Ohio
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7mo ago
Does this remind you of anyone?
I am glad to hear the Governor call it desert -- it is desert -- it is pretty good desert.
It is good to be back again in Nevada and get a chance to see things again. It seems to me they look a lot better than they did a few years ago and as you know, your Government in Washington knows that this State is on the map which is something. Some administrations didn't know it was on the map. And, I have been very glad that your State administration, from your Governor down, work so well with all of us on the other side of the continent. We have had real cooperation from the State Government. We have not had any dissention or cross words, and when all of us decided things had to be done, they have been done.
You people know I am water conscious -- although not a strict prohibitionist --
When I was down on the Ohio River the other day I told them I would catch bigger fish than grew in Ohio, though I don't think I will get anything that tastes better to eat than Nevada trout -- the Senator gave me some Nevada trout for lunch -- it was delicious.
It is good to see you all and I hope to get back here again some day. I hope some day to come in an automobile and stay longer and get to know you better.
It is good to see you.
I elided the header, which specified that these were
People like to feel listened to. They like to feel part of a conversation, and be reminded that the person is a real human rather than an unfeeling automaton. The kind of performance which successfully conveys that humanity doesn't always translate so well to a recording or especially a transcript. In the 30s, FDR was winning over the populace with informal remarks and fireside chats. Today, a politician can still cultivate that relationship with his base. But every casual remark is a risk. It will be carefully catalogued, preserved in cheap and ubiquitous recordings, and mined for any advantage. When a detractor watches a 15-second clip on evening TV, there is no suspension of disbelief. None of the casualness with which we'd listen in person. It's not just "two screens." It's one team watching a screen, and one holding a conversation.
Rov_Scam
1mo ago
Pittsburgh: An Urban Portrait
For a while I've wanted to do a comprehensive survey of a city to examine it in terms of urbanism and the principles of what make a place a good place to live. In particular, I want to examine what makes certain places "trendy", and what causes some neighborhoods to gentrify while others stagnate or even decline. Most examinations of the urban environment are merely case-studies of a few neighborhoods that have seen change in the past several decades, for better or worse. But I think that those kinds of studies, while instructive, miss the big picture. Most cities are composed of dozens of neighborhoods, each with its own story and its own potential, and most are simply forgotten about. I've selected Pittsburgh for this exercise, for the simple reason that I live here and can talk about it as an insider rather than someone relying on news reports. You can talk statistics until the end of time, but the only way to properly evaluate a place is if you have a pulse on what the common perception of it is from those who are familiar with it. Before I get to the neighborhoods themselves, though, I want to give some preliminary information about the city so those who are unfamiliar (i.e. almost everyone here) can get the view from 10,000 feet. It also gives me the opportunity to present a few general themes that I've noticed during the months I spent researching this project. Note to mods: A lot of this survey will touch on a number of culture war items like crime, homelessness, housing, density, traffic patterns, etc. For that reason, I'm posting this in the culture war thread for now. That being said, there will be large sections where I look at nondescript parts of the city where I expect the discussion to be more anodyne, and I don't want to be hogging the bandwidth of this thread, especially in the unlikely event that I can crank out more than one of these per week. I can't really anticipate in advance what's most appropriate where, but I'd prefer to post these as stand-alone threads once I get past this initial post. If the mods have a preference for where I post these, I'll adhere to that.
I. The Setting Pittsburgh exists in a kind of no-man's land. It's technically in the Northeast, but people from New York, Philadelphia, and the like insist that it's actually more Midwestern. They may have a point; we're six hours from the nearest ocean, and the Appalachian Mountains are a significant barrier to transportation and development. No megalopolis will ever develop between Pittsburgh and Philly, and we're much closer to places like Cleveland and Columbus. We're also not assholes. That being said, nobody here thinks of themself as Midwestern. First, it's possibly the least flat major city in the US. Second, most Midwestern cities act as quasi-satellites of Chicago in the way that Pittsburgh simply doesn't. Additionally, being in the same state as Philadelphia makes us much closer politically and economically to that area than we are to places that may be closer geographically. Some people try to split the difference and say that Pittsburgh is an Appalachian city, but this isn't entirely correct, either; Pittsburgh is at the northern end of what can plausibly be called Appalachia, and is a world away from the culture of places like East Tennessee. There are close ties to West Virginia, but these are more due to proximity than anything else; for most of that state, Pittsburgh is the closest major city of any significance, which is reflected in things like sports team affiliation. And the Northern Panhandle (and associated part of Ohio) is practically an exurb of Pittsburgh, with a similar development pattern around heavy industry. But for the most part, West Virginia swings toward us rather than us swinging toward them.
The physical landscape can best be described as extremely hilly. For reference, I describe a "hill" as any eminence that rises less than about 700–1000 feet above the surrounding valley, with anything in that range or higher being a mountain. The area is built on a plateau that has been heavily dissected by erosion. Relief is low to moderate, ranging from about 200 feet in upland areas to 400 feet in the river valleys. The natural history results in an area where the hilltops are all roughly the same height, about 1200–1300 feet above sea level, while the valleys range from a low of 715 feet at the point to about 900–1000 feet at the headwaters of the streams. And there are streams everywhere. The most prominent ones are the three rivers (the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio), but there are innumerable creeks that spiderweb across the landscape. The upshot is that flat land is rare around here, and traditional patterns of urban development are difficult to impossible. Most people live on hillsides since the little flat land available is often in floodplains. Roads are windy and difficult to navigate; you may miss a turn and think that if you make the next turn you'll eventually wind up where you want to be. Instead, you find yourself winding down a long hill and end up in one of three places: In view of Downtown from an angle you've never seen before, at the junction with a state highway whose number you've never heard of, or in West Virginia.
What this means for the urban environment is that neighborhoods are more distinct than they are in other cities. While flat cities have neighborhoods that blend into one another seamlessly, Pittsburgh's are often clearly delineated, with obvious boundaries. The city is defined by its topography. One advantage of this is that a lot of the land is simply too steep to be buildable, even taking into consideration that half the houses are already built on land that one would presume is too steep to be buildable. The result is a lot of green space. Another advantage is that it means you get views like this from ground level. The actual green space itself is typical of a temperate deciduous forest, but with a couple of caveats — there's plenty of red maple, sugar maple, red oak, white oak, black cherry, black walnut, and other similar species, but not as much beech as you'd see in areas further north, and not as much hickory as you'd see in areas further south. There are conifers but most of them are planted landscaping trees. White pine and eastern hemlock are native to the area, but they're much more common in the mountains to the east. I should also note that the topography means that there are some weird corners of the city that have an almost backwoods hillbilly feel.
II. The Region
I'd describe the larger region as a series of concentric rings. First is the city proper, which is small for a city of its size. While that seems like a tautology, what I mean is that the actual city limits are, well, limited, giving the city itself a proportionately low population compared to the total metro area. This is because PA state law changes in the early 20th century made it difficult for the city to annex additional territory. The result is that the boundaries were fixed relatively early in the era when America was urbanizing rapidly, and only sporadic additions were made thereafter. The next ring would be what I call the urban core. This is the area where the density and age of the housing gives what are technically suburbs a more urban feel than traditional suburbs; in many cases, these suburbs feel more urban than the later-developed parts of the city proper. These would include typical inner-ring streetcar suburbs, though Pittsburgh has fewer of these than most cities of its size. Most of the areas thus described are towns that developed as the result of industrial concerns, or suburbs of such towns. These are most prominent to the city's immediate east, and also include the innumerable river towns in the river valleys. These towns extend along the rivers for a considerable distance, but there's an area close to the city where they form an unbroken geographic mass. If not for limitations on expansion, they would likely be part of the city itself.
Next, we obviously have the true suburbs, by which I mean areas that developed after World War II but still revolve around Pittsburgh more than a regional satellite. Then we have the exurbs, which I define as areas that are developed, but more sporadically, and are often revolve around a satellite county seat rather than Pittsburgh itself. This is the area where couples looking for an extended date will get a hotel in the city for the weekend (My family makes fun of my brother for doing this because he lives in one of these areas but always insists that he's close. Nevermind that it would be ridiculous for any of us to get a hotel room in Pittsburgh if we weren't planning on getting seriously wasted.) Finally, we have the much broader greater co-prosperity sphere, which is roughly everywhere that falls within Pittsburgh's general influence, be it rooting for sports teams to being the destination when you need to go to a hospital that isn't crappy.
