On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 9:01:08 AM UTC-10, Ding - Dong Daddy wrote:
> Golden One wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 25 Aug 2017 07:02:45 -0700 (PDT), Cindy Hamilton
> > > wrote:
> >
> > >On Friday, August 25, 2017 at 9:47:12 AM UTC-4, Nancy Young wrote:
> > >> On 8/25/2017 6:29 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
> > >> > On Thursday, August 24, 2017 at 6:50:23 PM UTC-4, wrote:
> > >> >> On Thursday, August 24, 2017 at 4:15:35 PM UTC-5, notbob wrote:
> > >> >>>
> > >> >>> The avg price for a car is now about $33K-USD. You can buy a house
> > >> >>> fer less! 8|
> > >>
> > >> >> Where can you buy a house for less than $33,000? I mean a house
> > >> >> that is turn-key.
> > >> >
> > >> > Probably not even in Detroit.
> > >>
> > >> I actually wrote those very words and deleted them.
> > >
> > >Yah, well, I was born in Detroit, so I'm allowed to
> > >criticize it.
> > >
> > >> I gather you can pick one up cheap from the city if you agree to
> > >> renovate it. I think Detroit's coming back. Seems you can buy
> > >> the adjacent lots for a song, plenty of empty ones where they
> > >> razed the houses, I'd buy as many as I could.
> > >
> > >You'd want to pick your neighborhood fairly carefully. There's
> > >no point owning lots if the entire block they're on is razed
> > >and never re-developed.
> > >
> > >Cindy Hamilton
> >
> > I know nothing much about Detroit beyond articles I read after your
> > financial crash, basically stating it was a dying city. However, I was
> > searching for something or other yesterday and came across an article
> > stating that Detroit has a growing number of cycling tourists due to
> > its 400 odd miles of cycling tracks and its flat topography.
>
>
> The thing is, all this new stuff going on in Detroit is primarily done by and for wealthy whites, who can afford organic farmers markets, cycling tourist trails, trendy art galleries, old industrial sites transformed into chic loft housing, microbreweries, etc....few if any of these things can the embattled black majority afford or access, they might as well be a million miles away. I saw some article that new "tiny homes" might be an answer to house some of Detroit's poorer residents...but those "tiny homes" carry a price tag of 75 - 100K, at that price point they are a white hipster affectation, not viable for the poor.
>
> Looking at an aerial view of Detroit, you notice a few downtown high - rises surrounded by what seems to be rural prairie - 'cept those "prairies" used to be thriving nabes, now those are abandoned and demolished. Very eerie, most of the city looks like the abandoned remains of Chernobyl, fast reverting to nature.
>
> During WWII Detroit would have been, if an independent nation, the fourth - biggest industrial power in the world, ranking behind the US, UK, and Germany. The Allies won the war because of Detroit's mighty output. I wish there were some viable way to revive the place, the outlook remains pretty dim.
>
> Of course with me, this gets back to the JOBS JOBS JOBS thing. You can open a snazzy new hi - tech manufacturing facility with a 1000 jobs in Detroit, rural Kentucky, inner city Baltimore, or South Side Chicago, with high - paying career jobs, but only a small percentage of applicants would be qualified for those jobs - they lack the technical and life skills, plus few could even pass a drug test.
>
> In impoverished rural and urban American, we have a whole new permanent "underclass of despair", they are jobless, skill - less, addicted to opioid/crack/alcohol, suicides, violence, they engage in criminal acts and end up in prison. This population lacks good role models, from birth - mama is a crack whore, and "who's my baby daddy?". Pretty hopeless! This is what happened to many in the USSR after communism fell, Russia has developed a whole new "class of despair" of defeated people - and we've got it here in the States now, too, from the hollers of West Virginia to the slums of Oakland, California...
>
> "What to do...WHAT to DO...!!!???"
>
> PS: I know that Sheldon and some others here are always saying "get a SKILL...vocational education...!!!" And that is true, we need vocational training. Heck, I know formerly poor peeps who got their CDL licenses, and now they make a very comfortable living as truck drivers; same with welding, plumbing, electricians, any other skilled trade. BUT, people in general are often too soft nowadays, the concept of goal - setting, paying one's dues, and a day's hard work are alien concepts, both in the ghetto and the Ivy League college campuses...
>
>
> --
> Best
> Greg

People might be getting soft but the post war generations had it easy. Back then, a working guy and his wife could save up to buy a house and then maybe they could raise a family and buy a new car every year. My generation could work part-time and could pay for their own college tuition. After college, I could work at some low paying job and pay for rent and food. Things have changed. The kids are going to have a hard time paying for the $1100+ rent for a dumpy apartment around here. We just moved my son into an apartment next to his school. It's $850/month. Jeese, what a hell-hole!