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Comment by andrelaszlo | Hacker News Reader

I wanted to see what Flint looks like, so I dropped the little yellow streetview guy randomly. I ended up on Asylum Street (!). I'm at a loss for words:

https://goo.gl/maps/UuPPKQK5MoF2

https://goo.gl/maps/KunFSxxRFWA2

https://goo.gl/maps/yg1NH6ZMkFJ2

https://goo.gl/maps/xVi2n8muHV32

https://goo.gl/maps/pAQEyZSAEw92

https://goo.gl/maps/ssGZRAdiQak (memorial garden?)

https://goo.gl/maps/B2waNiVfeut

https://goo.gl/maps/8Wx2gQ6z8up

https://goo.gl/maps/nAY5Kb73PkM2

https://goo.gl/maps/kTqzqGXQqmF2

https://goo.gl/maps/xWkvXRdACWR2

As a Swede, I guess I didn't really realize how bad things really got in parts of the US. The last 50 years is just one crisis after another for this place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint%2C_Michigan#History

To me, there's something really heartbreaking about abandoned and decaying houses. It's all too easy to imagine the hopes and dreams that didn't play out they way they should have.

View on HN

And not far from Flint, the city of Detroit now has the world's largest collection of urban ruins, even greater in size and quantity than Rome. Amazing, truly, what you see in that part of Michigan.

I lived 2 hours away from there in Central Michigan from end of 2008 - 2010. One of the sadder experiences I had was, one day while out on my daily walk around the neighborhood, there were a mass of people standing around one of the houses. I walked up to see what was happening, and the entire house and all of its contents had been abandoned without packing; little kids toys scattered on the floor where they played, wheel borrows, brooms hanging in the garage, plates on the kitchen shelves -- all being auctioned off one after another. They were literally taking them out of the cupboards and off the floor and an auctioneer (presumably hired by the mortgage owning bank) went down the sad road of dispensing of everything to anyone who wanted it.

And actually there were three auctioneers -- front yard, back yard, and inside, gradually dismantling an entire family's life for anyone to see, and participate in.

I spend a lot of time in Michigan as my company is based in Grand Rapids. It's almost like East and West Germany at times with how much better off Western Michigan is.

IMO this is really inaccurate. Rochester Hills, Bloomfield, Royal Oak, Grosse Point, all very wealthy cities .... the problems are simply accentuated by the scale economic growth/collapse, but it happens in West Michigan as well (Benton Harbor, for example).

I went to school near Benton Harbor. It's incredible to see the literal line between Benton Harbor and St. Joseph. It's like ghetto > river > water front mansions. Pretty crazy to see such different perspectives within such close proximity to each other.

I am from flint and now live in Rochester hills. There are some OK parts of flint but really there's is nothing you can say that is nice other than the colleges.

And yet Ann Arbor is in East Michigan, and it's one of the best towns in the entire country, probably largely thanks to the University.

Oakland County is also fairly prosperous (a good portion of the migration out of Detroit was a few dozen miles north to Oakland County).

I think pensions end up being a big factor. A city of 100,000 people is going to have some trouble keeping up the payments owed by the former city of 200,000. I guess as a society we need to remember to be really careful about promising compensation and then finding funds for it later (pensions were also a big factor in bankrupting GM and Chrysler).

The University and medical infrastructure make Ann Arbor a bizarre bubble of wealth in an otherwise dying state.

I've been able to travel into Detroit a few times sense moving to Ann arbor and the difference is truly shocking. Even more so when you consider the distance between the places (about 45 minute drive). I highly recommend checking out Detroit in person if you get the opportunity, pictures just simply do the place justice.

It's not that bizarre, the suburbs surrounding Detroit include some of the wealthiest areas in the nation. Also, downtown Detroit is booming. I visited in July and it was night and day compared to when I previously visited three years ago. I went to school in Ann Arbor and if I wasn't tied to my current location I'd move there in a heartbeat.

Agreed. Anyone who says there is an East/West divide in Michigan... never actually lived in Michigan.

Ditto. I'm hoping to move back at some point

yeah... i definitely wouldn't go that far.

The west side of the state is nice, but it doesnt really compare to the larger (and wealthier) markets on the East side of the state:

Birmingham, Bloomfield hills, Troy, Ann Arbor, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Grosse pointe, etc.

The far more obvious dichotomy is Oakland county vs Wayne county.

Wayne county(county where Detroit is located):

>About 18.6% of families and 23.7% of the population were below the poverty line

Oakland county (county just north of Wayne):

>About 3.80% of families and 5.50% of the population were below the poverty line

Kent county (grand rapids location):

>8.90% of the population and 6.30% of families were below the poverty line.

Have you been to the eastern part of Michigan? The Detroit suburbs like Birmingham, West Bloomfield, Bloomfield Hills, etc. are absurdly affluent. Not to mention that places like Ann Arbor, and even Royal Oak and Dearborn Heights are doing fairly well. I'd attribute it to suburban flight more than an East/West divide.

Source: lived in Michigan 22 years

A few years ago before the oil boom in west Texas, I was going to run a camera through some of the towns that were off major highways, and compare them with some of the little towns in a Mexico or some other place we consider poor. In many ways the ones in Texas look worse because the population was dying as well, houses with the roof caving in, main streets without a single open business, etc.

