Quote from: RE on Jan 14, 2024, 12:34 PMLove the Hunter Thompson title.     Dr. Gonzo would have had a field day with this.

As mentioned in prior posts, the NYC Solution to their burgeoning migrant and homeless crisis, the state run Tent City they set up at Floyd Bennett Airfield is turning into a complete clusterfuck.  They recently had to evacuate all the residents to a Brooklyn HS during a storm which threatened to blow down all the tents.  Classes had to be cancelled, pissing off the local residents who depend on this for babysitting.  The refugees complained about the food, lack of services and anything to do.  Now, petty crime is on thee increase and the runway smells like reefer.  The prohibition of drugs and alcohol apparently is being ignored.  Big surprise there.

What is really sad is despite the fact it's a failure on just about every level, nobody has even hinted at shutting it down or what they are doing to create something at least marginally better.  What are they going to do with the next 2000 refugees?  The airfield I believe is now at it's designed capacity.  Buses are still arriving from TX every day.

Clearly thee folks need to be spread out and directed to other cities.  Yet all you hear about are NY, Chicago and LA as "sanctuary cities".  Basically, every city with a population over about 200K should have to take a few.  Subuutbs also should have to take some.  There are whole countries like Venezuela evacuating people.  You can't jam them all into a couple of big shities here.

Amazing how fast dominoes can start to fall in a collapse.

https://nypost.com/2024/01/13/metro/brooklyn-residents-fuming-over-migrants-lawlessness/

Fear and loathing at Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field: Neighbors fuming over migrants' 'lawlessness'

RE

QuoteAt Target in nearby Kings Plaza, one security guard estimated up to 10 migrants a day swipe bread, rice, and other groceries.

The Horror

Quote from: K-Dog on Jan 16, 2024, 04:12 AM

QuoteAt Target in nearby Kings Plaza, one security guard estimated up to 10 migrants a day swipe bread, rice, and other groceries.

The Horror

Typical minor complaints from local residents and biz owners, but the point is that it's not a viable situation for anybody.  You can't just dump 2000 people into a neighborhood living in tents with nothing to do except make trouble with each other and the locals.  There's no plan for moving them on to something besides an Army tent and MREs for food.  They've already been there since November, by the time summer rolls around everybody's gonna be fed up with it.  They have porta-potties, but where are these folks showering?  The place is going to stink in the summer when everybody is sweating on the tarmac.

RE

Quote from: RE on Jan 16, 2024, 06:34 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Jan 16, 2024, 04:12 AM

QuoteAt Target in nearby Kings Plaza, one security guard estimated up to 10 migrants a day swipe bread, rice, and other groceries.

The Horror

Typical minor complaints from local residents and biz owners, but the point is that it's not a viable situation for anybody.  You can't just dump 2000 people into a neighborhood living in tents with nothing to do except make trouble with each other and the locals.  There's no plan for moving them on to something besides an Army tent and MREs for food.  They've already been there since November, by the time summer rolls around everybody's gonna be fed up with it.  They have porta-potties, but where are these folks showering?  The place is going to stink in the summer when everybody is sweating on the tarmac.

RE

I totally agree, but in America you get what you earn.  That is common mythology as opposed to getting something for nothing which is the actual American state of things.  These migrant people who have earned nothing get shit.  They can live on a runway with nothing to do because that is what they deserve.

Now I take my Merican hat off and say this attitude is fucked up.  Besides being untrue.

Calling the runway camp a solution gives it too much credit.  The runway camp was set up because the migrants were bussed up from southern states to give the northern states a fair share of the migrant goodness.  Something that would be an actual solution would bus the migrants, give income to all, and jobs to those who can work.  A program would be set up with the task of integrating the migrants into society.  Free education would be part of the package.  Housing would be provided.

Which of course can't happen because then we would have to treat our own citizens like we treat migrants and America would be socialist.

Our system does not allow magnanimity.  Our system is mean and brutal, with only vestiges of attempts to make it fair fading away under the political pressure of Fascism Lite and MAGA.  Fairness is not part of the money game.  Exploitation is.

