Good-bye, San Francisco. Hello, St. Louis.
Dave Simpson
Stuart Redford @ SenaReider Advertising
nos...@newsranger.com wrote on 8/8/01 09:20 AM:
> http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/08/moving_on/index.html
>
>
Yup. I remember the SF of the 70s and I now go there every few months on
business. It's awful now; hostile. It's losing it's uniqueness very fast.
Too much money. Too many people there for that.
-Stuart
A. Moore
>
> in article nFdc7.2848$NJ6....@www.newsranger.com, Dave Simpson at
> nos...@newsranger.com wrote on 8/8/01 09:20 AM:
>
> > http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/08/moving_on/index.html
> >
> >
> Yup. I remember the SF of the 70s and I now go there every few months on
> business. It's awful now; hostile. It's losing it's uniqueness very fast.
In the '70s, that's what I said about it in the '50s. In the '50s, Herb
Caen was saying it about the city in the '30s...
>
> Too much money. Too many people there for that.
Something like that.
Al Moore
David Kaye
" Yup. I remember the SF of the 70s and I now go there every few months on
" business. It's awful now; hostile. It's losing it's uniqueness very fast.
It was said the other day that 22% of people living in SF were living here
20 years ago. Lots of flux. But is there uniqueness here? If you have
to ask, you don't know where to look.
--
(C) 2001 Faith is to believe what we do not see;
David Kaye and the reward of this faith is to see what
we believe. -- Saint Augustine
David Kaye
" http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/08/moving_on/index.html
Heh...he's one of those guys whose bags I'd be happy to carry to the
airport. A whiner. SF is a rough city; it has *always* been a rough
city. SF does not love you. It does not love anyone. Rush Limbaugh once
said that SF is like a high class hooker you want to love, but who will
never love you back.
He says that cheap places to eat and drink and listen to and play music
dried up. He may think so, but anybody who is truly in love with this
city knows better. They're there. Heck, every night of the week I can
think of at least one or two venues with not only cheap but FREE music.
And cheap drinks? Does $1.50 for a beer sound cheap? I know a place.
And cheap food? How about a huge salmon salad sandwich with coleslaw and
fries for $6.95? And places to play music? Bars, cafes, even streets!
The guy is just a whiny crybaby with no imagination and no desire to seek
out interesting places.
--
(C) 2001 He who hesitates is a damned fool. -- Mae West
David Kaye
David Nebenzahl
> Dave Simpson wrote the quoted material below:
> " http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/08/moving_on/index.html
[...]
> He says that cheap places to eat and drink and listen to and play music
> dried up. He may think so, but anybody who is truly in love with this
> city knows better. They're there.
I'm guessing, for instance, that he's never set foot in the Tennessee
Grill--and that his yuppie ass wouldn't even consider going to such a place
anyhow.
--
Coming to you from Rotating Outage Block 7, home of ^(#0h=9 .:Wi2|1z
NO CARRIER
Jym Dyer
=v= Summary: He complains about the cellphone-yapping SUV-
driving crowd and moves to St. Louis, where his main thrill
seems to be finding places to drive and park. Pathetic.
<_Jym_>
Dave Simpson
>Heh...he's one of those guys whose bags I'd be happy to carry to the
>airport. A whiner. SF is a rough city; it has *always* been a rough
>city. SF does not love you. It does not love anyone. Rush Limbaugh once
>said that SF is like a high class hooker you want to love, but who will
>never love you back.
Salon's authors are primarily liberal.
>He says that cheap places to eat and drink and listen to and play music
>dried up. He may think so, but anybody who is truly in love with this
>city knows better. They're there. Heck, every night of the week I can
>think of at least one or two venues with not only cheap but FREE music.
>And cheap drinks? Does $1.50 for a beer sound cheap? I know a place.
>And cheap food? How about a huge salmon salad sandwich with coleslaw and
>fries for $6.95? And places to play music? Bars, cafes, even streets!
