4 ms·

What's so remarkable about this piece is that it says nothing at all about this "disease of blight." What is blight? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight http

by kapitza 10y ago

What's so remarkable about this piece is that it says nothing at all about this "disease of blight." What is blight? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight The article reads as if everyone was expected to know. But in fact, no one seems to know. Or talk about it. It seems pretty clear that Detroit was not reduced to ruins by a plant chlorosis. So what happened? Did the same leaf fungus attack elsewhere, or was this a Detroit-specific disease? Is there a cure -- some kind of pesticide? A gene? Will a new GMO Detroit rise again? In the medieval world, the Roman Forum became known as the Campo Vaccino -- "cattle field." Perhaps if you'd asked the medieval Romans how the center of the civilized world became a cattle field, they'd have given the same answer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Forum#Medieval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Forum#Medieval

maxerickson 10y ago
2 clicks from your wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_decay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_decay (It's a redirect from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight_(urban) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight_(urban) which is linked on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight_(disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight_(disambiguation) which is linked right at the top of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight ) Please forgive me if But in fact, no one seems to know. Or talk about it. was more poetic than literal.
- kapitza 10y ago
  From your link: Urban decay (also known as urban rot and urban blight) is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. It may feature deindustrialization, depopulation or changing population, restructuring, abandoned buildings, high local unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and a desolate, inhospitable city landscape. And: Urban decay has no single cause; it results from combinations of inter-related socio-economic conditions—including the city's urban planning decisions, tight rent control, the poverty of the local populace, the construction of freeway roads and rail road lines that bypass the area, depopulation by suburbanization of peripheral lands, real estate neighborhood redlining, and immigration restrictions. Highly elucidating, I'm sure you'll agree! Imagine a page on potato blight that read: Potato blight has no single cause -- it results from combinations of inter-related agricultural conditions, including... In related news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Here's a page talking about two different things that are both called potato blight... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora_infestans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora_infestans (It's again a link from the first link) Is it so strange that a borrowed word ended up having a slightly different taxonomic breadth?
    - kapitza 10y ago
      No -- what's strange is that a monumental historical event, which happened in the lives of those now living, and caused immense destruction and immense sorrow to many human beings, is not attributed to any clear cause, or human institution, or organization, or even ideology. Unlike potato blight, which is caused by one or more well-described organisms whose DNA can even be sequenced. This is very much the kind of intentional forgetting practiced by many post-genocidal societies. It's very similar to the way Indonesians remember the 1965 massacres, or even the way Chinese remember the Cultural Revolution. There's simply a broad social agreement that "we don't talk about these things." But here, let me help you out with that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Ground_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Ground_(book) https://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Cleansing/dp/1587317753 https://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Clean... It's very reassuring, however, to note that Detroit is now "one of the hottest food cities." I'll be sure to check out one of those New American bistros next time I'm on Linnhurst.
      - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
        There are a ton of papers analyzing what happened to Detroit and comparing it to various other times those factors happened to similar cities. But like most big things, there isn't a single cause, exact duplicates are hard to find (ie, most other cities had only one of the factors), etc. Detroit is just that patient who managed to have a weak immune system, a genetic predisposition to respond to a byproduct of the bacteria, and managed to catch a rare bacteria. They're an outlier, and we can't pin it on a single factor what happened to them. But we can still list off the half-dozen social issues that manged to converge at once and how their various interplays accelerated the issue. Ed: Consider what happened to bananas -- it wasn't just the infectuous agent, it was the large monoculture farms and trade practices which enabled it, and any analysis dependant on just the most proximate cause won't capture the whole picture. Also, bats and cave explorers + tourists.
Animats 10y ago
Version 1: Detroit declined because the US auto industry declined, due to foreign competition. US auto production peaked in 1973, at 10 million cars. Today, 4 million. Version 2: Detroit declined because it became a black-majority city. 83% black today, blackest big city in the US.
- kapitza 10y ago
  Version 1 (unless broadened) does not explain why exactly the same symptoms (if not always as extreme) appeared in many other American cities, not specializing in auto production, at the same time. "Due to foreign competition" is also contentious -- an equal and opposite contentious statement would be "due to free trade," ie, attributing these events to an human political decision, rather than an abstract force of history. Version 2 still contains the passive voice. Notice that both these versions trail off into "no one is responsible." This is consistent with a political memory hole. It also seems deeply problematic (in a number of respects) to argue that Detroit declined because African-Americans moved there. Surely the proximate cause of the decline is not that a new population arrived, but that the old population departed? Here's a clarifying thought-experiment. Imagine that Detroit was a city-state, and you were its absolute monarch, crowned originally in 1965. Then deliver the explanation as if you were talking to your bondholders. Extra points if you can use the phrase "our incredible journey."
  - superuser2 10y ago
    If you think foreign competition was a major factor, the responsible parties are the executives and engineers of the Detroit automakers, for being worse at their jobs than their Japanese and German counterparts.
    - kapitza 10y ago
      You jump straight from the condition "America makes worse cars" to "America should stop making cars and buy Japanese and German cars." A mercantilist or protectionist would jump straight to "Americans drive worse cars." So there is a policy choice: under free trade, Americans get to drive cute Beetles and sporty little Civics, instead of giant Pontiac boats. Under protectionism (assuming version 1), Detroit remains a city, not a bandit-infested wilderness. Human beings (the Guardian would call them "neoliberals") made this choice. So, they're responsible. This does not constitute an apology for the '72 El Camino.

