Snob Test. Where Would You Live?

[Zardnaar]

Okay, cyclones mean it's out.

Blackpool it is.

Last one was 80s lol. Not annual like USA.

Cyclone Gabrielle - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

More heavy rain.

Blackpool has things like amenities and infrastructure. It's the best out of what I listed imho.

Blackpool it's not that bad. It usually comes up a lot in poor parts of UK I'm sure there's a lot worse.

My picks would be 1. Blackpool, 2 Holmes County, 3. Ruatoria. Mostly based on size town of 2200 vs 750.
Not sure how it works overseas but generally 1000 people or so you tend to have 1 general store, 1 gas station, 1 Cafe, 1 fish and chop shop if you're lucky.

Ruatoria is coastal, climate. Pretty location as attractions need a car though.

 

[Zardnaar]

I would like to recommend Zanesville, Ohio to you.

A byword locally for hopeless economic depression and American decline, Zanesville features charming open-air drug markets in major public thoroughfares. Be sure to roll your window up!

The population has declined in each census since 1960. Approximately 25% live beneath the poverty line, in a town of 20k, where rent is about five to six hundred dollars. Impressive! The median female income is 19k, actually beneath Zardnaar's subsidy. For every 100 women, there are 85 men. Unfortunately, many were lost to drug addiction, exposure, jail, things of that nature. Adventurous!

It is also deep, deep MAGA. They even put up a billboard threatening to jail criminals from Columbus. Lovely implications! No subtexts!

(there are worse further south, it's only slightly below average for Southeast Ohio)

I'll do some reading. Think my UBI is to high tbf.

 

[Zardnaar]

Your hypothetical scenario of depression and squalor is a few shades above my current standard of living, so... anywhere?

You're winning btw. Everyone's picking Blackpool.

 

[Quintillus]

Zanesville has a cool three-way bridge that Amelia Earhardt said made it the "most recognizable town in the country", and is known for its pottery industry. Although that industry was larger in the past. It's also close to the Hocking Hills area of southeast Ohio, known for its natural beauty. Wouldn't be in my list of top 5 places to move in Ohio, but if you could find a decently safe neighborhood, and with the scenario set up of $20K/year and free rent, you could probably do worse. In this scenario I'd probably buy a cheap used Corolla and focus on the bountiful outdoors opportunities.

-------

The worst area to choose in my neck of the woods is generally regarded as East Cleveland, Ohio, not to be confused with the eastern part of Cleveland, Ohio. Three of its last four mayors have been convicted of crimes, the current one has been indicted for four felonies, and it has lost half its population in the last 20 years, an impressive rate even by Rust Belt standards. It has a 41.8% poverty rate and is the 4th-poorest city in the United States, with an average household (not individual, but household) income below the UBI threshold that Zardnaar chose. The city itself is known for being so broke that many local lawyers refuse to file suit against it, even with a good case (which sometimes exists given the corruption), due to the unlikelihood of the city having enough money to pay out to settle. On the upside, it has good public transportation connections to Cleveland, so you could easily travel to Cleveland itself and access the big city's amenities.

You could make a case for East Cleveland having some potential for the future given its transit infrastructure - the commute to downtown is a fairly short and relaxing train ride, so in theory it could develop as a commuter suburb in the future - but given how many of its residents have left in so little time, I can't argue that the upsides outweigh the downsides.

As for the hypothetical, I think one key question is to define the parameters for "decent house in a bad area with free rent". A more interesting question might be, "if you had a $25K basic income, where would you live?", with a goal of finding the best, rather than least desirable, candidate.

 

[EnglishEdward]

You're winning btw. Everyone's picking Blackpool.

Blackpool has a historic tower and a historic tram.

It is not a bad place at all.

Blackpool - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Zardnaar]

Blackpool has a historic tower and a historic tram.

It is not a bad place at all.

Blackpool - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

YouTube lied to me!!!

Cheapest pints in UK. There's Luton and some other places I've heard of. Most of which don't look that bad relative to say parts of rust belt, deep south and ex Soviet places.
Place I wouldn't lije would ve very small towns a few hundred people type small.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Setting the issue of UBI aside.

There is a tendency for councils in the more expensive parts of the UK to
move their socially housed welfare tenants out to cheaper areas to live.

Many of the tenants don't like it because they say we don't know anyone there.

But if those welfare dependents are unlikely to ever come off welfare,
due to ongoing long tern disabilities; it makes sense to move somewhere cheaper.

 

[GenMarshall]

YouTube lied to me!!!

First time?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Setting the issue of UBI aside.

There is a tendency for councils in the more expensive parts of the UK to
move their socially housed welfare tenants out to cheaper areas to live.

Many of the tenants don't like it because they say we don't know anyone there.

But if those welfare dependents are unlikely to ever come off welfare,
due to ongoing long tern disabilities; it makes sense to move somewhere cheaper.

NIMBY. How dare those poor people want nice things!