>
>The guy is just a whiny crybaby with no imagination and no desire to seek
>out interesting places.
I think it was a case of disenchantment with its population by people from the
south, from Silicon Valley proper. Oh, well. (The Marina district was full of
yuppies before the dot-com bubble nonsense; remember the yuppies and their
Marina homes after the earthquake some years ago?)
I did find it of passing interest because it mentions the city by which the
metro
area is still known (and I grew up in the Bay Area), as well as a city where I'm
now
for the next year minimum. He was right about the seasons (in California there
are
two, a wet winter and a dry summer; in the East there are four seasons) and
about
parts of the town, how lively they are, etc..
Dave Simpson
wrob
>
> Dave Simpson wrote the quoted material below:
> " http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/08/moving_on/index.html
>
> Heh...he's one of those guys whose bags I'd be happy to carry to the
> airport. A whiner. SF is a rough city; it has *always* been a rough
> city. SF does not love you. It does not love anyone. Rush Limbaugh once
> said that SF is like a high class hooker you want to love, but who will
> never love you back.
Hee hee! Can I quote you on this?? :-)
-Brian Robinson in Washington DC
PS--DC does not love you either. DC does not love anyone. Rush Limbaugh
once said that DC is like a broken down old crack ho, who you'd like to
reform, but she just wants your money. God only knows what he said
about Saint Louis. :-b!
SCR
wrote on 8/8/01 03:47 PM:
I think you're just supporting his point. You sound like a New Yorker.
scr
David Kaye
" I think you're just supporting his point. You sound like a New Yorker.
Well, he complains like that old country song, "All The Good Times Are
Done and Gone". Nonsense. Everything he's looking for is still here:
cheap food, cheap liquor, good cheap music, places to jam, affordable
places to live. They're all here, but a person has to take the time to
know the lay of the land to find them.
What happened was that so many people came to SF thinking it was
Disneyland. If you want a theme park, go to Disneyland. SF is not
Disneyland. It's a hard place. It always has been a hard place, going
back to the Gold Rush of the 1850s when eggs cost $2 each (in 1850
dollars, that is) because so many people got wealthy from the gold fields.
Yes, SF is a magical place to some people (including me and most of the
people I hang with), but it's clearly not for everyone.
I was happy when SF had 630,000 people and feel a little uncomfortable
that it rose to 800,000. That's a lot more people, so I'm happy that some
of them are moving away.
--
(C) 2001 A day spent as the Queen of England could change your life.
David Kaye Of course, so could an IRS audit. -- some comic
David Kaye
" I'm guessing, for instance, that he's never set foot in the Tennessee
" Grill--and that his yuppie ass wouldn't even consider going to such a
" place anyhow.
Oh, of course not. There are so many places that both you and I know for
good cheap food and entertainment.
My favorite has got to be the Bay View Boat Club, but the yuppie scum
writer likely doesn't know have any friends downwardly mobile enough to be
a member and sponsor him. I've heard some of the best jazz and had some
of the cheapest beer there on the Embarcadero. I'm hoping to go camping
with them up at their place in the Delta next weekend.
--
(C) 2001 All five U.S. presidents with
David Kaye beards have been Republicans
Vincent Valencio
horrible horrible place. I vacationed there recently and the place
was so heavily littered. The people were very rude, unfriendly. The
weather was atrocious, the food was bad. And I have seen more crime
there then in Chicago. There is nothing there. Just like Toronto.
No class, no culture.
What a moron to have picked a trash heap over California's sunny
beaches. Somebody needs to knock some sense into the fool.
Dave Simpson <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message news:<nFdc7.2848$NJ6....@www.newsranger.com>...
> http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/08/moving_on/index.html
Kate Wintjen
And just where in St. Louis did you vacation?
--
************************************************************
E-mail provided is a legit email address that is permanently
"on vacation". Any e-mail sent to it is assumed to be SPAM.
I will post my real email address in a message on request.
(in form username AT server DOT com/net of course).
