State collapse is inevitable when a society’s leaders are insulated from the negative consequences of their bad decisions.
Mike Shelby
Gary, Indiana … I was there working at St.Mary’s Mercy Hospital in 1989 for 3 days, Never so Glad to Get Out, get to Chicago and Fly Back Home.
https://indianahub.org/is-gary-indiana-really-dangerous/
It wasn’t this Bad, but You could See It Coming in a Dystopian Movie if You believed your lying eyes.
My point Is … Which “Way?” is America “Trending?”
I worked weekly in Gary, IN from mid ’17 to mid ’19 at a very very large steel mill in the US. Stayed about 12 miles south in suburban area. The south side of the highway shut down for repair for months, had to drive down the main street through downtown Gary every evening after work. Drove thru the aftermath of several crime scenes (shootings).
One day I left early afternoon – daylight, decided to drive around Gary’s side street neighborhoods, the level of decay and degradation was shocking. I drove past Michael Jackson’s home; most don’t know the Jackson 5 grew up there. The architecture from back in the 1920’s WAS beautiful, the city was very wealthy based on the steel industry.
Video link is a good example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8R45ZJkzTk
Sadly the economy is shot. I have to admit it was an eye opener for what happens when factories, jobs, taxes, and the middle class totally go away. I mean completely gone, devastation.
Flew into Chicago Midway on Mondays, drove through the Southside (that’s another whole story) to get to the highway, listened to local conservative radio. The news would report to number of Fri – Sun shootings and killings like sports scores.
City Methodist (or should I say the ruins thereof) is perhaps the most striking example of the effect you describe. What was once an incredible edifice of church architecture, and a sprawling complex built at enormous cost, that served a large number of middle class citizens of Gary, has fallen apart from neglect (and rampant vandalism) over the last 50 years. It seems incredible to me that a place like Gary could have been so prosperous to build such a magnificent structure, only to sink so quickly into economic malaise that it had to be hastily abandoned because it could no longer be maintained.
Of course, that pattern has been repeated countless times in countless cities all across the rust belt. I see the same in my hometown, parts of which were once densely populated with German, Irish, and Polish immigrant communities that sacrificed to self fund and build incredible churches of such scale that they could qualify as cathedrals by contemporary standards.
Most of these were long since abandoned (due to the white flight that occurred from these urban neighborhoods decades ago) and very few remain intact now. Most were lost to neglect, and more recently a spate of fires caused by homeless who use them for shelter in the harsh winters here, or just by outright intentional vandalism. It is terribly depressing to see these places that were built at enormous cost, and were once a source of civic pride to their parishioners, get wrecked in this fashion. But the brutal reality is that these monuments have outlived their usefulness, and nothing can save them.
In that sense, they are no different than the many pieces of infrastructure that are no long adequately maintained (if at all) because the interest and the funds to do so just don’t exist anymore. The contraction of civilization is a real bitch that way. We are the unlucky ones who get to witness the descent back down from the peak.
Correct me if I am wrong. Did not the same thing happen to power crews in New Yawk after Hurricane Sandy? I am pretty sure I read a story about these crews being shot at by the same type of folks when they were trying to restore power in Darktown.
Another fine example of the saying, “America does not have a race problem, it has a problem race”. Hope those guys are making premium wages.
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