I'm often surprised by the ways businesses behave. I was in northern MA last month at a tech company that had recently built a new office building. Not 5 miles away was the town center, which was once a manufacturing hub. In town there were a couple old brick textile factories that were absolutely beautiful old buildings sitting vacant. Those building seem like the exact thing i've seen a couple startups trying to simulate in an office building (hard wood floors, retro lamps, etc with modern open floor plan). Running a medium sized tech company out of a 200 year old textile factory says something, but no one apparently wants to say it. Sure there would be some remodeling expense putting in power/etc but I can't imagine its a huge fraction more than long term rental/ownership/maint of the crap buildings being thrown up that start to fall apart after 10 years.

The environmental cleanup is probably a huge part of the reason companies don't invest in the old mills. Besides the mundane things like lead and asbestos, they are also probably all sort of nasties left over from the dyes and other chemicals used in the old mills.

These old factories are sometimes also designated as "historical", which limits the modifications that new tenants can make and greatly increases TI costs.

Yup... it's kinda creepy. I've spent a lot of time driving between Lubbock and Fredericksburg, TX and it's really quite sad to see the kind of decay that you find in that area of the world. I keep thinking that if I could figure out how to get enough remote development business, it'd be interesting to buy up a chunk of old buildings in Ballenger or Menard (home of 3 cemeteries and a historic "ditch walk")... but then I think about how far you are from a city and think it would be a tough sell for most folks.

In the Northeast at least, there are a fair number of old brick mill buildings that have been renovated and have tech and other tenants. I worked in one in Nashua NH for a few years and there was an apartment complex just down the street in another former textile mill.

However, as someone else said, you don't renovate these kind of properties because it's cheaper than building a generic business park. You do it because you're willing to spend extra for something with history and character.

I suspect the choice to build new may be due to remodeling costs that exceed new construction costs. Abatement of asbestos and lead paint along with bringing electrical, etc up to code is expensive. This may be a case where regulation results in government failure by constraining economic development opportunities. Anyone have any experience bringing a multi-hundred year old industrial facility up to office space code?

Brick and timber buildings would be beautiful I. California, and may even be affordable to literally deconstruct them and move them.

Look at the last sale price of this building, $535.00 five hundred!!

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/530-Kenilworth-St-Detroit-...

Unreinforced mortar doesn't cut it in California building codes. It would crumble in either a moderate earthquake or over time during lots of small ones.

Sale prices obscure some of the more expensive parts of a sale -- leins on the title and back taxes. Sometimes you do get a property for cheap, but always do your due diligence.

Why's that surprising? I'm not surprised it is cheaper to build a new office unit than to renovate an existing dilapidated one and bring it up to 2015 code.

They definitely exist, I used to work in this building:

http://www.americantwine.com

Here's another example:

http://www.thecmaninn.com/claremont/about-us/history.aspx

Here's an older paper from the state of RI:

http://www.planning.ri.gov/documents/tp/TP%20150.pdf

So one note from that paper: northern RI alone had 10mil sq ft of vacant mill building space.

That's a lot. It will take a lot of rebuilding to come close to reclaiming all the space in those old buildings.

Also, those old buildings didn't always take into account things like, say, HVAC efficiency. That kind of retrofitting takes money.

> I was going to run a camera through some of the towns that were off major highways

Is this a project you'd still be interested in?

Something tells me the remodeling isn't the reason nobody wants to build a startup there.

>I'm at a loss for words:

Why are you are a loss for words? This doesn't look significantly different from the town I grew up in (well near). I feel like I'm missing something.

I am a US citizen who moved to Sweden. I've done a decent amount of cycling across the Swedish countryside, and think I can explain.

The sights in these photos that you (and I, who grew up in Florida) think are pretty common, are quite rare in Sweden. That is, it's rare to find houses with boarded up windows, or missing part of its siding, or burnt down and in a state of decay. Suburban areas are almost all immaculate, with well kept lawns, and solid construction.

Rare, but not impossible. Here's one https://www.google.com/maps/@59.0577422,12.4528682,3a,37.5y,... . Just down the street is the old market and gas station https://www.google.com/maps/@59.0578664,12.4544937,3a,37.5y,... .

I can gave a hand-waving explanation. This picture is from Edsleskog, a town that used to be more of a real town. Cars didn't become common in Swede until the 1960 or so. (Sweden was a relatively poor country, and I have a Swedish book from the 1950s where two children visit the US and are astonished that a family might have two cars, when a family in Sweden might have a moped.)

But once cars became common, people preferred to drive the 15 minutes to get to the bigger, nearby city of Åmål for shopping and other errands, and for work. Some of the older building are now no longer useful. Since that area has had the population growth that the cities have had, older places are left to decay, rather than be replaced with something more useful.

I don't know if it's terribly useful to compare the entire US with Sweden. Sweden is about as populous as the Bay Area. If you're going to make comparisons with the worst places in the US, you should compare with the worst place in Europe. Drop a street view guy in the middle of Donetsk and have a look around.

But we aren't talking specifically about the 'worst places in the US'. I and others have commented that many of those shots don't "look significantly different from the town I grew up in", nor "markedly different than some places I've been", and that "this could easily be images from parts of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, etc" or "from any town across much of the North."

You do realize how ridiculous that statement is? Even if you compare Arkasas to New York, the difference won't be as tenth as striking as if you compare a random city from Ukraine to Sweden.