************************************************************
Exile on Market Street
<nos...@newsranger.com> wrote:
> I did find it of passing interest because it mentions the city by which the
> metro
> area is still known (and I grew up in the Bay Area), as well as a city
where I'm
> now
> for the next year minimum. He was right about the seasons (in California
there
> are
> two, a wet winter and a dry summer; in the East there are four seasons) and
> about
> parts of the town, how lively they are, etc..
And of course he'd gravitate towards the Central West End.
I'm not surprised at all that "young man with a goatee" would be sufficient
to distinguish a person, goatees not being terribly common in the Midwest
(or they weren't when I was last there).
However, there's one St. Louis claim to fame that rankles me every time I
see it. Quoting the story:
> Which is why my friends looked so shocked when I told them I was moving
> to St. Louis, the Gateway City, a town that defines itself as a
> *historical jumping-off point to somewhere else* [emphasis mine]
_Pace_ those steamboats carrying Exodusters in search of the Promised Land
in *Kansas*[1] up the Mississippi, only to find out there was no such
paradise in the offing (or to head just a little further west and have
their hopes dashed in Kansas City), *it ain't even that.* The covered
wagons departed from Independence, the "Queen City of the Trails."
Then again, if you were coming from points east or south, and your ultimate
destination was somewhere in the West, you usually *did* have to pass
through St. Louis (and change modes of transport there) on your trek, so
maybe I should cut some slack here.
[1]My mom -- Nebraska-born, Kansas-raised, proud Jayhawk alum -- may not
have had the Exodusters specifically in mind with her explanation of how
Kansas came to be settled, but it sort of fits anyway. As she put it,
"Nobody set out across the country saying 'We're going to settle in
Kansas!' Kansas was where the wagons broke down en route to where they were
going." (And to tie this in to official state trivia, the state motto of
Kansas -- "Ad astra per aspera" ["To the stars through difficulties"] --
seems to suggest the same.)
--
Sandy Smith, University Relations / 215.898.1423 / smi...@pobox.upenn.edu
Managing Editor, _Pennsylvania Current_ cur...@pobox.upenn.edu
Penn Web Team -- Web Editor webm...@isc.upenn.edu
I speak for myself here, not Penn http://pobox.upenn.edu/~smiths/
"That Tony Lombardo guy that you share your life with -- is he homosexual
too?"
--Late former mayor and talk-show host Frank Rizzo, to _Philadelphia Gay
News_ publisher Mark Segal on the first night of Rizzo's talk show
---------------------------(as reported in Segal's _PGN_ column 8/3/01)--
Exile on Market Street
<d...@removethis.area.com> wrote:
> SCR wrote the quoted material below:
>
> " I think you're just supporting his point. You sound like a New Yorker.
>
> Well, he complains like that old country song, "All The Good Times Are
> Done and Gone". Nonsense. Everything he's looking for is still here:
> cheap food, cheap liquor, good cheap music, places to jam, affordable
> places to live. They're all here, but a person has to take the time to
> know the lay of the land to find them.
I'll buy all of the above except the affordable-places-to-live part.
On that score I will defer to my brother, currently employed at a Trader
Joe's somewhere in SF after his new job got wiped out in the dot-com
carnage. When he moved there, he originally bunked with relatives
somewhere in Marin; then he found a three-bedroom house that he shared with
a housemate (who used the third bedroom as his home office) on Treasure
Island, which he called "about the last affordable place left to live
within the city limits."
The rent? $2400 a month. And that comes with fighting half of a Bay Bridge
commute and no access to BART (why didn't they put a Treasure Island
station on the Transbay Tube?).
Even with the recent run-up in Center City Philadelphia rents, $2400 a
month gets you good apartments in Rittenhouse Square. Do Nob Hill or the
Marina District come that cheap?
Oh, I'm sure there are affordable places to live in the Bay Area. I'm just
skeptical about any of them being in zip codes whose first three digits are
941. (Well, maybe the Western Addition. Or has that been gentrified too?)
