar, near San Diego, is the first to come up before the state’s Coastal Commission. Many are saying this will set a precedent as to what all the rest will do. Those who have owned property there for the last 100 years will NOT go quietly into the night. Yet, at some point, it will be unsafe to be there.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/story/2019-10-08/del-mar-will-stand-its-ground-against-managed-retreat
California is in for a rude reality check about the Pacific Ocean. The LA Times is all over it.
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-sea-level-rise-california-coast/
This “sea level rise suppression,” as scientists call it, went largely undetected. Blinded from the consequences of a warming planet, Californians kept building right to the water’s edge.
But lines in the sand are meant to shift. In the last 100 years, the sea rose less than 9 inches in California. By the end of this century, the surge could be greater than 9 feet.
Seaside cliffs are crumbling in Pacifica, bringing down entire buildings. Balboa Island, barely above sea level, is spending $1.8 million to raise the wall that separates it from the ocean.
Winter storms pummeled a Capistrano Beach boardwalk, turning the idyllic shoreline into a construction zone as bulldozers rushed to stack boulders into a barricade. From San Diego to Humboldt counties, homeowners scramble to fend off increasing erosion and storm surges, pleading with officials for bigger seawalls that can hold back the even bigger ocean.
“Del Mar, near San Diego, is the first to come up before the state’s Coastal Commission. Many are saying this will set a precedent as to what all the rest will do. Those who have owned property there for the last 100 years will NOT go quietly into the night. Yet, at some point, it will be unsafe to be there.”
If I lived in one of those houses in Del Mar, I’d be pretty reluctant to leave, too.
Miami, FL and California sinking into the ocean have zero to do with carbon dioxide
but whatever
@sonies – Carbon dioxide collects in the upper atmosphere as a heat-trapping (greenhouse) gas. The air temps rise. The ocean absorbs some of this heat. Warmer water expands. Sea levels rise. Ocean front property is reclaimed by the ocean.
…and the warmer ocean water causes the Artic, Antarctic, and Greenland ice to melt. The warmer air causes glaciers and ice caps to melt. That all rises the ocean levels. Each contribute millimeter or two of ocean rise. The result “a millimeter here, a millimeter there, and pretty soon you’re talking a bigger ocean”
What sort of deranged ghoul would down-vote the idea of not wanting to give up one’s house in Del Mar? I guess maybe if you grew up La Jolla or Encinitas or whatever, and someone from Del Mar stole your significant other in high school, maybe you’re still bitter? Or you took a life-altering slam at the Del Mar Skate Ranch in the early 80s and have PTSD associated with the area? That’s all I can come with.
“That’s all I can come with.”
Lost their rent money at the track?
“…and the warmer ocean water causes the Artic, Antarctic, and Greenland ice to melt. The warmer air causes glaciers and ice caps to melt. That all rises the ocean levels. Each contribute millimeter or two of ocean rise. The result “a millimeter here, a millimeter there, and pretty soon you’re talking a bigger ocean””
hey genius, ice melts at the poles every summer/winter do you seriously think that the melting snow isn’t being replaced with new snow? Do you know how the hell glaciers work? Do you know what the word glacier even means? I can’t even have a discussion with people so fucking brainwashed and lacking in common sense.. then again keep clicking retarded articles like this nonsense from 2001
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2001/jan/14/wintersportsholidays.wintersports.ecotourism
@sonies – read the science news lately?…
Glaciers worldwide that have existed for centuries are disappearing. US Glacier National Park is down to 26 glaciers after losing 124 in a century. Early last century, there were an estimated 150 glaciers in the park. A study of Montana’s 37 ‘named’ glaciers found that they have reduced in size by an average of nearly 40 per cent since 1966, with some losing up to 85 per cent of their ice.
The melting snow isn’t being replaced with new snow. Educate yourself before you try to have a discussion.
bahahahaha “science news”
starting selected “studies” of ice or cold from the notoriously cold late 60’s/70’s is cherry picking at its worst…
– “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” – “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” – “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” – “We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
Article about some of those…I won’t call them cherry picked, because that’s too simplistic…bad predictions:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-didnt-first-earth-days-predictions-come-true-its-complicated-180958820/
Also, what does the crude oil one have to do with global warming predictions? Also, it was technically correct (if use rate growth and proven reserves discovery rate (which bakes in extraction tech) had not changed, the then prove reserves would have been used up in 30 years, but instead both changed dramatically and that should have been anticipatable), but stupid–if Cisco had maintained it’s rate of revenue growth from it’s founding to 1998 until today, the entire global economy would be Cisco–and the global economy would be bigger than it actually is.
You know, when people tell me that OMG the oceans are rising! it’s caused by man! I point out this little place called DOGGERLAND which was lower lying forested area that connected Britain to the continent. It’s been around for tens of millions of years. It has been reconstructed to be over 18,000 sq miles. Many stone age cave men lived there for thousands of years after they settled Europe.
Then around 6,000 BC it flooded over, rather quickly geologically – about 300 years or so they think. There are pictures of underwater forests still extant in the area. It’s just a footnote in history but a tremendous amount of man’s prehistory is there.
The spiritual leaders of the time, likely the precursors of the celtic druids, I’m sure, tried to find a reason for the rising seas, and they blamed their invisible but omnipresent gods. They likely pulled the entrails from livestock and other woodland creatures to predict the future, and asked the gods to tell them which settlement would disappear next.
Today’s climate conspiracy theorists do exactly the same thing, except instead relying on druid priests to read the bloody goat entrails, we instead rely on a handful of ‘true believer’ ‘dyed in the wool’ climate scientists – all of whom subscribe to progressive ideology – to make sense of a gobbledy gook of data to accurately predict the world’s rise in temperature to the tenth of a degree, caused by an invisible gas in trace amounts – literally a few parts per billion, that all living plants rely on to survive.
Of course, the information these priests of climate science are using is very limited, like 60 year old weather stations of dubious value in rural africa; and other stations primarily near big cities (which capture heat) to claim that the earth’s temperature is rising. The science models they use to accurately predict the earth’s future temp, to a tenth of a degree, is really no different than the book of revelations that claims to know when and how the earth will end and the lord savior will return. At least Revelations gives predictions in allegory but the climate change models claim to actually see the future, as if they are looking into a crystal ball! 8000 years ago they predicted whether a local warlord would have a favorable battle; today the preists of climate science predict when Miami will be underwater. Of course, they are often wrong, but that’s because the gods, and CO2, acts in mysterious ways.
Just as the goat entrail preist was mostly wrong, and had to ‘reinterpret’ the meaning of the entrails, so does the climate change data scientist, who has to ‘smooth out’ the outliers to fit his narrative of climate change. And when the earth’s temp stays the same for 20 years (look up the Global warming hiatus 1982-2012), other reasons must be made.
“Global warming hiatus 1982-2012”
Think you mean 98-12. Don’t see anything that claims 82-12 as a pause.
And even 98-12 involves the exact same cherry picking that sonies was (fairly) ragging on. 1998 was a substantial highside temp outlier. So, the defense against cherrypicking pseudo science is cherrypicking pseudo science? Like me saying that HD’s reading of entrails is complete hokum–the tea leaves tell me so.
You’re right it was 98 not 82, that was a misreading of the wikipedia webpage at 9 pm a night while trying to watch America’s Team defeat the Giants. 82-12 is 30 years, not twenty years, like i said! I’m not cherry picking those years as an example that global warming is a fraud, i’m just saying that sometimes the observed data doesn’t meet the prediction, but the dogma and ideology of climate change continues despite these obvious flaws in the models.
Plutarch wrote about Alexander the Great’s, uh, unreliability of specialize scholars reading models (or in this case, entrails) and simply changed the inputs to conform to his desired outcome. He simply backdated the current date to meet the prediction. Isn’t this exactly what climate scientists did when they ‘smoothed’ out the data in that big scandal a few years ago? I mean really, climate scientists have specialized data, they hold secret, that the pump into black box secret models, then then claim to accurately predict 20 years in the future the earth’s average temp so accurately to the 10th of a degree? And when the model fails, they just change the inputs to get what they want?
“It happened at this time that Aristander, the soothsayer [of Alexander the Great], after he had sacrificed, upon view of the entrails, affirmed confidently to those who stood by that the city should be certainly taken that very month, upon which there was a laugh and some mockery among the soldiers, as this was the last
day of it. The king, seeing him in perplexity, and always anxious
to support the credit of the predictions, gave order that they should not count it as the thirtieth, but as the twenty-third of the month, and ordering the trumpets to sound, attacked the walls more seriously than he at first intended.” Plutarch
“I’m not cherry picking those years”
I know YOU aren’t, but the people who “found” that “pause” are. But if you start from 97 or 99, there is no “pause”, and that’s pretty much the definition of cherry picking time periods.
Things that have existed for centuries are disappearing. Such as glaciers and coral reefs. That’s not a prediction. That’s observation looking backwards not prediction looking forwards.
I won’t offer an explanation or a prediction, but something about the ocean, and global climate, is changing faster than reasonable. The big data point that has been observed is warmer ocean water. That is going to have effects. Make your own prediction.
vb, a big glacier melted 20,000 years ago for no apparent reason. We call that melted glacier LAKE MICHIGAN. OMG Cave Man campfires must have melted them1!!
“vb, a big glacier melted 20,000 years ago for no apparent reason. We call that melted glacier LAKE MICHIGAN. OMG Cave Man campfires must have melted them1!!”
What we do know is that people will have to reassess where they are going to live and work. The popularity of the coasts has likely peaked. Also, the Southwest may not seem as fantastic with months of temperatures over 100 degrees and less water.
For some reason, which historians haven’t been able to figure out, the great Mayan cities were abandoned. Hundreds of thousands of people packed up and moved after hundreds of years of living in that location. The same could happen again now only we will be abandoning Miami, Virginia Beach, New Orleans and other cities.
Maybe Cleveland and Detroit aren’t looking so bad for the next 50 years.