Haha I think I know you from the Python Meetup Sweden is small indeed.

You're right, I'm just not used to seeing things like this I guess.

Tjäna! Jajaman, det är jag.

Despite US's overall economical and military dominance, the poor parts of US is really bad. Especially to people from other first-world countries who thought US is similar to their own country.

For the Americans who have not traveled abroad, countries in northern Europe, Canada/Australia generally do not have the level of poverty some parts of US suffers.

Abandoned or neglected properties are not a great measure for poverty.

The average after government transfer income of the bottom quintile of households in the US is ~$25,000, which is slightly more than the after government transfers to the bottom quintile of households in the UK. Meanwhile the middle quintile of income earners in the UK is about $20,000 short of the middle US quintile.

In Canada (and Australia from what I have read, but not personally seen) the level of poverty in many Native towns is certainly comparable.

Umm, there are no "native towns" in Canada.

It's absolutely true that many of the indigenous reserves here are a living tragedy... in fact, like Australia, we have a long and shameful history with respect to our indigenous population, a history that we're still writing today (recently the CBC had to shut down comments on stories about indigenous issues due the quantity of hateful comments they attract).

That said, small town Canada can absolutely suffer as bad as anywhere in the US (just like America's coal and steel towns, it's not unusual for small towns to be dependent on a single industry, and if that industry suffers the town suffers...).

However, we don't tend to have the same level of urban blight and decay as you see in some American cities.

> Umm, there are no "native towns" in Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_reserves_in_Can...

Most of those have towns in them.

> However, we don't tend to have the same level of urban blight and decay as you see in some American cities.

There are plenty of run-down areas and derelict industrial objects in and around Montreal. It is true you cannot compare Montreal to select cities like Detroit or Newark, but that is because the urban blight there is exclusively a product of systemic racism against blacks in the United States. This is why it makes more sense to compare Detroit to Native towns. Indigenous people in Canada face blatant and open discrimination today that is comparable to what blacks face in the United States.

>the urban blight there is exclusively a product of systemic racism against blacks in the United States.

https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&q=detroit+indus...

Median household income in Detroit: $26,325 83% black (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2622000.html)

Walk a block over to Grosse Point: $89,492 93% white (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosse_Pointe,_Michigan)

Royal Oak: $52,252 90% white (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Oak,_Michigan)

Livonia: $68,973 92% white (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2649000.html)

Yeah, it's not markedly different than some places I've been, but it does look a bit more neglected, because of the overgrowth and lack of cleanup of a burned out building and overturned tree. The roads... Well, I live in California and I'm used to roads being shitty. I think a lot of smaller countries don't quite understand the cost of keeping such a large road network in order. The US is a very large place, and there are roads everywhere.

There are just huge differences in property styles in different parts of the US, and between urban and rural properties.

Road network size isn't the whole answer. Looking at http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Hig..., Sweden has more meters of highway per capita than the USA. Looking at http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Roa..., it has about 20-25% less motorway per capita.

The latter more or less equals the difference in GDP, correcting for purchasing power (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...)

Yeah I agree. You'll see similar scenes in the rust belt. I grew up in Upstate NY and this could easily be images from parts of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, etc.

I had the exact same reaction. These photos may has well be Upstate NY.

Yeah this looks like upstate NY; you can see this just an 1-1.5 hour drive from Manhattan.

Bear in mind this is HN. Upper-middle-class people tend to originate from upper-middle-class homes. What many of us grow up in is found to be "shocking" to the Brahmin class.

Yes, sometimes it is quite surprising how sheltered people can be. I wonder how much of a role the asymmetry of TV and other media plays. People who live less affluent lifestyles can get any amount of exposure to extravagant living through TV, etc.. But the reverse doesn't seem to be true. Maybe the BBC will do a show about those strange "fly-over" people someday...

I guess I come from a different world. This looks like areas I use to walk down as a child.

Most foreigners think all of the US looks like New York City or a Beverly Hills suburb because they see that version all the time in the hit movies and on popular TV shows. My relative came to Silicon Valley and was shocked it wasn't like a space-age city with gleaming buildings and futuristic roads. Like truly shocked!

Yep, that's it I didn't mean to sound condescending. Just think it's sad to see what seems to have been a pretty cozy neighborhood fall apart like that. And no, I haven't seen anything like that here in Sweden but I don't think it makes us better than you.

"Somewhere in the past 50 years or so the media accidentally constructed an artificial reality that was hidden by the on-purpose entertainment reality of TV shows. You look at any of the CSI shows and think, "well, of course this isn't a real representation of actual crime scene investigators." But it never occurs to you to think as they're arresting a suspect, "since when did it become ordinary for professional cops in their 40s to have no kids, tons of disposable income, and regularly go out on dates that end in sex? And what the hell happened to body fat?" "

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/04/im_not_the_one_you_sh...

Right. I live in a rural area in the West, lots of towns look like this (not as green). The town looks poorly maintained but fairly clean, not a lot of trash etc. I don't see the signs that I see in crime infested areas.

In https://goo.gl/maps/pAQEyZSAEw92, the first one I clicked, there is decay and overgrowth everywhere.

The death of the city's economy is completely evident in that view alone...