Jym Dyer
> a New Yorker.
=v= New York? Great town? You don't like it? Shaddappauface!
<_Jym_>
Mark Roberts
| The rent? $2400 a month. And that comes with fighting half of a Bay Bridge
| commute and no access to BART (why didn't they put a Treasure Island
| station on the Transbay Tube?).
Because the Tube doesn't go anywhere near Treasure Island.
| Even with the recent run-up in Center City Philadelphia rents, $2400 a
| month gets you good apartments in Rittenhouse Square. Do Nob Hill or the
| Marina District come that cheap?
When I rented in SF, I paid $1750/month for a 1+ bedroom on Church
Street. After I left it, the landlord leased it for $2200/month.
Those renters have since broken their lease, as indicated by a sign
I saw on the apartment last month offering to rent it for
$1875/month. The peak year-2000 bubble has burst, but the year-1999
bubble hasn't...yet. And maybe it won't.
As for the article generally...well, it reminds me of the classic
Usenet formulation, "don't let the door hit you on the ass on the
way out." St. Louis may indeed be a pleasant place with plenty of
free parking and polite people. But it's a backwater. It's not
geographically isolated, but it is economically and governmentally
isolated. For the latter, you can thank the 1876 charter that, at
the time, fixed St. Louis' boundaries for the maximum future growth
that was thought possible.
Backwaters often can be pleasant places, especially if you've been
dealing with a Gold Rush...and, face it, the Bay Area has had a
Gold Rush economy the last few years. But they're still backwaters
with limited opportunities for economic and social mobility. And
St. Louis *is* stultified. Given that I went to high school in St.
Charles County, just across the Missouri River from St. Louis
County, I just barely escape the dreaded St. Louis question that
marks a person for life: where did you go to high school? Think
about the social and religious stratification that's inherent in
just that one question.
The author is very enthusiastic about the CWE. That's good. One of
the best bookstores anywhere is Left Bank Books on Euclid. There
are a couple of really great newsstands on Euclid. Among
the most pleasant dining experiences I've had are eating outside at
one of the sidewalk tables at Duff's. But could he try living
there? Could he try to buy one of the mansions in the nearby
private places? He'd certainly get more for his money than what he
would pay in the Bay Area, and a nice light-rail system
would be within walking distance, but he'd be buying into St. Louis and
its problems: political incompetence, sharply delineated
segregation, and a floundering economy.
Sure, I'm nervously carrying a mortgage, my company has had one
round of layoffs and there are rumors of more. But it depends on
where your priorities are. I still think there's a lot of economic
opportunity in the Bay Area. Even though technology companies are
retrenching for the moment, it probably won't last. Even though VCs
aren't funding companies now, they'll have to start again someday,
otherwise they won't make any money at all. What we have is a
return to normal and it will just take time to work through the
hangover. If easy parking is a high priority in your life, then the
Bay Area probably isn't the place to be. If economic opportunity is
a high priority in your life, then St. Louis probably isn't the
place to be. If you want to get decent bread, well, in St. Louis
you'll probably have to drive 125 miles west to a bakery on Ninth Street
in Columbia.
But again, what's important to you may not be important to other
people. I'm not sure the Salon writer totally gets that. Nor do a
lot of people who post to ba.transportation.
--
Mark Roberts | "I have retroactive nostalgia."
Oakland, Cal.| -- announcer on KALX(FM) Berkeley, July 31, 2001
David Kaye
" What a moron to have picked a trash heap over California's sunny
" beaches. Somebody needs to knock some sense into the fool.
Let them go; that makes more for the rest of us to enjoy. I wouldn't mind
seeing California's population go from 33.5 million down to, say, 10
million. Imagine life without crowded freeways, lines at the market,
brown haze over Oakland....
--
(C) 2001 The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests
David Kaye is to annoy people who are not in them. -- Dave Barry
Dave Simpson
"wrob" says...