“Maybe Cleveland and Detroit aren’t looking so bad for the next 50 years.”
lmao yeah… ok
“The popularity of the coasts has likely peaked” –
No. Likely the remote affordability, even for upper middle class folks.
“Maybe cleveland and detroit aren’t looking so bad for the next 50 years”
Lol. No one is going to think your opinion is credible when you say stuff like this.
And to those of you from cleveland and detroit, I’m sure ‘it’s not like how the media portrays it’, and ‘there’s so much new stuff’, and ‘the hipsters and artists are moving in’…yeah, maybe cleveland sucks slightly less than toledo, and detroit a tad bit less than Flint, but you’re just comparing turds to other worse turds – like Sabrina does when she compares chicago weather to wisconsin or indianapolis or whatever.
As a side note on the weather thing, Just wanted to mention, i literally just got back home from london – spent the past 4-5 days there with my family.
Weather was ABSOLUTE Garbage. 50 degrees and raining non stop mostly. Cloudy. That being said – PEOPLE WERE OUT. I mean, people were jogging in the rain at 8 am along the Thames, restaurants were PACKED mid week, shopping districts were full, and night life was as busy as ever. Lines in every department store. The underground had to be stopped at multiple stops, multiple times, because of overcrowding – on a freaking thursday.
This blew my mind. In my experience when Chicago starts to dull down in the late fall, a lot of the mag mile / river north / west loop shopping and nightlife significantly dies down until christmastime. A cold november thursday night downtown is essentially a ghost town.
A lot of the locals I talked to told me that this is because Londoners are accustomed to the weather problem for hundreds of years, quite literally, and just accept it as a part of the city. People truly born and raised there don’t care or complain much about the rain or clouds, they just adapt to it and move on, or have moved elsewhere.
Why haven’t we done that in chicago? ( myself included? ) – I’m guessing maybe we aren’t quite on the international scale of Rome / Paris / NYC / London / Hong Kong etc where our city offers *so* much that crappy weather doesn’t matter, and doesn’t attract nearly the same number of rich tourists?
Thoughts?
Riz, as John Cleese said in 2011 and repeated again this year, and Morrisey likely concurred, London is no longer an English city, so you can’t really explain it on the natives enjoying crappy weather because there aren’t any natives left, and certainly not londoners who’ve been there for hundreds of years. The Royals also spend as little time there as possible.
As for going out in the crappy weather in London, my favorite are the River Thames Frost Fairs. The River Thames used to freeze over fairly often in the pre-industrial era and they would hold these awesome fairs on the frozen river. But then climate change – pre-industrial climate change – changed it all. NOt sure of the source of the C02, or why, but that’s what the climate conspiracy theorists tell me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs
My favorite out and about painting from continental Europe has to be Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Winter Landscape with Ice skaters and Bird trap c. 1565.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Circle_of_Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Winter_Landscape_with_a_Bird_Trap.jpg
It’s a crappy, gloomy snowy day – downright awful weather – but the peasants in the low countries are having fun on the frozen river, skating and playing around, just a their forefather’s and forefather’s forefather’s did.
of course people were out and about Riz, thats a NICE day in london!
“Lol. No one is going to think your opinion is credible when you say stuff like this.”
You are nuts Riz. There are studies already showing that Millennials and GenZ are now moving to the mid-tier cities. With climate change, it doesn’t take much brainpower to realize that the Great Lakes cities have a real advantage: fresh water. Crain’s just had an article discussing how it could be Chicago’s secret weapon in attracting businesses. But it could be Detroit’s and Cleveland’s too.
Both also have great housing stock and an educated population.
Has anyone been to Arizona or Texas lately? They’re not exactly intellectual hotbeds. Texas has Rice and UT but otherwise, not much else. Arizona doesn’t have ANY top colleges or universities. Having a flagship powerhouse university like Northwestern or U of Chicago, which is the most popular selective college in the United States now, matters. Without Vanderbilt, what would Nashville be?
Ohio and Michigan have excellent universities and colleges.
And you clearly haven’t been to either Detroit or Cleveland. That’s the whole point. The coasts are over. Want to start a business? Go to the smaller cities in the heartland. You can buy a home for $100,000. You can start that business. You can live your dreams.
It really isn’t hard. I don’t know why those cities aren’t erecting big signs on the parking lot highways in the Bay Area and LA with what you can buy in the Midwest.
“Maybe Cleveland and Detroit aren’t looking so bad for the next 50 years.”
Detroit is booming sonies. It has the hottest hotel in the country right now. West Elm also picked it to put one of its first four hotels (not sure they’re going to build them after all though.) It’s so hot that all the restaurants/breweries aren’t going to make it now. There simply aren’t enough people living in midtown to go to all of the places that have opened (not yet.) How ironic. They have too much development right now.
Still plenty of opportunities there though. It’s going to take another decade, at least, to get a critical mass. Look at the West Loop and Fulton Market. That’s been a 20 year build out (so far) and it’s finally getting to that critical mass.
I don’t know as much about Cleveland. It’s been a while since I was there. And I know that Columbus has taken some of its thunder.
But if you think all that fresh water just blocks away isn’t going to be a HUGE selling point for those 2 cities in the second half of this century, you are crazy.
I’m sure after billionaire douchebag Dan Gilbert is done turning downtown Detroit into another vanilla blah airspace zone of boring-ness with ridiculous rents that hipsters will start flocking there in droves
or not
because they like unique and cheap housing, and you know, not a lot of crime
millennials aren’t as stupid as most think they are
Sabrina, I actually have to stop here and say NO – YOU are NUTS.
I have TONS of family in detroit, in Troy, bloomfield hills, across in windsor etc, and even in dearborn. My best friend lives in the suburbs of cleveland. Those places absolutely suck. No argument. There is a reason the housing is cheap.
The ONLY millennials and gen Z’rs moving to those places are the ones who don’t make much money and want a big house and cheap COL. That’s it. Noone is passing up a job in LA to move to detroit.
NO MILLENNIAL in their right mind with a decent paycheck ( myself included maybe, b/c i’m 34 ) would move to those areas.
You’ve had a lot of weirdo theories – but suggesting that millennials – a generation that literally thrives on attention / social media / hype, would want to move to detroit or cleveland is just plain dumb.
“The coasts are done”
You are so out of touch it’s insane. Really.
“Arizona doesn’t have ANY top colleges or universities.”
UofA is an AAU member. Just like UT and Rice. And Texas A&M.
That’s a particular type of “top university” (and it is limited to research universities), but it is one of broad recognition. Indeed, it was a de facto requirement for membership in the Big Ten until Nebraska voluntarily dropped out of the AAU.
“It has the hottest hotel in the country right now.”
You keep saying this. Cite, please.
“Detroit is booming sonies. It has the hottest hotel in the country right now.”
—————————
Lemme get this straight: People buy houses in a city because it has nice hotels and motels?
yeah wow, its really booming
https://www.redfin.com/city/5665/MI/Detroit
so booming that nearly every home is under $1 a sqft
although downtown is certainly interesting with their pricing… you got some places asking over $1k a sqft and lots of condos in the $500/sqft range
but only one property sold for $340k in the last 3 months?
Wonder why that is
sorry $100/sqft not $1/sqft
Yeah, again,
Detroit sucks.
Sabrina isn’t nuts by any stretch of the imagination. When she says booming she means relative to what was before. I haven’t been to Detriot in a decade but when I was there it was even worse that I could have imagined, and it was like the entire city – even the supposed nice areas – still had a bad aura about it. So yeah any expansion after 35/40 years of contraction is great.
As for mid-tier cities booming – yeah, they are actually. Anecdotally I can name dozens and dozens of people I’ve known over the years who’ve all left Chicago for those smaller mid-tier cities – one of my best buddies moved with his girlfriend to Wisconsin, seemingly out of nowhere, and he’s been there years. Still a Bears fan but loves it up there. No intention of ever returning. Another really good buddy of mine, at age 36, moved to his wife’ hometown in Missouri to be closer to the in-laws. The list goes on, and on, and on…..
Riz, people are turning down jobs all the time in LA. Also anecdotally, I have family members have left LA because it was too expensive and they would never own a home. Now they live in the far far suburbs of Chicago near family. They hated the people in LA too – they thought everyone was as fake and plastic as the stereotypes.
The fact of the matter is – and there are many many articles about this – major cities in the US are neither middle class nor family friendly. So middle class families are moving with their feet elsewhere. Illinois as a whole has problems above and beyond just expensive cities, and that contributes to the exedus that is unique to us, although it shares some similarities with California and Connecticut.
“Yeah, again,
Detroit sucks.”
You don’t have to move there Riz. But it’s no different than taking a chance and moving to Wicker Park 20 years ago. Or Ukrainian Village.
Are you willing to move to Bronzeville, Woodlawn, East Garfield Park? My gosh- look at the property values just a few blocks east of East Garfield Park. Does anyone really think it won’t gentrify in the next 10 years?
But you’re not the type to wait it out and deal with the “bad” before the “good” comes. Nothing wrong with that. Not everyone wants to move to an up and coming neighborhood or city.
There’s something for everyone out there. But just because you think Cleveland and Detroit are dumps, doesn’t mean they’re not great opportunities.
“so booming that nearly every home is under $1 a sqft”
There are two bedroom lofts selling for $500,000 in downtown Detroit. A few years ago those would have been half that price. It doesn’t take much to get critical mass.
And let’s be honest, someone could go on Redfin and find a house in Chicago, on the south side, selling for $10,000 and post it here and say, “my god, Chicago sucks! It’s awful. What a dump.”
Would they be wrong?
It’s not like you’re a real estate agent in Detroit now sonies, are you?
Detroit is a tremendous opportunity. It’s making the proper investments. But it’s not going to be 800,000 people again for a long time. But that’s okay. It can still be a thriving city at a much smaller size.
“It has the hottest hotel in the country right now.”
“You keep saying this. Cite, please.”
https://www.fodors.com/worlds-best/hotels/usa
“It has the hottest hotel in the country right now.”
