Some pics of a ride around my neighborhood

The Toecutter

100 kW
Joined
Feb 8, 2015
Messages
1,311
Welcome to the future. I'll give you the tour...

CnD3B0p.jpg


Riding around the airport:

jMItvdF.jpg


0WcdRaE.jpg


e8PWKrB.jpg


02UepCV.jpg


8ZH0ah9.jpg


5BsggBM.jpg


fBLR2fF.jpg


7qIF7tF.jpg


Za5Wb4k.jpg


r0IwME5.jpg


This used to be a homeless camp:

TVl2euf.jpg


Abandoned apartment buildings:

27RDHrX.jpg


jTG57k5.jpg


Gub'ment housin':

CV1p6zL.jpg


More gub'ment housin'(Pro-tip: carry a weapon when travelling through here at night. You might need it. Better safe than sorry.):

TtMXxSA.jpg


Abandoned gas station:

9i147tA.jpg


Met a local with an interesting car at a different gas station:

i4cjWZA.jpg

AYUPO3z.jpg


Next trip, maybe I'll show you all MLK Blvd. and St. Louis Ave. Abandoned buildings are ubiquitous. So is crime. People gotta' survive. I'm the only one riding around in a Milan SL in these parts.
 
Love it! Bleak post industrial vibes are great. Where I am most of the old abandoned warehouses have been demolished and rebuilt for high density housing, trendy coffee roasters etc. I kind of miss them…
 
Thanks for the pictures; when I get a working bike I'll do the same of the Midwest.

I know that not all buildings can be saved, but it always frustrated me that so many companies would rather spend the phenomenal resources to waste and rebuild concrete structures rather than turn it over to people just to see what they can do with it. I know part of it is America is so adverse to ideals like Communes and the like, but there are so many old structures that only exist on tax forms that sit like carcasses of yesteryear.
 
Once the rain lets up, I'll get more pics of the area. Entire sections of my city are literal ghost towns. My city isn't exactly remarkable in this regard either.

electric_nz said:
Love it! Bleak post industrial vibes are great. Where I am most of the old abandoned warehouses have been demolished and rebuilt for high density housing, trendy coffee roasters etc. I kind of miss them…

Where I'm at, abandoned buildings are ubiquitous. If I had the money and resources, I could film a post apocalyptic movie here! Even so, even the most basic house that is in livable shape but located in a ghetto where shootings are a semi-regular occurrence, costs $1XX,XXX USD. My standards for "livable" are quite low compared to most people, this being said, meaning, will pass inspection and doesn't leak when it rains.

CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING said:
I know that not all buildings can be saved, but it always frustrated me that so many companies would rather spend the phenomenal resources to waste and rebuild concrete structures rather than turn it over to people just to see what they can do with it. I know part of it is America is so adverse to ideals like Communes and the like, but there are so many old structures that only exist on tax forms that sit like carcasses of yesteryear.

In this country, doing something that will lower the cost of housing is taboo. The mantra of the current paradigm is endless growth forever on a finite planet, damned be the costs! Available single-family homes are being consolidated by multi-billion dollar investment firms and purposely kept off the market to drive prices of available units higher. Shelter is treated as an investment, rather than the survival necessity it is. Can't afford it? Then just take out as big of a loan as necessary! This in turn has the benefit of driving the costs of housing even higher. This forces average working people into either "voluntary" debt for decades of their lives where they hope they never have a job loss or medical emergency or other unfortunate event for the duration(lest they lose everything) or to rent from the ownership class forever and "own nothing and be happy." None of this is accidental, as it is the result of deliberate policy decisions made without voter input. Access to shelter has been rendered into a decades-long pyramid scheme. Prices must never go down, or the bureaucrats will have less property tax revenue, and the ownership class who bought the politicians will request and get more endless taxpayer-funded bailouts as the money printer goes *WHIRRRRRRRRR* to avoid losses while nearly everyone who took out a mortgage ends up owing more than the property is worth, only for these same bailed-out investment firms to swoop in and buy everything up for a fraction of the price using the taxpayer funds they were bailed out with. Rinse and repeat. After all, that's politically a better "solution" than the alternative of prices collapsing, boomers losing most of their "wealth", and the younger generations as well as the indebted getting a chance at getting affordable but modest shelter that they can buy outright without debt.

And then so many wonder why there's so many homeless people out there, most of whom actually have jobs... Our generation is priced out of owning or doing anything without being in debt for decades, even someone like me who makes an engineer's wage and still opts to live in a parent's basement and save the majority of take-home pay. It will still take decades, assuming the currency never hyperinflates for the duration while all of this screwery is going on(not a safe assumption; I've been making preparations to be homeless if it ever comes to it).