State and local governments can't run deficits, so a collapsing local economy acts like a fiscal vise; capital improvement debts aren't easily rescheduled, so you have reduced tax bases carrying long term debt payments (possibly with nonlinear, back-loaded schedules), and so operations are squeezed and capital improvements are stopped. Once you're in that trap, you can't get out; people and companies who can move will, those who can't become cost sinks as per capita operational costs rise. Without some emergency stabilization mechanism for discharging debt and dealing with necessary operations and improvements, there's no way for a town to return to equilibrium.

The same dynamics can be seen with companies that operate on a negative cash flow basis and who fail to properly buffer a period of improved revenue that later reverts to the mean -- short-term prosperity can mean long-term impovershment.

Oh, I get that! I'm not trying to blame Flint in the slightest.

I was just trying to explain what aspects of the pictures could cause "a loss of words" for an unfamiliar viewer.

Because a building burned down? It would be nice if they fenced it off, so it shows a lack of resources, but I'm not sure that view really indicates what you say it does.

Maybe that's normal looking in the rust belt, but it's unfamiliar looking to me as well. (Can't speak for the Swede, but I suspect they're surprised for similar reasons)

There is:

1) A burned down building (which has been in that state for some time)

2) Boarded up storefronts

3) Plants growing over the unused fences, which themselves are starting to fall over

4) The lots behind the fences look to have been empty for decades

5) Visibly aging concrete

6) Crumbling sidewalks with plants coming up between the tiles

7) at least 3 of the 5 vehicles are from no newer than ~1998

Combine that with the overcast weather, and the bleak color palette of the remaining buildings, and it looks pretty depressing. :(

Maybe it's not representative: maybe on a sunnier day, the greenery would make it look lush and liveable, but as it stands it's definitely an unfortunate looking Street View, that one...

I'm not saying it doesn't show signs of a neglected area, I just think you're reading too much into certain aspects which may be explained through the area in which the picture was taken.

I'm not sure how long the building has been in that state, but I would imagine less than a year from the vegetation, but that's hard to judge if it all dies in winter. Then again, vegetation usually grows very quickly in those areas. That said, small municipalities move slower, they have less leeway in the budget to deal with unforeseen circumstances.

A lot of what you're stated seems to indicate that you see the open areas here as a sign of neglect or failure. Often in rural areas, building are much more spread out unless they are are towards the town center. There's no reason to build next to someone if you can have a lot or two between you and them. As a city expands, these are naturally filled in as sparse building pushes farther out from the town center and some people don't want to be that far out.

As for the sidewalks and concrete, areas with wet winters that continually fluctuate between freezing and non-freezing temperatures are particularly bad on brick and concrete buildings. The continual expansion of the water when it turns into ice and back into water quickly destroys concrete in these areas. Michigan is known to be particularly bad.

In truth, looking down GlenWood Ave from that picture looks fairly pleasant to me. This could easily be a few hundred feet in either of the towns my parents are from in rural Wisconsin, and much of those towns looks fairly pleasant, if extremely spread out, to my eyes.

For comparison, here's another random spot I found by just choosing a place in google maps and zooming in[1]. Every town has some run-down areas if it's old enough, but having a run-down area doesn't necessarily mean the economy is dead (but I'm not disputing that the economy is likely bad, just that the picture is more indicative of an area than a situation).

1: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0188356,-83.6795166,3a,75y,1...

I could absolutely be wrong about some of those! As I said, I'm not familiar with the Rust Belt. My view is almost exclusively superficial.

Flint and Detroit have huge sections of the city like this. It isn't just a street or two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKQSPJWK5w0

Not just that it burned down. Note that there are weeds growing up the side of the charred wall. It burned down and then nothing was done about it for months.

Besides extra fencing, what should have been done? It's obvious they aren't hurting for space there, so there's not necessarily a great reason to rebuild in that spot even if the owner wanted to rebuild. It's also entirely possibly it was a derelict building, and may not really be owned by anyone. None of these speak well for the economy in the area, but they definitely don't make the "death of the city's economy is completely evident".

In some areas, work that needs to be done by the town or county may take a while. Sometimes that's the nature of living in a rural area.

Yeah, their choice makes economic sense.

I'm not blaming Flint (or any other town in the Rust Belt), just pointing out concrete items that could leave unfamiliar people "at a loss for words".

FWIW, I did some digging on this property. It burned in April of this year. Clearly arson. It was the site of a seedier than average strip club that has opened and closed a couple of different times in the past 5 years.

http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2015/04/watch_as_f...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3051467/MASSIVE-fire...

Under the circumstances, this seems to support the notion of a dying city perhaps giving up.

That could be from any town across much of the North. It's not like it's hard to find abandoned buildings much of anywhere....

Because he's from Sweden, which doesn't allow it's cities to reach this state. Western countries should not look like this.

Exactly. Except you can do that in Sweden because it has 9 million people and a tiny inhabited area in comparison.

The US will spend at least $637B on our military in 2015, which is, for example, between 6 and 7 times what China spends. We also wasted approximately 5-6 TRILLION dollars on the Iraq war for no coherent reason anybody can figure out, even after the fact.

It's priorities.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSB...

If Sweden can afford it, the US can as well. It's a matter of priorities.