Quote from: K-Dog on Jan 16, 2024, 10:08 AMSomething that would be an actual solution would bus the migrants, give income to all, and jobs to those who can work.  A program would be set up with the task of integrating the migrants into society.  Free education would be part of the package.  Housing would be provided.

There was a story a while back about some Billionaire who was buying up land to build an entirely new city.  Why not pick some location and give them building materials and tools and let new immigrants build themselves a city?  Call it "New Start City".

Anybody including current citizens could go to NSC as long as they can use a hammer or drill and build.  Have some kind of standard plan for the housing units that is modular and units can be stacked up as more people come in.  Once you get the housing going, then they can start biznesses using their own currency, and all that gets sent in is food and waste removed.  Eventually, it transitions to a regular city and they develop a dollar economy to generate income to buy food.  A 10 year plan.

Won't happen of course.

RE

That is a great idea and it would work.  From day one these people would have purpose in their lives.  Knowing the end result is parity with regular Americans would make the place clean and law abiding very quickly.  The residents would do it.

Your solution addresses human need and does not warehouse people like the runway solution, which is a sure way to breed a criminal society.  Give young men nothing to do, and they will find something to do.  And it won't be good.  The humiliation of living on a runway would twist me.

Your plan has no chance of being implemented.  Reactionaries will see that your approach encourages migration.  Their solution uses bullets and is much cheaper.  Capitalism makes decisions without consideration of humanity, so the bullet approach will be the solution given current conditions. A capitalist oligarchy resembles a feudal state.  Kings did not welcome outsiders and give them help.  Oligarchs are kings.

Current conditions which the Diner would like to see CHANGED.

Quote from: K-Dog on Jan 16, 2024, 09:27 PMThat is a great idea and it would work.  From day one these people would have purpose in their lives.  Knowing the end result is parity with regular Americans would make the place clean and law abiding very quickly.  The residents would do it.

Your solution addresses human need and does not warehouse people like the runway solution, which is a sure way to breed a criminal society.  Give young men nothing to do, and they will find something to do.  And it won't be good.  The humiliation of living on a runway would twist me.

Besides the obvious political resistance you would get, the biggest logistical problem would be finding a location to drop New Start City.

Let's project its Maximum Size at 100,000 refugees.  Since last month 30,000 crossed the border in TX, that's a little over 3 months, but some of them have other places to go already, relatives or friends who got here before.  So say it can absorb new arrivals for 4 months.

The location therefore needs a water supply that can supply drinking water for 100,000.  This water needs to either be piped in from a current water treatment facility that has enough excess capacity, or you will have to dig new wells to supply a new facility unless it's near a ground water supply like a big lake or river.  Only other way would be to truck in bottled water.  That would be pretty expensive.

Gray water for washing and bathing could be used directly if the source water is reasonably free of ag runoff or industrial chemicals, and that could be seperate.  You would need enough water for that also.

So the 1st question is where in the FSoA is there enough undeveloped land close enough to an adequate water supply for NSC?  Lot's of land in the desert, but no water.  No good.  Most locations that have the water supply necessary already have cities or towns built there.  The only places I can think of that aren't built up are mountainous regions where building roads is difficult.  Also difficult to build the housing, you'll need to have heavy equipment to level out building pads for the modular homes.  I would make the basic unit 16'x16', for 256 sqft per person. 8'x16' modules for each additional person in a family unit.  The parts for the modules thus fit nicely on a typical semi trailer.  Wall panels would already have the electrical conduit and plumbing pipe fittings, so you just snap it together with cordless drills.  Bathroom comes as a 4'x4' module with a composting toilet.  Kitchen a 4'x8' module with sink, 2 burner electric stovetop, microwave/convection oven and small refrigerator/freezer.

So, now in addition to finding the location, you'll need heavy equipment for leveling pads and a cement mixer for pouring foundations.  You'll need a large building onsite where the module parts can be assembled.

