Among the other specific topics that I write about this one is about rebuilding our civilization with a new geometry for land use, transportation, social services, finance, manufacturing, energy production and use, and governance.
We have the convergent conditions of a new millennium, accelerating climate change, the collapse of our global banking and finance systems, and a worldwide population that is fast approaching 7 billion people.
What we have done in the past will not sustain us in the future. That which we have employed up to now has not necessarily been bad, but in light of current events and processes, we cannot permit ourselves the delusion that we need not change.
Showing posts with label finance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label finance. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Monday, September 17, 2012
In Praise of the Nanny State
Not enough government regulations and support for humans in this world is just as bad as too much regulation and support. What we need is a middle ground where creativity and growth flourishes without causing degradation and despair in its wake. The term Nanny State is a pejorative that seeks to marginalize the benefits that it brings along with it. The term is never used by people who need one. It is the people who feel that they don’t need to be supervised and constrained who begrudge its existence and feel that they are being unfairly made to pay the bills for it.
People in wealthy countries have a skewed perspective on the remainder of the world. Some Americans grouse about public schools providing breakfast and lunch meals to the pupils when it is obvious that the children’s parents should be making sure their children are fed nutritious meals each morning and bring with them a good lunch. They don’t like being told that whole chocolate milk is not permitted because it is not as healthy as low fat or no fat milk without the sweet stuff mixed in. They object to not allowing children to eat a candy bar as a snack instead of an apple or a peach. They say the state is too intrusive in their lives.
The simple fact is that there are millions of children who have neither a candy bar not an apple or a peach for any meals at all. They are the children in poor countries who sift through the landfills looking for the stuff they were told will earn them a few coins to add to the miniscule wages their parents earn, sometimes doing the exact same thing.
For them there is no Nanny State. They are truly on their own when it comes to surviving in their environment.
They have zero health coverage for anything that ails them. They do not eat unless they earn the coins that allow them to buy whatever there is to have. Children are malnourished, not educated and remain unskilled for the technical and industrial jobs that come to their country from abroad, especially America. In a country where adults earn the equivalent of a few hundred dollars per year, there is zero opportunity to save for a future where they can no longer work. Then they are pushed aside to make room for the next laborer.
“When she was 6 years old, Natasha’s father left her mother. Shortly after, her mother remarried and sent Natasha and her brother to the orphanage.” Source This story has been played out millions of times in hundreds of countries around the world. Where there is no Nanny State willing and able to address the plight of parents who are unwilling or unable to care for their children, the children are merely abandoned in place. The children then become cast-offs in dismal orphanages or become assets in the sex trade or other exploitations.
In the US, one might be without a permanent dwelling, but a few select individuals are able to keep themselves going with innovation. That innovation is predicated on there not being too many others in their same situation who are also too close and create a social structure that is rebelled against by the fortunate people who never will have to sleep on an urban street.
Sao Paolo, Brazil is a city where 11 million of the approximate 20 million inhabitants live in poverty. In this burgeoning city there is no attempt to regulate the construction of the shanties that have grown like ground cover plants over the land around the planned and officially constructed urban core. Here there is no Nanny State and therefore no sanitation, no garbage collection. Polluted water runs in open channels, people eke out a living as best they can with no help from any municipal authority. Imagine yourself having a heart attack near the center of the neighborhood on the left.
Most Indians own a mobile phone, but don't have access to private toilets. The government and activists hope to help. There go those Nanny Staters again, trying to get people to use a toilet when they would rather poop by the railroad tracks. In a country of 1.3 billion people, getting the word out is a difficult endeavor. There was a time in America about 110 years ago that we resisted putting those filthy things in our houses too. But then the municipal authorities forced the issue. Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania installed sanitary sewers in 1892 and began the conversion from backyard privies to water transport waste removal. Back then they had sufficient water to allow everyone to flush as much water as they wanted to in the pursuits of making their waste disappear. But then the river became a sewer in itself. Along came the Nanny State again telling the communities that they must not put raw sewage in the river. Treatment plants were built at the cost of millions of dollars to keep the river water clean enough for the next community to draw it for drinking. Now they want everyone to install “low-flow” 1.6 gallon commodes to limit the amount of water that is run through the treatment plant. The other side of that equation is the necessity to build a new treatment plant to handle twice the flow of today.
Without someone telling a group of people that the house they live in is only permitted for one family, they would pack two or three families in the house and overload its capacity to handle sewage, electricity and cars parked on the street. Nobody want a Nanny State telling them that they all can’t live in the same house. After all where they came from they were THAT packed in and they built the shanty themselves (without a toilet.)