“You keep saying this. Cite, please.”
https://www.cntraveler.com/gallery/best-new-hotels-in-us
Here’s an article for National Geographic in the UK. Yes, they expect British tourists to go to Detroit as tourists.
You all could learn something:
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2019/10/how-spend-14-hours-detroit
“UofA is an AAU member. Just like UT and Rice. And Texas A&M.”
University of Arizona isn’t a “top college.” Sorry. Try again.
Because otherwise, you could basically argue that EVERY STATE has a “top college.” I’m not saying the flagships are awful. Not at all. You can get a fine education at any of them. Let’s be honest, not everyone can, or should, go to Harvard.
Arizona’s college situation isn’t good. It’s always surprising to me how awful it really is out west outside of California which has great public and private universities.
When the Economist did the comparison of California and Texas it specifically singled out Texas and its poor universities. California blows it away. But California spends the money. Texas doesn’t care.
“Noone is passing up a job in LA to move to detroit.”
Sure they are. If you want to work in the auto industry, you pretty much are moving to the Detroit area. Tons of engineering jobs.
And if “NO MILLENNIAL” were moving to those areas, how are they surviving? But they are. And thriving. So real smart Millennials are figuring it out.
Sometimes it’s much better to be a big fish in a small pond.
And yes, the coasts are DONE. When a basic starter home is $1 million, there’s not much incentive to go there. Add on (on the west coast) earthquakes and fires and (on the east coast) hurricanes and flooding and then it’s pretty obvious that the heartland is going to rise again (and already is.)
“Lemme get this straight: People buy houses in a city because it has nice hotels and motels?”
Yes. A new cool hotel can completely transform a neighborhood or a city.
It’s been happening all over the world for the last 20 years.
Cool hotels bring cool restaurants and bars. People go to them and say, “wouldn’t it be cool to live here?”
See Fulton Market. Soho House goes in and it’s cool. Hoxton goes in and it’s even cooler. Restaurants go in up and down the streets surrounding both hotels. Commercial buildings follow because they want to be near the energy of all that coolness. With people working there, condos/apartments/townhomes are built nearby.
Has anyone been to Arizona or Texas lately? They’re not exactly intellectual hotbeds. Texas has Rice and UT but otherwise, not much else. Arizona doesn’t have ANY top colleges or universities. Having a flagship powerhouse university like Northwestern or U of Chicago, which is the most popular selective college in the United States now, matters. Without Vanderbilt, what would Nashville be?
Not sure what you’re defining as intellectual hotbeds, but ignoring the petrochem industry in Tx (Not Midland & Odessa) along with the Dallas/FtW/Arlington metro is laughable
Re Nashville – Music City
“Because otherwise, you could basically argue that EVERY STATE has a “top college.””
No, you can’t. There are 62 member schools of the AAU, and they are not anywhere close to being in every state. CA has 9, New England+NY+PA has 16. The Big Ten is 13 more.
Honestly, it makes your regular point that the big ten schools are *great* for you, but you’re so narrow-minded and elitist in your personal biases that you can’t recognize that UofA is a great institution, with an adjunct UG greek system that dulls the shine a bit. Just like U-Florida. And, in both cases, the “SU” version (ASU/FSU) is the real party school of questionable academic reputation.
Besides? WHO CARES?? YOUR kids aren’t going to go to a top school, anyway, they’re going to go to Illinois State, or UW-Whitewater. Right?? Isn’t that what you always tell us?? They should be THRILLED to get into UofA.
So you cite two list that has Shinola as one of a dozen or more (too bored to count), and insist that means it is the “hottest” hotel in the country?
Members of the jury, do you believe this shit?
“If you want to work in the auto industry, you pretty much are moving to the Detroit area.”
But the two hottest companies in the auto industry are based in NorCal and Bloomington, IL!!
“Yes, they expect British tourists to go to Detroit as tourists.”
LMFAO! Not gonna lie Sabrina, you are a god tier troll
She’s getting JoeZ like with her pumping of the Midwest being HOT!, HOT!, HOT!!!!!!!
“Yes, they expect British tourists to go to Detroit as tourists.”
The better link, since it includes a reference to a package tour including 3 nights at the Shinola:
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2019/09/story-behind-detroits-comeback
And, they don’t “expect” it, it doesn’t make sense for every issue to have 4 stories about Ibiza/Minorca/Mallorca, Greek Islands, and English Spain.
I think some people under estimate how nice some of these smaller cities can be. I am not going to argue they have the same energy level as say a NYC or even Chicago, but you can have a pretty good life in them.
My wife turned down jobs in NYC and moved to Kansas City instead when she graduated from college. Granted this was more than 20 years ago, but she had a great time there. She had an apartment on Country Club Plaza, walking distance to everything – high end shops, museums, jazz clubs, etc. 10 minute commute to work. Great friends. Everyone could buy houses. Her rent for 1 bedroom was like $500 (no room mate!). KC is booming now, but it was far sleepier then but you could see the potential.
Detroit is supposedly turning into a hipster hot bed. I think there is a big difference between a millennial choosing to live in say Milwaukee, KC, Nashville, Charlotte, etc vs Peoria or Buffalo.
A lot of these second tier cities have great food scenes, attracting a lot of jobs, etc. There is a flight away from these high cost tier 1 cities.
“She’s getting JoeZ like with her pumping of the Midwest being HOT!, HOT!, HOT!!!!!!!”
well soon enough we’ll have census results to finally prove her wrong
Not sure why we are debating the quality of schools in Arizona and Texas (and we could discuss Florida also) when…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_net_migration
“when…”
Does that separate boomer-retirees running away from the future obligations that they benefited from their entire working lives from the currently and soon-to-be productive members of society? No? Ok, then.
wow look at that, Nevada top of the “net domestic migration rate per 1,000 residents” it must be terrible there, I bet the people there want to move to Detroit or Cleveland instead
““when…”
Does that separate boomer-retirees running away from the future obligations that they benefited from their entire working lives from the currently and soon-to-be productive members of society? No? Ok, then.”
Anon(tfo), I hope you practice what you preach. You’ll be the last person to leave your block. The state will confiscate all your money to pay the million dollar or larger pensions for all the retired workers…who themselves also left Chicago/Illinois long ago. You should just cut out the middle man and pay the pensioner’s creditors directly. They’ve got all the toys, including boats, jet skis and the like, as they live on their lake homes, off your dime, even though they haven’t lived in the state or worked here in 15 years.
“I hope you practice what you preach”
You’re the one stuck here, telling everyone how much you want to leave, and advising them to do so, too.
And what is it that I am preaching, exactly? I’m certain that your reading comp is better than that. Am I not just preaching that a single number doesn’t tell us *who* is moving to Florida and Arizona?
And “even though they haven’t lived in the state or worked here in 15 years” is agreeing with the implied preaching, too, so preacher, heal thyself.
What are you guys whining about? In 2024 (the way the Dems are going) the Democrats will take Congress and the White House and nationalize all government pensions with the money to be saved from single payer health care.
And if they have any sense they’ll mandate that Bucktown ends at Armitage, as God intended.
“wow look at that, Nevada top of the “net domestic migration rate per 1,000 residents” it must be terrible there, I bet the people there want to move to Detroit or Cleveland instead”
That’s because no one can afford California so the retirees leave and go to Nevada where there is no income tax and the home prices are way lower. It’s been happening for about 20 years.
There’s a reason Las Vegas was one of the epicenters for the housing bubble.
My cousin moved to Las Vegas from Milwaukee two years ago. He likes it. He works in tourism as does his wife. Those are the jobs there. They could buy a house though. Paid $300,000 for a brand new house with all the bells and whistles in the kitchen (granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances.) It’s about 1800 square feet. It’s nice. They don’t have to shovel.
That’s about it.
But that’s what I mean about certain cities and states simply not having the educated population to compete. There’s a reason Las Vegas isn’t a “global” city in terms of its economy. Same with Reno.
“Not sure why we are debating the quality of schools in Arizona and Texas (and we could discuss Florida also) when…”
Baby boomers retiring Gary. That is all. At least until the flooding in Florida forces them out of that state.
You mean climate change is REAL? Say it isn’t so.
Someone please tell sonies. But he’s lucky, because he’s not in Florida.
At least some Republicans are waking up. Hard not to do when the “king tide” happens more frequently, and roads are flooded all the time. How sad he’s now lamenting a “lost decade.”
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article236215368.html
“well soon enough we’ll have census results to finally prove her wrong”
Why are you waiting for the census? We already have it. They put out the numbers all the time. The 10 year census is done differently and updates the Congressional seats etc.
And what it’s telling us this year is that for the first time in many years Illinois might actually be gaining population. It will be a few more months to see if the half year data holds true. But the state is creating too many new jobs to not have net migration in. But we shall see.
“She’s getting JoeZ like with her pumping of the Midwest being HOT!, HOT!, HOT!!!!!!!”
You’re blind if you don’t see the opportunities.
But you can lead a horse to the water, can’t make him drink.
“LMFAO! Not gonna lie Sabrina, you are a god tier troll”
When I was in St. Louis I ran into several British tourists. They were doing Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis and then finishing in New Orleans.
The British are very well traveled and love the Midwest (in the summer only though. Lol.) Also, Detroit has a very good airport with lots of non-stops to Europe so that makes it easier to go there for a quick visit.
“So you cite two list that has Shinola as one of a dozen or more (too bored to count), and insist that means it is the “hottest” hotel in the country?”
Any “hottest” list is simply opinion. I could go make a post tomorrow with the title: “Shinola is the hottest hotel in the United States” and it would be true. But the fact that it has appeared on numerous lists of “best of” and “top of” hotel lists for the past 2 years tells you that it is one of the hottest hotels in the country. It might be my hottest and maybe someone else’s 10th hottest.
But it is transforming that part of Detroit.
The company itself is as well, by the way. They have a stand alone store on Rush Street in the Gold Coast here in Chicago.
anon(tfo): the whole point I’m arguing is that Arizona doesn’t have the universities to attract the top global information tech jobs. The whole reason Chicago is so competitive, same with Boston, same with San Francisco, is literally because they have top 10 universities, in the world, in their cities.