by kapitza 10y ago

maxerickson 10y ago

2 clicks from your wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_decay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_decay (It's a redirect from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight_(urban) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight_(urban) which is linked on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight_(disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight_(disambiguation) which is linked right at the top of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blight ) Please forgive me if But in fact, no one seems to know. Or talk about it. was more poetic than literal.

kapitza 10y ago
From your link: Urban decay (also known as urban rot and urban blight) is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. It may feature deindustrialization, depopulation or changing population, restructuring, abandoned buildings, high local unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and a desolate, inhospitable city landscape. And: Urban decay has no single cause; it results from combinations of inter-related socio-economic conditions—including the city's urban planning decisions, tight rent control, the poverty of the local populace, the construction of freeway roads and rail road lines that bypass the area, depopulation by suburbanization of peripheral lands, real estate neighborhood redlining, and immigration restrictions. Highly elucidating, I'm sure you'll agree! Imagine a page on potato blight that read: Potato blight has no single cause -- it results from combinations of inter-related agricultural conditions, including... In related news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Here's a page talking about two different things that are both called potato blight... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora_infestans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora_infestans (It's again a link from the first link) Is it so strange that a borrowed word ended up having a slightly different taxonomic breadth?
  - kapitza 10y ago
    No -- what's strange is that a monumental historical event, which happened in the lives of those now living, and caused immense destruction and immense sorrow to many human beings, is not attributed to any clear cause, or human institution, or organization, or even ideology. Unlike potato blight, which is caused by one or more well-described organisms whose DNA can even be sequenced. This is very much the kind of intentional forgetting practiced by many post-genocidal societies. It's very similar to the way Indonesians remember the 1965 massacres, or even the way Chinese remember the Cultural Revolution. There's simply a broad social agreement that "we don't talk about these things." But here, let me help you out with that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Ground_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Ground_(book) https://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Cleansing/dp/1587317753 https://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Clean... It's very reassuring, however, to note that Detroit is now "one of the hottest food cities." I'll be sure to check out one of those New American bistros next time I'm on Linnhurst.
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      There are a ton of papers analyzing what happened to Detroit and comparing it to various other times those factors happened to similar cities. But like most big things, there isn't a single cause, exact duplicates are hard to find (ie, most other cities had only one of the factors), etc. Detroit is just that patient who managed to have a weak immune system, a genetic predisposition to respond to a byproduct of the bacteria, and managed to catch a rare bacteria. They're an outlier, and we can't pin it on a single factor what happened to them. But we can still list off the half-dozen social issues that manged to converge at once and how their various interplays accelerated the issue. Ed: Consider what happened to bananas -- it wasn't just the infectuous agent, it was the large monoculture farms and trade practices which enabled it, and any analysis dependant on just the most proximate cause won't capture the whole picture. Also, bats and cave explorers + tourists.

Animats 10y ago

Version 1: Detroit declined because the US auto industry declined, due to foreign competition. US auto production peaked in 1973, at 10 million cars. Today, 4 million. Version 2: Detroit declined because it became a black-majority city. 83% black today, blackest big city in the US.

kapitza 10y ago
Version 1 (unless broadened) does not explain why exactly the same symptoms (if not always as extreme) appeared in many other American cities, not specializing in auto production, at the same time. "Due to foreign competition" is also contentious -- an equal and opposite contentious statement would be "due to free trade," ie, attributing these events to an human political decision, rather than an abstract force of history. Version 2 still contains the passive voice. Notice that both these versions trail off into "no one is responsible." This is consistent with a political memory hole. It also seems deeply problematic (in a number of respects) to argue that Detroit declined because African-Americans moved there. Surely the proximate cause of the decline is not that a new population arrived, but that the old population departed? Here's a clarifying thought-experiment. Imagine that Detroit was a city-state, and you were its absolute monarch, crowned originally in 1965. Then deliver the explanation as if you were talking to your bondholders. Extra points if you can use the phrase "our incredible journey."
- superuser2 10y ago
  If you think foreign competition was a major factor, the responsible parties are the executives and engineers of the Detroit automakers, for being worse at their jobs than their Japanese and German counterparts.
  - kapitza 10y ago
    You jump straight from the condition "America makes worse cars" to "America should stop making cars and buy Japanese and German cars." A mercantilist or protectionist would jump straight to "Americans drive worse cars." So there is a policy choice: under free trade, Americans get to drive cute Beetles and sporty little Civics, instead of giant Pontiac boats. Under protectionism (assuming version 1), Detroit remains a city, not a bandit-infested wilderness. Human beings (the Guardian would call them "neoliberals") made this choice. So, they're responsible. This does not constitute an apology for the '72 El Camino.