It's also a matter of drawing boundaries. It doesn't make any more sense to complain that Sweden is nicer than Flint, than it would to make the same complaint about Seattle or Philadephia. Or, taking the converse, it makes as much sense to blame Swedes for the state of urban decay in Belarus.

Its a matter of politics. US can afford it, but that'd be "Evil Federal Government laying down red tape on locals".

It doesn't help that the local government is sometimes even more incompetent than the Federal Government either. I mean, redirecting the entire city water-supply to a poisoned river? That's some grade A F---ed up right there.

In any case, America overall is a strong country, but the worst parts of America are equivalent to a 3rd-World nation.

It's also a matter of population density. If the people move away, the buildings they leave behind soon start to look like this.

There was a documentary on this (with mostly simulated desolation): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1433058/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

Yes, yes, and you cant get decent internet in LA/NY downtown compared to middle of Fuk nowhere in europe due to population density as well!

I think he is at a loss of words because the supposedly richest country has areas like this.

You missed the

> As a Swede

... part

https://www.google.com/#q=swedish+ghetto

He is at a loss of words. He is not speaking on behalf of You.

The way I try to understand it is that the US is about the same size as the EU, has the same magnitude of population, and generally has less interest in equality of its citizens than EU countries. So there are parts of the US comparable to all the parts of the EU -- rich countries and poor ones.

Twice the area, 65% of the population. There are vast swathes of land that are relatively sparsely populated, and also areas that have historically specialized in one industry or another. As those industries wax and wane, so too do the fortunes of many who live in those areas. This is an example of that, where there was a lot of manufacturing (primarily cars) in this area, and as those jobs have moved the populace is hit hard.

That said, my understanding is that the area is brutally cold and wet, and that buildings and infrastructure there quickly goes to shit because of that unless it had regular thorough upkeep.

Yes, the failure is not that a town decayed post-industrialization, it's that the federal government doesn't believe in supporting the people who are left behind after these busts. No re-training funds, no relocation support, housing placement, etc.

> No re-training funds

Not exactly truthful. Most "free trade" recent agreements (past ~30 years or so) come with some sort of TAA support [1][2].

Why is it the federal government's responsibility to do these things? These are implied powers which the states have responsibility for. The Constitution does not reserve any of these for the federal government.

You can't ignore human ego, denial, and the power of convention. All one-industry towns wane when their one industry either falls or moves. People complain, panic, and some even try to move to find better luck elsewhere.

Ultimately, the largest anchor tends to be housing/property, which in the US tends to be paid for by long term debt. When a town loses its economic engine, demand to move there drops to near zero and the housing values fall underwater at the same time when people need to leave. I fail to see why the federal government should be on the hook for something like this. It would be subsidizing failure in a large way.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Adjustment_Assistance

[2] https://www.doleta.gov/programs/factsht/nafta.cfm

> Why is it the federal government's responsibility to do these things?

Because their cost imposed by federal internal and external policies adopted under the Congress' Commerce Clause powers (including when they are caused by decisions not to exercise Commerce Clause powers -- a decision not to act within granted power is itself an use of the power), and because while certain cities may the poster children for the problem, quite often when regional industries are effect, its not just one city in one state, but a whole state (or several) that suffer substantial net negative effects.

The commercial policy that Congress pursues which results in these harms is usually done on the premise that it is ultimately the best on balance for the nation as a whole, and that the harms some areas experience are more the compensated by the benefits experienced elsewhere in the country. Which may be true, on balance, but if it is, then taxing those that benefit to provide support to those that are harmed should be able to remediate the damage to those harmed while still leaving those who benefit ahead.

It's pretty crazy to think that this will only be a more common occurrence in the future as jobs are eliminated. We should be figuring out how to solve that problem now, not the day after we've suddenly eliminated ten million careers. It's my opinion that we shouldn't try to retrain these people, but begin creating a society that can support lifestyles outside of the labor force. Unfortunately, the how of it is extraordinarily difficult to even consider.

The US is significantly bigger than the EU, actually. http://www.whereisbobl.com/2015/2015-06-alps/lrg/phpRprQU3.j... (doesn't include Alaska, which is another 1/3 or so the size of the continental US.)

> generally has less interest in equality of its citizens than EU countries.

Based on what?

> So there are parts of the US comparable to all the parts of the EU -- rich countries and poor ones.

The US is far more diverse and mixed than the EU, in every respect. You have those that are poor living blocks away from the wealthiest people in the world.

My own state of New Jersey is one of the most affluent, but also has one of the most dangerous cities in the whole country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden,_New_Jersey#Crime

> Based on what?

It's fundamentalist opposition to welfare and social programs and universal healthcare even when people are struggling and suffering can give that impression.

> The US is far more diverse and mixed than the EU

What are you basing that on? The EU is over 50 countries with their own languages and customs and politics.

> It's fundamentalist opposition to welfare and social programs and universal healthcare

We have welfare and a multitude of social programs design to assist those who need help. You can walk into any emergency room in the country and receive whatever care you need even without insurance or payment on-hand. Mind you, the government provides insurance to the poor and elderly. It has been this way for a very long time.

A full 66% of our federal budget is devoted to exactly these types of programs. That's over 2 trillion dollars. Every year.

http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/budget-entitlement-pro...

Where are you getting your silly notions?

> What are you basing that on? The EU is over 50 countries with their own languages and customs and politics.

I wasn't talking about the country-level. Read what I wrote.