Arizona does not.
Sorry.
“Re Nashville – Music City”
Vandy has put Nashville in another category. That’s what great, large universities do. But Nashville doesn’t just have Vandy. It has several of the top black universities in the nation, including Oprah Winfrey’s alma matter. It’s a huge jobs generator. Without all that intellectual power there, Nashville would be another Chattanooga.
Have you ever been there?
It was a back water for hundreds of years. Was passed over for Cleveland and even Cincinnati and Memphis.
Look at the cities that have Federal Reserve banks. Those are the ones that had economic power.
anon:
“And what is it that I am preaching, exactly?”
hmm….there’s no judgment in this quote – “boomer-retirees running away from the future obligations that they benefited from their entire working lives”
Sabrina,
you’re right Sabrina to the extent that many of those sunbelt and western cities don’t have the universities and industry to support the high tech professional economies of the blue states. But the answer is ‘not yet’ they don’t. Cities like Chicago have a long history – UofC was founded in 1890! Whereas Las Vegas had only a slightly larger population than Rockford in 1990. Same goes for all of these other mid tier and larger cities. The Dutch bought Manhattan for a bunch of beads in the 1600’s but Phoenix was the size of Green Bay in 1950. Give it time Sabrina and these cities will develop into american powerhouses on their own, in time, the trend is undeniable.
“Give it time Sabrina and these cities will develop into american powerhouses on their own, in time, the trend is undeniable.”
Someone is going to give the money like the Rockefellers did to found U of C but in Las Vegas or Phoenix?
Never say never. The rich have continuously founded universities. But just because you attract a lot of people to a region, doesn’t mean it’s an economic powerhouse. Heck, tech companies have avoided Chicago for years because they said there wasn’t enough talent here (engineers etc.) Imagine somewhere like Las Vegas?
But that’s a good question. Where will the college educated GenZers move if they’re not going to go to the super cities?
They’re not going to Las Vegas, are they? I don’t think so. The second tier cities goal is to attract as many of them as possible. Austin and Nashville have been super successful as this. Even New Orleans, which doesn’t have much of a job base at all outside of tourism, has been able to attract a bunch of Millennials.
In Madison, they keep building bike trails and try and improve their airport to lure Millennials. Is it working?
How does a city get “hot” and “cool”?
“Does that separate boomer-retirees running away from the future obligations that they benefited from their entire working lives from the currently and soon-to-be productive members of society? No? Ok, then.”
1) I’d like to see the data on who is moving. Big assumption that it’s driven by baby boomers.
2) If you are focused on housing markets (I thought we were) then you don’t care who’s moving. It’s more important that people are coming to or leaving your state. Well, income/ wealth matters because that’s what drives housing.
“Vandy has put Nashville in another category. That’s what great, large universities do. But Nashville doesn’t just have Vandy. It has several of the top black universities in the nation, including Oprah Winfrey’s alma matter. It’s a huge jobs generator. Without all that intellectual power there, Nashville would be another Chattanooga.”
Vandy was established in the late 1800’s Why the sudden boom?
Readying the moving of the goalposts in 3,2,1…
“But that’s what I mean about certain cities and states simply not having the educated population to compete. There’s a reason Las Vegas isn’t a “global” city in terms of its economy. Same with Reno.”
Wait, so places like Detroit are blowing up and should be where more young people build their lives and careers, but Reno can never be a “global” city because of the educational attainment of its population?
The small city I live in has among the highest per capita rates of advanced education. I can remember hearing that stat like 20 years ago, but basically shrugging because I was a recovering ski bum who hadn’t yet been to college. But having returned and settled here as “grown ups”, I can confirm that our attorney/PhD household is quite unremarkable. But it’s not a global city – what gives?
There is a ton of tech companies moving to Nevada to save on overhead, proximity to CA being a huge factor, obviously.
Reno is a 3.5 hour drive from SF
Las Vegas is a 4 hour drive from LA
you don’t think companies hate paying taxes as much as people do?
I mean you have tech companies flocking to frickin Reno of all places
https://www.nnbusinessview.com/news/edawn-record-number-of-tech-companies-relocate-to-reno-sparks-in-2018/
and by the way there are Universities in both Reno and LV, not that they are great or anything but they are improving at least!
“hmm….there’s no judgment in this quote – “boomer-retirees running away from the future obligations that they benefited from their entire working lives””
It’s the same judgment as in your quote:
“all the retired workers…who themselves also left Chicago/Illinois long ago. [] They’ve got all the toys, including boats, jet skis and the like, as they live on their lake homes, off your dime, even though they haven’t lived in the state or worked here in 15 years.”
You’re bitter because you want to leave, but can’t yet, for whatever constellation of excuses. If it’s so awful, just go.
What’s all Sabrina’s noise about Vandy?
It ain’t a top 10 school, so it doesn’t count!!
“Vandy was established in the late 1800’s Why the sudden boom?”
And it’s not a top 10 school drawing global info tech workers. So who cares, anyway, right?
“and by the way there are Universities in both Reno and LV, not that they are great or anything but they are improving at least!”
I’m working on my third relatively big (university adjacent) development in Reno (in the span of less than two years). The only thing impeding growth in Reno is the shortage of general contractors and big sub contractors capable of handling large projects. There is no shortage of demand or capital when it comes to that market.
you left out that are willing to work for 3% fee…
Anyone that says they can’t get a GC is full of shit. They just don’t want to pay…
“Anyone that says they can’t get a GC is full of shit. They just don’t want to pay…”
I’m not sure that I’m following. Humor me: Let me know your top three choices for shopping GMPs north of $50 million in Reno.
“There is no shortage of demand or capital when it comes to that market.”
Yep. Tons of retirees moving there. Plus anyone else who can’t compete in the California economy, i.e. most middle and lower middle class workers.
Tons of cheap land. Build those houses!
“What’s all Sabrina’s noise about Vandy?”
It’s rich and one of Nashville’s largest employers. Without it, and the other universities in Nashville, it would be even a bigger backwater. But Vandy is near downtown and has spent its money on new dorms, facilities, research labs. Has really gentrified that area of the city.
Amazon will be the largest employer once it fills all 5,000 jobs though.
“Reno is a 3.5 hour drive from SF”
In what universe?
It took me 5 hours just to drive to Tahoe 15 years ago. In the summer. Forget going over those mountains in the winter time. And the traffic is way worse as you approach the Bay Area now than when I lived there (and it was very bad then.) It’s just awful now. It took me two hours recently to drive from SFO over the Bay Bridge to Walnut Creek. In the middle of the day. With NO accidents. Insanity.
Tech companies have been “flocking” to Sacramento and anywhere else that’s cheaper for quite some time. Doesn’t mean people want to follow.
“Wait, so places like Detroit are blowing up and should be where more young people build their lives and careers, but Reno can never be a “global” city because of the educational attainment of its population?”
Yep.
See also San Antonio, the country’s 7th largest city. Should be a player but isn’t. Global jobs just aren’t there. Has the highest poverty rate of all major cities at over 20%.
“1) I’d like to see the data on who is moving. Big assumption that it’s driven by baby boomers.”
The Tribune just did a major article literally like a month ago with ALL OF THE DATA. Go check it out. I linked to it here already.
People are moving to Indiana and Wisconsin. Is that the Baby Boomers moving? Some probably are. They can get cheaper housing/taxes and still be near the grandkids in Illinois.
Found the article and it says this: “Those who left the area were more likely to be young; the largest group, 28%, were in their 20s when they moved away.” Elsewhere it says that people primarily leave because of employment. So…not the baby boomers – at least from Illinois.
“Yep. Tons of retirees moving there. Plus anyone else who can’t compete in the California economy, i.e. most middle and lower middle class workers. ”
California has purposely driven these people out of California over the previous decade through well thought out policies purposely designed to drive the middle class and lower class out of state. It’s not an entire demographic’s ‘failure to compete’ – but rather – that the CA legislature has actively sought to displace the middle class and replace it with a permanent immigrant underclass.
This has happened mostly during the past twenty years so that all that remain are ‘those who can compete’, and, those who can’t, which gives California the highest poverty rate in the nation. 20% of the population lives below the poverty line and the figures are even higher when you include at or near the the poverty level. California has 12% of the nation’s population but receives one third of the federal welfare benefits. As Victor David Hanson calls it – California is America’s third world state.
The middle class – which in most places in the nation both leans and votes center of right, has been driven out of California in places like Utah, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Arizona. California gave us Ronald Reagan barely a generation ago, and Arnold S. as governor not too longer after that. Yet today, only 7 of its 53 US house reps are Republicans, every statewide office is Democrat and Democrats hold a supermajority in the legislature.
What happened to these voters who gave two of America’s best known Republicans? Well, they’ve all left. They have been replaced by more compliant voting demographics through sanctuary policies and generous welfare benefit policies to the children of anchor babies.
This is exactly what California’s ruling class wanted. They wanted to be like Mexico, a one-party state, with zero opposition or dissent whatsoever to the ruling party. And they achieved it – total control over aspect of California’s economy, culture, and discourse. But the cost is severe as western states accept California refugees literally by the millions, and feces and human waste liters the street of San Fran and LA; and the mismanagement of water leads to drought, and the mismanagement of forests leads to brush fires, and the mismanagement of the power company leads to power outages, and so on, and so on.
California is awful. But that’s exactly how the residents like it. Because anyone who would be left to complain moved on a long, long time ago.
“California the highest poverty rate in the nation. 20% of the population lives below the poverty line”
That’s false. The poverty rate in CA is 12.8%, per the 2018 ACS.
Now, 21.3% are at or below 150% of the poverty line, which with the actual COL in most of Cali probably is the effective poverty line, but that’s not really ascertainable from the available data, and is far different from what you stated.
