Posted on 03/01/2016 10:15:16 AM PST by ek_hornbeck
In 1974, corporate behemoth GE moved its headquarters from Manhattan to the suburban Fairfield, Connecticut. Last week, it announced that it was leaving Fairfield for Boston's waterfront district. And as GE goes, it has people wondering whether the suburbs are going to lose their economic lifeblood.
Mad Men reminded us that mid-century advertising executives worked in the heart of Manhattan, but slowly began their retreat to the burbs as crime exploded in New York City. The corporate offices followed them and their growing families in the 1970s and 1980s.
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
Yeah, just wait until Obama’s HUD muscles a bunch of Section 8 housing units in there.
This is blithering nonsense. On one hand, things change. They change for many, many reasons, but these intellectual midgets think they have the ability to encapsulate all the underlying causes with their shallow-as-a-mud-puddle theories.
And his theory isn’t even accurate. Sure, San Francisco meets this format, but SF is very very small, geographically, and surrounded on 3/4 sides with essentially zero land available. But for every SF there are 3-8 Des Moines.
And screw this racism thing. What, it’s not enough that upscale urban whites don’t like homeless people crapping on their sidewalks after these cruel, heartless whites put up with the homeless, pay taxes to help feed them and all the vultures who administer them, and now pay for their health care. What is it that we are getting out of these homeless people whose greatest contribution to society is to crap on the sidewalks? Frankly, I don’t think people are being racially discriminated against when they defecate in the streets.
A good city neighborhood is like a small town, with the addition of big city amenities within easy reach. I have work, church, my kids' elementary and middle schools, groceries, plenty of shopping, and over a hundred restaurants with 1.5 miles -- all this in a walkable, bikeable neighborhood with quiet tree-lined streets and not much traffic. Hard to beat.
I work in land development, so I tend to pay attention to these sorts of things.
I don’t think the suburbs are dying...I think of it more as concentric rings around the city. When the first ring becomes old, the streets fall apart, the neighbors become lousy, etc, people who can leave do just that - and move to a secondary ring.
Sure there are some cities where people are moving back downtown - but that model really only applies to congested areas (northeast), where geography prevents expanding rings.
Look at Detroit as a model. Downtown there are of course the glistening office buildings, stadiums, and all the trappings of a modern city - because this is where people still primarily work. Then there is a broad ring of complete dilapidation - from Google maps its easy to identify these areas, because so many of the houses have been torn down. But further out, just a 15 minute drive by interstate, there are fantastic suburbs, with solid home values and perfectly cut lawns.
I don’t think the suburbs will ever go away, unless something is done to address the underlying urban problems that people are trying to escape from.
Same with every major city in MA, except for Boston. Boston is propped up by Harvard, MIT, and the financial industry. The other cities are propped up by convenience stores, lotto, EBT, and welfare.
Thank you Democrats!
1st ring suburbs in many cities are very pricey. While the houses are older, they were better built, so they can withstand more neglect than houses built, say, after 1975.
Also they are closer to the center of town so easier commute for those who work there.
1st ring suburbs in places like LA, Seattle, Washington DC, and countless others are high priced now, even for fixer uppers.
That's what 'carbon credits' are for.
He was so bad as a senator, William F. Buckley supported then-Dem Joseph Lieberman over him.
“How does not having white people around “further impoverish blacks”?”
I once read a snippet of a book, written by a man who had taught at inner city schools. He mentioned that he asked his class what would happen if all the whites went away. His students were almost unanimous in stating that they would be in trouble.
Decades of race-baiting politicians have convinced most blacks that wealth comes not from the people who create it, but some unseen higher authority (which I liken to Scrooge McDuck), and only white people get this wealth bequeathed to them...and this is why it is morally ‘ok’ to use socialism to transfer that wealth to black people. You take whites out of the equation, the proverbial ‘pie’ is somehow off limits to them.
And this is why supposedly smart people make stupid statements about how white flight impoverishes blacks.
I wonder if they have any clue what they're admitting when they say that?
Lowell Weicker.
A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.
But february made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.
