One note that I'm not hearing here is that if there were more OTHER places with the same urban advantages of dense housing and pretty good public transit and stuff, that more other cities would be more similar to NYC and therefore desirable to some of the people who currently live in/want to live in NYC?
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Friday, 21 October 2011 17:16 (twelve years ago) link
Like right now NY has the punk mystique or the art scene or East Village mystique or the luxury shopping thing or w/e, you can take it or leave it, but there's a narrative to it, right? Maybe if we hadn't killed off all our other major cities, more of them would have compelling stories, too?
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Friday, 21 October 2011 17:18 (twelve years ago) link
I don't think it's a non-issue cause the top of the market does affect everyone - nevertheless there have been enormous wealth disparities in nyc since forever - during some eras there was enough construction in urban housing and investment in transit that there were no shortage of opportunities for an urban middle class (jews in the bronx etc.)
xp
― iatee, Friday, 21 October 2011 17:20 (twelve years ago) link
And also over history maybe some/more industries would have relocated to those places, so maybe book publishing would be centered in...Detroit or something, instead of being like 95% in NY (outside of university presses) and I'd be able to live somewhere else.
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Friday, 21 October 2011 17:20 (twelve years ago) link
I'm kind of talking out of my ass here but isn't a large part of why NYC survived and thrived down to the money generated by the success of Wall Street? Like, basically all of the capital was there and that was what drove all of the other industries that sprang up there and provided either a nurturing environment or a backdrop to react against for the subcultures in the city?
― do not wake the dragon (DJP), Friday, 21 October 2011 17:23 (twelve years ago) link
Lamp don't you live in Toronto? that's still the only place I've ever seen homosexual couples being physically intimate in public; & I lived in the Bay Area (albeit the peninsula) for a couple of years. & this was just walking down Bloor Street, which I gather isn't some countercultural center like the Castro.
this stuff is hard & the fact that I came out here for work & that my father immigrated to the USA from Latin America for work (& moved us around the country looking for work when I was a kid) colors how I look at these things. I don't really "get" being attached to a place & I tend to think most places are pretty interchangeable provided that there's work: after that it's just a luxury of finding a place you like (a luxury I've really yet to have, given my choice of careers, research academia).
― Euler, Friday, 21 October 2011 17:28 (twelve years ago) link
― do not wake the dragon (DJP), Friday, October 21, 2011 1:23 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
the erie canal is really the reason that new york city is new york city, but the finance industry has a lot to do with it too. but as iatee points out, the finance industry isnt the reason that rent is really high.
― max, Friday, 21 October 2011 17:34 (twelve years ago) link
rich foreigners buying/renting pied-a-terres seems like more of a reason for high rents than wall street bros
lol swedish haute bourgeois film students
i think the study of why certain cities become lodestones for capital/culture/ppl is really interesting & complex - trade is a big part of it & certainly 'shipping' is probably the most impt industry in nyc's development but its also obv a much bigger argument than just that. i do kinda agree that 'living in nyc' is its own kind of luxury in a way
― bongs of a dread redeemer (Lamp), Friday, 21 October 2011 17:52 (twelve years ago) link
I think this is a very complicated question to answer because you really have to go into counterfactual zone but:
pros of wall streeta. lotsa local tax $b. enormous service economy dependent on rich people and their absurdist ny status signalingc. strong real estate market and the 'good things' that come w/ it
cons a. expansive local govt dependent on a taxbase that might not always exist b. 'strong real estate market' also = 'rent sucks up most peoples' incomec. office space rent in manhattan = hurts basically every other industry, start-ups, etc.
― iatee, Friday, 21 October 2011 18:06 (twelve years ago) link
I tend to think most places are pretty interchangeable provided that there's work: after that it's just a luxury of finding a place you like
euler i am a little intrigued by this idea and i think i might do a thread on it
― Vampyroteuthis Weeks (nakhchivan), Friday, 21 October 2011 18:18 (twelve years ago) link
I'm intrigued by it but I have this funny feeling it's going to end up like this: everywhere is p much fine when you're not from anywhere in particular AND you have secure employment there at a reasonable living wage.
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Friday, 21 October 2011 18:21 (twelve years ago) link
ALSO WHEN YOU ARE A ROBOT
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Friday, 21 October 2011 18:27 (twelve years ago) link
haha I'm prepared to play the bad guy but I think being somewhere w/ a sense of place is prob more important to me than most people?
I have said this in other threads but over the last few decades a lot of small towns or whatever have been drained of the sense of place they did have - if you're moving somewhere and choosing between walmart and subway or walmart and subway, well...(that's isolating city planning and local businesses as the only factor, and they aren't, but that sorta the raw material)
― iatee, Friday, 21 October 2011 18:33 (twelve years ago) link
that's sorta*
lincoln, NE is actually quite nice
― homosexual II, Friday, 21 October 2011 18:33 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.alternet.org/story/152809/the_http://www.alternet.org/story/152809/the__trillion_student_loan_rip-off%3A_how_an_entire_generation_was_tricked_into_taking_on_crushing_debt_that_just_enriches_banks_trillion_student_loan_rip-off%3A_how_an_entire_generation_was_tricked_into_taking_on_crushing_debt_that_just_enriches_banks
― iatee, Friday, 21 October 2011 18:40 (twelve years ago) link
okay weird looking link but it works
lincoln, NE is actually quite nice― homosexual II, Friday, October 21, 2011 4:03 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark
― homosexual II, Friday, October 21, 2011 4:03 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark
otm!