If we want to have a civilization that exists above subsistence, and doesn’t deteriorate into decrepitude we need someone who has society’s best interest in mind. They may go too far sometimes, but that is far less damaging than not going far enough.
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People in wealthy countries have a skewed perspective on the remainder of the world. Some Americans grouse about public schools providing breakfast and lunch meals to the pupils when it is obvious that the children’s parents should be making sure their children are fed nutritious meals each morning and bring with them a good lunch. They don’t like being told that whole chocolate milk is not permitted because it is not as healthy as low fat or no fat milk without the sweet stuff mixed in. They object to not allowing children to eat a candy bar as a snack instead of an apple or a peach. They say the state is too intrusive in their lives.
The simple fact is that there are millions of children who have neither a candy bar not an apple or a peach for any meals at all. They are the children in poor countries who sift through the landfills looking for the stuff they were told will earn them a few coins to add to the miniscule wages their parents earn, sometimes doing the exact same thing.
For them there is no Nanny State. They are truly on their own when it comes to surviving in their environment.
They have zero health coverage for anything that ails them. They do not eat unless they earn the coins that allow them to buy whatever there is to have. Children are malnourished, not educated and remain unskilled for the technical and industrial jobs that come to their country from abroad, especially America. In a country where adults earn the equivalent of a few hundred dollars per year, there is zero opportunity to save for a future where they can no longer work. Then they are pushed aside to make room for the next laborer.
“When she was 6 years old, Natasha’s father left her mother. Shortly after, her mother remarried and sent Natasha and her brother to the orphanage.” Source This story has been played out millions of times in hundreds of countries around the world. Where there is no Nanny State willing and able to address the plight of parents who are unwilling or unable to care for their children, the children are merely abandoned in place. The children then become cast-offs in dismal orphanages or become assets in the sex trade or other exploitations.
Most Indians own a mobile phone, but don't have access to private toilets. The government and activists hope to help. There go those Nanny Staters again, trying to get people to use a toilet when they would rather poop by the railroad tracks. In a country of 1.3 billion people, getting the word out is a difficult endeavor. There was a time in America about 110 years ago that we resisted putting those filthy things in our houses too. But then the municipal authorities forced the issue. Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania installed sanitary sewers in 1892 and began the conversion from backyard privies to water transport waste removal. Back then they had sufficient water to allow everyone to flush as much water as they wanted to in the pursuits of making their waste disappear. But then the river became a sewer in itself. Along came the Nanny State again telling the communities that they must not put raw sewage in the river. Treatment plants were built at the cost of millions of dollars to keep the river water clean enough for the next community to draw it for drinking. Now they want everyone to install “low-flow” 1.6 gallon commodes to limit the amount of water that is run through the treatment plant. The other side of that equation is the necessity to build a new treatment plant to handle twice the flow of today.
Without someone telling a group of people that the house they live in is only permitted for one family, they would pack two or three families in the house and overload its capacity to handle sewage, electricity and cars parked on the street. Nobody want a Nanny State telling them that they all can’t live in the same house. After all where they came from they were THAT packed in and they built the shanty themselves (without a toilet.)
If we want to have a civilization that exists above subsistence, and doesn’t deteriorate into decrepitude we need someone who has society’s best interest in mind. They may go too far sometimes, but that is far less damaging than not going far enough.
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Sunday, June 10, 2012
The End of an Era
The End of an Era
Cross posted from my "Principle of Imminent Collapse" blog
The world is facing the end of the era of massive corporate production of goods and services. It is not really the fault of the corporations because they too are victims of the progress they made possible in the first place. There is a cyclic dependency of businesses needing to contain costs that feed into the reduction of the need for labor and therefore making it difficult for people to afford what the businesses provide. Unfortunately this reduction of the need for labor creates a cyclic dependency that results in much larger profits for the businesses. So while people are displaced from the means of personal wealth creation, the capital providers (Those Evil Capitalists) do better as the result.
There is a natural process of system aging that is referred to in environmental circles as eutrophication. While there is a precise chemical process associated with the aging process where excess nutrients are loaded into an aquatic environment causing algal blooms and degradation, there is an observational component too. A pond that starts out with clear clean water will ultimately fill in on its own with plant and animal detritus and slowly become a swamp or bog, then a meadow and finally a forest. Humans have accelerated the process in many places but it remains a natural system aging process.
