A Solution for the Disadvantaged

[downtown]

Birdjag is exactly right. You've basically described a more expensive, and less-free version of Cabrini Green. The major projects tried to do much of what you were discussing in your OP, only to fail because of the massive social segregation, lack of dignity for the inhabitants, and eventual withdrawal of people like the cops, or grocery stores.

Bird's idea of having the richest people live there as well is a pretty darn good one actually. Without that, I think you'd see in your city what happened to the nicest projects...the inhabitants would trash them after three momnths. Widescale social segregation does not promote societal growth, it creates isolation and resentment. It's part of the problem with ghettos now.

The solutions are not just a matter of properly throwing money at the right thing, but a Chinese re-education camp/prison isn't the answer either. It is insulting and impractical.

 

[warpus]

The pragmatists of the board seem to think that: "fact based, results oriented" approaches to policy are the best means of moving forward

I stopped reading here.

How could something that is based on facts be bad..? They're facts! As in, things that are true. Ignore the facts and you'll never get anywhere.

 

[Shekwan]

Ha yeah that was where I stopped too. The sentence after mentions something about the right wing types wanting liberty, that was a good laugh.

I skimmed the rest and it seems like a "best of" society that combines fascism and communism to create a terrible existence to end all terrible existences.

 

[Ajidica]

uhhh....what does this refer too? :O

My knowledge of the UK may be failing me, but weren't alot of apartment towers built in the seventies to provide 'living communities' or some other such nonesense? All they provided the world in the end were those dull grey towers of concrete that look slightly nicer then the Soviet ones scattered across eastern Europe.

 

[Quackers]

I stopped reading here.

How could something that is based on facts be bad..? They're facts! As in, things that are true. Ignore the facts and you'll never get anywhere.

Maybe the results of following the facts are immoral and wrong?
Black people commit the most crime in the USA, kill all black people?
Hey it reduces crime thats a fact right!

 

[Quackers]

My knowledge of the UK may be failing me, but weren't alot of apartment towers built in the seventies to provide 'living communities' or some other such nonesense? All they provided the world in the end were those dull grey towers of concrete that look slightly nicer then the Soviet ones scattered across eastern Europe.

Ahhh I see what you mean.
Thats right it happend for decades after WW2, I don't know much about it but they demolished lots of terrace houses and put up big ugly brutalist blocks of flats which ruined the local community spirit. I think I saw a Morrissey interview (famous singer) who bemoaned the demolition of his terrace in Manchester.
The argument was that you can fit more people on a smaller space, but it was proven false bcause you need to have a lot of space around each bloc so that sun light can reach the ground floors and lower levels. So it failed in it's practical aim of housing the population and maintaining the community spirit

^^All this isn't hard reseazch just stuff iv'e picked up from television, folk memories and british culture...

Everytime I get on the train to London I see this monstrosity :

it actually looks worse in real life.

 

[warpus]

Maybe the results of following the facts are immoral and wrong?
Black people commit the most crime in the USA, kill all black people?
Hey it reduces crime thats a fact right!

1. That doesn't follow. Not all black people commit crimes. Why kill all of them if only some of them commit crimes? Besides, murder is immoral and obviously not a part of any sort of solution. Do I really have to point this out?

2. Obviously you can't blindly use fact-based reasoning. But without facts, what do you have? Nothing..

 

[Quackers]

Your arguing for facts based and result oreintated policy, where did you outline your morality?

 

[Shekwan]

BS Quackers!

Ballymun is a national treasure.

Power to the blocks.

 

[Quackers]

Not my nation

 

[Ajidica]

@Quackers: We have a couple buildings like that in Minneapolis. Somehow one of them got placed on the State Historical Landmarks list!

 

[Shekwan]

Not my nation

Its like we saw your blocks, and said, feck it, we can do better than that.

And thus Ballymun was born.

 

[warpus]

Your arguing for facts based and result oreintated policy, where did you outline your morality?

Dude, obviously "look at the facts before you start planning something" doesn't mean "let's kill all the black people"

 

[Quackers]

I know it doesn't, yet you argue all policy should be facts and results based. Lets say for instance the best outcome results from the most evil, totalitarian policy? You don't mind because it has the best outcome right?

 

[warpus]

I know it doesn't, yet you argue all policy should be facts and results based. Lets say for instance the best outcome results from the most evil, totalitarian policy? You don't mind because it has the best outcome right?

No.

All I'm saying is that we should look at the facts before we start planning something.

Ignore the facts and you'll end up with something that doesn't work.

 

[countrygrl]

Actually, social security is for the retired, so that wouldn't apply I don't think.

It is also for widows, or for parents that suffer the loss of a loved one as a means of supporting children.

I personally don't think they should have to remain in a walled city at all times to receive help, rather I think it would make more sense to simply have classes or whatnot that they have to attend which teaches the stuff they need to know, but they can travel freely when not in class.

Ideally I would too. But this allows for people to stay off their game. This allows them to miss the mark, and to continue participating in the dangerous activities that brought them to this point in the first place.

Could you source this? Are you sure it's not simply poor education?