“After factoring for costs of living, California is the poorest state in the union. An average of 14 percent of Americans live below the poverty line by census measures. Compare that with the 19 percent of Californians who live below the poverty line and the situation is clear. The census measures factor in housing costs and wellbeing with programs like food stamps and housing assistance. Altogether, the state government has made life for poor and middle class Californians nearly unbearable.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/412928-middle-class-is-disappearing-in-california-as-wealth-gap-grows
This my source. Maybe it’s incorrect, I’m not fact checking Kristin Tate’s facts.
(ps I rounded up from 19% to 20%);
And just for good measure, her source is this:
https://la.curbed.com/2018/9/14/17856870/california-poverty-rate-housing-cost-of-living
“When factoring in housing costs and other basic necessities, nearly one in five Californians lives in poverty, according to data released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Under these measurements, California’s poverty rate is higher than any other U.S. state—though it has improved since last year, when the Census Bureau reported that 20.4 percent of residents were living below the poverty line.”
This is the source, it’s the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/demo/p60-261.pdf
Fair enough. Different definition, so makes all the diff.
the 2018 SPM report:
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-268.pdf
CA still highest, but at 18.1% for ’18.
So, looking at the SPM line/thresholds, most of urban CA has higher SPM “poverty lines” than metro NYC does. While non-metro CA is below the national average and a little lower than Las Vegas metro.
“California has 12% of the nation’s population but receives one third of the federal welfare benefits.”
Where is this stat from?
I find the following breakdown of aggregate federal welfare spending (2018):
Medicaid $494.9 billion
Family and children assistance $268 billion
Unemployment $37.5 billion
Workers compensation $2.8 billion
Housing assistance $47.9 billion
Total $851.1 billion
Even with Medicaid expansion, I find that CA has about 16% of all Medicaid recipients. Lets say that they cost more on average, and take up over 20% of spending, or $100B.
1/3 of that total is $283.7B. So for the stat HD quoted to be correct, Californians would have to receive 51.5% of the $356.2B of non-Medicaid federal welfare. That’s simply incredible (as in, not at all credible), and even that incredible number is based on a bonkers over-estimate of federal Medicaid spending in California.
So, I’m calling BS on your source, HD.
California is also the world’s 6th largest economy. I trash it a lot but it’s economy is a powerhouse. The creativity, the optimism, their ability to ignore everything that is going on on the East Coast (lol), is amazing.
I thank the powers that be every day that we have Silicon Valley and Russia and China do not.
“It’s not an entire demographic’s ‘failure to compete’ – but rather – that the CA legislature has actively sought to displace the middle class and replace it with a permanent immigrant underclass.”
Ba ha ha ha.
You are SO OLD HD. You are about 25 years behind on this statement. Literally. The 1990s was when immigration was THE issue (at least from Mexico.) With few coming into the country the last 10 years, it really isn’t even on the radar anymore in California. The “immigrants” have been in California for decades. Much like the older Poles in Chicago.
The only “immigrant underclass” is in your own mind.
As for the Republicans: Ronnie was actually pretty moderate. And Arnold WAS a moderate. As was Nixon. You get elected in California by being a moderate, on both sides of the aisle.
The Republican failures there are of their own making. They need to look in the mirror. It’s the same mirror that the Texas Republicans have to look in too.
“Elsewhere it says that people primarily leave because of employment.”
Yep.
As I’ve said, people need to read the article and look at the actual data. Most aren’t leaving Illinois because of the taxes. Heck, the Baby Boomers who whine about the cold and the winters aren’t really leaving either. Florida and Arizona are actually pretty far down the list of destinations of people leaving. I’m not saying some aren’t leaving. But far fewer people actually move, for ANY reason, than most people realize.
Most baby boomers leave for 3 to 5 months every year and just rent a place in a warmer climate.
This is a country where 30% don’t even have passports and many people haven’t even visited California or Hawaii.
I’m not sure that I’m following. Humor me: Let me know your top three choices for shopping GMPs north of $50 million in Reno.
Why do they have to be local?
“Why do they have to be local?”
I don’t think they have to be local (I’d imagine there are pretty strict state licensing requirements, but I suppose a GC from one state could jump through the hoops in another state if it wanted to operate there). My sense is that the reason GCs (on big projects) tend to be local is because of the subs. The skilled trades and the construction workers generally are going to be local, and if there’s a shortage of that workforce in a market (relative to a recent surge in development), it won’t do a GC much good if, despite having the capability to oversee a project, there’s nobody to do the work. And I suppose it doesn’t hurt for a GC to have an established relationship with local engineers and architects and experience working with local utilities, sewer, etc. I think there are lots of places like Reno where there was a couple of big surges in development, but if it’s been a generation or so since a surge, the construction workforce will typically have reduced down to a non-surge level.
“This is a country where 30% don’t even have passports”
Bwah hahahahahahahahaha
It’s closer to 30% *do* have passports. It’s about 40% now, but as recently as 25 years ago, it was only about 10%, and in 2001 about 17%. Which tells you that most of that increase is about going to Canada and Mexico.
yeah I’d imagine most of the trades people in town are damn busy, there are already some huge projects going on, and an absolute shitload of smaller ones, hell theres a billion dollar project that has actually started already… for a small town it is almost unreal the amount of activity here https://therealdeal.com/national/2019/07/21/developer-gambles-1b-project-on-renos-tech-boom/
“It’s closer to 30% *do* have passports. It’s about 40% now, but as recently as 25 years ago, it was only about 10%, and in 2001 about 17%. Which tells you that most of that increase is about going to Canada and Mexico.”
Just going off your numbers. Too lazy to gthooi for anything else.
–Increase from 10 to 17 percent from 25 years ago to 2001, so 7 percentage point increase over 7 years.
–Assuming no passports required for Canada/Mex before 2001, then applying that ~1 percentage point increase per year over the past 18 years would get us to 35 percent.
–We would be at 35 percent versus 40 percent passport rate even without changes to Mex/Can requirements, so most of the increase is not about going to Mex/Can.
“Increase from 10 to 17 percent from 25 years ago to 2001, so 7 percentage point increase over 7 years.”
Was 4% in 1990, then 17% in ’00 and ’01. 13% growth per decade = 43% we have today (which is about right). OR 425% increase from 90-00, would mean that 307% of Americans have passports now.
The big increases in raw number of passport holders were in ’06-’09–1/1/07 being the first day ALL entries to US by air required a passport, and 6/1/09 being the first day ALL entries to US by land or sea required a passport.
Here are the aggregate numbers for 2018–counting departures, not individuals: https://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2018-O-001/index.html
Out of 93 million departures, 55% were to Mexico and Canada. Another 9.4% were to the Caribbean. Leaving 33m departures to the rest of the world–1 for every 10 Americans. Which *is* a big increase from 1996 (oldest year in that data set) when it was 1 departure for every 18 Americans. How much of that is increased international business travel? I’d guess a lot of it.
“Was 4% in 1990”
Wow that is low.
“Out of 93 million departures, 55% were to Mexico and Canada. Another 9.4% were to the Caribbean. Leaving 33m departures to the rest of the world–1 for every 10 Americans. Which *is* a big increase from 1996 (oldest year in that data set) when it was 1 departure for every 18 Americans. How much of that is increased international business travel? I’d guess a lot of it.
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)”
In years past, I’ve traveled all over Europe and Africa, and I’ll tell you this: It feels good to be back home. Most of the planet is a third world $//hithole (yes, I used that word – if you can’t drink the water or eat the food, yes, it is). 75% of the world’s population would move to America in the next 24 months if we opened up the borders to anyone and everyone who can swim, fly or row or walk here. America is a very large country, and outside of the Europe and the five-eyes countries, and Japan, maybe Korea, there really isn’t much reason to leave this country. Heck, all of my family left Europe, many generations of them too (myself being quite the mutt), so the appeal can’t be all that great. It’s a nice place to visit, maybe, but the $5 can of coca-colas are a bit much. Americans don’t need to leave the country, it’s a pain to go anywhere, most places other than Canada in the western hemisphere you can’t even drink the water, and the two largest countries India/China are dumps that have probably a 100,000 : 1 ratio for indians/chinese to americans immigrating. I’ve been around the world, and I assure you, international travel is expensive and overrated. Especially when you’re in the middle of the desert in the Saraha, and the only other person you see for miles…is an american missionary.
“In years past, I’ve traveled all over Europe and Africa, and I’ll tell you this: It feels good to be back home.”
When was “past”?
30 years ago?
Because if it was recent you’d know that even, gasp, Mexico has nicer airports and buses than America does. All of your comments are circa 1995. The world has moved on without you.
75% of the world would want to move here? Give me a break. With our crappy healthcare? You can forget about that.
There’s this myth that America is nirvana when Europe, parts of Africa and most of Asia has passed us in many ways.
“How much of that is increased international business travel? I’d guess a lot of it.”
Nope. I’d guess most of it was leisure.
Cheap airfares and all inclusive resorts have meant millions of Americans now vacation with their children on spring break, winter break and summers in Mexico and the Caribbean. All of this is different than 10 years ago and mostly didn’t exist 20 years ago.
It’s millions of visitors.
Just fly into the Cancun airport. Or look at the growth in visitors there. The company that owns them is public and reports monthly and yearly data. It’s insane how many airlines fly in there now and how many international visitors they get.
Same with Dominican Republic. The Punta Cana airport is crazy. Not all Americans, obviously. Lots of Europeans and Canadians at both locations.
“millions of Americans now vacation with their children on spring break, winter break and summers in Mexico and the Caribbean.”
You don’t even bother to actually read, do you?
I mean, you can’t actually have read what I wrote and then posted that as a “rebuttal”.
As a reminder: “33m departures to the rest of the world”, other than Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
“In years past, I’ve traveled all over Europe and Africa, and I’ll tell you this: It feels good to be back home. Most of the planet is a third world $//hithole”
my best friend who is a private pilot tells me the same exact thing, and he has literally been everywhere on the globe, multiple times.
“most places other than Canada in the western hemisphere you can’t even drink the water,”
——————————-
The little woman and I went to Mexico early one year and London later that year.