The strategy I'm aiming for is to buy some land somewhere unincorporated, pay for it in full, and live out of a bicycle camper trailer towed by one of the velos while I build a permanent shelter. Dig a well for water, solar panels and home-build windmills for electricity, grow as much of my own food as I can, set up an outhouse for sewage, and have no bills or as few bills as possible. It's the most realistic way I will ever have time to pursue the things I'm interested in rather than having to constantly labor to make someone who is already rich even richer off of my work.
 
Rad Adventure
 
The Toecutter said:
And then so many wonder why there's so many homeless people out there, most of whom actually have jobs...
Definitely not the case in my area.

Most recent count (2020) shows 79% of the homeless are unemployed, 15% part-time employed, 6% full-time employed.
 
Homelessness is big business, have to keep the gravy train rolling. Hire more experts, do more studies.
 
The Toecutter said:
Welcome to the future. I'll give you the tour...

Awesome, thank you for posting! I believe, ES community would only benefit from more threads with photoreports of EV's in its natural habitat with a touch of a local history.

It's actually looks not that bad. Resembles outskirts of some southern russian town, but with all bigger in scale (roads and buildings).

The Toecutter said:
Next trip, maybe I'll show you all MLK Blvd. and St. Louis Ave. Abandoned buildings are ubiquitous. So is crime. People gotta' survive. I'm the only one riding around in a Milan SL in these parts.

That would be cool, keep 'em coming. Also, i've just give quick look on a map, there is a lots of a big industrial areas on the right bank of Mississippi, steel works, oil refinery, canal with locks and stuff. All that would be interesting too!
 
Currently on vacation in Portugal.
Rented a Ebike for a day and explored beyond the tourist zones.
..came across these in the port area..
Many more stored beyond view..
 

Attachments

  • 3B926666-0113-4D1D-82C9-808EFBA1D5F2.jpeg
    3B926666-0113-4D1D-82C9-808EFBA1D5F2.jpeg
    1 MB · Views: 1,258
  • 472323E0-3B98-40D0-BFD8-7F2BFE763AB4.jpeg
    472323E0-3B98-40D0-BFD8-7F2BFE763AB4.jpeg
    1,018.4 KB · Views: 1,258
  • C79114D3-F403-4C05-B33B-5E1F3CB1A7F0.jpeg
    C79114D3-F403-4C05-B33B-5E1F3CB1A7F0.jpeg
    1.2 MB · Views: 1,258
There is a traces of fire on some of abandoned buildings, do you know some more of a story behind it, who or what caused them?
 
Skorohod said:
There is a traces of fire on some of abandoned buildings, do you know some more of a story behind it, who or what caused them?

Various commercial entities own all of these properties and do not do anything with them. In this particular case, I think the owner is a nearby airport. I don't know who caused those fires. Lots of homeless people about the area though. Within the last two years, cameras went up everywhere so that the cops can ticket people for speeding and running stop signs when there's no one to pose any danger to, and also to target the homeless encampments that hide about the area for surveillance and harassment, but these same cameras have proven worthless for solving all of the assaults, thefts, and murders around here.

As scary as this place looks, I think it would be better off if the police were eliminated entirely. On the whole, they do more harm than good, and they won't be there to help when you need it. When seconds count, the police are always minutes(hours) away...

Part of the reason housing costs in the U.S. are so insane is a deliberate policy decision. Properties are kept off the market by banks and multinational commercial real estate firms and then allowed to deteriorate on purpose to create an artificial housing shortage in order drive the cost of livable properties up. The banks and multinational commercial real estate firms want everyone with a massive mortgage that they can extract interest payments from or renting to pay someone else's massive mortgage and associated interest payments, and government policy accommodates their wishes without the public so much as getting a vote on it. Local government's see increased property tax revenue when the value of livable properties is increased. The Amazons, Walmarts, and their ilk lobby(bribe) politicians to get property tax exemptions while ordinary people and small business owners see theirs go to the stratosphere as their property values rise, and if you can't pay, the government forcibly removes you from your property and takes it, then auctions it off to the banks and multinational commercial real estate firms for pennies on the dollar. The so-called "free market" at work.

Rent in this area on the cheapest 1-room apartments now approaches $1,000/month. A minimum wage job's takehome pay won't match that, let alone cover food, utilities, and transportation on top of that, nevermind healthcare, or anything to save or enjoy life with on the side. Even a median wage won't be enough for all of that, and that's if you're single without a family to support. This is why most Americans are in debt and/or live paycheck to paycheck. It won't be long before most of the USA looks like this, because not everyone can juggle around bills/debt forever. Give it 10-15 years and see. This area didn't look like this in the 1990s. It used to be thriving.
 
Back
Top