What type of specific source are you looking for? Isn't it observational common sense that people who are in poverty have different desires and motivations than those who are not? Isn't it common sense, that if we can observe people succeeding out of bad rural schools, and bad urban schools, that the education isn't exactly intrinsically poor, but that other factors are leading to poverty? I spent the last two years tutoring a handful of pretty sharp cookies out of a terrible school in the Dallas public school system. The difference between them and their peers is how they approach learning, and what they choose to do outside of school.

Again, I'd like a source.

You want a source? What would you like, receipts? Are you honestly unsure if going to the grocery store to buy vegetables to make a healthy salad is more expensive than buying the equivalent energy value of fried chicken at Bojangles?

So where do you draw the line on this? You can't really determine the exact point where a particular foodstuff or a diet in general stops being healthy and basic.

You don't have to determine the exact point. You just have to have a level where you are sure that the costs are low, but the nutritional value is high. Would you dispute that my earlier discussion isn't both cheap and nutritional? Particularly if caloric intake is monitored to prevent people from over-eating?

Do you really think it'd be better to go with such a monumentally expensive and fruitless investment that would use taxpayer dollars to force the impoverished into a state of deplorable civil liberties than to let them have some goddamn chicken strips every now and then?

No I do not. Asserting that it would be a fruitless investment is silly. And I don't think that once the program starts rolling that the investment would seem all that monumental. There are no explicit civil rights infringements. They still have their constitutional and civil rights. They don't need chicken strips every now and then. They don't need chicken strips ever. And you by no means should have the right to extol money from the tax-payers to buy yourself some fattening chicken strips.

I certainly would, given certain reservations (an internet connection, reasonable crime rate, not treated like a jailed prisoner).

I would hope that the environment would be conducive to reducing crime. By substantially removing access to drugs and other items that cause crime, I would hope it would go down in a population that's prone to crime. The goal is absolutely, positively, not to treat people like prisoners. There are certain restrictions, but I do not view this as being even close to living like a prisoner. This should be viewed as an opportunity for awakening and flight from poverty. An opportunity provided to the downtrodden from the productive classes. Internet connections would be available, but again, it would have to monitored. It would concentrate on staying in touch with family members in friends, as well as access to educational resources.

I am talking about the kind of unemployment that arises when the demand for labor is smaller than the labor pool. Maybe due to recessions, or due to outsourcing, or perhaps just effectivization and automatization.

The entire goal is to directly deal with structural employment. This is what we are suffering now. A lack of skills for in demand jobs. If you properly educate people, teach them how to manage finances, give them the skills they need to start businesses, they can very easily transition into new niches. And these areas will always be available should become unemployed and require training and social assistance at the same time.

Are you going to force employers to take in (or retain) unneeded employees?
Or are you going to have government shell out money for huge FDR'esque boondoggles just to keep no hands idle?
Or are you going to hand the redundant a one way plane ticket? Or put them on a one-way mission to Mars? Or a cyanide pill?
Or are you just going to claim that God makes sure there are gainful employment for all virtuous people like another goddamn prosperity theologist?

1. No. Nobody is forced to do anything.
2. No.
3. Of course not.
4. No

What public debt to GDP ratio is the point at which bankruptcy occurs?

Some point between now and the next twenty years.

1. It proscribes that dependents upon the state's welfare be kept in institutions, seperate from the rest of the populace, and lose many of their civil liberties.

It is not forced institutionalization. It is voluntary. Is it wrong to forcefully institute the mentally incapacitated? If not, then how can it be wrong to allow people this voluntary choice, which improves their environment substantially? Nobody is losing their civil rights. You inherently cannot wave your civil rights.

2. It assumes that unemployment is a result of vice. If a human is virtuous there will always be gainful employment.

No it does not. Unemployment can result from a number of causes, but vice is one of them. You can have vice and be employed. You can be a hard worker and have your job outsourced because it is no longer competitive in a globalized marketplace. Either way, you are in need of reform and/or education.

In your re-education camps the inmates are at the mercy of whoever runs the camps. The guardians already have authority to limit use of media in the name of combating "vice". What is to prevent them from abusing those powers to shut down dissent within the camps. What kind of mechanism would be in place to prevent a Magdalene Asylum scandal or something similar.

Not true. The general public would have to have tacit approval of this platform. I do not think the general public would allow gross civil rights abuses. I certainly would not. The people running these areas would be government employees, and serve at the behest of the federal government and the representatives who serve it. If abuses become evident, then officials would face pressure to mitigate and end the transgressions. These people are not inmates. And again, if it is so bad, then people will be more than free to leave. They will just be sacrificing social support in the meantime.

Putting people in camps is also a great way of stigmatizing people and marginalizing them socially. They lose touch with their outside network (that might lead to jobs) and gain a new, but much less useful "network" of campmates (much like a prison sentence can often make a man more criminal). Hell, employers might even discriminate against former inmates, if the populace at large buys into the whole "vice" theory of unemployment.