In Mexico City we’d always eat from the little take-away restaurants. Great food, cheap, and no health problems. In London we ate at upscale restaurants (Simpson’s and its ilk) and I came down with the worst case of food poisoning I ever had in my life.
“most of Asia has passed us in many ways”
Here’s the full list or 50 countries in Asia:
Afghanistan
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Bhutan
Brunei
Cambodia
China
Cyprus
Georgia
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Lebanon
Malaysia
Maldives
Mongolia
Myanmar (formerly Burma)
Nepal
North Korea
Oman
Pakistan
Palestine
Philippines
Qatar
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
South Korea
Sri Lanka
Syria
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Turkey
Turkmenistan
United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
Yemen
There is a plausible argument that you are correct as to Israel, Japan and South Korea, and China may have passed us in some purely economic ways (but is clearly still a sh!+hole, as demonstrated by the HK situation).
What’s the plausible argument for there being at least 26 countries on that list that have “passed us in many ways” that are actually *good*??
Now, keep in mind that I totally disagree with HD and Sonies, and think that much of the rest of the world is pretty darn great.
But your argument is Trumpian in its disconnection with reality.
MOST of those countries have absolutely disqualifying problems in comparison to the US. Even if you say “based on population…” you lose, too, as India is a mess and teeters on both civil war and war with Pakistan, and China admiration, as alluded to, is of a piece with Trump’s fascination with despots and fascists, and those two are 2.7b of the 4.5b in those 50.
“and China may have passed us in some purely economic ways”
what ways are that?
“what ways are that?”
It’s a rhetorical device.
As the rest of the sentence sez, it doesn’t matter, bc its still a fascist state.
“As the rest of the sentence sez, it doesn’t matter, bc its still a fascist state.”
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here and say that in light of the problems with American and western style democracy, maybe the chinese and eastern version of government is the way to go. Central control with a firm first seems to be a good solutoin for a billion people, things get done, who cares about 7,000,000 Hong Kong seditious residents. What makes them so special.
“what ways are that?”
Haven’t they passed us PPP (purchasing power parity)?
As for the rest of the world, it is a dump. Ask your average Michoacan resident whether its better to be poor in their rural dirt poor village with no high school or in Little Village with three square meals a day provided to their kids courtesy of the tax payer. Ask the farmer using oxen to plow the fields in Bali if he’d rather romantize about the life of a peasant farmer or watch cable tv in a 2 bedroom apartment Los Angeles. Ask the saharan or sub-saharan african whether carrying water from the well to her mud brick shack is better than safe, germ free running water in multiple rooms in your house in minneapolis, even with the cold winters. Heck, only half the world’s population even has internet access. My buddy from eastern europe showed me recent photos of his hometown and it was stepping back in time 40 years, maybe even 60 years. It’s poor out there.
Sure, america has it’s problems and it’s not a particular great place if you’re poor as compared to some western nations, but for all of america’s problems, very few immigrants return ‘home’ after immigrating here unless they are trying to escape the criminal justice system.
“in the middle of the desert in the Saraha”
It’s all desert. Sahara means “desert” (or “greatest desert”). I haven’t been (only place in Africa I’ve been is Tanzania), but I remember learning this point in browsing the NYT style manual about 15 years ago (the Times, pompously as ever, admonishing the reader to never write “the Sahara Desert”) . It resonated with me because I could remember in the mid 80’s being a stickler about calling a Swatch just a “Swatch” and not a “Swatch watch”, the latter being nonsensical because it’s a combo of “second watch” (though admittedly my stance at that point was that it was a combo of “Swiss watch”, which I learned a few years later was not the case). And that really hit home by the late 80’s/early 90’s, once the Pop Swatch was a thing – saying “Pop Swatch watch” would have been even more ridiculous than I was when I’d wear the elastic watch band on my wrist and the watch part somewhere on my clothing.
anonny, I lost you at NYT. It’s like if I mentioned infowars or something, you’d probably stop reading too, regardless of the context.
“I lost you at NYT”
Yeah, they’re still publishing drivel from that snowflake cockroach (or was it bedbug), aren’t they? I ignore them as well.
“Central control with a firm fist seems to be a good solution for a 350 million people, things get done, who cares about a bunch of bitter clingers.”
Life is cheap, liberty is an illusion, and the pursuit of happiness as defined by the Party apparatchiks. Exactly as Jefferson imagined!!
Jefferson was a slave owning hypocrite. And he was white. Anything he has said or contributed to the world needs to be forgotten and disregarded, erased from history. Tear his statutes down, burn Monticello to the ground, and fast forward American history completely 100 years or so we can learn about the freedom fighter and community organizer, John Brown. American history before that is irrelevant.
Now,that Xuexi Qiangguo app – China’s most popular smartphone app – that teaches us about President Xi Jinping’s political achievements and theories of the world, that’s a good app.
“In years past, I’ve traveled all over Europe and Africa, and I’ll tell you this: It feels good to be back home. Most of the planet is a third world $//hithole (yes, I used that word – if you can’t drink the water or eat the food, yes, it is).”
I generally agree. I’m trying to get in a lot more international travel before I die so I get around. I’ve noticed that my interest in living someplace is directly correlated with their GDP per capita and if I can’t drink the tap water and safely eat any prepared food for sale then it’s a non-starter. Yeah, I’m spoiled (no pun intended). Of course Chicago has street vendors you shouldn’t eat from also but the scary stuff is rampant in places like Vietnam or Tanzania.
So haven’t been to that many European countries but I could see myself living in a lot of the ones I have been to, though I suspect many are really expensive. Israel would be a stretch – even if you ignore their security issues – so I would rather be here. But once you get below $20,000/ year in GDP per capita things get real dicey.
“Israel would be a stretch – even if you ignore their security issues”
Was there for the first time this past summer. I could see living in Tel Aviv. I would stick out as less good looking and less entrepreneurial than most, but I’d live there.
Yeah, I could see living there also but, as I said, it’s a bit of a stretch for me and not that cheap apparently. It was interesting…I went there assuming they were at a similar level of economic development as the US but then I was sitting in an outdoor cafe in Tel Aviv and looking at the condition of the buildings around me and I thought…this doesn’t look quite as developed as the US. Sure enough their GDP per capita is about 2/3 ours.
As a side note…I developed some degree of intestinal distress shortly after that meal but it could have been the lunch I had in the smelly restaurant in Jerusalem the day before.
Ann Coulter has a new column today providing an interesting perspective on our latin american neighbors. It’s relevant to Chicago housing in the way that the socialist leaders of latin america offered housing for everyone and destroyed the economies in the process, just as Liz Warren showed up a day or two ago to show solidarity with teachers who are demanding affordable housing for themselves and free housing for homeless or home insecure. Nothing ever changes….anon(tfo), you’re gonna love this column, its Ann in rare form.
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2019-10-23.html
In the dotcom bubble years, Cisco paid to build housing for teachers in Silicon Valley.
Recently, Facebook said it would spend $1 billion building affordable housing in Silicon Valley.
Is that socialism?
A city won’t work if the teachers have to live in their cars, which actually has been happening for years in the Bay Area. More affordable housing needs to be built, especially near transportation. What’s wrong with fighting for that?
“My buddy from eastern europe showed me recent photos of his hometown and it was stepping back in time 40 years, maybe even 60 years. It’s poor out there.”
I’m betting HD doesn’t even have a passport and has, actually, never left the country.
Anyone else agree?
“very few immigrants return ‘home’ after immigrating here unless they are trying to escape the criminal justice system.”
This is wrong, actually.
A few years ago the Tribune had an article interviewing several Polish immigrants who came to Chicago in the early 1990s just as Poland was starting to open to the west. When they left, it sucked. But they’ve returned to Poland because it’s now booming. There are jobs everywhere. Internet. Starbucks. A lot had changed.
It’s really difficult to live in a foreign country, especially when you aren’t a native speaker. You get homesick.
“Ask the farmer using oxen to plow the fields in Bali if he’d rather romantize about the life of a peasant farmer or watch cable tv in a 2 bedroom apartment Los Angeles.”
Who’s watching cable in an apartment in LA?
You mean these people without gas, electric or even running water?
Welcome to America! We’re sooooo advanced.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-21/illegally-converted-building-conditions-nightmare-residents
No, immigrants NEVER go back home after coming here HD.
Lol.
“Then, Poles in Chicago began doing something that was once unimaginable. They began packing up and going home. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of foreign-born Poles in Chicago dropped by 23,000 from 2000 to 2010.
At the Polish American Association, the entry-level ESL classes that were once packed with newly arrived Poles are now nearly empty. Attendance at Polish Saturday schools, where children learn to speak Polish, has dropped by 1,000 students over the past five years. And Polish travel agents, who once did a brisk business booking vacations, now advertise rates for shipping containers that can be used to send entire households back to Poland.
Across the city and the country, other immigrants were coming to similar conclusions. As Poles boarded one-way flights back to their homeland, so too did Mexicans.”
You know there is Starbucks, McDonald’s, Domino’s, AMC Movie Theaters, Home Depot, Costco and whatever else you can get in America in Mexico now, right?
The middle class has really grown in both Mexico and Poland. The jobs are better. Many leave. Both legal and illegal immigrants.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-poland-reverse-migration-20130113-story.html
“At least 60,000 Poles returned to Poland in the first year of the global recession, and at least 8,000 have returned annually in the years since, according to data compiled by Poland’s Central Statistical Office. It’s a phenomenon that Krystyna Iglicka, a researcher at Warsaw’s Center for International Relations, calls “a kind of miracle.””
This article is from 2013. I wonder what has happened in the last 6 years?
The global economy is still relatively good. We know more Mexican immigrants are leaving than are coming in. I wonder if that’s true of the Poles too?
“What’s the plausible argument for there being at least 26 countries on that list that have “passed us in many ways” that are actually *good*??”
There are economic powerhouses in many of those countries. They have better airports, wifi, high speed rail, just to start.
Some have better medical, including hospitals and treatments.