III. History I'll try to make this as quick as possible, since there are obviously better, more comprehensive sources for people who want more than a cursory review. The city was ostensibly founded when the British drove out the French during the French and Indian War and established Fort Pitt. The war began largely as a contest between the British and the French for control over the Ohio Valley, a vital link between the interior northeast and the Mississippi River. The site of Pittsburgh was particularly strategic, as it was at the confluence of two navigable rivers. The surrounding hills were rich in coal; combine this with the favorable river network, and the location was perfect for the nation's burgeoning iron and steel industry. This new wave of prosperity attracted waves of immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe, who later came to define the region. A number of satellite industries developed as well, including glass (PPG), aluminum (Alcoa), chemicals (Koppers, PPG), electrical products (Westinghouse), natural gas (EQT), etc. Pittsburgh's place as an industrial powerhouse continued until the triple whammy of the energy crisis, inflation, and the Reagan recession sparked a wave of deindustrialization that turned America's Rhineland into the Rust Belt. By the '90s the region was bleeding jobs, and much of the working-age population decamped for the Sun Belt. The outright population loss has stabilized in recent years, but the region is still slowly losing population.
The odd thing about this, though, is that in 1985, at what should have been the city's nadir, it started ranking high on the "liveability" lists that were becoming popular. The city had been making a concerted effort to reduce pollution since the '50s, and by the early 2000s it had become a bit of a trendy place to live. I don't want to speculate too much on why this is, but I think there are a few factors at play. First, the crime is low for a rust belt city; there aren't too many really bad areas, and the ones that exist are small and isolated. What this means is that there is a certain freedom of movement that you don't have in other Rust Belt cities like Cleveland or Detroit with large swathes of ghetto. Even in the worst areas, the only time you might find yourself in trouble is if you visit one both at night and on foot. Even the worst areas are fine to walk around in the daytime and I wouldn't worry about driving through anywhere, which is more than I can say about friends of mine's experiences in Cleveland or Chicago. Second, the housing stock is more East Coast than Midwest. Many of the neighborhoods have architectural character, as opposed to other Rust Belt cities that are nothing but rows of nearly identical derelict frame houses (though we have plenty of those, too). Third, the housing is actually affordable. People have been bitching in recent years about significant price increases, but it's still nowhere near the level the major East Coast cities or the trendy western cities. Years ago I met a girl who moved here from New York because she wanted to live in a brick row house but it was simply unattainable where she was. She looked at Baltimore and Philadelphia, which are true row house cities, but the ones she could afford were all in the endless expanses of ghetto. In Pittsburgh, meanwhile, you could snatch a renovated nee in a good area up for well under $200k, and rehabs were being sold for under $50k. You aren't getting them for anywhere near that now, but $500k gets you a nice house in the city, and if you want to do the suburbs you pretty much have your pick of 4BR 2000 square foot homes in excellent school districts. Finally, the outdoor recreation is better than you're going to get in a city of comparable size or larger anywhere east of Denver, and the hotspots don't get the crowds that the western areas do. In the Northeast you have to drive a lot father to get anywhere, and the places are busier. In the Midwest the cities are surrounded by corn, and the areas worth visiting are few and far between. In Pittsburgh, the mountains are only about an hour away, and the general area is hilly enough and forested enough that a typical county park has better hiking than anything within driving distance of Chicago. The mountain biking and whitewater are nonpareil, and that's still a secret to most locals.
I've gone a bit off track here, but I want to make one general observation that I've noticed when studying the history of the city: Everything changes all the time, and there are no meta-narratives. The first statement may seem obvious, but when discussing urban dynamics, people often act like there was some golden era where everything was in stasis, and if we're still in that era then any change is bad and disruptive, and if we're not in that era then any change should be aiming to get back to that era. The meta-narrative is simpler: American cities developed in the 19th century, and grew rapidly during the industrialization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was largely due to high immigration. Few had cars, so people needed to live close to where they worked, and public transit networks were robust. Blacks lived in segregated neighborhoods, and this was a problem. After The War, people started moving to the suburbs, a process which was hasted by not wanting to live alongside black people, who were gradually getting better access to housing. This white-flight drained cities of their economic base, and the new suburban commuters demanded better car access to the city core. Once decent neighborhoods were turning into black ghettos. The response of municipal leaders was to engage in a number of ill-advised "urban renewal" projects that which were blatant attempts to lure white people back into the city by resegregating the blacks into housing projects so they could build white elephant projects and superhighways. Then in the 90s hipsters were invented and they looked longingly at the urban lifestyle. Hip artist types moved into ghettos because they liked the old architecture, could afford the rent, and were too cool racially to be concerned about black crime. Some of them opened small businesses and white people started visiting these businesses, and the neighborhood became a cool place to live. By 2010, though, that neighborhood was expensive and all the cool spots were replaced by tony bars and chain stores and all the bohemes had to find another neighborhood. Meanwhile, the poor blacks who lived here before the hipsters showed up started complaining about being displaced from their homes, and now the same hipsters who "gentrified" the neighborhood are concerned about the effects of reinvestment on long-time residents.
This narrative probably fits somewhere, but the reality is often more complicated. One common refrain I heard from older people in the '90s was "neighborhood x used to be a nice place to live and now it's a terrible slum". Usually, the old person in question was the child of an immigrant who grew up in the neighborhood but decamped to the suburbs in the '50s. She'd return regularly to visit her parents, and watch what she saw as the decline of the neighborhood firsthand. The problem with this is that most of the neighborhoods I heard people talk about like this growing up were always slums. The only thing that changed about them was that they got blacker and don't have the business districts that they once did. Second, in Pittsburgh at least, the changing demographics in some neighborhoods is more in relative terms than in absolute ones. While some places did see an increase in the black population in the second half of the 20th century, most places did not. Before World War 2, Pittsburgh only had one truly black neighborhood, and even that was more diverse than one would expect. Blacks normally lived in racially mixed neighborhoods alongside Italians, Poles, Jews, etc. of similar economic standing. The changing demographics were oftentimes caused more by whites leaving than blacks moving in. It's also worth noting that some areas went downhill long before any of the factors cited in the meta-narrative really kicked in. People tend to be ignorant of urban dynamics in the first half of the 20th Century, which is viewed as this juggernaut of urban growth. No one considers that a neighborhood might have peaked in 1910 and gone into decline thereafter, because the meta-narrative doesn't allow for it. But in Pittsburgh, I see these sorts of things time and time again.
IV. The Housing Stock I mentioned housing stock in the last section, but I want to go into a bit more detail here because it's important when evaluating a neighborhood's potential for future growth. When Pittsburgh was first settled, most of the housing was simple frame stock. Most of this is gone, but, contrary to what one might think, the little that's left isn't particularly desirable. These houses tend to be small and in bad condition, essentially old farmhouses from when most of the current city was rural. Later in the 19th century, brick row houses were built in the neighborhoods that were relatively flat lowlands. Almost every row house neighborhood in the city is desirable, as these neighborhoods have a dense, urban feel. It should be noted, though, that through most of the 20th century this was housing for poor people, as most middle-class and above felt these were outdated.
Also from around this time is the Pittsburgh mill house. These are similar to what you'd find in most Rust Belt cities, and are proof that not all old housing has "character". These were houses built on the cheap and have often been extensively remuddled to keep them habitable. Most of these in the city aren’t exactly true mill houses, as they weren’t built by steel companies as employee housing, but most 19th and early 20th century frame houses fit the same mold. These were mostly built on hillsides and hilltops where building row houses was impractical. Not a particularly desirable style.
Combining the two is the frame row. These were built during a period in the early 20th Century when the area was experiencing a brick shortage. They aren't as desirable as brick rows but still have more cachet than mill houses, although the purpose for which they were built is similar. Most of these were remuddled at some point (by this I mean things like plaster walls torn out in favor of wood paneling and drop ceilings, window frames modified to fit different sizes, wood siding replaced with aluminum siding or Inselbric, awnings, etc.). By the 1920s and 1930s, the classic streetcar suburban style took over. These include things like foursquares and bungalows, the kind of stuff you see in old Sears catalogs. The brick shortage had ended by this period and the houses were larger and better-appointed, making them popular for middle-class areas. The remuddling on these was limited, and they’re highly desirable. After the war, more suburban styles took over, though by this point the city limits were mostly built-out so they aren’t as common as other styles. Most of the suburban stuff was built during the first decade after the war in odd parts of the city that were too isolated to have been developed earlier, though a fair deal was built in neighborhoods that were rapidly declining into ghetto in an attempt at stabilization. There’s nothing wrong with these houses in and of themselves, but they aren’t particularly desirable, as this is exactly the kind of development urbanists hate most.