The US is highly diverse on a street level. Rich live with the poor, side by side. This is not the case in Europe. In Europe, the classes are highly segregated.

In the US, there is a very real attempt at having diverse neighborhoods with people of different backgrounds living side by side. Can you point to the same in the EU? And you want to talk about equality?

> You can walk into any emergency room in the country and receive whatever care you need even without insurance or payment on-hand.

While this is a benefit of sorts (you won't actually be allowed to die due to lack of funds), it's not like the work you receive is free. You'll end up paying it back to someone.

Where I live, for example, the county tends to pay off debt like this to the hospital for a significantly smaller portion of the cost. They will allow you to finance it for a very long time, but you will still pay for it. Until it's paid for, even if it takes a very long time. If the county decides not to help you (maybe, for example, you're not a taxpaying resident of the place you ended up going to the emergency room in) then the hospital will bill you for it. They might, after hounding you for a while, charge you only pennies on the dollar to pay it. Or they might be convinced to write it off - which they do occasionally, but only occasionally.

The only sure way to avoid paying debt accrued through emergency medical services is to have no assets.

> We have welfare and a multitude of social programs design to assist those who need help.

We absolutely do not, and it is disingenuous to claim otherwise. Europe has vastly less wealth disparity, and many more social welfare programs that ensure a pretty high degree of social mobility. The United States doesn't hold a candle to most of Europe in this regard. And you know something infuriating? My tax rate is only 10% less where I live in the States than what it will be when I move to Sweden. Our taxes are high as hell and we get basically nothing for them. A nice weapons development program, and there's something to be said for that, and then the Social Security ponzi scheme. But nothing else. Sweden has a huge number of beneficial programs that actually help people when they need it.

And your one citation is from the Heritage Foundation.

> Europe has vastly less wealth disparity

How does the income disparity between Flint and San Francisco compare to the income disparity between Luxembourg and Bulgaria? Between Germany and Romania?

> My tax rate is only 10% less where I live in the States than what it will be when I move to Sweden.

No. The Swedish deduction is $2,690 - in the US it's between $6,300 and $12,600. Not to mention that our federal tax rates top out at about 2/3 of the maximum Swedish tax rate (sub-40% compared to 59.7%). Highest state sales tax is under 12% while Swedish VAT is up to 25%. Not to mention capital gains in Sweden is twice what it is in the US unless you make nearly half a million a year, in which case it's only 10 points higher (30% v. 15%/20%)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

> And your one citation is from the Heritage Foundation.

I would say the source has little relevance if what it's saying is accurate (which it is).

So, for what it's worth, you're using some pretty useless numbers without context. And they are giving you a pretty distorted picture of the reality (much like the Heritage Foundation). You're looking at some numbers on Wikipedia. I am talking about my experience earning income and paying taxes in both countries. I'm telling you, my taxes right this minute are only about 10% less than my taxes in Sweden. This is the reality. If that makes you mad, make sure you're getting mad at the right people.

I'm not getting mad. I reread my comment and I'm not sure what in there gave you that impression.

Your experience is irrelevant if it directly contradicts facts and math. Until you supply some numbers I'm assuming you're including things that aren't actually taxes or the math is otherwise incorrect.

The state you're in matters a lot.[0] I have a 3% flat state income tax and 6% sales tax on non-necessities (rx drugs, food, clothing, etc are exempt).

VAT is (almost always) higher than sales tax, and many states with sales taxes do not charge it on food, clothing, etc (Sweden charges 12% on these items). Income tax is always higher. Capital gains is always higher, up to double.

[0] http://taxfoundation.org/article/state-individual-income-tax...

What's that saying? One test is worth a thousand expert opinions? Come to Sweden, earn some income, pay some taxes. You can even stay in my guest room.

So the millions of students with massive amounts of student debt or people losing their homes due to injury or disease don't need help?

Anyhow, the point about rich and poor living side by side happens anywhere where there is gentrification. Some communities, too. I promise you that in some islands in greece there are beggars living side by side to people loading 50" plasmas onto donkeys

>It's fundamentalist opposition to welfare and social programs

Except for the welfare and social programs it has though.

>What are you basing that on? The EU is over 50 countries with their own languages and customs and politics.

Poster was implying about the mix of classes. It's easy for a rich country like Norway or Sweden to look down upon the poor sections of the US and scoff because the poorer parts of Europe are segregated into countries (e.g. Bulgaria). In the US every state has rich and poor sections (and even cities are that way).

> It's fundamentalist opposition to welfare and social programs and universal healthcare even when people are struggling and suffering can give that impression.

You seem to be mistaking our inability to come to a consensus on multiple aspects of these issues with a "fundamentalist opposition. It's unfortunate, but one of the defining aspects of American culture which has served us well over the years, our reliance on self determination and belief that hard work is rewarded, also* yields attitudes that if you aren't doing well then you aren't working hard enough or trying hard enough. Obviously neither of these views are entirely true, but confronting one affects the other, and getting people to reexamine their core beliefs is never easy.

There are plenty of places in Europe where rich people and poor people live mere blocks away. Heck, in the UK alone, I've seen some of the most expensive streets in the country sit fairly close to council estates and places not at all too far away from the type of areas shown in the pictures above.

Quite a few places in the North and East of London can be like this.

