What does this mean?
> There will be islands of prosperity in an ocean of trash
My dude, you have described Singapore (GDP of ~70k USD) next to its neighbour Johor Bahru (GDP of ~33k USD). That's your model place! This is the ideal example you provided and it already fails your test, it is literally an island of prosperity!
- many things are gated. Armed security that is clearly present in places you wouldn’t expect is fairly common.
- shanty towns abound. All over the near outskirts of Johannesburg for example are established shanty towns where housing is thrown together with sheet metal, etc. Favelas in Brazil aren’t much better.
- pockets of great wealth and prosperity surrounded by disorder and heavy violent crime. This has become very common in these places.
- inflation due to populist government policy. This has now started happening here. Too soon to know if it’s a trend or a blip.
Singapore and Malaysia are different places. Since Singapore left in the 60s and went under new management they have thrived.
Parts of cities and vast swaths of rural and exurban areas will be littered with decimated communities full of people without any ability to help themselves. The rest of us will continue to “progress” like you said which means liberalize/decriminalize without any action to support it while further privatizing the the things we do care about like education, etc.
There will be islands of prosperity in an ocean of trash. In essence shanty towns/favalas will pop up and be left there. Individual identity will be valued by the upper classes more than anything and tons of “middle class” people will get caught up in but will live in tiny cheap housing in bad locations. The top 30% will thrive.