There are obviously other styles, but the rest of the housing is either multi-family or infill housing that may or may not have been built with consideration given to the vibe of the existing neighborhood. The city has gotten better in recent years about building new houses to match what’s already there, but there are plenty of hideous miscues out there.
V. Neighborhood Dynamics
Pittsburgh is roughly divided into four geographic quadrants, based on the points of the compass. The East End roughly includes anything between the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, and is where most of the trendy neighborhoods are. The North Side is anything north of the Allegheny; the neighborhoods in the flat plain along the river are mostly desirable, if less obnoxiously trendy. The South Hills are roughly everything south of the Monongahela; most of it isn’t trendy at all. The West End is everything south of the Ohio, and is beyond not trendy; it’s basically terra incognita to most Pittsburghers, as the neighborhoods are boring and obscure.
Pittsburgh officially recognizes 90 distinct neighborhoods, but the official geography isn’t entirely accurate. First, the official boundaries are based on census tracts that don’t always line up neatly with a neighborhood’s generally-accepted boundaries. Second, there are a number of bogus or semi-bogus neighborhood designations. Large neighborhoods are often split up into smaller geographic divisions (e.g. North Haverbrook, South Haverbrook, etc.) that may or may not line up with the way people actually talk. Conversely, some neighborhoods include areas that everyone treats as distinct neighborhoods but are officially unrecognized. Some neighborhoods had their names changed because the residents didn’t want to be associated with a declining part of the neighborhood; in some cases these new names caught on but other times they didn’t. For this project, I will be discussing the neighborhoods based on what makes sense to me based on having lived here all my life and knowing how people actually treat the matter. When necessary, I will use historic designations that don’t necessarily match up with the official maps, but this is rare. I will always make reference to the official designations to avoid confusion for those following along at home.
As I was examining the neighborhoods in detail in preparation for this project, a few things jumped out at me with regard to gentrification, stability, and decline. First, a gentrifying neighborhood needs a relatively intact business district. This could be nothing more than boarded up storefronts, but the physical structures need to be there; there has to be some indication that the place has potential, and it’s much easier for businesses to move in when they don’t have to build. Some depressed areas lost practically their entire business districts to blight, while others never really had a business district to begin with. This second scenario decreases the chances of gentrification even further, as there is often no logical place to even put a business district. The presence of a business district is important for two reasons. First, walkability is a huge selling point for people who want to live in a city as opposed to suburbs, and an area that’s dense but unwalkable is the worst of both worlds. Second, neglected neighborhoods don’t get “on the map”, so to speak, unless there’s something to draw in outsiders. Related to the above, there are two general kinds of businesses that can occupy a business district. The first are what I call Functional Businesses — grocery stores, dry cleaners, corner bars, banks, professional offices, hardware stores, etc. The second are Destination Businesses — restaurants, breweries, boutiques, trendy bars, specialty stores, performance venues, and other miscellaneous stuff that will actually draw people in from outside the neighborhood. There's obviously a continuum here, as, for example, a coffee shop could be either depending on how much it distinguishes itself, but you get the idea. Both are essential for a neighborhood to fully take off. There are plenty of areas with perfectly functional business districts that don’t get a second look because there’s no reason for anyone who doesn’t already live there to go there. But if a neighborhood consists exclusively of destination businesses then it will feel more like a tourist area than a real neighborhood; it’s a hard sell for someone to move to a place where they can get artisanal vinegar but not a can of baked beans. Often, the presence of a robust functional business district will stymie a neighborhood’s potential for gentrification. One thing I’ve noticed is that destination businesses rarely replace functional businesses, usually moving into abandoned storefronts or replacing other destination businesses. Functional businesses just sort of exist and don’t move out until the neighborhood has declined past the point of no return.
As I mentioned in the previous section, housing stock is another major contributor to gentrification potential. Urban pioneers have to look at a neglected neighborhood and see the potential to return to a faded glory. Houses that are worth restoring, not dumps that should have been torn down ages ago. The one exception to this is the spillover factor; if a neighborhood with bad housing stock is close to other gentrified neighborhoods that have great amenities but have become too expensive, nearby neighborhoods will get a boost from this, especially if they have intact business districts.
On the other side of the equation, decline follows displacement. The story of declining neighborhoods in Pittsburgh follows a pattern. First, in the 1950s and 1960s, civic visionaries sought to clear slums by replacing them with ambitious public works projects. Forced out of their homes, the residents of these slums needed somewhere to go, and moved to working class neighborhoods that were already in a state of instability, if not minor decline. (It should be noted that slum clearance was much rarer in Pittsburgh than in other cities, though some wounds still run deep). More recently, the city has demolished public housing projects that had become crime-ridden hellholes, but their problems only spilled out into low-rent, working class neighborhoods. What results is a game of whack-a-mole, where revitalization of one area simply leads to the decline of another. That’s why I’ve been less critical of low-income set-asides than I was in the past. I used to be totally free market on the housing issue, but it seems like an inflexible standard only ensures that poverty will remain concentrated, which does little to improve the situation of the poor. Section 8 was supposed to address this problem by getting people out of public housing hellholes and into regular neighborhoods, but it’s only worth it for slumlords in declining areas to accept the vouchers, and the result is that entire neighborhoods go Section 8. I grant that it’s better than things were previously, but I think things could be better still if we agreed that every neighborhood was going to subsidize the housing of a certain number of poor people. That way we can at least make it so the honest, hard working people don’t suffer unnecessarily, and the kids grow up in a more positive social environment. Maybe I’m being too idealistic, but it seems better than any of the existing alternatives.
Finally, a brief note on stability. Stable middle-class or working-class areas tend to be boring areas that are too far away from bad areas for any spillover or displacement to affect them. There may be some long-term factors that may lead to their eventual demise, but there are no obvious causes for concern. The flip side is that as much as some of these places have been touted as the next big thing, the same factors that keep them from going down also keep them from going up. One factor playing into this is the number of owner-occupied houses and long-term rentals. New residents, whatever their economic condition, simply can’t move into a neighborhood if there are few rentals and little turnover in ownership.
VI. The Neighborhood Grading Rubric
The initial goal for this project was to discuss what the future holds for these neighborhoods, and to discuss special considerations that factor into the whole thing (actually, it will mostly be about special considerations, at least for the big neighborhoods). One thing that’s important to this exercise is to discuss where the neighborhoods are at now. I initially developed a complex classification system, then scrapped it because it was too complicated and still didn’t explain everything. But as I got to thinking about it, I decided that some sort of grading was necessary to put things in proper perspective rather than rely on qualitative description. So I developed a much simpler rubric that should catch everything. I would note that the below isn’t to be construed as a ranked desirability ranking, although it will be made apparent that some of the categories only describe undesirable areas.
Upper Middle Class: This includes upper class as well, but truly upper class areas are rare enough to make this a distinction without a difference. These are highly desirable but may have gone past the point of trendiness to the point of blandness (though not necessarily). These include places where gentrification reached the point where it’s all chain stores, but also places that never really gentrified because they were always nice.
Gentrifying: These are the hotspots that everyone knows about. What separates them from the upper middle class areas, even if they are more expensive, is a sense of dynamism and a raffish air. Students and bohemian types still live here. There may be older working class homeowners who never left, and poor renters who haven’t been forced out yet. There may still be a few rehabs for sale at somewhat decent prices. Most of the businesses are locally owned, and it probably still has a functional business district from the old days.
Early Gentrification: This is the point where a neighborhood starts making the transition from working-class or poor to middle-class or trendy, but isn’t quite there yet. Most of the businesses are functional, but there are a few cool places for those in the know. The hipsters are starting to move in. People are buying derelict houses at rock-bottom prices and fixing them up. But the normies don’t know about it yet; tell most suburbanites you’re going to a bar there and they either think you’re going to get your wallet stolen or wonder why you want to hang around old people. The neighborhood is still rough around the edges, and may still have a decent amount of crime and a high minority population. It probably still looks rather shabby. It’s perfectly safe for those with street smarts, but it’s still sketchy enough that you wouldn’t recommend it to tourists.
Stable: Not necessarily boring, but not going anywhere. There’s probably a good functional business district, but few destination businesses. Every once in a while one of the destination businesses might become popular enough that people think the whole neighborhood is going to go off, but it never seems to happen. And that’s if it’s lucky. The upside, though, is it’s very safe, and affordable to buy here. This also includes middle-class black areas that suburban whites assume are hood but are actually rather quiet.
