Thanks for publishing this. Having grown up in the 1960s and 1970s, I was witness to what was then called "urban blight." What many people don't realize is that many poor neighborhoods which were being "gentrified" were in fact healthy working-class or middle-class neighborhoods before crime and deterioration set in, and many of those doing the gentrifying are probably the grandchildren of people who lived in such neighborhoods. It is certainly possible for gentrification to be taken to an extreme, but the basic phenomenon of making a neighborhood safer and better kept-up should not be disparaged.
While I agree with much of this, I continue to believe that there is one superb reason we need our best and brightest, especially those under 40, to leave the blue cities on the coasts and repopulate smaller red states in the center of this great nation. Unless we are able to toss out the electoral college and derive some way of making the Supreme Court more balanced, we will continue to move toward a USA governed by minority rule, which is profoundly undemocratic.
Your observation about the dangers of political south segregation is a great one. It’s hard to think of any greater threat to the republic then the divisions caused by islands of blue and seas of red. No one ever gets to meet anyone who disagrees with them. I’m not so sure I agree about the second half of your observation. I’m not crazy about the electoral college or the current Supreme Court but we still be at each other‘s throats if we achieve the changes you propose. It’s the division itself that’s the problem.
As a flyover resident, I thank the Founders for the Electoral College every day. Those who somehow view the Electoral College and the Senate as corruptions of democracy apparently think it is acceptable for the US between the Hudson River and the Sierra Nevada to be ruled by coastal city dwellers. Frankly, that seems illiberal to me.
Thanks for publishing this. Having grown up in the 1960s and 1970s, I was witness to what was then called "urban blight." What many people don't realize is that many poor neighborhoods which were being "gentrified" were in fact healthy working-class or middle-class neighborhoods before crime and deterioration set in, and many of those doing the gentrifying are probably the grandchildren of people who lived in such neighborhoods. It is certainly possible for gentrification to be taken to an extreme, but the basic phenomenon of making a neighborhood safer and better kept-up should not be disparaged.
While I agree with much of this, I continue to believe that there is one superb reason we need our best and brightest, especially those under 40, to leave the blue cities on the coasts and repopulate smaller red states in the center of this great nation. Unless we are able to toss out the electoral college and derive some way of making the Supreme Court more balanced, we will continue to move toward a USA governed by minority rule, which is profoundly undemocratic.
Your observation about the dangers of political south segregation is a great one. It’s hard to think of any greater threat to the republic then the divisions caused by islands of blue and seas of red. No one ever gets to meet anyone who disagrees with them. I’m not so sure I agree about the second half of your observation. I’m not crazy about the electoral college or the current Supreme Court but we still be at each other‘s throats if we achieve the changes you propose. It’s the division itself that’s the problem.
As a flyover resident, I thank the Founders for the Electoral College every day. Those who somehow view the Electoral College and the Senate as corruptions of democracy apparently think it is acceptable for the US between the Hudson River and the Sierra Nevada to be ruled by coastal city dwellers. Frankly, that seems illiberal to me.
Keyword. YIMBY!