A lot of the Midwest US looks like that. When I clicked the links I thought was looking at Northern Indiana.

Central Indiana here. These photos are definitely hard-scrabble, but they're definitely not the worst I've seen even in a 5-mile radius.

For those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt

Or many of Chicago's neighborhoods on the south side.

South side Chicago does not look like Flint. The streets are tree-lined, the worst buildings are boarded up, the houses are solid and most of them are brick bungalows. Many tens of thousands of people live there. The worst neighborhoods, like Englewood, are still kept up, and they're bracketed by middle-class neighborhoods like Chatham --- you might not feel comfortable in Chatham, especially if you're from lily-white Startuplandia, but it's a real neighborhood.

South side Chicago is bad in a lot of ways --- it's a direct result of decades of overt racial segregation, and crime is absolutely out of control --- but it isn't Flint.

A better analog would be Gary, Indiana (for people who don't know Chicagoland, Gary is a southeast suburb of Chicago).

Fair point. I've lived in Chicago for most of my life, but to be fair I only know about Flint from the articles I've read so I don't have first-hand experience to compare.

Gary definitely seems like a good comparison the more I read about Flint.

I assume you are strictly referring to within the city limits. If you include the burbs, then check out Robbins: https://goo.gl/maps/ompv1Df5aqT2

I used to live right next to Robbins. Robbins isn't the most pleasant place in Chicago, but it's nothing resembling Flint- bad either. It's more like a low-income Texas town.

(It's also microscopic).

I was born and raised in the town next to Robbins. My family still lives there. Robbins is the worst of many notorious, small, south-side suburbs (Markham, Harvey, Phoenix, etc.). It is next to an oil refinery. It has an abandoned incinerator. And plenty of other nasty corporations covering the place in pollutants. You will find plenty of burned down houses not closed off, etc. It just gets worse and worse:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/December-2014/The...

Of course, as with any "no true scotsman" argument, it isn't as bad Flint in every way.

Those images don't really show 'decay' IMO. Here is a set of images that demonstrate very recent decay w/in Detroit:

http://www.viralforest.com/you-can-see-the-rapid-decline-of-...

Wow. You win.

Theres so much amazing history in Flint, Michigan. I lived there for ~5.5 years from 2008-2013. There's such an odd dichotomy of greatness and despair in the streets of downtown with such an eerie mystery about it.

For example https://goo.gl/maps/AviSiJQBcEH2 is the office and https://goo.gl/maps/jWHBmk51nxw is the factory for the Durant-Dort Carriage company (which would eventually evolve into General Motors). And yet, on that same block theres abandoned houses and burned down lots. I lived 1 block from there while building a hardware startup (http://lava.io). Theres a great heritage of DIY and Entrepreneurship on the streets of flint. Even today there's a pretty cool group of entrepreneurs working there to found companies and make big change.

I live in SF now, and it's interesting to draw parallels between SF circa today and Flint circa 1910. Once upon a time Flint was the Silicon Valley of our country, and now it's a wasteland long forgotten by the industry that built it. Definitely makes me wonder what some parts of the bay area might look like 100 years from now.

There's a spot like that near me. https://goo.gl/maps/jSVLtA5qQix is Thomas Edison's lab, now a museum and historic landmark. Right up the street on the next block is a huge fenced-off abandoned building complex. https://goo.gl/maps/gskvqGi89kz. The immediate neighborhood isn't bad, but within a few miles are the towns of East Orange and Irvington which have a lot of poverty and crime, and they are next to some of the rougher parts of Newark which are even worse.

EDIT: I noticed a "STYLECRAFT CLOTHING" sign on that abandoned building, and found this: https://books.google.com/books?id=jNwDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA302&ots...

It's an ad from a 1952 issue of Popular Mechanics for "Furniture Repair Kit". Neat.

Remember, we have a lot of land. What you're seeing is an area that was used in the past but not really being used right now, so it's essentially being left fallow. Those images are not evidence either for or against Flint being in crisis (which by all accounts it is). They're just proof that in most parts of the US, land is not at a premium.

Flint is more of a well known place for being an absolutely shattered industrial waste infested area, but parts of East Cleveland would make me want to live in Flint.

https://goo.gl/maps/wMnbyeu5GeH2

Just because of that one house that needs a paint job and some upkeep? Interesting that everyone appears to be able to afford satellite TV. You can surely find rougher neighborhoods than that.

That was one house out of at least 4 that are abandoned on that street alone. Just clicking around on streetview shows you some pretty dismal images in the area.

That white house with the black Jeep out front? I don't think that one is abandoned. Or at least I'd strongly suspect that there are people living there. I don't see graffiti, or broken windows, or garbage strewn everywhere. The cars in the neighborhood seem to be newer and clean. This has the beginnings of an interesting HN poll. Put up a link like like that, and ask:

"Take a look at this neighborhood, and tell us what you see"

    1.) A horrible slum that is a disgrace and
        embarrassment to the U.S.  It is an outrage that
        anyone would have to live in conditions like that
        in the third millennium.
    2.) A quaint lower-income neighborhood.
    3.) Doesn't seem that bad, not much different in 
        character from where I grew up.
    4.) Drug-dealers and prostitutes gotta live somewhere.
    5.) I see a place with home-owners and mortgage
        holders, living the American Dream.
    6.) We are doing a hell of a job as a society, if this
        is supposedly the worst of the worst.

