Re:Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Vall...
by pjc50 on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @04:00AM
(#24977800)
I had a hard time understanding the American conception of unsafe city until I ran the numbers and found that in the 80s Belfast (with troops shooting people in the street and bombs going off) was still less lethal than Detroit. (Population adjusted)
It still baffles me how little was done about this in the US and how it was regarded as a local only problem.
Re:Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Vall...
by whimsicalism on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @12:23PM
(#24981684)
> 80s Belfast (with troops shooting people in the street and bombs going off) was still less lethal than Detroit
Well yeah, even during the worst of the troubles it wasn't like there was a drug war going on.
Re:Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Vall...
by throwaway0a5e on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @08:38AM
(#24979513)
> outside of the US, where cars also exist, there never was a white flight.
Outside of the US economic circumstances in the 1950s and 1960 were very different and living in the suburbs and commuting to your job was not a possible option for economic reasons. Also, "slav flight" or whatever your European equivalent is just doesn't have that ring to it. There's plenty of segregation outside the US. It's just mostly between groups of similar skin tones.
Re:Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Vall...
by howlgarnish on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @05:28AM
(#24978262)
I agree that inner city collapse on the sheer scale of a Detroit is a US-only phenomenon, but it's not too hard to find equivalents elsewhere. Most European cities have distinctly sketchy inner city districts, the wealthy have long since fled the old towns of both Manila and Jakarta for both suburbs and various new developments (BGC, Kuningan) etc.
As a non-American you shouldn't be so quick to relativise the importance of racism because, outside of the US, where cars also exist, there never was a white flight. In fact in Europe the affluent pretty much always move into cities, not out of them, even though those cities also have a lot of the issues surrounding urbanisation. Melting pots and culture clashes, immigration, crime, it's universal to most cities. Pretty much the same in most Asian countries as well, the affluent and poor coinhabit cities. White flight and the giant suburb sprawl is pretty uniquely American.
Even in a place like England, which is traditionally very classist, you don't see the kind of segregation in schooling or housing you have in the US, and London is not super-safe either. This reminded me of a NYT article from a few years ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/opinion/sunday/stop-prete...