Social, political and economic systems experience their own characteristic eutrophication process. Take for example the soft ice cream stand that was a ubiquitous part of the highway and byway landscape from the early days of inter-city automobile travel. Mr. Yost and his wife bought the manufacturing equipment, bought a cheap parcel of land out beyond the City Limits and built his little store. Motorists stopped by on hot summer afternoons with the kids fussing in the back seat. A cool cone and a hotdog settled them down. The Yosts made a good living off that place for 32 years. In that time he mostly only needed food supplies and electricity. The milk came from a local farmer and he could slice his own potato fries. His costs were low and all the profits were his annual income.
Then along came the Coca Cola regional sales representative. He convinced Mr. Yost to put in a red and white fountain and sell Cokes in cups with ice. He saw the benefits of this action posted on every billboard from City Limits to City Limits. He needed an ice machine now and some more space. All of these items were gladly provided by that Atlanta, Georgia corporation for a price. A bit of the Yost business revenue left the community. He took out a business loan from his local Savings and Loan, or Farmers and Mechanics Bank and expanded to include other menu items and accommodate the larger volume of weekend traffic that he came to rely upon. Business was good and he made more gross revenues even as the cost of doing business continued to rise and his net annual earnings remained flat.
Then along came the state highway department with a plan to build a town bypass to alleviate the traffic volumes in the town. The townies supported the plan but Mr. Yost was going to get bypassed too. With the inevitability of the construction, Yost used his savings to relocate out beyond the bypass. He now had to sell 60% more product at higher prices just to equal the money he used to make in his old location of 32 years. The land price was far higher than the first place along the old highway. The cost of construction was higher and there were new requirements for safe and hygienic operations. The now old Mr. Yost decided that he had had enough of the soft ice cream/burger and fries business. He put the business up for sale.
Mr. Yost needed to get enough money from the sale to retire on. After all he had sunk his saving into the relocation. The new buyer figured that he would buy the place, hire local kids to run it and have a pretty good investment on which to live. He borrowed the purchase capital from the Big Bank, NA and hired the kids. Now a huge interest principle was paid to a distant bank and that money left the community each month. The "kids" were from a town 20 miles away, because all the local kids were now too old to work for such low wages as this new Entrepreneur was willing to pay. All his supplies were shipped in from distant locations and that purchase money left the community.
Because everyone else was making their annual revenues off of Yost's Ice Cream Stand, the location had to sell 300% more product each year at higher prices than old Mr. Yost had to do in all his years of business. The new owner could not make a living on the location because all those other people and businesses were getting their share of the revenues. This business underwent the natural aging process that is akin to eutrophication.
Towns die when they age in this manner. The wealth creation that used to be present is removed to a distant place and the remaining people send all their income, pensions and savings to those places instead of keeping it local and sustaining their community. When the town was young, the corn came from a field the children walked past to get to school. Their peas and beans did not come in a can. The chicken parts did not arrive frozen from Alabama.
More people worked providing labor to produce things, and supportive occupations like accountant, lawyer, storekeeper, doctor, barber, service station attendant. Many of those people have aged and retired allowing someone else to take the reins. They did not go away. Mostly, they are still in the community collecting Social Security, pensions and annuities. Those funds increase the collective wealth of the community, but all their money leaves the community not to return.
The doctor is part of the health plan in an urban center, miles away, when he used to be the neighbor. Pharmaceuticals come from billion dollar multi-national corporations. Phone service is global with not one person employed to operate the system in any town. The money paid for telecom, internet and television content all leaves the community and ends up in the accounts of huge telecommunication corporations. Hint: TV used to be free.
While this aging process is a natural one, humans are accelerating it. Too many companies are depending on getting a percentage of every dollar of commerce, instead of their people doing something physical to increase the value of what they do. There are too few opportunities for an individual person to provide his labors for compensation that will allow him (her) and family to buy the necessary things of life that are priced by the companies who are getting their share of the dollar. Too much of business and commerce is funded with borrowed capital. This borrowing level makes everything more expensive. Mr. Yost originally could make a good living in half a year at his original location just outside the City Limits, doing much of the work himself. But when the investors and the banking system got involved the whole business when out of balance and ultimately failed. It's not really anyone fault, it's a natural aging process. The problem it we don't have a way to stop it or reverse it, yet.
Cross posted from my "Principle of Imminent Collapse" blog
The world is facing the end of the era of massive corporate production of goods and services. It is not really the fault of the corporations because they too are victims of the progress they made possible in the first place. There is a cyclic dependency of businesses needing to contain costs that feed into the reduction of the need for labor and therefore making it difficult for people to afford what the businesses provide. Unfortunately this reduction of the need for labor creates a cyclic dependency that results in much larger profits for the businesses. So while people are displaced from the means of personal wealth creation, the capital providers (Those Evil Capitalists) do better as the result.
