WHITE FAMILIES SUCKED THE SUBURBS DRY
Original article: https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/01/benjamin-herold-disillusioned-suburbs/677229/
WHITE FAMILIES SUCKED THE SUBURBS DRY
Original article: https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/01/benjamin-herold-disillusioned-suburbs/677229/
No it’s not, not at all, not if I understood what I skimmed well enough to infer what the whole thing is about. It’s about suburban live being pushed as this ideal way to live and then generations later it turns out that suburban design for living is way less efficient than people living in apt complexes or in high rises in downtown and surrounding. No one schemed this up decades ago as a way to skim, steal and embezzle. Imo this is one of those things that seemed great at the time but no one took the time to forecast how it affects everything going forward.
You have the gist of it. It was heavily promoted, yes, but the cost of bringing city amenities out, so piping water and sewage instead of making everyone dig a well and have a septic, well those costs were almost universally kicked down the line, essentially paid for on bonds and bonds are now coming due, right when we they all need major refurbishing, so double whammy on the current generation.
It also started a fairly craven class warfare tactic. The chosen few who could afford too bought the new development, lived there for 7 years, and then sold it, took the $150,000 or whatever equity they didn’t do anything to earn, and bought another brand new development. The 2nd owner tho, just bought into a house when the 30yr roof needs an “unexpected” $8000 repair, the basements started flooding because the garage settled wrong and busted pipes…you get the picture. Unless you’re the chosen few, you’re stuck carrying the bag and doing all the lifting. No matter what you do. Any complaining tho, and watch yo ass busted down to desolation. Murica.
None of that makes it a ponzi though. That’s my whole point here.
A ponzi scheme is getting new people to pay out the old. See also, social security, health insurance, any and every MLM. See also, fractional banking.
It’s unsanctioned fractional banking and the big boys don’t like being called out for the crooks they are.
The same idea, playing out over time, can describe the credit industry. Really, why split hairs, we’ve been told for thousands of years that the money lenders are worse than murderers. Using current resources to pay off yesteryears resource use. That inversion describes all the above.
Perhaps poison pill is the more succinct packaging. Words are important, and clarity should always be attempted, surely, but semantics aside, everything I’ve written here are all different shades of the same thing, the evil of dehumanization caused by greed, predation and exploitation. A pox on society.
You just don’t know when to stop. This suburban hellscape that some people seem to love is not and I repeat, not a ponzi, at all.
Mlms aren’t exactly ponzis either. Words do in fact matter so get it right.
Poison pill isn’t right either.
Please stop. You’re going off topic and apparently have very very strong feelings about this and I think it’s affecting how you see this particular article and discussion.
Man if you can’t see the parallels then idk what to tell you. Everyone else can. I even ended the post with “semantics aside” to get at the underlying and try and move it past the inefficiencies of language but you persist. So in that, I concede you are right, there clearly is no reason to continue.
You’re the one persisting.
I have and can run actual scams and ponzis and this is not that. Words matter and you sound like someone surprised that no one understands them when they are using literally to mean figuratively among others.
Suburban life is not for me but it’s not a scam, it’s a lot of wasted time for commutes and shopping trips, etc but it’s not a ponzi, not an mlm, etc. No one single entity is getting rich off of suburbs that were built decades ago. I’m not sure you understand how all of this actually works.
Seriously my guy/gal. Go get some life experiences on how this shit works and then go bitch at someone else because I’m fine here. You can sit a book down in front of someone but if they refuse to learn how to read, what can you do.
Bro, look into how many of these municipalities are still paying for their development, generations later, long after everyone moved out. Or read the article. Define scam however you want, Idg2fs. You can argue that the Sacklers didn’t scam everyone and leave us holding the bag, because we used the word SCAM instead of LIED like there’s a great moral chasm between the two. Holy shit, I’m giving up on trying to get this across to you.
It’s like you’re just smart enough to start to get it, but then I stead of diving deep you just reinforce and double down, which makes you just smart enough to be a danger to yourself. Have fun with that. Don’t comment back. I won’t read it.