You’d have a similar standard of living to the US in the following:
UAE
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Jordan
Brunei
Bahrain
Malaysia
Singapore
Oman
Taiwan
Turkey
This would be in the major cities that are similar to Chicago. Have you ever been to Istanbul? If you were blindfolded, you’d never know you were outside of the US if you were dropped off there (except that they happen to like Burger King more than McDonald’s, so that seems odd when you’re there.)
Singapore’s infrastructure is at least 30 years ahead of any major US city, sadly.
The US is behind in many categories now. I still think our economy is the most vibrant in the world and that’s what keeps us going. There are a lot of opportunities that you can’t find in other countries. But actual standard of living? Many have passed us. Our subways, for instance, are a disgrace.
“my best friend who is a private pilot tells me the same exact thing, and he has literally been everywhere on the globe, multiple times.”
How sad. Actually tragic.
To be given the gift to see the entire world safely and cheaply, which has never before existed in human history until the last 50 years, and find no beauty or wonder in it.
“I’m betting HD doesn’t even have a passport and has, actually, never left the country.
I don’t have a passport anymore, but I used to, when I did all my traveling. I studied abroad for well over a year in college which gave me a chance to travel quite a bit.
“You’d have a similar standard of living to the US in the following:
UAE
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Jordan
Brunei
Bahrain
Malaysia
Singapore
Oman
Taiwan
Turkey”
As a woman, you seriously say that? Bahrain? Saudi Arabia?
GTFOOH!!
AND that’s nowhere close to “MOST” which is what YOU said.
Jordan? Stopped there for a day when I visited Israel. $4300 GDP Per Capita for starters and it shows. Can’t drink the tap water. Can’t flush your toilet paper. Need to really watch the food. Bedouins living in squalor in the desert. The highway bordered by trash. I’m sure you could find an enclave somewhere where it’s nice but then you’ll never want to leave it.
Been a while since I spent any serious time in Turkey. GDP per capita is $9300 so I doubt it’s that great a place to live. Was there maybe 19 years ago. Istanbul was fine. Ankara was a bit less developed. But then spent a few days in eskisehir. I think it was March…a bit cold. At 5:00 the skies turned black and not because the sun set. People were heating their homes with coal. Yeah, I know. It’s been 19 years. You think a country changes that fast?
And with all these places at the lower end of the economic development curve you have to worry about the quality of healthcare.
Sabrina is really dropping some America hating bad hot takes in this thread… yikes!
“A city won’t work if the teachers have to live in their cars, which actually has been happening for years in the Bay Area. More affordable housing needs to be built, especially near transportation. What’s wrong with fighting for that?”
You can fight for all sorts of goodies. Doesn’t make it a good thing to provide. Cities have been trying to deal with affordability “problems” forever and there are always unintended consequences. For one, giving lower wage earners an incentive to stay in an area rather than move to places with better overall opportunities for them just puts things out of balance. So the supply of cheap labor becomes a de facto subsidy for low wage industries. It depresses wages.
Furthermore, if you are going to provide housing below cost then someone has to pay for that. There is no free lunch. Who is going to pay for it? And now you’ve increased demand in a city that already has too much demand. Or…another way to look at it is that you’ve taken supply off the market and created a housing shortage/ affordability problem for someone else.
Look at that vacant land on 16th street in Pilsen. Keeping that undeveloped while waiting for a developer to lose their ass incorporating affordable housing…what impact do we think that’s having on housing affordability for people looking for market rate 2/2s?
“Some have better medical, including hospitals and treatments.
You’d have a similar standard of living to the US in the following:
UAE
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Jordan
Brunei
Bahrain
Malaysia
Singapore
Oman
Taiwan
Turkey
This would be in the major cities that are similar to Chicago. Have you ever been to Istanbul? If you were blindfolded, you’d never know you were outside of the US if you were dropped off there (except that they happen to like Burger King more than McDonald’s, so that seems odd when you’re there.)”
Holy cow Sabrina.
First of all, any and all the human rights issued aside from all those places – you’re completely nuts.
Jordan, Oman, Bahrain, SAUDIA ARABIA ( ARE YOU TOTALLY CRAZY?), and Turkey – absolutely 0 comparison to the US. Even if you’re an expat there. I’ve been to these countries and they are nothin glamorous -ESPECIALLY Jordan. Istanbul is a fun city but doesn’t hold a candle to American cities like you suggest.
Now, Singapore, Dubai, Qatar, Malaysia, and Brunei, you can make a case for.
Sabrina ran this wonderful blog and she made really really insightful comments for like a decade. There were newspaper articles written about he blog.
And then in 2016 something changed. She put on a pink p$$$y hat and got infected with the TDS prion or something and the blog has never been the same since. She hates America, hates Trump, suddenly loves SF (even though she spent 10 years ragging on it), loves California, and is now claiming that Jordan has a similar standard of living to the US. I make some crazy claims here but Sabrina has gone full blow TDS and has lost all sense of rationality and reasonableness. It’s sad.
“and is now claiming that Jordan has a similar standard of living to the US.”
Have you EVER been to Amman? Of course not HD. You’ve never left the country. Heck, I doubt you’ve ever left Illinois. I never said the country had the same standard of living. I said the large cities do.
I’ve never “ragged” on SF. I liked living there but it’s silly to do so for anyone who is middle class. If I’m Zuckerberg, then sure. But I’ve visited and it’s fine. The traffic is double what it was when I was there but as long as you can get where you’re going and not get into a car again, you’re fine. Lol.
Wine country is fantastic. It’s tragic to see the fires threatening it again.
California IS the American dream. But I’m pretty high on Texas too. Lots of opportunity there as well.
I’m all for people moving and trying these places out. I get asked all the time by people, after they find out I lived in California for many years, if they should move there.
Go for it. You can always move again.
That’s the beauty of America. Lots of places you can go.
Don’t like Chicago’s weather, taxes, housing, people, food?
Hawaii is sitting there. As is Florida. Heck, go to the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico. No passport required (since most don’t have one anyway.)
“Istanbul is a fun city but doesn’t hold a candle to American cities like you suggest.”
We’re not comparing “fun-ness” Riz. It was simply whether people who lived there would be DESPARATE to come to America as HD claims.
They’re not. They have internet! They have Starbucks. They aren’t moving to Chicago for our medical care. Come on.
“Been a while since I spent any serious time in Turkey. GDP per capita is $9300 so I doubt it’s that great a place to live.”
Wow. Okay Gary. And GDP tells you what??? And you were last there 19 years ago? Ba ha ha ha! How many millions of people have moved there in that time?
So if I visited small town Louisiana, would it be the same as the French Quarter in New Orleans? Different GDP per capita in both places.
Ba ha ha ha.
What was Chicago like 19 years ago? Would I be buying a $1 million home in Ukrainian Village 19 years ago? Walking on the River Walk? Staying in a hotel in Fulton Market? Having a drink at Trump Tower?
Come on!
My best friend lived in Pilsen on Halsted and we heard gunshots on the weekends 19 years ago. And now?
And yes, a country DOES change that fast Gary. Get out and live a little. Look around your OWN city.
Istanbul is just as advanced as Chicago. As is Mexico City. As are most large cities.
By the way Istanbul now has one of the most advanced airports in the world. They’ve really invested in their infrastructure. I wish the US was doing the same. It’s a real shame. We used to lead the world in transportation but we’ve really fallen behind.
As a woman, you seriously say that? Bahrain? Saudi Arabia?
Standard of living has nothing to do with your sex. In Saudi Arabia I’d have a car and driver, by the way. It would be mandated by law.
We are talking about how “great” the US is and that people in all those countries would be dying to come here. They’re not. Because many other countries have caught up with us and many, actually, have surpassed us. Take a trip to Singapore and look around.
By the way, HD is suddenly quiet when I produce an article discussing Polish immigrants (who were here illegally, by the way) who have returned to Poland.
If you bothered to read it, you’d see that at least one missed her American life.
But it’s really hard being an immigrant especially if you don’t speak the language. Those women went to the equivalent of Harvard in Poland and then were cleaning homes and being nannies here. Is that really worth it? They determined it was not.
Home is where the heart is.
“In Saudi Arabia I’d have a car and driver, by the way.”
And your husband could kill you, and not even have to talk to the cops.
Yeah, SOOOOOO advanced.
Sabrina, I read the article…sure, some people leave, like the Polish elite who end up nannying in America. But the vast majority of the 1,000,000 people who’ve crashed our southern border in the last twelve month never have any intention of leaving. They are colonists. History is full of examples when colonists clash with the natives. It usually doesn’t end well. In fact, that’s why we speak English, an off shoot of a west germanic language, instead of celtic or latin, because these colonists called the Anglos and Saxons, you know, were just looking for a better life. Northern Germany sucked and it was a human right to let these barbarians into the civilized world of Britain. Except that they slaughtered all the natives and the course of history changed. Even closer to home, the colonists of america working their way into native american land didn’t bode well for the native. If you think that tens of millions of poor peasants around the world brings hard working and cultural diversity, you’re mistaken. It’s an invasion by another other name.
Anglos and Saxons, you know, were just looking for a better life. Northern Germany sucked and it was a human right to let these barbarians into the civilized world of Britain. ”
—————————-
Your ignorance is showing, HD. The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were invited in. THEN they took over. Read Stenton
“The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were invited in.”
They were allegedly invited by a local warlord to fight his enemies and then they never left. This is a myth of course, as archeology shows that they had been coming in waves for generations on their small boats holding a few families at a time, because the swampy and densely forest cold lands of Northern Germany (and some of Denmark) were difficult to farm and not very productive, just as they are today.
Of course, we also invite the 1,000,000 people on our southern border to crash the gates too. We have sanctuary cities, liberal asylum policies, free education and benefits for their children, birth right citizenship. Our mayor (the CTU’s oppressor) refuses to work with ICE to help deport criminal illegal aliens! Think about that for a second – an illegal with a likely violent criminal history – the worst of the worst – and the CPD isn’t allowed to detain them, they must be released back into the community.