― kate78, Friday, 21 October 2011 18:42 (twelve years ago) link
guys... we have the internet now
― dayo, Friday, 21 October 2011 20:01 (twelve years ago) link
it doesn't matter where we are... as long as we're jacked in... to the INTERNET
― dayo, Friday, 21 October 2011 20:02 (twelve years ago) link
it doesn't matter where we are... as long as we're jackin... to the INTERNET
― do not wake the dragon (DJP), Friday, 21 October 2011 20:02 (twelve years ago) link
http://images.wikia.com/puppet/images/0/0e/Trekkiemonster.jpg
― do not wake the dragon (DJP), Friday, 21 October 2011 20:03 (twelve years ago) link
my jackin' just went up 200%
― dayo, Friday, 21 October 2011 20:09 (twelve years ago) link
I wld like to read that book about the fragmentation of civil society, bowling alone or something like that. has anybody read it? any good?
― dayo, Friday, 21 October 2011 20:10 (twelve years ago) link
time was your neighbour would lend it to you
― nakhchivan, Friday, 21 October 2011 20:11 (twelve years ago) link
when I think of people living in their big houses in America I just think of wemmick from great expectations
― dayo, Friday, 21 October 2011 20:16 (twelve years ago) link
I would build a moat around my house if I could
I've taught using excerpts of Bowling Alone! I like thinking about this issue of "place", because I don't have any place I'm from, & so I'm prone to imagining or fantasizing about it. I think this is a common plight of children of immigrants, anyway.
― Euler, Friday, 21 October 2011 20:36 (twelve years ago) link
I am also a child of immigrants and yeah there's something to that. I think that's one reason why I like big cities - it offers people a sense of place without requiring any connection from the person in return
― dayo, Friday, 21 October 2011 20:38 (twelve years ago) link
I'm a child of the countryside and I like cities for exactly the same reason
― do not wake the dragon (DJP), Friday, 21 October 2011 20:40 (twelve years ago) link
yeah I can get with that; actually the place I live now, in the great plains, is pretty much a "nowhere" place & I confess that suits me also: I never feel like an outsider here, because there's nothing to be inside.
― Euler, Friday, 21 October 2011 20:40 (twelve years ago) link
― Euler, Friday, 21 October 2011 20:41 (twelve years ago) link
I live out in the middle of the sticks and I hate the isolation.
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Friday, 21 October 2011 21:02 (twelve years ago) link
that's an interesting idea, I've never heard it phrased like that
― iatee, Friday, 21 October 2011 21:43 (twelve years ago) link
I've never felt like more of an outsider than when I've lived in small cities. The history of people is generally impenetrable; nothing worse than sitting at a social gathering listening to nothing but "remember when" conversations. In big cities I can get lost in everything going on around me.
― Ryan, Friday, 21 October 2011 22:22 (twelve years ago) link
My dream has always been to live in an apartment in a city. Sadly, I'm married to a man who is dead set against it (he actually suggested living in an RV in a city trailer park as an alternative!).
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Saturday, 22 October 2011 00:10 (twelve years ago) link
what's his reason? just a cultural thing?
― iatee, Saturday, 22 October 2011 00:14 (twelve years ago) link
every thread I start turns into the suburbs thread
― iatee, Saturday, 22 October 2011 00:15 (twelve years ago) link
totally euler's fault tho
It's because his dream is to live in the middle of nowhere.
― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Saturday, 22 October 2011 00:21 (twelve years ago) link
But a city trailer park does seem like a compromise, unless you're thinking any place that would have a trailer park does not qualify as a city.
― nickn, Saturday, 22 October 2011 00:45 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/will-dropouts-save-america.html
all college students should just drop out and start multi-billion dollar computer companies - y/n
― iatee, Sunday, 23 October 2011 22:17 (twelve years ago) link
Well, one thing that colleges can teach is critical thinking, which might have been of some help to the author of that strange piece. I think I expect too much out of the New York Times these days.
Not a shock, the author is one of those bizarro "business gurus". http://www.powerofeyecontact.com/
http://media.linkedin.com/mpr/pub/image-GB_zBD8gFRyhjJpHA4PTB-FqwUGaioiHIOAhB7KqSkkl9Y6c/michael-ellsberg.jpg
― Spectrum, Sunday, 23 October 2011 23:04 (twelve years ago) link
Eurgh
― medium rear (silby), Sunday, 23 October 2011 23:08 (twelve years ago) link
If the availability of student loans contracts, or if students are less willing to take those loans, I would guess the non-prestige big private unis will be taking an enrollment hit, if they don't differentiate their environments from public schools. This is just a random thought I had on this topic he other day.
Also occurs to me that plenty of places likely won't even do something to lower the nominal tuition price. As long as there's still at least one student who can afford full pay, they will cheerfully extract it from them, even if the average discount rate goes up.
― medium rear (silby), Sunday, 23 October 2011 23:14 (twelve years ago) link
yeah I think non-prestige private unis are gonna be at the forefront of the crisis, cause they've always been offering a luxury product - the idea that they're offering a luxury product (rather than a 'better investment') is finally reaching the mainstream.
lowering tuition is difficult when you have fixed costs dependent on that tuition, but there are only so many rich people interested in non-prestige private unis in the country.
― iatee, Sunday, 23 October 2011 23:29 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/how-dangerous-are-college-rankings-and-the-rat-race-for-prestige/245850/
^ complicating factors for those schools. people will always secretly believe that more expensive things are better and the race for that elusive prestige signal is expensive.
― iatee, Sunday, 23 October 2011 23:35 (twelve years ago) link
schools should charge a sliding tuition based on their national rankings
― dayo, Sunday, 23 October 2011 23:45 (twelve years ago) link
"non-prestige private unis" are prob gonna take a big hit---glad I don't work for one---unless they can get kids jobs that pay better than state unis, or if the bad guys kill our public unis.
― Euler, Sunday, 23 October 2011 23:59 (twelve years ago) link