There is a natural process of system aging that is referred to in environmental circles as eutrophication. While there is a precise chemical process associated with the aging process where excess nutrients are loaded into an aquatic environment causing algal blooms and degradation, there is an observational component too. A pond that starts out with clear clean water will ultimately fill in on its own with plant and animal detritus and slowly become a swamp or bog, then a meadow and finally a forest. Humans have accelerated the process in many places but it remains a natural system aging process.
Social, political and economic systems experience their own characteristic eutrophication process. Take for example the soft ice cream stand that was a ubiquitous part of the highway and byway landscape from the early days of inter-city automobile travel. Mr. Yost and his wife bought the manufacturing equipment, bought a cheap parcel of land out beyond the City Limits and built his little store. Motorists stopped by on hot summer afternoons with the kids fussing in the back seat. A cool cone and a hotdog settled them down. The Yosts made a good living off that place for 32 years. In that time he mostly only needed food supplies and electricity. The milk came from a local farmer and he could slice his own potato fries. His costs were low and all the profits were his annual income.
Then along came the Coca Cola regional sales representative. He convinced Mr. Yost to put in a red and white fountain and sell Cokes in cups with ice. He saw the benefits of this action posted on every billboard from City Limits to City Limits. He needed an ice machine now and some more space. All of these items were gladly provided by that Atlanta, Georgia corporation for a price. A bit of the Yost business revenue left the community. He took out a business loan from his local Savings and Loan, or Farmers and Mechanics Bank and expanded to include other menu items and accommodate the larger volume of weekend traffic that he came to rely upon. Business was good and he made more gross revenues even as the cost of doing business continued to rise and his net annual earnings remained flat.
Then along came the state highway department with a plan to build a town bypass to alleviate the traffic volumes in the town. The townies supported the plan but Mr. Yost was going to get bypassed too. With the inevitability of the construction, Yost used his savings to relocate out beyond the bypass. He now had to sell 60% more product at higher prices just to equal the money he used to make in his old location of 32 years. The land price was far higher than the first place along the old highway. The cost of construction was higher and there were new requirements for safe and hygienic operations. The now old Mr. Yost decided that he had had enough of the soft ice cream/burger and fries business. He put the business up for sale.
Mr. Yost needed to get enough money from the sale to retire on. After all he had sunk his saving into the relocation. The new buyer figured that he would buy the place, hire local kids to run it and have a pretty good investment on which to live. He borrowed the purchase capital from the Big Bank, NA and hired the kids. Now a huge interest principle was paid to a distant bank and that money left the community each month. The "kids" were from a town 20 miles away, because all the local kids were now too old to work for such low wages as this new Entrepreneur was willing to pay. All his supplies were shipped in from distant locations and that purchase money left the community.
Because everyone else was making their annual revenues off of Yost's Ice Cream Stand, the location had to sell 300% more product each year at higher prices than old Mr. Yost had to do in all his years of business. The new owner could not make a living on the location because all those other people and businesses were getting their share of the revenues. This business underwent the natural aging process that is akin to eutrophication.
Towns die when they age in this manner. The wealth creation that used to be present is removed to a distant place and the remaining people send all their income, pensions and savings to those places instead of keeping it local and sustaining their community. When the town was young, the corn came from a field the children walked past to get to school. Their peas and beans did not come in a can. The chicken parts did not arrive frozen from Alabama.
More people worked providing labor to produce things, and supportive occupations like accountant, lawyer, storekeeper, doctor, barber, service station attendant. Many of those people have aged and retired allowing someone else to take the reins. They did not go away. Mostly, they are still in the community collecting Social Security, pensions and annuities. Those funds increase the collective wealth of the community, but all their money leaves the community not to return.
The doctor is part of the health plan in an urban center, miles away, when he used to be the neighbor. Pharmaceuticals come from billion dollar multi-national corporations. Phone service is global with not one person employed to operate the system in any town. The money paid for telecom, internet and television content all leaves the community and ends up in the accounts of huge telecommunication corporations. Hint: TV used to be free.