Early Decline: These are the neighborhoods that just don’t seem like they used to. Crime is up, property values are down, and the houses are starting to get unkempt. Most of the long-term residents are elderly, and the newer residents are transients who are of a distinctly different class than the elderly ones. They may be blacks who were displaced from nearby ghettoes, or they may be white trash. There’s increasingly conspicuous drug activity, but no gangs yet. There still may be a functional business district, but there is rarely anything destination, maybe an old neighborhood institution that is still hanging on. These are perfectly fine to rent in if you don’t mind a little excitement in your life, since they’re still relatively safe for normal people, but they aren’t places you want to commit to.
Rapid Decline: This is the point where gang activity has become a problem, and gunshots are no longer a rare occurrence. If there was a white working class here they’re now dead and gone, and if there was a black middle class they’re very old. Residential sections are starting to see blight and abandoned houses. There’s still probably a reasonably intact business district, but it’s entirely functional at this point and mostly caters to stereotypical ghetto businesses. It is, however, still well populated.
Ghetto: A neighborhood that has bottomed out; it can’t get any worse than this unless it disappears entirely, which seems almost inevitable at this point. Few intact blocks remain. If there’s any business district left it’s scattered remnants (though there’s almost always some kind of newsstand). There’s probably gang activity, but there’s little territory worth defending. The atmosphere is desolate and bleak, as the remaining residents are only here because there’s nowhere else to go. Crime, while still a problem, is probably lower here than one would think, simply because there aren’t too many people here to be criminals, and equally few available victims.
The below ones are special cases that don’t fit into the above continuum particularly well.
Deceptively Safe: These are areas that look sketchy as hell but are actually decent places to live. They are usually poor neighborhoods where the properties are in somewhat shabby condition but are occupied. Unique to Pittsburgh (probably), this also includes places that look like part of West Virginia was transported into the middle of the city. These are mostly very small micro-neighborhoods that are poor but just don’t have the population or foot traffic to support any serious crime. Buy low, sell low.
Projects: Pittsburgh has a few “project neighborhoods” that only really exist because it built most of its public housing in odd places where nobody wanted to build before. Most of these projects don’t exist anymore, so saying these are invariably bad areas is a misnomer, especially since one of the few remaining projects is a senior citizen high rise. Most of these are an odd mix of different uses that merit individual treatment.
Student Areas: Transient population, unmaintained properties, exorbitant rent for what you get, multiple unrelated people living together common, noise, public drunkenness, vandalism — everything a real ghetto has except violent crime and gang activity. This doesn’t describe all student areas, but areas where the percentage of students reaches a certain threshold have a much different dynamic than regular neighborhoods. First, these areas are relatively safe considering how dysfunctional they are in every other respect, and second, while the properties are in poor condition, there is little blight or abandonment because the slumlords know they have a captive audience. Also, the presence of a university usually means that the area sees a lot of outside visitors so more destination businesses develop, and there are plenty of places catering to students. Altogether a unique dynamic, though no one not in college would even consider living here.
That’s it for the preliminaries, stay tuned for Part I, where I discuss Downtown and the other “tourist areas” in its vicinity.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
10mo ago
Most of them probably have no idea about the case beyond "fire in a crowded theater" and "clear and present danger". But someone did mention the case by name, and as far as I can tell given the limitations of the Post's execrable (technically) comment section, nobody pointed out it's no longer good law since Brandenburg v. Ohio.
And I'm sure they'd agree that distributing anti-draft pamphlets about the Vietnam War or the Gulf Wars (yeah, I know, there wasn't a draft) would be fine but it's absolute treason and not protected to do so about WWII or the Ukranian War (again, I know there isn't a draft in the US).
Here
5mo ago
A (potentially former?) staffer for allegedly Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) is making news for filming gay sex in the Senate hearing room. He also, allegedly, yelled "Free Palestine" at Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio).
I include the last sentence only to clarify the full context for a statement the staffer posted on his LinkedIn about the matter:
This has been a difficult time for me, as I have been attacked for who I love to pursue a political agenda. While some of my actions in the past have shown poor judgement, I love my job and would never disrespect my workplace. Any attempts to characterize my actions otherwise are fabricated and I will be exploring what legal options are available to me in these matters.
As for the accusations regarding Congressman Max Miller, I have never seen the congressman and had no opportunity or cause to yell or confront him.
I'm struggling with his statement because it seems like the "filmed sex tape at work in the Senate hearing room on Amy Koobuchar's desk" is more of the issue here than the staffer's sexuality itself, but the language used insinuates that he is using his sexuality as a defense for an act that straight people also probably could not have "gotten away" with.
The utter lack of understanding of consequences is also throwing me a little bit. Culture war discussions about sexuality dip into accusations of degeneracy and pleasure-seeking not associated with, necessarily, love that this video emulates. This video will of course be used to further those accusations onto "all gays" instead of the particularly privileged ones who work in the Senate.
Eetan
9mo ago
Since religion is also part of culture wars, it is time for sharing some latest religious culture war battles, this time on Judeo-Christian front, originating from the crucified bird site.
1/ Case of Lizzie Marbach
Lizzie Marbach, Republican and anti abortion activist from Ohio, person with 7k followers and otherwise not notable, posted this.
There's no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone.
This is Christianity 101, this is exactly what Christian is supposed to say and believe. There is no reason for anyone to be surprised.
Except Max Miller, Jewish Republican representative of Ohio with 52k followers who was not amused.
This is one of the most bigoted tweets I have ever seen
Mega dead bird storm ensued, and many people came to Lizzie's side to support her.
Including Ilhan Omar.
Things went so far that Max Miller was forced to apologize.
GOP lawmaker apologizes for ‘religious freedom’ tweet
But, nevertheless, Lizzie Marbach lost her job.
By sheer coincidence, Miller’s wife, Emily Moreno Miller, sits on the board of Ohio Right to Life.
This thing will continue, and it is not looking good for official GOP.
2/ Case of Darryl Cooper, rather lighter one.
Darryl Cooper, known as Martyr Made on the interwebs, substacker, podcaster on several sites and dead birder with 173k followers.
So this is rather important person, in internet terms, who suddenly decided that this is the time, of all things, to preach to Jewish people and convert them to Christianity.
It turned out that lot of his followers are Jews who do not appreciate being evangelized, especially by such D- apologetic piece. Massive dead bird storm ensued, and DC doubled, quartupled and octupled his efforts.
Darryl Cooper himself seems to be rather unorthodox Christian of somewhat Marcionite tinge. This makes the whole thing more confusing, what exactly are his Jewish followers supposed to convert to?
What have these cases in common? They illustrate the difficulty of actual interfaith cooperation between sincere believers in different faiths. If you really believe in truth of your religion, it is realy hard to desist from preaching and evangelizing, and even harder to do not take offence if you are (or perceive to be) preached at and evangelized by your fellows.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
9mo ago
This is bizarre just from the perspective of politicking. You’re a politician, in Ohio, how do you not know enough about Christians to expect this kind of response? I’m reading and apparently there was another politician in Ohio who also called on her to delete the tweet, Casey Weinstein, but he then deleted his tweet. This is just basic religion literacy. Christians as part of their religion are obliged to “confess the name of Jesus”, this is commanded of them and it’s a minor plot point during the Passion. This should be tolerated in the public sphere just as everyone should tolerate Jews professing a chosen status and Muslims calling Muhammad a prophet.
Students from various campuses have occupied the Columbia University campus in New York City in protest of Israel. There reports and videos circulating of protestors harassing Jewish students on or near campus grounds. The NYPD has deployed officers to surround the campus and has established filtration checkpoints to prevent outside agitators from entering campus. Various Columbia alumni have expressed concern with Columbia’s handling of the situation. All classes are now online at least for today. Similar protests are happening at Yale and various other campuses across the country.
Edit: Congressman Josh Hawley has called on President Joe Biden to deploy the National Guard to Columbia and other universities to protect Jewish students on campus.
Edit: NYU has ordered their encampment to disperse and the NYPD is moving in to clear the demonstrators.
Edit: I’m seeing footage of NYU professors being marched out of the campus in zip ties. Cal Poly Humbolt students have barricaded themselves inside a campus building with furniture.
Edit: University of Texas, Austin student protestors are being dispersed by police. And possibly vanned. Protests now seem to be nationwide.
Edit: Mass arrests beginning at USC protests.
Edit: Tasers and rubber bullets being deployed against protestors at Emory University in Georgia.
Edit: There appear to be police snipers monitoring protests at Ohio State University.
somedude
3mo ago
We need far more epistemic humility than we have, especially for a claim as strong as HBD.
