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Comment by guywithahat | Hacker News Reader

There's an irony in that there is often a regulatory issue with the local government, not just some "shortage of humans".

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.

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The history of Baltimore is a far more complex story than "regulation and unions" results in "and the city collapsed."

I would argue it really isn't. Massachusetts still has some of the strongest union protections, is one of the most unionized states, and Baltimore has worked hard to maintain an incompetent government for decades. Given the outrageous rents in nearby states and cities Baltimore should have kept growing but has instead shrunk to a half million.

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.

I'm far from a union sympathizer, but you've already moved from your initial, absurdly simplistic description of the issue to a major symptom (decades of ineffective government, ranging from benign incompetence to intentional malice).

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.

He did say that the city is badly regulated…

It's poorly managed, but not due to over-regulation IMO as the other commenter implied (not to say that there aren't some areas where deregulation could improve things).

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.

If poor economic choices, inept management, and inefficient government don't qualify as “badly regulated”, then you are using a stricter definition of regulation than we are.

Who is "we" exactly?

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.

Baltimore is in Maryland.

chat, what would David Simon say in reply to this

Indeed, with five seasons of The Wire, no city has had it's decline so eloquently illustrated.

Or at least it's continued decline. Great show. All the pieces matter.

> was once referred to as the Paris of America

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.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_of_the_West

I would argue unions in particular destroyed Detroit, it's arguably even less complicated than Baltimore.

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.

They weren't "forced" to outsource their factory work, they chose to rather than increase wages or worker rights. And the only reason Detroit got so big to start with was because the auto manufacturers claimed they could pay people more than elsewhere and incentivized them to come move to Detroit for work, only to pull the rug on them later when profits didn't continuously rise as fast as they wanted and outsourced.

I've seen "Paris of the X" and "Venice of the X" applied to many (often not particularly attractive) cities worldwide...

It's aspirational, not descriptive.

Looking it up, it seems this was a fairly common phrase applied to many cities over the years.

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.

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