The change in the complexion of suburbia is a huge part of why we can’t get the support to reinvest in it, just like we stopped supporting universities once the civil rights laws meant that “those people” would get access to money invested in public schools. Within a generation, university systems that had always been free or nearly so were suddenly heavily dependent on tuition and required access to family money or loans. Just another way to maintain the hierarchy while pretending neutrality

(Cont) saw “Black Wall St” as a “threat.” And in America, we say that anyone who feels “threatened” gets to defend themselves. But a threat is not why they rioted and murdered hundreds. The whites did it because the whole culture of huge swaths of America is based on white supremacy + capitalism and Black Wall St, while no threat to whites in any sense other than to their psychic payoff of whiteness, exposed the nonsense of white supremacy.

Your discussion of the terror bombing and murders that leveled Tulsa’s “Black Wall St” is telling — you said that you liked to focus the most on how those folks who started with nothing were able to be so successful in building wealth . . . So much so that, as you put it, “they became a threat to their neighbors” But that’s the tell - because it’s a societal “stand your ground” justification, saying that the whites (who had just been GIVEN all the land in Oklahoma a few decades before) —

But, as Faulkner said, the past isn’t dead, it isn’t even the past. Plenty of school districts in Maryland and Virginia SHUT DOWN entirely for years and pumped all their public money in seg academies, and it was precisely in those years that the government was lavishing the money to get the Ponzi Scheme going, and it was during those years that all those white folks were able to use their GI bill money to buy in for essentially $0 down, while their fellow black soldiers and sailors got nothing

Well, anyway. Having grown up white and lived in two very different settings — North Dallas (not far from Plano) and then suburban Prince Georges County, Maryland just as it was becoming perhaps the leading majority-minority county in the US, I have a view of things much closer to Harold’s. The argument I kept hearing you try to make is “This doesn’t have to do with race, the Growth Ponzi Scheme is immiserating poor whites everywhere today” — which is accurate to a point . . .

Oooops, don’t hit “return” I guess

Thanks for having Ben Herold on to discuss “Disillusioned.” I finished the book today and will be thinking about it for a long time — I could tell you were struggling with what you call a “heavy race lens” but I think you are not nearly as far apart as you think.

Sprawl is the problem — unproductive development that degrades cities and towns is a big problem, and sprawl is how we do that in the US.

It’s fine if you want to be politically correct and avoid using a loaded word because you are afraid of being tarred with the brush of being one of “them” but a convincing case that “Sprawl is not the problem” would be much easier to make if it wasn’t such nonsense. All you would have to do is show a bunch of sprawling communities that are Strong Towns — towns with robust finances, able to maintain what they built for the indefinite future without dependency on money from outside.

People keep thinking Strong Towns must be against sprawl because everything ST is for, sprawl degrades.

5) Sprawl weakens communities as there is a direct correlation between time spent in cars and weaker community ties and a weakened public sphere.

3) Sprawl is a public health calamity, which is further degrading to both public and private finances; more driving equals worse public health plus violent deaths in roadways, plus wider roads and faster roads (trying to maintain the same commute time) means more deaths for pedestrians and the fewer brave bicyclists; 4) Sprawl means more and more loss of farmland and habitat for other species, more runoff from more tarmac, meaning more water and air pollution, which is bad for public health too

I feel like you chose the stupidest possible definition of Sprawl to battle against and defeat in this pod. Sprawl isn’t bad because of the esthetics, sprawl is bad because 1) it’s inevitably the lowest productivity form of development available; 2) It feeds on and further promotes rigid auto dependency, which further degrades public finances, because a public saddled with the need to live in autosprawl has less money and less willingness to invest in public infrastructure that could help

I have to disagree

If people are driving at 35 instead of 45 in a 35, yes that is a benefit to society. Even if it’s only a 30% reduction. Bad argument and take.

Excellent discussion, Chuck!

The question goes further, because that land wasn’t actually vacant before the first building, it was covered by an ecosystem of plants and animals that had been engaged in bottom-up destructive growth for millennia, a condition that humans are incapable of restoring. Who pays for that loss?

I kept expecting you to talk about who did pay for the loss when SanFrancisco burned. Should the costs to demolish less useful buildings be paid by the original builders/owners and held in escrow, or should it be paid by the local community, or should an emergency be declared so the entire country pays for it?

New to this podcast, 40+ minutes into the 15 minute city (?) ep & really not hearing anything about them yet LOL. Heard a lot of bizarre impressions of reality tho’, was good for a few laughs.

It’s juvenile to even recognize the dichotomy of progressive vs. conservative in the first place. It’s a conspiracy by the ruling class in and of itself to sow discord and divide and conquer. So catering to this concept, by identifying yourself as a conservative, which you’re not, and conflating ”conservatives” with idiots who believe anything just upholds real conspiracy. Yes, the ruling class conspires. That’s why we need to get rid of class. How do you do that? Get rid of nation states.