It would help if the other side, in all the ferocious arguments that have gone on over the years, ever made any observations that were genuinely inconsistent with HBD. Instead it's always a litany of alternative explanations for an HBD-consistent world.
Like I guess Igbo find Nigeria less stressful than even reasonably well-off American black dudes find California or Ohio or whatever? Certainly couldn't be all that vaunted African genetic diversity at work.
There's never a decent competing model of intelligence backed by consistent observation. Just a grab bag of reasons that things might not be as they clearly seem, most of which don't hold up very well.
Jiro
5mo ago
How about "Calling for the genocide of Jews is disgusting and distasteful in the extreme, but it is absolutely protected speech under Brandenburg v. Ohio and does not in itself constitute prohibited bullying or harassment."
Harvard can't say that because all the other things that they do claim are bullying or harassment keep them from being able to say it honestly.
If they say that, the next question would be about whether Trump support, Islamophobia, etc. are prohibited bullying or harassment.
An empire by definition means being global and enforcing its interests abroad.
what the empire looks like or should look like and what are its interest are subjective; part of "the right" soured on the middle east adventures and when asked they tell you why and it's some mix of what I listed: they don't believe the empire benefits them, they don't like what the empire is and who it benefits, and they don't like a lot of what it pushes, consuming their blood and wealth to keep running
If trump were replaced by someone else, his replacement would get probably the same # of votes
no, this couldn't be more wrong; Trump wins because he motivates non and low likely voters to show up when they otherwise wouldn't
the reason why the GOP loses despite great metrics is because they do not motivate voters while Democrats have bottom-up get-out-the-vote machines going in every small city and larger across the United States who deliver ballots to friendly counting centers
in a state like Ohio where Trump won by over 8 points, the last election had a Biden +2 electorate; where did all of the Trump voters go? they didn't show up in his absence
Trump voters are not GOP voters and to the extent they vote GOP it's because Trump gets them to show-up
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
4mo ago
The responses by various commenters here reveal severe contradictions at the heart of “the case for Trump”. I think that this profoundly confused tweet by Martyr Made is illustrative.
People underestimate (or are not in a position to understand) how powerful it is for people to see Trump being attacked by the same people who have been maligning them in media and politics for years. Critics can say that that Trump is not a true enemy of the Establishment since he did x, y, or z, but it’s obvious to Trump supporters that the same powerful people who hate them also hate Trump, and that they hate Trump for taking their side.
I remember one middle-aged woman somewhere in Ohio being asked why she supported Trump. Was it his immigration policy, trade policy, what was it? She said: “Because he sticks up for us.”
It’s like the cool kids - the varsity QB, the homecoming queen, etc - sitting in the front of the class, forever bullying and mocking the “losers” in the back of class, who don’t play sports or cheerlead because their families are poor and they have to work after school. One day, one of the offensive linemen from the football team picks up and moves to the back of the class and starts giving it back to the cool kids. All the cool kids attack him, but he doesn’t care, he’s from their world and knows they’re nothing special, and anyway, they can’t threaten him because he’s too big, so he just keeps giving it back to him on the losers’ behalf. That guy would be a folk hero to the kids in the back, no matter how much of an obnoxious, vulgar buffoon he might be.
The kids in the front of the class - i.e. a pretty blonde woman who glides through life with door after door inexplicably opening before her - will never get it. They will always assume evil or irrational motives behind the linemen’s move, and they’ll imagine that the kids in back only support him out of jealousy and resentment toward the cool kids.
In this framing, Trump is the champion of the weird, socially-unpopular kids - the ones shut out of bourgeois normal society. The jocks and the pretty girls snub and bully them, but by banding together in a coalition with disaffected members of the social elite who have become awoken to their plight, they can launch a liberatory strike against the privileged upper crust who have historically marginalized them.
This is textbook leftism! This is literally the ur-narrative of the cultural and political left. It’s also the opposite of reality. Blonde jocks and rich cheerleaders are one of the core voting constituencies for Donald Trump! The weird alienated kids who got bullied in school, meanwhile, are a core Democrat constituency! One bloc of Trump voters are now apparently attempting to re-brand themselves, or re-contextualize themselves, as oppressed victims - the marginalized Other.
However, this is blatantly at odds with the original core appeal of Trump, which is that he was a champion of normal, well-adjusted, classic and confident America, here to take the country back from the freaks and faggots and pencil-necks who have essentially usurped control through subterfuge and used that power to resentfully force their unpopular obsessions on the mass of normal popular people.
And of course, it is manifestly risible for Trump voters to claim to hate bullying. Whatever else you want to say about the Trump phenomenon in 2016, it clearly involved a substantial amount of bullying, derision, and even rough-housing/violence at some of the rallies. (I’m not absolving the Clinton campaign, which of course also involved a different type of bullying and derision.) Trump supporters have also ruthlessly mocked and derided “DeSantoids”, using classic nerd-bashing behavior; see Scott Greer’s (admittedly amusing) unflattering impression of DeSantis’ nasal voice and spergy affect.
Trump voters have no leg to stand on if they wish to wear the mask of the oppressed and marginalized. That sort of maudlin victimhood-signaling has never been what conservativism or right-wing values are about. If anything, Trump voters should be proud to be the jocks and cheerleaders rightly excluding the maladjusted weirdos; playing this “no, you’re not the underdog, I’m the underdog” game is just totally conceding the left’s frame.
If anything, Trump voters most closely resemble the oppositional culture cultivated by blacks. When they are a minority or are relatively disempowered, they cry victim and throw out accusations of cheating and unfair privilege. When they are a local majority or gain any sort of power, though, they ruthlessly bully whites and Asians; they also bully those within their own ranks who “act white” by refusing to wallow in victimhood and who aspire to earn a spot in the majority culture via self-betterment and the adoption of bourgeois values. Blacks as a cultural-political constituency would rather destroy the mainstream American establishment - supposedly for excluding and “othering” them - than try to prove worthy of being embraced by that establishment. And when they don’t get what they feel they’re owed, they riot.
I say this all as someone who voted for Trump in 2020 and who will vote for him again this November, assuming he’s the GOP nominee. I just hate liars and cope. The people in power in Washington DC and in the media and academia are certainly not Chads and Stacys. They were not jocks and cheerleaders. They see themselves as champions of the marginalized and disempowered, the same way that [the Trump who exists only the minds of his ardent supporters] does. Oppositional populism is a great way to drum up votes and guilt your way into power, but it’s also the sign of a catastrophically unwell society. Give me a candidate who is proud to represent normal, productive, intelligent people, and maybe then I’ll start getting excited. That’s what Ron DeSantis was supposed to be, and Trump supporters called him a fraud and a sellout for not going to bat hard enough for J6 rioters or agreeing that the 2020 election was stolen.
Our country is fucked.
Frequent_Anybody2984
5mo ago
I've been thinking about Indians today. In my current management position in tech, I deal with a lot of Indians. On one hand, Indians are some of my most trusted colleagues and friends who I rely on who have a CS degree from a legit US college like University of Colorado Boulder or Ohio State. These people are the best and I love working with them. These are people who went to school in the US and are legit. Not only that, but my favorite two teachers in college in math and CS were both Indians who taught CS.
On the other hand, the Indians we hire as support are absolute trash. You compare them to Philipno or Eastern European people we hire as support, and they are so bad. The funny thing is that the Indians that are in the US are our best people for support. Obviously, there is a massive selection bias, but what the hell is going on with this?
I actually have a real world example. I worked at a telecom company as a software engineer and most of the managers were former Army or Air Force people. The majority of the people in the US who were doing support are/were Indian. But these people were Indians in America and everyone liked them and they all eventually got promoted. But the overnight people in India were again absolute trash.
What is going on in India with their leadership? Why are Indians so bad in India but ones that come hear and get a taste of American corporate structure so good? I know this is probably a best fit for the questions thread, but this legitimately puzzles me.
And obviously Indian-Americans I don't include in this. They are just like all other Americans.
[I've been in and out of the midwest over the last few months, so I've seen some of the coverage -- and lawn signs -- firsthand.]
I don't know how representative this particular example is but the 30-second spot avoids saying anything at all about abortion and instead argues that voting yes on Issue 1 would somehow...protect kids from trans drag queens in schools? The fuck? I guess they knew that "vote yes on Issue 1 to keep abortion restricted" wasn't going to be a winning message so this tangent was the only option.
I heard that one less often than the Farmers Growing Democracy version, but I don't think any of the Pro-Issue 1 coverage was willing to focus on the short-term abortion ramifications.