It started as 2 and 5. Abandoned houses peppering the neighborhoods continually degrades 5. Home values have plummeted in this area.

3, 4 currently apply (I'm from the area. Many of us in NEO have a conditions like this nearby), and if the lack of upkeep continues, is headed towards 1.

6 would qualify if you're comparing it 3rd world country poverty living standards or if you really want to be optimistic.

Pretty sure this house in Detroit has you beat: https://goo.gl/maps/Z2fGbLJkiYx

I am married to a Swede, and we had our wedding on my wife's family farm. My family came out for the wedding, and both my parents and grandmother had never been outside of the country (USA) before. It was a bit awkward that most of my relatives kept remarking "it is so clean here" whenever we went to a new place. Some of my wife's family has never been to the States, and so now they think the US is just a dirty craphole because of those remarks. They're not so wrong, though. Cities in the US have a special kind of indescribable grime and smell. Of course few places are as bad as they are in Flint, but there is definitely urban decay in many places.

"Last sold in 2011 for $535.00"

I attempted to zillow that area. This is what I found:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/530-Kenilworth-St-Detroit-...

I am from flint. In your fifth link, if you turn around and see the building with the bright blue painting, that is a medical marijuana dispensary called Michigan compassion care center or something. About 1 mile from that is Kettering university one of the top flight mechanical engineering schools in the country. Also Michigan flint, Mott community college, and baker college are all within 5 miles of each other. I lived in flint and the greater flint area for the first 22 years of my life. Such a sad, sad place. My family worked at the GM plants there now they are abandoned buildings.

Not just Mechanical Engineering. Their EE and Management programs are incredibly solid too. I graduated with a CS degree there a couple years ago too, haven't had too many issues. They also had a fair bit of R&D coming through there and a startup incubator being built when I was graduating.

It's a sad place but there's some really cool stuff going on there between the universities.

I actually worked in that building for ~1.5 years. Theres a ton of cool startup stuff happening right around there thanks to Kettering and UM-Flint. The water situation seems to have dealt a pretty big blow, but I'm sure progress is still happening. If you haven't been back, I definitely recommend grabbing a bite / drinks downtown if you're ever in the area. Saginaw street is a much different place than it was 5-6 years ago.

I went back about 2 years ago for my brother's graduation (he was ME)and it seemed revitalized. Haven't been back since. Maybe I'll swing by sometime this year.

I know poverty is on a much larger scale in Flint, but honestly those streets don't look very different to the rougher areas in most towns I've been in.

I would suggest you avoid googling romanians in Sweden then. Plus you might find down trodden areas in your country as well. About every country in the world has areas where homes stand abandoned or are in disrepair, the difference mainly being does someone need a news story.

having grown up in Youngstown Ohio I got a good first hand impression of what happens when the big jobs providers go away

I don't get it - what is so bad about that street?

> I'm at a loss for words

> To me, there's something really heartbreaking about abandoned and decaying houses.

You're at a lost for words because of some old houses?

At least there aren't gangs roaming the capital, looting, killing, and burning for days. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2328952/Sweden-riots...

I'm not saying either US or Sweden is a nightmare; just that every place has its uglier side.

If you're "out of words" for some old houses and some vegetation, you're probably missing a lot.

You are probably right. I get emotional over buildings quite often. Might be some kind of personality disorder.

Understandable. I also get emotional, though differently.

I reminisce when I see old buildings, even those in poor condition.

They make me think of the history of the place, and the connections I have to the past.

Also, I've lived in a lot of humble circumstances and have really liked the people I got to know, so I'm somewhat biased towards less modernized settings. I understand that there are a lot of problems in indigent places, and I don't want to minimize that at all, but I have fond memories.

This reminds me of Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul and the concept of hüzün. The memories of a once-great city and the collective melancholia of the people living among the ruins.

> gangs roaming the capital, looting, killing, and burning

That's quite the hyperbole compared to what actually happened.

Multiple buildings (including two schools) and hundreds of cars were burned, at least one elderly man was killed.

IDK of anything comparable in the US in this century.

It's hyperbole only in that the area affected was small compared to the rest of Sweden, in the same way that one street is small compared to the rest of the US.

>IDK of anything comparable in the US in this century.

https://www.google.com/#q=cars+burned+baltimore+riots

https://www.google.com/#q=damage+from+ferguson+riots

Yep. I stand corrected. Those are similar and on the same scale (i.e. larger than I had remembered). Like I said, there are worst sights than an old house.

Are you implying that the Daily Mail would exagerate something involving immigrants in Sweden? That's preposterous. /s

One unique aspect of the United States is that it's a huge country, where more than half of the land is livable/arable[1]. When an area isn't working, the economic forces that would revive it out of raw necessity just don't have the force that they do in many other countries, so areas can just hollow out as people move to other cities, to the endless suburbs, and so on. These pictures are primarily just abandoned areas, which in a country of some 5 million square kilometers of arable land just isn't that odd.

[1] I'm from Canada and we often like to talk about how big this country is, but in reality most of us live huddled on the US border, and where 45%+ of the US is arable, just 7% of Canada is.

Exactly. In one sense, it's like seeing a phone "abandoned" for a newer model.

People don't live in the same place for centuries, because they don't need to.

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