The irony is that the CTU wants ‘affordable rent’ for teachers and families, but they refuse to admit that the estimated 400,000 illegals are the very same families with whom they are competing with for affordable housing.
Economics 101 is supply and demand. Increase the demand for low priced housing by importing 400,000 illegal immigrants and watch the price rise. We have no idea how many CPS students are undocumented as CPS doesn’t seem to want to release the figures. The second layer of irony behind this is despite the CPS losing tens of students over the previous two decade, the only ‘growth’ in new students have come from illegal undocumented families who compete with them for housing, class room space and educational resources.
“California IS the American dream”
For some subset of the population, yes but to claim its some sort of universal truth is laughable.
We’re not comparing “fun-ness” Riz. It was simply whether people who lived there would be DESPARATE to come to America as HD claims.
They’re not. They have internet! They have Starbucks. They aren’t moving to Chicago for our medical care. Come on.”
NO – thats my point. THEY DO want to move to the US, and get our healthcare, or any western country’s -and the rich people in those countries do precisely that ( aside from Dubai or Saudi, they just ship In foreign doctors and hospital systems ). The fact is your average person in Istanbul, or turkey in general, or Jordan or wherever does not have the means to ever come to the US, or come get healthcare here.
Also, as a child of immigrants with LOTS of family in Saudi, turkey, and throughout the Middle East and south east Asia -Sabrina have you ever even been to these countries?
The way you talk about the makes me think you haven’t.
Like I mentioned, a few , like Singapore, Qatar, or UAE are certainly amazing..the rest still are no comparison to the US..And trust me, I love Istanbul – my brother Is getting married there in May…but saying it’s technologically on the same level as Chicago, let alone Cleveland, is laughable..fancy airport or not.
“it’s technologically on the same level as Chicago”
I think they are miles ahead in their technology for monitoring, arresting and imprisoning journalists, and quashing dissent tho.
The growing admiration for what totalitarian regimes can accomplish really makes me sad.
“I think they are miles ahead in their technology for monitoring, arresting and imprisoning journalists, and quashing dissent tho.The growing admiration for what totalitarian regimes can accomplish really makes me sad.”
It makes me sad too. Not that ‘journalists’ are imprisoned, But that they did it to themselves. They long gave up any outward impartiality. Around the world they have become seditious enemies of the state and of the common people. The new activism journalism movement has taken over all of the journalism schools and the produce almost completely far left wing progressives with an agenda, no matter where they are in the world.
Now let’s change ‘journalism’ to ‘the department of propaganda.” Do you still feel the same way about journalists now? Because they are not journalists, they have an agenda, and they work in concert with the powers that be to selective report whatever fits their agenda. Unfortunately the local TV or newspaper reporter tries to actually report news, and many (but not all) of them get wrapped up in it too. However, my hyperlocal newspaper stopped reporting on the doings of the local GOP events and now only reports on the doing/protests/picketing of the local progressive ‘action’ group.
Either report the events for both, or none. Don’t pick sides.
“Journalism” is a joke these days.
I’m incredibly progressive, but CNN / Vice etc are just as much of a joke as Fox News is.
That’s all I’ll say on the matter, lol.
Can we all agree that a lot of those places Sabrina tattled off as equivalent for healthcare / life in the US are an absolute joke?
To an extent, even Singapore ( want to get caned for spitting?) or Dubai ( want to be in jail for making out on a beach? ) –
Makes no sense.
Sabrina, either you are on some bizarre foreign agenda, or you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA about the foreign countries you talk about. I favor the latter.
Poles going back and forth between Poland and the US is nothing new; it was going on all through the 20th Century even in the communist era. Same with the Irish (though the Irish who came here in the 80’s got a shock when they went back as the country had gone from an emigration nation to an immigration nation and the big houses they had expected to buy turned into a grotty flat – should’ve stayed in Alsip).
cultural relativism is one of the symptoms of leftist moron disorder
“I’m incredibly progressive, but CNN / Vice etc are just as much of a joke as Fox News is.”
Oh god. Another one. People with your political ideology have destroyed chicago, Illinois and many west and east coast locales.
Our neighboring states all laugh at us as they have population growth, fully funded natural resource departments, better funded pensions, higher credit ratings, better schools, cheaper home prices, longer life spans, etc..
When I meet them, I have to explain to them – usually early on – that even though I live in Chicago, I’m not an Illinois progressive idiot. I tell them that not everybody in IL is like what they see on TV. Otherwise they just think I’m another f’ing socialist idiot from Chicago.
Chicago (nor is Illinois) is not a progressive city despite what some claim – it’s pro labor – but hardly progressive despite some high profile politicians. If you actually talk to “liberal” or “progressive” politicians (which I have) in Illinois (state level) they don’t push a lot of truly progressive things because they know they have no chance at passing. The fiscal mess isn’t progressive or ideological but bad management by fairly conservative politicians trying to keep their immediate voter bases happy (and media not being enough of a watch dog).
This last session in Springfield gave IL its bonafides for progressiveness. I don’t need to get into the details but all we’re missing is cap and trade (to destroy our great ag industry), rent control (to destroy the housing market) and a progressive tax hike (to destroy what’s left of the high income tax base), and Jacobin would give us a shout out
JUST GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE ALREADY!
“Oh god. Another one. People with your political ideology have destroyed chicago, Illinois and many west and east coast locales.”
HD. Not sure what you’re talking about at all.
“People with your political ideology have destroyed chicago,”
I want to know what has been “destroyed”?
The new riverwalk? The new record tall high rises? The conversion of older, historic buildings into usable structures again? The better schools?
I never understand this argument. And the coasts “destroyed” too? What does that mean? That they got too rich? Created too many jobs? Got too popular? That they should be like Mississippi with its poverty and low education levels?
Please explain what has been “destroyed”?
As I’ve said many times on this blog, the country is really big. If you don’t like a state, there are 49 others to choose from. Nothing is stopping you, especially in this job market. Somehow many people crossed oceans, rivers and mountains in very dangerous conditions to look for a better life. All you would have to do is pack up the moving van.
Just ask sonies. He didn’t stick around. He went in search of greener pastures and found it. He’s living the great life in Nevada. Why aren’t you HD? Cheaper housing. Not as liberal. Better weather.
“Our neighboring states all laugh at us as they have population growth, fully funded natural resource departments, better funded pensions, higher credit ratings, better schools, cheaper home prices, longer life spans, etc..”
Yeah- I’m sure they’re laughing that we’re building the tallest residential buildings in the world and have one of the world’s best airports, which is about to undergo a massive billion dollar upgrade.
It sucks to be us.
“Poles going back and forth between Poland and the US is nothing new; it was going on all through the 20th Century even in the communist era. Same with the Irish”
Thanks for confirming this FG. Same with Mexicans, Chinese, Indians etc. etc.
It’s hard to be an immigrant. And now, cheap airfares and globalization, make it easy to go back.
“Sabrina, either you are on some bizarre foreign agenda, or you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA about the foreign countries you talk about.”
Riz, I lived in Hong Kong for months a few years ago.
Globalization is a real thing if you’re a working professional living in a major city. Life isn’t that different. Heck, you’re also guaranteed to even have granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. Lol.
“Around the world they have become seditious enemies of the state and of the common people.”
Wow. You need to join the Society of Professional Journalists, HD, to know what’s really going on.
The last few years have seen record deaths of journalists as they are being targeted by authoritarian regimes. Yet, they continue to do their jobs. And if you think the way to go is NO journalism (aka China), then they will welcome you and your family.
Thank goodness for First Amendment. Is there any doubt why the founders put it first?
“However, my hyperlocal newspaper stopped reporting on the doings of the local GOP events and now only reports on the doing/protests/picketing of the local progressive ‘action’ group.”
Nothing is stopping you from starting your own newspaper HD. Why don’t you?
“I love Istanbul – my brother Is getting married there in May…but saying it’s technologically on the same level as Chicago, let alone Cleveland, is laughable..fancy airport or not.”
It’s a city of 25 million Riz. If your brother lives in one of the far out boroughs, then, yes, it would be equivalent to living in Englewood which doesn’t have the same services/technologies as downtown Chicago.
But if you are downtown, within the historic walls, riding on the subway or street car lines (which are much nicer than anything Chicago has, actually), or in the historic European area, or in the commercial district, or the area where the consulates are, then there is NO difference with Chicago. Similar standard of living.
Although, they still do have troubles with the pipes in the old city because they are just too darn old. So you can’t flush the toilet paper there.
Same with Mexico City. City core is similar to any American city. Wifi has gotten much better. You do have to do bottled water, however.
“They are colonists.”
Nah. They’re just returning to “New Spain.”
And most of North American was French or Spanish, not Anglosaxon. Just so happened the 13 colonies did their thing and then Jefferson bought part of the other area. But we’ve already gone back to the original bilingual make-up of the country. There’s no going back. Everyone should speak both Spanish and English.
In southern Illinois, even well into the 1820s and 1830s, the courts had to dismiss local jurors from cases because they didn’t speak English. They were French.
The German settlers came to Illinois in the 1850s when the federal government was giving away land. They spoke German in cities in downstate Illinois until World War II.
“They spoke German in cities in downstate Illinois until World War II.”
They might still, except for the very pro-Kaiser sentiment of some during WWI. The leading German paper in Chicago basically died after publishing an editorial that include calling the American Legion an “institution bought with British gold to suppress the truth, to gag freedom of conscience, and to betray organized labor.” Beginning of the end of having the kids learn german.
“They might still, except for the very pro-Kaiser sentiment of some during WWI.”
They locked up the Japanese during WWII in camps. Do you think the German immigrants were going to continue to speak German?
If you go downstate, they will tell you all about it. German, and French, which was still spoken by thousands in southern Illinois, literally died out within a few years. Children were told to NEVER speak anything but English.
If there are people screaming at Mexican-Americans or Puerto Ricans in fast food restaurants right now to “speak English” imagine what it was like a hundred years ago?