I think this is why I moved out of the cities. When I was living in NYC, I made a decently good amount of money which translated to very little in the city. The contrast between rich and poor really began to be felt in the 80s (although maybe I'm biased as that's when I began living in cities). It's a terrible insult when you are hungry and cold. It makes you feel on the outside--perhaps the point (?) and alienated and denied. The dynamic of cities has shifted significantly in the last few hundred years. Initially it was a place where people came together for trade, commerce and politics and everyone kind of fit together like a jigsaw--status was unequal, but most people had a purpose. This radically changed with the era of industrialization and in NYC many were trapped in the cities working piece meal--especially immigrants. I'm talking 1890s to 1920s in particular. But now it has morphed into something else--and the dynamics of poverty, foreign cultures and filth and decay are I think part of the social engineering taking place. The distinction is both subtle and marked and only becomes evident I think, if you have both lived in cities and studied the history of cities. Despite the factors I mentioned at the turn of the last century--cities sort of started functioning better for a brief time between the 1930s and the 1950s. People often worked and lived in the same neighborhoods and strong ties were built up that resulted in real political power. Hence, interstates were forged through neighborhoods, blight was installed, land development sought to remake whole neighborhoods--all of these factors moved the middle classes out and diluted the power of neighborhoods. By the 60s and 70s, real blight took over the cities (American ones anyway--Britain it seems to me had a whole lot of other issues to contend with after WW2 and so was on a slightly different trajectory), but by the 80s it was pretty staunchly divided between rich and poor with a whole lot of homelessness caused largely at that time by Reagan's shuttering of all the mental institutions as well as by the escalating real estate prices. The point is that this has all been calculated and managed. Some people instinctively felt the push and left, others couldn't leave, and the rich made it their playground and now it feels like one's nose is continually rubbed and it is near impossible not to feel deprived and envious if you live in a city and don't have money and that has become part of a large scale con too. It's been mythologized by the movies--New Yorkers are convinced it's a question of grit--part of the price they have to pay for living in the cities. They still can't see the con job.
excellent! the contrast says it all ...
I think this is why I moved out of the cities. When I was living in NYC, I made a decently good amount of money which translated to very little in the city. The contrast between rich and poor really began to be felt in the 80s (although maybe I'm biased as that's when I began living in cities). It's a terrible insult when you are hungry and cold. It makes you feel on the outside--perhaps the point (?) and alienated and denied. The dynamic of cities has shifted significantly in the last few hundred years. Initially it was a place where people came together for trade, commerce and politics and everyone kind of fit together like a jigsaw--status was unequal, but most people had a purpose. This radically changed with the era of industrialization and in NYC many were trapped in the cities working piece meal--especially immigrants. I'm talking 1890s to 1920s in particular. But now it has morphed into something else--and the dynamics of poverty, foreign cultures and filth and decay are I think part of the social engineering taking place. The distinction is both subtle and marked and only becomes evident I think, if you have both lived in cities and studied the history of cities. Despite the factors I mentioned at the turn of the last century--cities sort of started functioning better for a brief time between the 1930s and the 1950s. People often worked and lived in the same neighborhoods and strong ties were built up that resulted in real political power. Hence, interstates were forged through neighborhoods, blight was installed, land development sought to remake whole neighborhoods--all of these factors moved the middle classes out and diluted the power of neighborhoods. By the 60s and 70s, real blight took over the cities (American ones anyway--Britain it seems to me had a whole lot of other issues to contend with after WW2 and so was on a slightly different trajectory), but by the 80s it was pretty staunchly divided between rich and poor with a whole lot of homelessness caused largely at that time by Reagan's shuttering of all the mental institutions as well as by the escalating real estate prices. The point is that this has all been calculated and managed. Some people instinctively felt the push and left, others couldn't leave, and the rich made it their playground and now it feels like one's nose is continually rubbed and it is near impossible not to feel deprived and envious if you live in a city and don't have money and that has become part of a large scale con too. It's been mythologized by the movies--New Yorkers are convinced it's a question of grit--part of the price they have to pay for living in the cities. They still can't see the con job.
Beautifully done and very sobering.
London … like the curate’s egg, parts of it are excellent. Still rotten.
Documenting . . the swing of the pendulum - pretty much hitting the wall.
For posterity.
Thank you.