Again, I disagree. These people are already stigmatized and marginalized. They are already segregated socially. They've already lost touch with the outside world. They do not seek, nor have meaningful network connections that can lead to jobs. The difference is that instead of being marginalized in a slum or a trailer park, you are in a positive, cohesive, clean, environment. What motivation would employers have to discriminate against former participants in the program? This shows that these individuals took steps to reform their lives and progress. It shows they are educated. It shows that they have job skills. It shows they have reformed.

The fact that you use "re-education" alongside "freedom" and "liberty" shows that you not do not understand what those two concepts mean.

And I do not think you understand that what I am proposing is nothing like a traditional re-education camp.

I don't think America's poor will want to live in your re-education centres.
The American poor who want to learn and succeed will do it anyway which means your cities will be empty.

I think your overemphasising the lack of "innovation" in the American economy. Apple, Microsoft. Google and Facebook are not European or Asian; all built up from the bottom by Americans. Europe doesn't have has many tech-giants like you do.

They choose to live in public housing. Is what I have described not much better than the status quo for people living in public housing? It is like taking Arlington Virginia, cutting down some of the high rise office buildings, and putting a wall around it. A walkable, green, aesthetically pleasing environment. With positive media, and a focus on education. It is a place where the drug addicts are taken care of. Where the homeless have access to shelter. This is a drastic improvement, that fosters integration.

And we certainly have a lack of innovation. Just because we have Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, does not by any means indicate that we don't have very real structural problems that can in and of themselves be solved by innovation and technology. It is an unseen hand. I believe that if we currently could meet the demand for doctors, nurses, engineers, scientists, technicians, and specialty trades persons, that the subsequent demand and wealth created by these positions would open up and drive demand for further industry and commerce, and essentially eliminate our current employment problem.

I stopped reading here.

How could something that is based on facts be bad..? They're facts! As in, things that are true. Ignore the facts and you'll never get anywhere.

Then you shouldn't have stopped reading. This is pragmatic at its core. This is results oriented. I was not chiding pragmatism (I am pragmatic on many issues ranging from foreign policy, to healthcare, to environmental regulation, and financial regulation.)

Birdjag is exactly right. You've basically described a more expensive, and less-free version of Cabrini Green. The major projects tried to do much of what you were discussing in your OP, only to fail because of the massive social segregation, lack of dignity for the inhabitants, and eventual withdrawal of people like the cops, or grocery stores.

No, they failed because they did not address or control any of the underlying issues associated with the pre-existing poverty. There was no control, so the underclasses were afforded opportunities to maintain their way of life. Simply sticking poor people into the posh neighborhood where I live will not change anything. They will continue their way of life, regardless of who they live around. Suggesting that you can change the psyche of people simply be rearranging where they live is really...I dunno...silly I guess? If you are going to purport this, then you need to justify it on some psychological, sociological level. You don't have to show me links (but you can), but you need to justify it.

And lastly, just to be clear. We are not erecting high rise tenements. Anybody who is proposing counter arguments that have no relation to what has been proposed is simply using strawman arguments to avoid the real debate.

 

[fromeast2west]

TO the OP: I think you'd be very interested in the results of the Chicago Longitudinal Study and other current early childhood development research.

It's becoming apparent that a lot of the factors we currently associate with entrenched poverty are the result of the environment people are raised in. Things like impulse control, basic problem solving, language skills and interpersonal skills are all learned and essentially imprinted on the brain pretty early in life.

Once people have passed out of the developmental stage where these skills are the most easily learned it becomes practically impossible to become fluent later. It's a double whammy too, because you need these skills to do well in elementary school, where you pick up things like reading and math at other developmental stages. Like the other basic skills, the studies are showing that if you don't gain these skills at the right time it becomes increasingly difficult to learn them later.

If someone is raised by parents without these skills then there is no amount of re-education that can will be a guaranteed fix later in life. They'll still be prone to making bad decisions, with poor impulse control, and without the ability to problem solve and operate in a modern business world fluently.

The real key appears to breaking the cycle. There are pilot programs in operation that are doing well with a two pronged approach. 1. Get new parents in poverty situations enough support, training and job placement assistance to lift them out of poverty. 2. Teach them how to raise children and most importantly, how to teach their children the skills they themselves do not have.

Trying to apply the first part alone (the model of most of our current welfare systems) doesn't do anything to help the next generation. Focusing on the second part without the first doesn't give families the stability they need to benefit from efforts, or provide the economic safety parents need if they're expected to put more time and resources into teaching their children.

 

[countrygrl]

The real key appears to breaking the cycle. There are pilot programs in operation that are doing well with a two pronged approach. 1. Get new parents in poverty situations enough support, training and job placement assistance to lift them out of poverty. 2. Teach them how to raise children and most importantly, how to teach their children the skills they themselves do not have.

Trying to apply the first part alone (the model of most of our current welfare systems) doesn't do anything to help the next generation. Focusing on the second part without the first doesn't give families the stability they need to benefit from efforts, or provide the economic safety parents need if they're expected to put more time and resources into teaching their children.

My solution does both of these things. It provides skills and education, provides daycare, and provides well funded educational services.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Instead of treating symptoms, shouldn't we rather look for a final solution?

 

[amadeus]

In the 60s and 70s they were called "the Projects" and every major city had them.

And look at how they eliminated all of our social problems!