You realize that "somewhere cheaper" usually means crime-ridden areas, plus buildings with multiple structural, plumbing, and electrical problems, right? Even in the building I'm living in now, I spent two winters freezing because some idiot forgot to replace the insulation they'd had to remove to fix something else, and nobody mentioned it to me until they came in and took temperature readings. Yes, I was offered the use of a space heater at least part of the time (only so many to go around and half a dozen of us were taking turns sharing), but it made the electric bill zoom up more than I could afford.

 

[Gorbles]

But if those welfare dependents are unlikely to ever come off welfare,
due to ongoing long tern disabilities; it makes sense to move somewhere cheaper.

Not entirely sure "put all disabled people in an area designated for them" is something people should really entertain seriously.

 

[Samson]

I would totally live in Blackpool if I had stable work there. Sure it is a bit run down, but it is a beautiful bit of the country with loads more beautiful bits of the country close by. There are plenty of places that almost as impoverished but do not have the surrounding beauty. I would find it much harder to live in a concrete jungle.

 

[Voidwalkin]

East Cleveland, Ohio

This poverty is intense, but would it offend the political sensibilities of our beloved Birdjaguar?

 

[EnglishEdward]

Not entirely sure "put all disabled people in an area designated for them" is something people should really entertain seriously.

It is not an idea that I am entertaining. But the cost of the welfare bill is rising in the UK and leaving many disabled
people in places that are both too expensive and functionally unsuitable for them is not doing them any favours.

 

[Gorbles]

It is not an idea that I am entertaining. But the cost of the welfare bill is rising in the UK and leaving many disabled
people in places that are both too expensive and functionally unsuitable for them is not doing them any favours.

I feel like this could be its whole entire topic. I just wanted to voice my opinion on the sensibility of the government relocating people that you have identified as being disabled.

 

[EnglishEdward]

It is not formally the government, it is merely individual borough housing officers realising that if they rent a flat to house a statutorily homeless
family in the London Borough of whatever, it will cost them maybe £2,000 a month, that is likely double the cost in a rundown industrial city.

Relocating people outside their borough means their budget can go twice as far and they can help house twice as many families.

This is not quite the same as the UBI of the original poster, but it is how it often works in the UK.

 

[Synobun]

Disabled people need proximity to services, something they explicitly would not be if relocated to an economically depressed town.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Yes, disabled people require access to services.

But services for disabled people are most often people.

And there are more people for hire and at lower wages in depressed towns.

What is occurring in the UK it is merely tactical.

There is no joined up plan to coordinate the dispersal of people and improve the services where they are going.

 

[EnglishEdward]

NIMBY. How dare those poor people want nice things!

You realize that "somewhere cheaper" usually means crime-ridden areas, plus buildings with multiple structural, plumbing, and electrical problems, right? Even in the building I'm living in now, I spent two winters freezing because some idiot forgot to replace the insulation they'd had to remove to fix something else, and nobody mentioned it to me until they came in and took temperature readings. Yes, I was offered the use of a space heater at least part of the time (only so many to go around and half a dozen of us were taking turns sharing), but it made the electric bill zoom up more than I could afford.

Thank you for your Canadian perspective.

But I think I'd rather limit my comments to generalities and to the UK rather than stray into my ignorance zone.

 

[Birdjaguar]

This poverty is intense, but would it offend the political sensibilities of our beloved Birdjaguar?

Many years ago my wife and I lived for 2 years in rural Maine outside of Anson, an impoverished community. Our "free" housing was a rundown 3 room house, wood heat, water from the creek across the road, no hot water heater other than the stove. The telephone was an 8 party line. The property owner was a summer resident who lived up the road and was retired NJ mafia. He liked having someone watching out for his property over the winter. We lived off of less than $100 a month. We found friends and enjoyed it but in the end, the winters were too long and we moved back to NC.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Like Bird, I didn't quite understand what sort of experiment I'm involved in, so I might be imposing my own shape on the question.

In the scenario, I don't have to and am not allowed to work. So at least the second most significant element of the experience would be having a lot of time on my hands (after being in greater danger than I am presently in my life, which the scenario stresses through its references to gangs and such).

So what I think I'd try to do with my time is volunteer. I have sufficient culinary skills to work in a soup kitchen. I have basic fixer-upper-style skills. I could tutor kids. So I would make contact with the public school and the local parishes in town (Blackpool has four Catholic churches; even Durant has one), and nose about for how my labor could be put to good use. I might have to seek out sources of funding for materials and borrow tools, but old lady who needs a ramp installed? done. People will be suspicious of a do-good interloper, but if I can convince the parish priests of my sincerity, maybe they can set people at ease on that account.

If the idea behind money is that I have pretty much only enough for basic survival, then that's what I'd do. If the budget is sufficient that by scrimping, I can free up some funds for discretionary purchases, one of the first would go to safety--an extra deadbolt on the door. I'm not too worried on that front, b/c presumably I don't possess much worth anyone's stealing. After that, I'd save up to be able to buy a round of drinks at the local pub for whatever lucky bastards were there on the day I pulled the funds together. (I'd go at a time when there were only three or four present.)

Blackpool and Durant each have a public library, so I'd get a borrower's card. Hunker down after dark and read.

I'd pick Blackpool b/c I'm an Anglophile, so whatever touring I was able to do, even if limited to the town itself, would flesh out my knowledge of English history and culture.