Even though all this will obviously cost money, I'm sure it would be cheaper than what NY is spending right now on their shelter system, which is in the $Billions$.

Identifying a possible location is the first big hurdle.  Anybody got an idea on a spot?

RE

Trying to find an unpopulated area with enough water in the west is difficult. 

Find run down areas like Camden, New Jersey.  Level this shit to the ground, then get the residents to work building new housing.  They can help with the demolition.  Give them something to do.  It will take a few weeks to define Allen Town like floor-plans for new housing modules and get what is essentially an employee owned corporation managed by the government for their benefit set up.  The bricks in this picture could be cleaned and pallets sent to every Home Depot in the country.  They would sell.  The city will drain money at first.  In time the city will pay taxes.


It becomes half refugee camp and half new city under construction.  In in two or three years the refugee camp is gone and only a new city remains.  A new city of new tax payers who can help fund the next wave of rebuilding.

We have the slums:

  1 Camden New Jersey
  2 Detroit, Michigan
  3 Flint, Michigan
  4 East St. Louis, Illinois
  5 Baltimore, Maryland
  6 Gary Indiana


Six from the top of my head.  There are more.


Looking harder:  The document matches the area in the photo.  The buildings are already down.  This does not matter.  The Brownfield area is only an example.

Quote from: K-Dog on Jan 17, 2024, 10:08 AMTrying to find an unpopulated area with enough water in the west is difficult. 

Find run down areas like Camden, New Jersey.

The water supply is already in place & sewage too.  So good there.

Don't think it would be self sufficient economically in 3 years.  The reason Camden, Detroit and all the rest of those neighborhoods look like that is because there are no jobs there.  Rust belt cities where all the manufacturing left 50 years ago.  You would have to get some billionaires to put some kind of manufacturing or distribution centers or something.  Not sure what because we are headed for recession.

RE

QuoteYou would have to get some billionaires to put some kind of manufacturing or distribution centers or something.

Can we do it without the billionaires?  Yes the plan MUST provide jobs, but billionaires want short term profit.  There will be no profit for a few years.  Investments take a while to pay off, nothing new about that.  I would know, billionaires are overrated.   All they really are are regular people with a lot of money.  There is no special genius there.

Better we set up state funded companies on the tax dollar until the place can actually pay taxes.  A planned economy, professionally managed.  Like what the Israelis should have been doing in Gaza, but didn't.



If the mob can build Las Vegas, we can rebuild the ghetto.

Quote from: K-Dog on Jan 17, 2024, 12:09 PMBetter we set up state funded companies on the tax dollar until the place can actually pay taxes.  A planned economy, professionally managed.  Like what the Israelis should have been doing in Gaza, but didn't.

I'm fine with financing it through the state, but what would these companies DO?  After they finish building their homes, you have the same problem in Camden they had where they came from.  There's nothing in Camden anybody outside Camden needs or wants.  No way to get dollars flowing in to Camden.

You could create a state run company to make say Wind Turbines, but those are produced elsewhere already, so unless you sell the ones from Camden cheaper, they won't sell.  This is the fundamental problem of a dying industrial economy.

RE

Love this design.  I've played with it myself on Sketch as a DIY project starting with a 20' flatbed trailer.  I figured I could build it for about $30K just for the shell but not with the servo motors you wold need to make it open at the touch of a button.  Also without the bathroom and kitchen appliances and alarm and solar panels/electrics.  The $85K price for the complete unit is great.

If I was healthy, I probably would have built it for my retirement travelling Chattaqua show.  Definitely something I would recommend as a prep if you can afford it.  Take it anywhere to get out of the way of a wildfire, hurricane or flood.

Video at the web page.





https://www.foxnews.com/tech/with-press-button-tiny-house-folds-into-box-you-can-tow-anywhere

With the press of a button, this tiny house folds into a box that you can tow anywhere

Wow, I feel really bad for those poor landlords, don't you?  It's just horrible how these homeless people will go live in their vacation rental properties!  Can you imagine the nerve of these people!