While this aging process is a natural one, humans are accelerating it. Too many companies are depending on getting a percentage of every dollar of commerce, instead of their people doing something physical to increase the value of what they do. There are too few opportunities for an individual person to provide his labors for compensation that will allow him (her) and family to buy the necessary things of life that are priced by the companies who are getting their share of the dollar. Too much of business and commerce is funded with borrowed capital. This borrowing level makes everything more expensive. Mr. Yost originally could make a good living in half a year at his original location just outside the City Limits, doing much of the work himself. But when the investors and the banking system got involved the whole business when out of balance and ultimately failed. It's not really anyone fault, it's a natural aging process. The problem it we don't have a way to stop it or reverse it, yet.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Today's Reasons to Exist
If there is a picturesque landscape, a town may be able to attract visitors. Rolling hills and green pastures are not very effective at attracting people unless there is something to do. With many Americans accustomed to eating burgers, fries and sodas in their cars, fine dining in the country is not a high volume opportunity. Outlet stores are a dime-a-dozen and must be clustered on one site to attract a variety of customers. Unless the location is really far out of the city, few people will stay overnight.
Swimming and water craft are good attractions if there is water and the body large enough to accommodate the use. Skiing is seasonal and must generate an entire year of commerce in the few months of winter.
Business and industrial parks are a viable attractor of commerce but the community must also have a suitably aged drug-free workforce who can do the work. There is little use for such a business park in a community if all the labor must commute to the location. There must be ancillary commerce like grocery shopping, medical services, car repair, etc. collocated such that people will leave a portion of their earnings in the local community. Newcomers who seek to live nearby need available housing.
Many businesses that seek to locate in such prepared sites demand tax abatement as an inducement to come therefore, tax revenues will not be immediately benefit the community. Some industries are so mobile that when the tax abatement expires they can relocate once again to some other community that is hungry for commerce.
Retirement homes as a viable option if there are adequate medical services available to treat older residents, transportation available to get everyone to where they need to go and local amenities where their money can stay local.
Private house ownership is far more affordable in small presently economically depressed towns. What is lacking are the grocery stores, doctors, dentists and pharmacies. Without such services long distance travel is required and that offsets the affordability of the location.
Other posts in this series
Community, Reasons to Exist, The Making of Place This is the introductory section
reason-to-exist Every town, village city and region originally had a reason to exist.
todays-reasons-to-exist Every community needs a a reason today for its continued existance. Otherwise it will wither and die.
factors-that-are-missingThe economic system we use today removes critical factors tat allow a community to stay vital.
a-shared-historyThe people of a community need a sared history to stay cohesive as a community.
sustainable-community all of the essential factors must remain present for a community to continue its existance.
sustainable-unemployment As manufacturing and the services industries ccontinue to evolve, human labor and attentjon is diminised. We need to devise a society where most people do not labor for their living.
sustainable-consumerism A balance between product durability and its replacement neds to be reached in order for an equilibrium to be reached.
sustainable-populations The human population cannot continue on its present trajectory without a terrible price to pay in the coming decades and century.
suburban-sprawl Sprawl is only possible when tere is ample buildable land and ample resources available to service thiose locations.
complete-streets Our transportation ways are not just for the automobile. People must walk, bike, and use other modes of transport on tose public rights of way.
Swimming and water craft are good attractions if there is water and the body large enough to accommodate the use. Skiing is seasonal and must generate an entire year of commerce in the few months of winter.
Business and industrial parks are a viable attractor of commerce but the community must also have a suitably aged drug-free workforce who can do the work. There is little use for such a business park in a community if all the labor must commute to the location. There must be ancillary commerce like grocery shopping, medical services, car repair, etc. collocated such that people will leave a portion of their earnings in the local community. Newcomers who seek to live nearby need available housing.
Many businesses that seek to locate in such prepared sites demand tax abatement as an inducement to come therefore, tax revenues will not be immediately benefit the community. Some industries are so mobile that when the tax abatement expires they can relocate once again to some other community that is hungry for commerce.
Retirement homes as a viable option if there are adequate medical services available to treat older residents, transportation available to get everyone to where they need to go and local amenities where their money can stay local.
Private house ownership is far more affordable in small presently economically depressed towns. What is lacking are the grocery stores, doctors, dentists and pharmacies. Without such services long distance travel is required and that offsets the affordability of the location.
Other posts in this series
Community, Reasons to Exist, The Making of Place This is the introductory section
reason-to-exist Every town, village city and region originally had a reason to exist.
todays-reasons-to-exist Every community needs a a reason today for its continued existance. Otherwise it will wither and die.
factors-that-are-missingThe economic system we use today removes critical factors tat allow a community to stay vital.
a-shared-historyThe people of a community need a sared history to stay cohesive as a community.
sustainable-community all of the essential factors must remain present for a community to continue its existance.
sustainable-unemployment As manufacturing and the services industries ccontinue to evolve, human labor and attentjon is diminised. We need to devise a society where most people do not labor for their living.
sustainable-consumerism A balance between product durability and its replacement neds to be reached in order for an equilibrium to be reached.
sustainable-populations The human population cannot continue on its present trajectory without a terrible price to pay in the coming decades and century.
suburban-sprawl Sprawl is only possible when tere is ample buildable land and ample resources available to service thiose locations.
complete-streets Our transportation ways are not just for the automobile. People must walk, bike, and use other modes of transport on tose public rights of way.
