Brutal New York: 1965/95

[Philly-Drew]

Wow. What an unbelievable set of photos. Thank you.

[LSyd]

thanks for posting these. reminds me of the movie "street trash."

blaming this on capitalism is stupid; how did NYC recover then? facism? socialism? the social intervention of big dollars of gentrification, hahahahaha.

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[ElChancho]

oops sorry i didn't mean capitalism i meant the greedy corporate ruling class who has billions to spend on foreign wars, military bases in 130 countries but can't afford to build public housing, provide health care and education to its neediest citizens.

[ElChancho]

I'd like to suggest a couple of books from my favorite American authors

Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

anything by Noam Chomsky......

I really don't see why you guys get so easily offended. Clearly America is heading for troubled times and has serious social and economic issues., Gov Bush ran the economy into the ground. Imperialist war based on lies for the profits of corporate America. Growing inequality in the US not seen since the 1920's. Torture legal, rendition ok, illegal phone taps ect....

And there are lots of alternatives to America's predatory capitalism, look no further than northern European countries...

[quobobo]

Bloody threadjacks...

Imperialist war based on lies for the profits of corporate America.
...
Torture legal, rendition ok, illegal phone taps ect....

Unrelated. If you want to complain about that kind of thing, this isn't the place.

Growing inequality in the US not seen since the 1920's.

I guess that sounds bad if you completely ignore the actual data. The rich are indeed getting richer - but the income of the poor is improving as well, just at a slower rate. Take a look at the data adjusted for inflation: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/incom...inc/h01ar.html

Inequality is growing, but who cares? The rich are getting richer, but the poor are too - just at a slower rate.

Also, those numbers aren't nearly as dramatic as they appear - consider that the mean number of earners per household is around 1 for the lowest quintile and around 2 for the higher ones. http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/03200.../new01_001.htm

Oh, and something worth noting: rent controls were likely a large cause of the abandonment and urban decay seen in these pictures.
http://www.econlib.org/Library/Enc/RentControl.html

[ElChancho]

not really hijacking a thread since no one is really discussing anything.

I'll stick to growing inequality

http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/13995

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/8025

Harlem in those days looked like post war Germany. With gentrification the only thing that is happening is lower classes working-poor are being forced of of Manhattan.

[Thundertubs]

Originally Posted by ElChancho

oops sorry i didn't mean capitalism i meant the greedy corporate ruling class who has billions to spend on foreign wars, military bases in 130 countries but can't afford to build public housing,

Maybe 25% of the hi-rises in this pic aren't public housing. New York built a massive amount.

(my pic)