To steelman, though, there's a pretty widespread feeling among Red Tribe conservatives, where a lot of politically-charged matters have been started getting shoved through local direct democracy options, usually by a mix of obfuscating terminology and absolutely massive direct spending advocacy, kinda the flip side to the Prop 8 Discourse back in 2008.
This isn't a theoretical issue for Ohio, specifically: 2015 had a pair of conflicting constitutional amendment issues that were a confusing mess, followed by a 2018 constitutional initiative that was even more lopsided in terms of funding. These efforts hadn't succeeded yet, but they were getting increasingly close, for something that would have been very hard to reverse (and near-impossible to reverse quickly), despite often pretty stupid and badly-implemented targets.
There are pragmatic reasons to suspect trans stuff is likely to become a relevant topic in the near future, and that Ohio would be a relevant target for a variety of logistical reasons attracting coastal soft power (and maybe federal government funding), in ways where the sword would not cut both ways.
And there's special concerns that the Ohio GOP might want to get this change done before a potential 2024 general election that could be a landslide because of hefty turnout on one side of the aisle and decreased enthusiasm on the other, such as if the GOP Presidential candidate is a complete schmuck.
((Of course, the Ohio GOP is also filled with morons, so this might be a position that they hadn't considered.))
But, as you say, this also was very clearly trying to work the refs for the fall ballot, so even if it might have been a good idea in general a lot of people were not exactly impressed by it in this context. Which does not work well for a state with a lot of borderers. And the combination of removing signature cure time and of requiring signatures from every county near-guaranteed that this was eventually going to even bite the GOP in the tail down the road.
But who actually thought the blatant gimmickry described above was actually going to work?
I think the steelman is that they thought it was a long shot, but that the quick turn around time would at least slow some of the conventional ways that out-of-state pressure applied. If so, it didn't work well: there was a very strong effort from teacher's unions and the conventional party affiliates, because "call phones and hand out signs" is pretty much their bread-and-butter. But the No on 1 campaign wasn't anywhere near as polished or coordinated in terms of advertising space as normal, didn't have time to start any serious cancellation efforts against supporters (yet), and didn't spend all that it raised, so to some extent it probably achieved part of the target goal.
On the other hand, they're pretty likely to bring that cash to the November election, so something something briar patch.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
5mo ago
"Is calling for the genocide of Jews... bullying and harassment?"
Well, yeah. Who (apart from the usual suspects) is going to stand up in public and say "I'm all for genocide of the Jews, me!"
How about "Calling for the genocide of Jews is disgusting and distasteful in the extreme, but it is absolutely protected speech under Brandenburg v. Ohio and does not in itself constitute prohibited bullying or harassment." That's what I would say if I was leading a public university and being grilled. The University of Pennsylvania guarantees students "The right to freedom of thought and expression", so I'd say something like "...but it is expression permitted under the University of Pennsylvania Code of Student Conduct." Harvard, however, has no such out.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
7mo ago
I've been considering a longer effort-post on the topic to tie it in with other conversations about "credible accusations", but since we're doing this today, I just want to mention my favorite Jim Jordan subplot is his putative involvement in the Ohio State wrestling sex abuse scandal:
The Ohio State University abuse scandal centered on allegations of sexual abuse that occurred between 1978 and 1998, while Richard Strauss was employed as a physician by the Ohio State University (OSU) in the Athletics Department and in the Student Health Center. An independent investigation into the allegations was announced in April 2018 and conducted by the law firm Perkins Coie.
In July 2018, several former wrestlers accused former head coach Russ Hellickson and U.S. representative Jim Jordan, who was an assistant coach at OSU between 1987 and 1994, of knowing about Strauss's alleged abuse but failing to take action to stop it. Jordan has denied that he had any student-athlete report sexual abuse to him.
The report, released in May 2019, concluded that Strauss abused at least 177 male student-patients and that OSU was aware of the abuse as early as 1979, but the abuse was not widely known outside of Athletics or Student Health until 1996, when he was suspended from his duties. Strauss continued to abuse OSU students at an off-campus clinic until his retirement from the university in 1998. OSU was faulted in the report for failing to report Strauss's conduct to law enforcement.
So, the scandal is that some wrestlers got groped by a physician 30 years ago and the claim is that Jim Jordan "knew about it" and failed to put a stop to it. Of course, none of them bothered to mention that Jordan knew about it until a few decades later when he became a rising figure in the Republican Party. What's the available evidence on the matter?
In June 2018, at least eight former wrestlers said that reported that then-coaches Russ Hellickson (head coach, 1986–2006) and Jim Jordan (assistant coach, 1987–1995) were aware of the abuse by Strauss but failed to put a stop to it.[37][38][39] Jordan's locker was adjacent to Strauss's, and while he was assistant wrestling coach, he created and awarded a "King of the Sauna" certificate to the member of the team who spent the most time in the sauna "talking smack".[40]
Former wrestling team members David Range,[41] Mike DiSabato and Dunyasha Yetts asserted that Jordan knew of Strauss's misconduct. Yetts said, "For God's sake, Strauss's locker was right next to Jordan's and Jordan even said he'd kill him if he tried anything with him".[42] No wrestlers have accused Jordan of sexual misconduct, but four former wrestlers named him as a defendant in a lawsuit against the university.[43][44][45] Several former wrestlers, including ex-UFC fighter Mark Coleman, allege that Hellickson contacted two witnesses in an alleged attempt to pressure them to support Jordan the day after they accused Jordan of turning a blind eye to the abuse.[46][47]
So, basically, "come on, he had to have known". With the standard of "credible accusations" applied to Kavanaugh and Jordan, I find it hard to believe that anyone could be truly innocent. The necessary ingredient for a scandal appears to be finding someone willing to say that a few decades ago he must have known that something bad for going on. Seriously, how the hell is anyone supposed to defend against that allegation? What can you even say other than, "uhhh, no I didn't"?
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
6mo ago
Yes, if a Republican wins the white house they will very likely also win full control of the legislature.
The GOP already holds the reps of course. Not by a big margin, but you wouldn't expect to lose it while winning the presidency. Meanwhile they need to pick up 2 seats in the Senate. One is near-guaranteed in West Virginia, with a bunch of other vulnerable seats available in places like Ohio, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and maybe even New Jersey at a stretch if the Bob Menendez issue plays out in a helpful way. On the flip side the most vulnerable seats the Republicans are defending are... Texas and Florida.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
1mo ago
The Amish are not parasitic for the simple reason that they pay more than they take out. This makes them less parasitic than other groups. They pay taxes, except social security, because they do their own thing for that, and they pool money for healthcare expenditures. They don’t really need roads in perfect conditions, they don’t spend a lot of time in jails, they don’t require a lot of policing, they don’t go into troublesome college debt, etc. They have solved the criminality problem without need for the military or police. And what makes them much less parasitic than normal American culture is that they don’t wastefully spend resources on fleeting pleasures. When a normal American makes a lot of money they might waste that money for their own pleasure; when an Amish makes a lot of money more of it goes into their community because they don’t do a lot of consumerism or debauchery.
The military point misses something important. There’s something called IW alternative service where conscientious observers aid the country in non-violent ways and the Amish used this during the Korean/Vietnam war. So the labor they would have spent as soldiers may be spent as factory workers. The economy does not stop when war occurs, even the deadliest wars need people to work factories, which the Amish work without committing to crimes or vice — possibly the best possible factory worker profile.
I found this study on Amish criminality and genetic selection . It argues that the Amish criminality rate is too low to be explained purely by criminal gene outflow and that there is also an element of cultural transmission. Another way we can measure this (which I don’t think has been done) is to search for homicide offenders in Ohio and filter for Amish-associated first and last names, as well as birthplace location. My intuition is that there are not a lot of formerly Amish homicide offenders.
Note that the question of gene outflow must answer to how America receives criminals. The Amish ostracize their criminals; were they the only people in America, the ostracized criminals would have to live in a makeshift criminal colony far away from Amish areas. If America lacks a solution to criminality like the Amish solution, that’s not an Amish problem, that’s again an America problem.
This is visible in the fact that there are very few converts
This is entirely explained by the lack of knowledge about Amish QoL. People don’t move to countries without knowing the job market and quality of life, neither do they buy kale without information about its health benefits. The average American might find the Amish quaint and cute, but they absolutely do not know how successful they are in terms of generating a high quality of life. (I, a 99th percentile Amish aficionado, was myself greatly surprised when I began checking all the metrics of Amish QoL. For instance, that the women are quite happy, feminism not included.)