Monday, July 4, 2011
A Reason to Exist
Human settlements need a reason to exist. Unlike businesses and industry, people need both a functional reason and aesthetics to make a location worthy. Maybe it was a river landing or a placid flow area to run a ferry. Maybe it was the "head of navigation" where overland freight could then be floated down stream. A crossroads. A pass through the mountains. A gold mine or where there was energy to run the mill and transportation to move the goods. First was the energy and the transportation then the people came to fulfill the needs of the industry.
Every industry and every mode of transportation has its natural aging process that makes it more or less sustainable. Regions built canals to float freight across long and short distances. Most of those canals succumbed to the railroads as soon as the rails became operational. Each new system renders the last one obsolete.
Highways and trucks rendered the shortline railroad obsolete. When timber was plentiful and the coal mines flourished, a railroad ran a spur out to their location. But as the logging and mining operations became smaller in size at the outset of a new section, laying a new track was not a viable option. Rubber tires on dirt and gravel roads made more sense.
Industries moved leaving the human settlements behind. With a decimated income from labor, the towns dried up leaving only the most vulnerable people behind. Children left their families to follow work wherever it could be found.
Today some American towns rely heavily on the Social Security checks, public assistance, and the pensions of aging residents. There is no industry there to create local wealth from commerce. All the money that does come into the town is spent externally in distant places. The grocery store is located 20 miles or more away and is operated by a national chain that sells items processed far away. All the money spent there leaves the community not to return. Gasoline and heating fuel is the same. A foreign supplier, international price speculators, regional distributors take away all the money spent on energy. Telecomm companies suck away another share. Doctors and pharmacies take more away from the community. While all these enterprises are essential to the people who live in the community, they do nothing for the sustainability of the community. As far as each of these enterprises is concerned, a person equals one person, no matter where he lives. He will eat as much, drink as much, heat his home as much and need the same pharmaceuticals. The place that the people consider home is not important to the businesses.
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Without a natural means of producing local wealth by Mining, Manufacturing, Farming and Fishing the net worth of the community cannot increase and decreases a little more each day.
Human settlements must possess a reason to exist. Old reason may disappear and not have a replacement. Those settlements will eventually disappear. If a new reason to exist is found and cultivated then survival of the settlement may be maintained.
With all due respect to the hopes and desires of the people who remain, the mere desire to remain in their accustomed homes is not a reason to exist. If they have the capital to sustain their place, they can fund the continuation of that place. No one else will care nor be willing to pay for it.
Braddock, Pennsylvania is a town that is being allowed to die. It once was a vibrant steel mill town where the historic Edgar Thompson Steel Works is located. The steel operation was once the site of a bloody labor strike put down by Pinkerton Guards and is now a shell of industrial decay. There was a hospital there until 2010 when it too closed down. People still live there and a few low-end businesses like pawn shops and a bar or two remain. Entire buildings disappear on a regular basis as they become unsafe and are demolished. This is a town that has no reason to exist. And soon it won't. Its location has potential, but no one who is a part of the community will ever benefit from the massive influx of capital it will take to completely raze and replace everything that is not historic. The old community will cease to exist and a new one will be constructed when the price is right.
In 1989, Actress Kim Basinger put up $20 Million to buy the town of Braselton, GA. Her own financial status went sour and she sold her interest in the town to a developer in 1993. See Wikipedia: Braselton, GA, for details. The idea was to make a tourist destination and the town should flourish. It didn't. The developer still has not made a viable destination 20 years later.
There were the Main Streets grants in the 1990s that were supposed to revitalize small towns and economically depressed areas. The money was given to repave main street business strips, do sidewalk and streetscape improvements. The thought was that a capital investment in the infrastructure would make the place attractive again. They were wrong. If the main street had no reason to exist, the money failed to create one. Decay once again consumed the business district. Some towns did prosper as the result of the grant capital, but the landscape is littered with its failures.
