The same thing happened in one of the most populated regions in the US. The area between Boston/NYC and DC, containing Baltimore, was once a city of a million people. It contains an underground subway and was once referred to as the Paris of America, however through regulation and unions it became completely impossible to do business in or live in, and the city collapsed. They also sold $1 row houses, which should have been a dream come true, except in practice the issue was never the house, it was the city government.
Cities offering $1 houses just means the government has ignored the actual issues for decades and is probably incompetent.
Interesting. I heard that Detroit was known as the Paris of the West. Looking it up, it seems this was a fairly common phrase applied to many cities over the years. [0]
Detroit also has had $1 homes, but as with everywhere else, that isn’t the end of the story.
It’s not like there was a “Paris of the…” certification process. If Detroit was, it was well before my first visit 50 years ago. As another commenter alluded to, it is an aspirational marketing phrase. Like how Redmond, WA claims to be the “bicycle capital of the Northwest” without having a single protected bike lane.
I think there was ~13 major auto factories in Detroit at one point, and what would happen is when the UAW would protest, they'd leave one factory and go to another, more important factory (often wherever they were producing engines) to apply pressure. The result is auto makers were forced to build new factories outside of Detroit, first in other MI cities and eventually in other states and countries. Now I think there's only ~three factories in Detroit, including for products that aren't really that exciting like spark plugs.
I didn't realize so many cities were referred to as an american Paris though, that is interesting. It was, certainly however, a beautiful city at one point.
The rust belt as a whole was primarily just companies escaping unions. Cheaper labor may have been an incentive but it fundamentally started with companies who were forced to move production, and US regulation which prevented them from benefiting from local supply chains once they became unionized.
Also, the rents in nearby areas to the north are far from outrageous (hint: there are no major cities for a couple hours), and the Baltimore metro area continues to grow because the area is desirable, even though the city is completely mismanaged.
The core issue today is that the population of Baltimore consumes significantly more resources than they produce because the city managed to drive away a significant portion of the middle class and the government is so inefficent, leaving too many people who are unable to move, are actively part of the problem, or are one of the few that is so wealthy that they are largely unaffected by the happenings around them.
How it got there is a much more complex story than "regulation and unions" but is to some extent irrelevant if they want to look forward to solve the major systemic issues that exist.
If they want the city to recover, they need to provide the basic social services that most people want: clean streets, physical safety, acceptable schools, and minimal interference in everyday life. That has not been a priority of any city government for decades, though I think the current mayor is trying.
The original commenter clearly was stating that overregulation was the issue. You're the one who keeps bringing up that it's "badly regulated", which is both an odd term and not what was originally stated.
I agree it's "badly regulated", aka mismanaged.
Or at least it's continued decline. Great show. All the pieces matter.
I guess nowadays one would not need to employ as large a retinue… but you don’t get to tax the local villages anymore. Seems like a wash.
Very much light entertainment, but it's eye opening how significant of a restoration and maintenance burden it is.
2. Use heatpumps, wood furnaces, accumulator tanks
3. Only heat the rooms you use when you use them.
It's very doable, especially in Italy.
It will cost you a lot anyway, can't escape entropy.
Now, Italy is a bit warmer than the UK, and most castles a bit smaller, but castles in Italy can be on colder mountaintops.
Makes the 2.4 GHz spectrum pretty unusable, though.
They quickly found out it doesn't work well. Microwaves heats up liquid water so the people got nice and warm, but not any of the furniture and such.
So the floor would be cold to walk on, the sofa would be cold to sit down in and so on.
It was a similar experience where initially it seemed great in the winter how quickly a room felt “warm”. But quickly you notice the air itself isn’t as warm which isn’t very pleasant and wait, I’m not feeling “warm” anymore I’m feeling “very hot”.
I basically gave up using them after the first winter except turned up sub-perceptually at like 25% just to add a bit of heat input to reduce the days where I need a space heater.
The real problems are that stone is a terrible insulator, that single-pane windows are even worse, and that air leakage in old structures is incredibly wasteful.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/no-way-back-1-15m-120000548....
It's such a huge social problem that people choose not to accept the inheritance if it involves old properties in rural areas.
Some seems to use the term "富動産" to mean that, but I don't think it's catching on.
Side note: normal real assets are called "不動産" (which pronounces as "fudosan"; it originates from Immobilière in French) in Japan. It's all about puns.
But of course, the person living there would have to pay (equivalent to) $1000-$1500 / year on fees related to water, waste management, cleaning of chimney, etc. And you'd probably like to have the house insured.
And these weren't nice new houses. Mostly shacks built right after ww2, some not having been lived in for 10-15-20 years. Complete renovation projects.
What would happen is that some people from out of town would buy a house, plan to renovate it, but then mostly do nothing. Then many would forget to pay the municipality fees, often times for years. Eventually the unpaid bills would be sent to collection agency, and then a forced sale on behalf of the creditors. But now the houses were in even worse shape, so no one would purchase them at all.
Eventually they'd be torn down.