>PS--DC does not love you either. DC does not love anyone. Rush Limbaugh
>once said that DC is like a broken down old crack ho, who you'd like to
>reform, but she just wants your money. God only knows what he said
>about Saint Louis. :-b!
Dick Gephardt provides him enough ammunition for the time being.
Speaking of DC metro, I liked it there, and have met other people who have
moved there from California and like it, and you probably have seen quite a
few California license plates in the last year or so. DC, expensive as it is,
is
still a bargain compared to the Bay Area. I asked some people why they had
chosen DC over Atlanta, and they said DC was far more preferable, which is
how I feel regarding DC vs. Atlanta.
I recommend DC metro as the place for westerners to try East Coast living,
and I recommend SF metro as the place for easteners to try West Coast living.
DC actually is located inland, as is Seattle, another West Coast city, but the
term still fits as is commonly used. The Bay Area is expensive, but it's the
place I'd recommend people stay on the West Coast, just as I'd recomend DC
rather than New York.
Dave Simpson
David Kaye
" I'll buy all of the above except the affordable-places-to-live part.
You've got to know where to look. My two-bedroom apartment is $1015 a
month. My friend Danny pays I think $300 to share a 3-bedroom. Cliff up
the street pays $250 to share a 5-bedroom -- sure, that's a lot of
roommates, but the place is huge. I know a woman who lives in a store
front converted into an apartment for $600 -- all to herself.
Did they find these places on RentTech? No. Did they find these places
in the newspaper? No. As far as I know, they each found places to live
through people they know.
--
(C) 2001 The one who loves the least controls the
David Kaye relationship. -- Dr. Robert Anthony
Dave Simpson
Vincent Valencio wrote:
>What a moron to have picked a trash heap over California's sunny
>beaches. Somebody needs to knock some sense into the fool.
Knock some sense into yourself.
a) Visit the beaches and other stereotypical places you doubtlessly
think of when you say "California" -- such as Hollywood. Come
back to us with reports of crowding, crime, litter, gang violence,
etc..
b) Not every part of St. Louis metro is trashy. I live in one part that
isn't like that. Only a moron would think the entire metro area is
bad.
c) This place is just dying to be "discovered," perhaps if Boeing wins
the Joint Strike Fighter contract (5000 jobs or so), and wouldn't it
be nice to ride a home value appreciation elevator? Yes, indeed.
d) I'm making great pay by _California_ standards, while living here,
where it's much cheaper. I laugh at the real morons all the way to
the bank.
Dave Simpson
(who's lived in many cities and traveled throughout North America,
and knows whereof he writes)
Dave Simpson
Vincent Valencio wrote:
>All I have to say is EEEEwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww St. Luis! What a
>horrible horrible place. I vacationed there recently and the place
>was so heavily littered. The people were very rude, unfriendly.
People in St. Louis are definitely more friendly than in other metro areas.
What were you doing to make them upset?
> There is nothing there. Just like Toronto. No class, no culture.
Yep, ugly as can be, like Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Halifax...
You forgot to add San Francisco to that list.
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>What happened was that so many people came to SF thinking it was
>Disneyland.
Some of them, no doubt, arrive wearing short pants, too.
> It's a hard place.
I don't think so -- not since 1967, then the gay scene, then the overall
"progressive" thing. Plus the yuppies and the dot-commers aren't hard-
core criminals. And most tourists aren't there to commit crimes, either.
>I was happy when SF had 630,000 people and feel a little uncomfortable
>that it rose to 800,000. That's a lot more people, so I'm happy that some
>of them are moving away.
Regrettably, you'll have to accept an overall increase. Think of it as the
price of attractiveness -- a microcosm of California as a whole. (* scowl *)
Dave Simpson
A. Moore
>
> Vincent Valencio wrote the quoted material below:
>
> " What a moron to have picked a trash heap over California's sunny
> " beaches. Somebody needs to knock some sense into the fool.