Other blog posts that are related in a Series
Community, Reasons to Exist, The Making of Place This is the introductory section
reason-to-exist Every town, village city and region originally had a reason to exist.
todays-reasons-to-exist Every community needs a a reason today for its continued existance. Otherwise it will wither and die.
factors-that-are-missingThe economic system we use today removes critical factors tat allow a community to stay vital.
a-shared-historyThe people of a community need a sared history to stay cohesive as a community.
sustainable-community all of the essential factors must remain present for a community to continue its existance.
sustainable-unemployment As manufacturing and the services industries ccontinue to evolve, human labor and attentjon is diminised. We need to devise a society where most people do not labor for their living.
sustainable-consumerism A balance between product durability and its replacement neds to be reached in order for an equilibrium to be reached.
sustainable-populations The human population cannot continue on its present trajectory without a terrible price to pay in the coming decades and century.
suburban-sprawl Sprawl is only possible when tere is ample buildable land and ample resources available to service thiose locations.
complete-streets Our transportation ways are not just for the automobile. People must walk, bike, and use other modes of transport on tose public rights of way.
Highways and trucks rendered the shortline railroad obsolete. When timber was plentiful and the coal mines flourished, a railroad ran a spur out to their location. But as the logging and mining operations became smaller in size at the outset of a new section, laying a new track was not a viable option. Rubber tires on dirt and gravel roads made more sense.
Industries moved leaving the human settlements behind. With a decimated income from labor, the towns dried up leaving only the most vulnerable people behind. Children left their families to follow work wherever it could be found.
"My own children will go, as soon as they grow, for there is nothing here now to hold them." North county Blues. Bob Dylan.
Today some American towns rely heavily on the Social Security checks, public assistance, and the pensions of aging residents. There is no industry there to create local wealth from commerce. All the money that does come into the town is spent externally in distant places. The grocery store is located 20 miles or more away and is operated by a national chain that sells items processed far away. All the money spent there leaves the community not to return. Gasoline and heating fuel is the same. A foreign supplier, international price speculators, regional distributors take away all the money spent on energy. Telecomm companies suck away another share. Doctors and pharmacies take more away from the community. While all these enterprises are essential to the people who live in the community, they do nothing for the sustainability of the community. As far as each of these enterprises is concerned, a person equals one person, no matter where he lives. He will eat as much, drink as much, heat his home as much and need the same pharmaceuticals. The place that the people consider home is not important to the businesses.
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Human settlements must possess a reason to exist. Old reason may disappear and not have a replacement. Those settlements will eventually disappear. If a new reason to exist is found and cultivated then survival of the settlement may be maintained.
With all due respect to the hopes and desires of the people who remain, the mere desire to remain in their accustomed homes is not a reason to exist. If they have the capital to sustain their place, they can fund the continuation of that place. No one else will care nor be willing to pay for it.
In 1989, Actress Kim Basinger put up $20 Million to buy the town of Braselton, GA. Her own financial status went sour and she sold her interest in the town to a developer in 1993. See Wikipedia: Braselton, GA, for details. The idea was to make a tourist destination and the town should flourish. It didn't. The developer still has not made a viable destination 20 years later.
There were the Main Streets grants in the 1990s that were supposed to revitalize small towns and economically depressed areas. The money was given to repave main street business strips, do sidewalk and streetscape improvements. The thought was that a capital investment in the infrastructure would make the place attractive again. They were wrong. If the main street had no reason to exist, the money failed to create one. Decay once again consumed the business district. Some towns did prosper as the result of the grant capital, but the landscape is littered with its failures.
Other blog posts that are related in a Series
Community, Reasons to Exist, The Making of Place This is the introductory section
reason-to-exist Every town, village city and region originally had a reason to exist.
todays-reasons-to-exist Every community needs a a reason today for its continued existance. Otherwise it will wither and die.
factors-that-are-missingThe economic system we use today removes critical factors tat allow a community to stay vital.
a-shared-historyThe people of a community need a sared history to stay cohesive as a community.
sustainable-community all of the essential factors must remain present for a community to continue its existance.
sustainable-unemployment As manufacturing and the services industries ccontinue to evolve, human labor and attentjon is diminised. We need to devise a society where most people do not labor for their living.
sustainable-consumerism A balance between product durability and its replacement neds to be reached in order for an equilibrium to be reached.
sustainable-populations The human population cannot continue on its present trajectory without a terrible price to pay in the coming decades and century.
suburban-sprawl Sprawl is only possible when tere is ample buildable land and ample resources available to service thiose locations.
complete-streets Our transportation ways are not just for the automobile. People must walk, bike, and use other modes of transport on tose public rights of way.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
A Sustainable Community
The work that I do to earn the money to pay my bills and fund my retirement has taken a left turn into a different province. The work that I have been doing is so tightly related to the whole picture of American life that this new direction will circle back on all that has been accomplished by the company and people who work there. The new word is Sustainable.