Re: 5, I imagine the gay Amish can’t have sex and instead have to rely on loving platonic friendships with their male friends. Even so, we can imagine an Amish possible world where the gays get to form couples. My post is not intended to imply “let’s copy Amish 100%”, but rather to imply that all of our social progress since 1710 has not allowed us to live as good as our friends stuck in the past. In fact, it makes us and our progress-worshipping seem pretty silly and backwards. How much money and talent has been wasted on feminism when this does not appear to be a requirement for female happiness?
Thanks for asking these important questions. The easiest question is question 1 - the answer is "mu" because there are not, in fact, drastically fewer populists than there used to be. We see this, because political appeals to the populist quadrant of the Nolan chart repeatedly overperform elite expectations. This is true for both appeals reaching out from the rightist quadrant of the Nolan chart (Trump, Boris, Le Pen etc.) and appeals reaching out from the leftist quadrant (2016 Bernie, Syriza, Podemos etc.) In fact, you can make a case that there are more populist voters than there used to be because the Overton window has moved in a libertarian direction since Reagan/Thatcher and has left the median voter behind. Dominic Cummings wrote about this a lot on his blog before the EU referendum - one of his catchphrases for getting through to politicians who are not paying attention is "Relative to the status quo, the median voter is a National Socialist" (I think he would be marginally more accurate if he said "Relative to the Overton window"). He has said that if he could get away with it, his campaign slogan would be "Hang the paedos, save the NHS".
The next easiest question is question 3 - the populists are on Boomer Facebook, or propping up the bar at your local golf club. The key fact about the populist vote is that it skews older, less educated, and almost certainly less intelligent than the other three quadrants. There are three things going on here
- There are weak but well-studied positive correlations between libertarian-quadrant political views, IQ, education, and the big 5 personality trait of openness to experience (roughly equivalent to Myers-Briggs N if you are into MB types).
- In a world where educated people use their politics as part of their identity, the correlation looks stronger than it is because smart populists hide their power level. The association of populism (particularly if expressed openly) with ignorance and bigotry is real, so trying to raise the status of populist politics is very hard (you have to get people to stop noticing things - something that on race required a 50-year programme of State-backed thought reform, and even then intelligent white lefties demonstrate by their behaviour that they are only pretending not to notice things).
- Older people tend to be more socially conservative, which is one of the two planks of populism. Because of improving education over time, they also tend to be less educated at a fixed IQ level. Because of cognitive decline in old age, they may be slightly dumber as well.
The upshot of this is that populists are less online, less interested in the type of substance-heavy discussion of political issues that we do here, and in general less politically engaged - in both the post-Trump US and the post-Brexit UK we have seen people being surprised that low turnout no longer helps the right. Non-targetted voter suppression by the right has backfired multiple times, with the Ohio I-can't-believe-it's-not-abortion off-cycle referendum being the most recent example. Jacob Rees Mogg made the unusual mistake of saying the quiet part out loud on this point.
The other important point that fits in here is the nature of modern populism. Given that we are at the tail end of 40+ years of increased globalisation (trade, cultural exchange and migration) during which the economy was not great for poor people in rich countries, the thing that holds modern populism together is anti-establishment xenophobia. The modern populist message is:
- The reason you don't have nice things is because foreigners are robbing you blind
- The reason why foreigners are able to rob you blind is because corrupt elites are helping them.
For left-populists, the foreigners in question include foreign investors expecting to make profits. For right-populists, they are mostly immigrants. Both sides are happy to attack multinational companies offshoring to cheap labour sweatshops in the Third World. Right-populists wear their xenophobia on their sleeve, left populists try to dog-whistle it. But if you look at the anti-Englishness of the SNP, the anti-Germanism of Podemos and Syriza, or the anti-Americanism of Latin American populists, it is obvious that xenophobia is core to their appeal.
Turning now to question 2, the reason why this question is difficult is that populist voters are less likely to have intellectually coherent political views, so movements appealing to them are less likely to be based on an intellectually coherent ideology that merits naming. In European politics, the ideology that lived in the populist quadrant post-WW2 was called Christian Democracy, but most Christian Democratic parties (including the German CDU, which is the de facto standard-bearer of European Christian Democracy because of its size and electoral success - the Dutch CDA is the most obvious exception) drifted into the empty space on the right left open by the demise of throne-and-altar conservatism. (Throne-and-altar conservative parties across Europe generally disbanded after being useful idiots for Hitler). A lot of mostly-defunct populist political parties had a support base of rural smallholders and are called things like "Agrarian", "Country" "Farmers'" or, surprisingly often "Centre". But in the Anglosphere populist movements tend to be associated with charismatic leaders (William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump) and not ideologies or permanent mass-membership political parties. Back in the pre-Trump era, there were people who called themselves "paleoconservatives" who definitely lived in the populist quadrant - their biggest electoral success was under Pat Buchanan (and arguably Ross Perot, who they supported from a distance), and their house journal was The American Conservative. "One Nation Conservatism" was a British tendency with deep roots (the term goes back to Disraeli) and lives in the populist corner of the Nolan chart, but like Christian Democracy it doesn't have the anti-establishment connotations of modern populism. Boris Johnson has called himself a One Nation Conservative, but he has also called himself a libertarian, a populist, and a Thatcherite. In general, the term was hijacked by pro-establishment centrists in the Thatcher era. I don't know what the current American terminology is, but in the UK modern populists are called "Blue Labour" if they are coming from the left and "National Conservatives" if they come from the right. See this sympathetic article about why the actual populists in national conservatism are struggling to reconcile with the fake-anti-establishment rightists like Jacob Rees Mogg who they are forced to work with by FPTP.
I think question you may have meant to ask is a slightly different take on question 1: Why are there so few political movements appealing to the voters in the populist quadrant of the Nolan chart given the obvious opportunity? I see three big reasons for this:
- The grift - given the age and education issue, there are not enough smart, young populists who are willing to go public with their populist political views to staff a nationwide political movement, let alone a populist government. So you see a lot of grifty fake populist movements run by people who are not populists, want populist votes but don't actually plan to deliver a populist agenda. Trump and Berlusconi are plutocrats, not populists. Boris Johnson is a megalomaniac with utterly flexible political views, but the people who put him in power were the same hard-core small-government rightists who would go on to back Liz Truss. All of the above are also crooks. Dominic Cummings may be a neo-reactionary hiding his power level, but if not he is a pro-establishment centrist who favours the Silicon Valley establishment over the British one and is using populism as a tool.
- Boomercons - the welfare state for the old in most countries operates largely separately from the welfare state for the poor. So you can have a political movement that picks up the votes of retired and soon-to-be-retired voters in the populist quadrant without being meaningfully pro-worker by promising to protect the big old-age welfare programmes (which, in practice, means expanding them to keep up with population aging). See this subthread on "Boomer reality" for more discussion and some relevant UK-based links. Trump does this. Boris does it even more. I don't think it is as much of a big deal in Continental Europe, where going single-issue against Muslim immigration appeals to all age groups.
- Specifically in the US, race. To support an economic-leftist agenda in America, you either need to support fiscal transfers from whites to blacks, or you need to be openly racist and say that poor whites should get help that blacks don't. Hence the golden era of American populism was in the Jim Crow South. The populist constituency is still majority white (because the electorate is) but is blacker than the electorate as a whole (because almost all blacks are populist on issues other than race relative to the median white voter). So to unite it, you need to keep both the black churchladies and the confederate-flag-waving rednecks in the same tent. Wokeness has got sufficiently stupid that this probably can be done, but so far Donald Trump has only managed to increase the R share of the black vote from roughly 5% to 10%, which doesn't amount to actually doing it.
Mewis
7mo ago
The latest craze on Youtube? A guy called Sam Sulek. Sam Sulek is a 21 year old bodybuilder and mech eng. student from Ohio who has, over the past six months, gone from about 50,000 to over 1.7 million subscribers. I've heard dudes at work that don't lift mention him, either. He is, for his age, ridiculously large, and has already attracted accusations of not being 'natty' (i.e. he's using PEDs). Regardless of how he gets his gains, his appeal, however, seems pretty genuine. Unlike the deluge of overedited, attention-grabbing garbage on Youtube, Sulek's videos are lightly edited and mostly show him driving to, working out in, and then driving back to the gym with occasional meals, while he provides a kind of stream-of-consciousness of his thoughts on training and diet. There's very little groundbreaking stuff here, his videos are nearly entirely unscripted (like his workouts themselves) and Sulek saves all his intensity for his lifting. In fact he comes off as a fairly charismatic, positive, intelligent student. More than that, though, his videos scratch a desire for society and friendship. Commenters describe them as relaxing, and Sulek as authentic, but really what they are is parasocial. Sulek isn't acting as a coach or source of information or salesman (though he does have a deal with Hosstile), but more as the lifting buddy that millions of people wish they had. And though it can hardly be any good for my very poor self-esteem and body image issues, it's difficult to stop watching.