Personally, I'm surprised there isn't more squatting going on.  NYC has 50% vacancy rate in office buildings.  Whole floors are empty.  Gotta be better than sleeping on the street.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-25/atlanta-landlords-confront-squatting-surge-in-vacant-rental-homes?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqEAgAKgcICjDi7PAKMIXduwIwldrvAQ&utm_content=rundown&gaa_at=g&gaa_n=AZsHK_mtqlaZ5LtvQf4ZZ_qauf1QIEnwKSBr8xTSGblToO1idr-uzO0QeBVuPqsziVJHzMpA0qRuWM0kw0X7uPZeK_nA4w42nw%3D%3D&gaa_ts=65b2f476&gaa_sig=7JpP-n3Fn-tN4AN6Sx9FVbNDUh52r22j_SNboxcFqyFKFWzP9msQM4qZTechpkUyLxA2dIfVBawLdukdfYXPVg%3D%3D

Atlanta's Squatter Problem Is Vexing Wall Street Landlords

RE

There's a shortage of affordable housing, and the solution the Market comes up with is to build MOAR unaffordable apartments!  If you missed my Where have all the Houses Gone? blog, I wrote about this stupidity a few weeks ago.

A Goobermint that had any CFS would have put out subsidies and tax credits for builders to be putting up new apartments that would rent in the $500-1000 range a year ago, which is more in line with the prevailing wage these days which is around $20/hr.  Mickey Ds pays $18 around here, CNAs get a little more.  This grosses around $36K, $1000/mo rent is $12K.  That's 33%.  You still have lots of other fixed expenses of course, so if you are left a few hundred to keep the economy going with an occasional movie you're doing good.  $1500/mo rent leaves you nothing or negative.

The longer this goes on, the worse the crash is gonna be when it comes.  With the POTUS election and the border crisis, this summer loooks ripe for a breaking point to be hit.

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/25/1225957874/housing-unaffordable-for-record-half-all-u-s-renters-study-finds

Housing is now unaffordable for a record half of all U.S. renters, study finds

RE

Quote from: RE on Jan 26, 2024, 07:19 AMhttps://www.npr.org/2024/01/25/1225957874/housing-unaffordable-for-record-half-all-u-s-renters-study-finds
Housing is now unaffordable for a record half of all U.S. renters, study finds
RE

As a point of logic, if 50% of US housing is unaffordable for renters, and there must be millions of renters in the country...does it follow that the homeless population, recently measured at something like 750,000 or so....has increased to millions more? And no one has noticed?

Is it fair to theorize that a word like "unaffordable" being used when evidence doesn't substantiate its use is just more proof of everything everywhere all at once having been degraded by the Internet and Joe Averages running amuck and bringing down public discourse to the level of 2nd graders? Only because 2nd graders haven't learned the nuance of many words yet and could be expected to say silly things at their age.

Quote from: TDoS on Jan 26, 2024, 04:27 PMAs a point of logic, if 50% of US housing is unaffordable for renters, and there must be millions of renters in the country...does it follow that the homeless population, recently measured at something like 750,000 or so....has increased to millions more? And no one has noticed?

No, because unaffordable doesn't mean you don't have income enough to pay the rent, it means that once you do pay rent there's not enough left over to cover the rest of your normal bills, so you start having to choose between having a roof and having heat, or having a roof and having food.

For renters making under $30,000 — who already faced the most severe struggle to afford housing — Airgood-Obrycki "didn't think it could possibly get that much higher." But the report found it did nudge up, to an all-time high of 83% who are cost-burdened. She says the amount of money they have left over for all other household expenses has plummeted by nearly half, to just $310 a month.

Good luck paying your utilities, car insurance, phone & food on $310/mo.

Generally,rent is figured to be 30-40% of your income, but when you make $30K and rent is 80% of your income, it is unaffordable.  Not enough left over to live on.  Not the same thing as homeless.

RE