[pounamu]

pounamu wrote:

We are being abandoned by our global corporations that would rather take advantage of low-cost slave labor in China.

Miracea wrote:

"Would rather? That's the sole function of a corporation, to make money for its shareholders, any way it can. In fact, corporations become extremely efficient at making money, that's what they do. "

"If you don't like it, then stop patronizing and supporting corporations."



Corporations are dissipative structures. They process energy and material very much like the cells of our body, producing something useful to the whole organism in exchange for the energy and materials used. They are also convenient for putting together large amounts of capital so that the factors of production can be purchased, assembled and given a little jump-start until they become profitable. However, in their red in tooth and claw pursuit of profit many corporations will behave in a way unfavorable to the organism as a whole.

They can turn large areas of very complex ecosystem into monoculture, create moonscapes by mining energy and minerals, spread toxic waste into the environment, use impoverished and desperate peoples around the world as slave labor, say we have plenty of oil so they can profit as it becomes scarce even while they lead us to an energy point-of-no-return. They can sell us addictive cancer causing cigarettes and swear that they are safe. They can pay-off our politicians so that their predatory practices can be streamlined. They can control the mass media so that news that is adverse to their interests can be held from the public or watered down. Corporations pay the mass media's bills and we become permanently stuck on the stupid channel - dumbed down like mindless sheep, manipulated by their marketing psychologists.

A cancer in the body also pursues an absolute maximum amount of profit .

Corporations can even encourage warfare between organisms (nations) in order to profit while the human factors of production are encouraged to be patriotic and spill their blood. Dick Cheney and the oil companies have known about the approaching peak of oil for years. They had a responsibility to warn us of the impending disaster but they wanted to make record profits, make the last big profitable haul as supplies run out. They will eventually leave us high and dry just for shareholder profit.

[coyote]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', 'A')s Aldo Leopold said:

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.

[frankthetank]

My last and only time through Gary was when we went to Cedar Point in OH. I witnessed a bus on fire when we went through. Isn't there a big UPS distribution/trucking right off the interstate?

[IanC]

I agree with the last poster. That series of pictures was amazing in its own way. All of those buildings were part of another era and will stay as quiet reminders of what once was. 100 years from now, my grandkids will have a world where weeds rule the parking lots, broken windows, and echoes of a time awash in oil. If they're lucky, they'll have food and a safe place to sleep.

-IanC

[drew]

Those photos remind me of Detroit's downtown, just where trucks clear customs.

The only people I have ever seen during the day were poor old black guys. No women, young guys or kids. Freaky!

Same kind of 'ruins' , busted windows etc..

Drew

[Denny]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('drew', 'T')hose photos remind me of Detroit's downtown, just where trucks clear customs.

The only people I have ever seen during the day were poor old black guys. No women, young guys or kids. Freaky!

Same kind of 'ruins' , busted windows etc..

Drew

[I_Like_Plants]

Your Italians and Portuguese are classified as whites, and thus would be able to get financing, insurance, etc that's still unavailable to blacks in the US. It would have been even worse in the 1960s. So yes, the racial difference would have made the difference, but not for the reason your typical racist 'Murrikan likes to repeat, over and over.

[manu]

I was thinking of relocating to Gary, but after all of this Gary bashing I will have to reconsider. Maybe Motor City?

[Wiltshire_rules]

I read somewhere that America has an invisible tilt, so anything that isn't nailed down or anyone who isn't shackled to a machine eventually slides into Southern California.

Did all the people of Gary move south to L.A. and Phoenix and so on? Or are they mostly living in the suburbs on pensions and unemployment benefit?

There was some material here on TV about the sad state of Cairo (don't know the state, it's where a couple of rivers meet and so should be a thriving centre), killed apparently by cheaper shopping being available a few miles up the road. Does anyone have any news on this sort of effect?

[manu]

Cairo is in Egyped. Walmart did lead to the extinction of that small town and many others.

[Merlin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('manu', 'C')airo is in Egyped. Walmart did lead to the extinction of that small town and many others.

[Cloud9]

Half of them moved to Florida. The flat woods are now full of strip malls, Walmarts and stop lights.

[Laughs_Last]

Cairo Illinois is at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Cairo has never amounted to anything, it's certainly no Memphis Tennessee, it doesn't even rival Paducah Kentucky.

[edit]oops, Merlin beat me to it[/edit]

[Jellric]

Is there another way to view the picture?

When I click on the link it says "Forbidden".

[Merlin]

The site appears to be temporarily offline.

[I_Like_Plants]

The site probably got slashdotted.

I explored the town of Eloy, AZ once. Not quite a Gary level of abandonment but quite spooky.

[gg3]

Ten points to Poumanou (sp?) for "...dissipative structures." Exactly.

They are also systems that operate on positive feedback loops with no built-in negative feedback system aside from what happens if they kill their host.

As for Gary Indiana, the first question you want to ask about post-PO locations is, where does the water come from and where does the sewage go, and how do they get there? Given the pending climate crisis, water is an even bigger deal than energy. See also the lengthy topic about drought in Australia. If you can't account for your water supply and waste disposal, look for another place to go.

[denverdave]

The current issue of Harper's magazine has an excellent article on how detroit is decaying and turning into countryside again. Unfortunately you have to be a subscriber to view it online. Apparently there are large parts of the city where each block has on average one (1) house left standing. There is an arson spree every year right before halloween, which peaked in 1984 with 810 fires in the last three days of october!

The author, Rebecca Solnit, mentioned peak oil and the coming economic collapse, and finished the article on the subject of local food security and beginning of an urban farming movement in detroit. There was one thing she said that really hit the nail on the head, to the effect of: "The future will not be created by those who selectively give up priveleges of environmental destruction, but by those who never had those priveleges in the first place".

[max_power29]

you'd think the street racers would love these places. There should be drag racing all over the place.

[I_Like_Plants]

Gary, Indiana is indeed the future.

It looks inevitable that I'll be moving back somewhere where the most significant building boom was in the 1920s. I can go back and look at the poi factory building, 1926, still standing, and the only thing standing, in one area. As kids we played around what we called the "abandoned mansion", only cement grand front steps left and all overgrown with trees, not a stick of wood left - probably burned down or taken away piece by piece in..... the 1920s.

The place had a CYO, or Catholic Youth Organization, camp in the 70s - now it has nothing. Other buildings in the area, nothing new done to 'em since the 1970s but I don't remember anything new done to 'em then.

At least people will be able to feed themselves, it will be rough, but not the horrorshow I imagine the parts of the Mainland I have seen being.

Let's take stock, $1050 a month Silicon Valley apartment here, glory Hallelujah there was hot water today, I got to shower. Phone's still out, and so's email. Web browsing OK, but I only take it on faith that my email "should" be working in the morning. Sent off payments equaling my old monthly income on the island with no money to back 'em up. Hope it comes in in time.

I had more financial security, and TONS more social capital, when I made $5 an hour.

Yeah, Gary is the future.