Ohio is one of the more heavily gerrymandered states in the country. It's slightly moderately red, but not heavily red like the Ohio GOP supermajority would suggest. Probably could've legalized recreational marijuana back in 2015 if the Ohio Marijuana Legalization Initiative (Issue 3) didn't have language in the amendment that would've enshrined a marijuana oligopoly in the Ohio constitution.
EDIT: strikethrough adverb
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
9mo ago
my Dad and Uncles used the G.I. bill to get STEM degrees and were also willing to move the family around for job opportunities. Law obeying, studious, industrious, and economically astute seems like a good rubric for "Rasied 'Em Right!" when compared with impulsive, prone to violence, substance abuse, obsessed with vague notions of honor but .... geographically consistent?
Why should smart people move away from small towns, especially now that the Internet has come? It’s not the dirt that’s dumb in rural communities, and it’s not the water which makes addicts of the townsfolk.
As for geographic consistency, their kin died for that ground within two or three centuries of folk memory. It’s a far more precious price than a mortgage. (I can’t say I feel that same drive myself, as my parents’ families are from Ohio and Michigan, yet we live in a huge modern city in New Mexico. I can, however, sympathize with Barney Google and Snuffy Smith over in the holler by the crick.)
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
28d ago
The “young” Right re-learned the importance of religion for survival only recently, I’d argue, around the time of the Benedict Plan in 2017. And public thinkers like Jordan Peterson only recently brought serious arguments for religion to the public, in a way that can satisfy the more “rational” conservative cohort who would otherwise be stuck on Nietzsche and new atheism. So it’s not surprising you haven’t seen this development immediately.
I don’t get your point about the Satanic Temple. Satanism is not a culture, it’s pretty much only an aesthetic, so it lacks the motive to utilize tax exemption for the purpose of maintaining a culture. If I were to bet, practicing “Satanists” are usually anti-natalists who think that their cultural heritage sucks. I similarly don’t get your point about the Amish; they were established at a time when no one policed how you established towns and schools… when there was no mass media… they just plopped themselves in Ohio and created, effectively, a micro-nation because they could… and there were few taxes then. So you’re comparing apples to orangutans here, in that there is genuinely no comparison to be made.
your solution to almost any issue is more dakka religion
Approximately, yes. More accurately, it’s “hierarchical organized communities which use stories and rituals and social competition to guide human behavior, whose leaders are chosen by virtuous conduct and who are prevented from having any material bias of self-gain eg accumulating wealth or women.” This just so happens to be religious in nature due to quirks of the flesh human nature. It’s hard to look at the demise of South Korea, the resilience of the Pashtuns, the birth rates of the Abrahamic Orthodox, the beauty of renaissance art, the economic waste of consumerist sexual competition, and the quasi-religious attitudes of political radicals and not come to the conclusion that what we need is Optimized Religion(s).
charles
6mo ago
Cleveland has always been deeply blue. The Dem primaries are the local elections in most cases. The outer suburbs not as much, but what conservatives are there are mostly fiscal conservatives. A lot of boomer former hippies that became good earners in their middle age and and suddenly cared about taxes. Substantial gerrymandering of the state as a whole has produced a state house that doesn't accurately reflect the beliefs of the people in Ohio. Even the rural north eastern counties voted Yes on both issues. That area is historically more Catholic than Evangelical and many of them are only culturally Catholic and aren't really motivated politically by their religious beliefs.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
6mo ago
Election night thread?
Reading accounts like this make me glad to live in a state that (1) mails everyone a ballot every election and (2) also mails everyone a voters guide a week or more in advance of any election. I get text of initiatives, statements for and against, candidate statements, all kinds of stuff delivered to my door well in advance of having to make a decision.
Election logistics aside, the actual elections were pretty boring. Bunch of state level judges (electing judges is dumb as hell) running unopposed. About half the local races also involved candidates running unopposed. The other half were against incumbents who'd been in the position a decade and would probably win in a landslide. No initiatives or ballot measures or anything interesting.
Looking outside my own state, Bolts has a massive round up of stuff to watch tonight. Big ones so far:
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Andy Beshar wins re-election as governor of Kentucky.
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Ohio passes Issue 1 and Issue 2. Enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution and legalizing marijuana respectively.
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Dems projected to control Virginia Senate, denying Youngkin a trifecta.
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Loudoun County School Board looks likely to be won by Democratic Party endorsed candidates.
AP News reports:
The summary, if anything, understates the brazenness. There's a delightful video of the release press conference that starts out with Grisham highlighting the emergency order as a state-wide message to "start arresting people", and "just arrest everyone", and goes downhill from there to outright state intent to violate her oath of office! For an order she does not expect criminals to obey. The order declares the city off-limits for public carry, nearly exactly mirroring a specific hypothetical from Bruen.
I went to bed on this last night after trying to find a way to discuss it at a deeper level than 'boo, outgroup', and I'm still hard-pressed this morning. It's not like this is some unique and novel approach: I've written before on the prolonged efforts to provide massive resistance to Breun, or to otherwise violate the law, exploiting the nuances of standing and court timelines. Federal administrations have played footsie with overtly unconstitutional or illegal actions at length as delaying tactics over any coherent principle for matters as serious as the rental economy and as trivial as cancelling Easter. There were even a few efforts from the Red Tribe in early COVID days.
There's some tactical and logistic discussions that can be had, here. Most obvious, there's a ton of fun questions involved when the state can throw around multi-thousand dollar fines against people with no more warning or notice than a press conference late Friday night, should it ever come to that, though it's not clear that the specific stated punishment here matters. There's no evidence that the shooters in any recent murders motivating this order were carrying lawfully. There will almost certainly be open carry protests by mid-week, a completely foreseeable result that someone who actually worried about bunches of lawful gun carry causing violence would at least have planned around; the people going should plan around what happens if and when they're arrested and cited, but it's not clear that will actually happen.
The Bernalillo County police have already stated that they have not been charged with enforcing this: a sufficiently cynical reader should expect that the state police may not consistently 'enforce' the order either rather than tots-unrelatedly harassing the hell out of anyone who disobeys it.
Grisham signed a law abolished qualified immunity in some cases, but the precise text of that law and the New Mexico constitution make this unlikely to apply in the specific nexus of carry. The 11th Amendment makes federal 1983 lawsuits particularly complex, and unlikely to be renumerative or punishing.
They're also pretty boring. So I'm going to make a few predictions. Maybe I'll be wrong! Hopefully!
Grisham will not be impeached for a very simple reason. She will not be indicted, and I think it's more likely than not she never pays in her personal capacity. There will be no grand jury leaking embarrassing details, or FBI investigations doing the same, whether honestly or fraudulently established. New Mexico allows citizen grand juries, and it won’t matter Grisham will not be frog-marched before a tipped-off news media for a predawn raid, nor will we have arrest mugshots on national or local news. There won't be a long series of supposedly-unbiased news programs calling her a fascist, no baldly coordinated smear campaign to distract from someone else's failures, nor will some random employee become a minor celebrity by breaking the law to embarrass her and then claiming
prosecutionpersecution. There will not be a New York Times article or The View segue fearful about how this undermines reasonable public health policy, nor will Lawrence Tribe be writing a characteristically incoherent argument about how this disqualifies her from any future elected office.We will not have an injunction today, or a temporary restraining order the same day as a complaint was filed, to mirror the DeWine overreach linked above. The courts will not make a final determination before the order expires, even if the order extends beyond the thirty-day window. If the courts issue a TRO or preliminary injunction before the policy expires, people will still be harassed for carry, and no one will find themselves in jail for contempt of the court's order, even and especially if they Tried To Make A Message out of their disobedience. There will be a perfunctory mootness analysis when asking whether the state will do the same thing again, and in the unlikely even that threshold and standing can be achieved, the courts will instead notice that no colorable relief can be granted.
We will instead have taught a city's portion of gun owners that they can and should violate the supposed law, at length; that the government will quite cheerfully do the same and get away with it; and that the courts will shrug their shoulders and ponder what can you do thirty days later. And that is what happens if they are lucky.
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