Individual people have a sense of what sustainability is while businesses and power brokers do not. Built into the human psyche is that biological imperative to procreate. Each person feels a need to pass on his or her genes, ideals, morals and wealth to a next generation. Fathers want sons to carry forth the surname. Fathers start businesses with their name and add "Son" or "Sons" to it in the hopes of sustaining the hard won successes of the father. Boards of Directors will adopt and abandon any name which suits its goals to sell goods and services to make the profit it needs to satisfy the investors. Corporate businesses will hire and dispose any employee who they feel benefits the bottom line. For businesses the world is composed of lines that have a beginning and an end. They prefer it that way.
Consider the timber logging industry. They get legal access to a stand of trees, cut them all down and move along to a new stand of trees leaving the clear cut slopes to fend for themselves. It's a beginning, a middle and an end. No feeling of responsibility remains after the last tree is cut. After all there are more acres of trees to conquer.
Coal mining operations are the same. Dig coal, pile the tailings and move on. They sell the coal, bury the dead and discharge the injured. Coal matters. People don't. Coal is wealth. People are liabilities and expense. As long as there is a vein of coal to dig the mining companies can proceed in straight line along the seam. As long as there is another miner, old miners are put aside like a rusty drag line bucket.
We allowed industries to turn greenfields into brownfields and pull up stakes leaving the land to sit vacant and poisoned. Beverage containers typically track a linear path from manufacture to a landfill serving one portion to a customer.
These paradigms of consumption work only as long as there is an ample supply of materials and energy to make things and ample space to dump the trash afterward. This model of sustainability is depends on the idea of infinite supply and cheap processing. It depends on a society willing to allow a business to ignore the negative side of production – the waste products.
Through a much maligned Federal oversight and regulation, many industries have been required to restore their wastelands to pre-operations conditions. They have been required to do a better job of not mucking up the environment in the first place. Businesses respond reluctantly when they respond at all. They cite the increased cost of their goods and services to the consuming public as the reason to be allowed to pollute the air, water and land. Businesses are willing to pick up and move when they have fouled their sites. Settlements of people are not so inclined or mobile. They end up tolerating the non-sustainable practices of businesses.
Other blog posts that are related in a Series
todays-reasons-to-exist
shared-history
reason-to-exist
factors-that-are-missing
sustainable-community
Individual people have a sense of what sustainability is while businesses and power brokers do not. Built into the human psyche is that biological imperative to procreate. Each person feels a need to pass on his or her genes, ideals, morals and wealth to a next generation. Fathers want sons to carry forth the surname. Fathers start businesses with their name and add "Son" or "Sons" to it in the hopes of sustaining the hard won successes of the father. Boards of Directors will adopt and abandon any name which suits its goals to sell goods and services to make the profit it needs to satisfy the investors. Corporate businesses will hire and dispose any employee who they feel benefits the bottom line. For businesses the world is composed of lines that have a beginning and an end. They prefer it that way.
Consider the timber logging industry. They get legal access to a stand of trees, cut them all down and move along to a new stand of trees leaving the clear cut slopes to fend for themselves. It's a beginning, a middle and an end. No feeling of responsibility remains after the last tree is cut. After all there are more acres of trees to conquer.
Coal mining operations are the same. Dig coal, pile the tailings and move on. They sell the coal, bury the dead and discharge the injured. Coal matters. People don't. Coal is wealth. People are liabilities and expense. As long as there is a vein of coal to dig the mining companies can proceed in straight line along the seam. As long as there is another miner, old miners are put aside like a rusty drag line bucket.
We allowed industries to turn greenfields into brownfields and pull up stakes leaving the land to sit vacant and poisoned. Beverage containers typically track a linear path from manufacture to a landfill serving one portion to a customer.
These paradigms of consumption work only as long as there is an ample supply of materials and energy to make things and ample space to dump the trash afterward. This model of sustainability is depends on the idea of infinite supply and cheap processing. It depends on a society willing to allow a business to ignore the negative side of production – the waste products.
Through a much maligned Federal oversight and regulation, many industries have been required to restore their wastelands to pre-operations conditions. They have been required to do a better job of not mucking up the environment in the first place. Businesses respond reluctantly when they respond at all. They cite the increased cost of their goods and services to the consuming public as the reason to be allowed to pollute the air, water and land. Businesses are willing to pick up and move when they have fouled their sites. Settlements of people are not so inclined or mobile. They end up tolerating the non-sustainable practices of businesses.
Other blog posts that are related in a Series
todays-reasons-to-exist
shared-history
reason-to-exist
factors-that-are-missing
sustainable-community
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