So bye-bye, miss american pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
Did you write the book of love,
And do you have faith in God above,
If the Bible tells you so?
Do you believe in rock ‘n roll,
Can music save your mortal soul,
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?
Well, I know that you’re in love with him
`cause I saw you dancin’ in the gym.
You both kicked off your shoes.
Man, I dig those rhythm and blues.
I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck,
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died.
I started singin’,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
Now for ten years we’ve been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin’ stone,
But that’s not how it used to be.
When the jester sang for the king and queen,
In a coat he borrowed from james dean
And a voice that came from you and me,
Oh, and while the king was looking down,
The jester stole his thorny crown.
The courtroom was adjourned;
No verdict was returned.
And while lennon read a book of marx,
The quartet practiced in the park,
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died.
We were singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter,
Eight miles high and falling fast.
It landed foul on the grass.
The players tried for a forward pass,
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast.
Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune.
We all got up to dance,
Oh, but we never got the chance!
`cause the players tried to take the field;
The marching band refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
We started singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
Oh, and there we were all in one place,
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again.
So come on: jack be nimble, jack be quick!
Jack flash sat on a candlestick
Cause fire is the devil’s only friend.
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage.
No angel born in hell
Could break that satan’s spell.
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite,
I saw satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
He was singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just smiled and turned away.
I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before,
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play.
And in the streets: the children screamed,
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.
But not a word was spoken;
The church bells all were broken.
And the three men I admire most:
The father, son, and the holy ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.
And they were singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”
They were singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.”
Yup. Connecticut kicked GE out — the personal income tax increases, and the noise about dramatic corporate tax changes (essentially taxing worldwide income for CT-headquartered companies), and, implicitly, the threat of future tax increases on top of these to fund CT’s huge public employee pension deficits.
Putting the new headquarters in South Boston made a lot of sense. It’s a top tier metro for educated population with fast flight connections to Europe and Asia (Europe is far north and Asia is effectively north too because of polar routes). South Boston is also a great resource: I can’t think of any city with a reservoir of developable land so close to the existing downtown corporate infrastruture and the international airport. It wouldn’t surprise me if Arlington VA was a close second: big metro, close to Dulles and Reagan National, developable land, reasonably solvent state.
Being even closer to the exec’s summer places on the Cape, Vineyard and Nantucket, Westerly and Newport, and equidistant to their places in the Green Mountains or Berkshires probably didn’t hurt either.
The outer ring suburb that I moved to is being built up with higher end developers. In 15 or so years when I’m ready to retire, I’ll stand to make a pretty decent profit on my house, and move out to B.F.E.
Win/Win. The thugs can stay put and let their prey come to them. No need to follow the ghettro rail commuters out to the ‘burbs to mug them only to high tail it back to the city. They can save a few bucks and they keep urban crime where it belongs... in the city.
Here in Pittsburgh, certain hell-hole shooting gallery neighborhoods are rapidly gentrifying. Chasing the former gang-banging residents into......the Suburbs!
The “first ring” suburbs around Boston are getting pricier,not falling apart.
Examples-—Brookline,Newton,and Cambridge.
.
I bought in Holly Springs about 10 years ago, fleeing the real estate crash in another state. It followed here, and I was down almost $50k from my original purchase price. That rebounded recently and I just sold a bit higher than what I paid for it (improvements not included).
See a lot of New England folks who are selling at a premium and moving down here (NC) with enough to pay for their homes outright, but that is only driving RE prices up as well, especially with the hot market it generates.
Moving out to the country now, but have a feeling echoes of 2007/2008 is about to appear again, and want to be in a paid-off home before it happens... Fighting to find a house that fits all my needs (had 3 yanked out from under me with cash offers, and am fighting for the 4th. Yes, hot market now, but...
good luck!
There is also the Edge City phenomenon. I was a kid when Tyson’s Corner Mall opened up in the ‘burbs outside DC in Northern Virginia. Now there are many high rise office buildings in the area.
You have the same phenomenon with Atlanta and the Galleria and Perimeter Mall areas, in particular.
The nice ‘burbs close to the Edge Cities are very much holding their values.
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