>
> Let them go; that makes more for the rest of us to enjoy. I wouldn't mind
> seeing California's population go from 33.5 million down to, say, 10
> million. Imagine life without crowded freeways, lines at the market,
> brown haze over Oakland...
I don't have to imagine it (gloat) I can remember it (anti-gloat). It
wasn't really that long ago. I remember when they moved 101 from El
Camino over to Bayshore. The first smoggy days. The last of the
orchards...
Al Moore
Dave Simpson
Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street and Professor of History and Geography,
wrote:
>However, there's one St. Louis claim to fame that rankles me every time I
>see it. Quoting the story:
>
>> Which is why my friends looked so shocked when I told them I was moving
>> to St. Louis, the Gateway City, a town that defines itself as a
>> *historical jumping-off point to somewhere else* [emphasis mine]
>
>_Pace_ those steamboats carrying Exodusters in search of the Promised Land
>in *Kansas*[1] up the Mississippi, only to find out there was no such
>paradise in the offing (or to head just a little further west and have
>their hopes dashed in Kansas City), *it ain't even that.* The covered
>wagons departed from Independence, the "Queen City of the Trails."
That's right! There is an historical basis for St. Louis's claim as the
Gateway to the West (hence the Arch), but our REAL "jump-off" point,
for those wagon trains leaving civilization behind, was indeed not
St. Louis, but Independence.
Those historic pioneer migration and trade trails can be found on many
maps. Where in the East do they end?
http://member.aol.com/DanMRosen/donner/California.jpg
http://www.endoftheoregontrail.org/maplibrary/ORtrailmap.gif
http://www.nps.gov/fosc/Graphics/SFTrailc.gif
http://calcite.rocky.edu/octa/newmap.jpg
http://calcite.rocky.edu/octa/newmap2.jpg
It's the USA's version of Winnipeg in Canada, and it's also another
reason why if (hypothetically) the federal capital were relocated, I'd
put it in Independence (never mind the jokes by the politically aware
about the new capital, "Dependence"). I'd suggest St. Louis as the
alternative. (If the USA and Canada merged, Omaha would be the
most likely choice, or some new site in that general area.)
>Then again, if you were coming from points east or south, and your ultimate
>destination was somewhere in the West, you usually *did* have to pass
>through St. Louis (and change modes of transport there) on your trek, so
>maybe I should cut some slack here.
One of the books I own pretty much got it right -- the "Crossroads State,"
and St. Louis would have been better known as the Crossroads City (as it
was in the day when waterways were the real highways).
Dave Simpson
Mark Roberts
|
| b) Not every part of St. Louis metro is trashy. I live in one part that
| isn't like that.
Just curious: where? In St. Louis County or in one of the exurban
counties?
| c) This place is just dying to be "discovered,"
I think "dying" is the key word. The defense cutbacks in 1989-90
really hit St. Louis hard.
If it works for you, great. Just don't confuse it with an
economically vibrant area. It hasn't been for years. Maybe St.
Charles and Warren counties are growing, but mostly at the expense
of St. Louis county.
(Speaking of crime: is the _Evening Whirl_ still being published?
What about the _Crusader_?)
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>Let them go; that makes more for the rest of us to enjoy. I wouldn't mind
>seeing California's population go from 33.5 million down to, say, 10
>million. Imagine life without crowded freeways, lines at the market,
>brown haze over Oakland....
In LA I got some laughs and some support for the suggestion that the
penal code of California should be revised to provide EXILE as a penalty
for various crimes. The person would have to leave California, and might
be relocated to where he or she finished school or last was employed, in
whatever other state that was.
In Denver (which I visited for a potential new job once) I read a newspaper
letter to the editor that made me laugh. The person said that a good idea
was to restrict residence to only those people born after a certain date. The
date was something specific, like September 17, 1954, and I laughed as I
guessed it might have been the letter writer's birthday.
Still, it's interesting to envision how less crowded California would be if
only natives born after 1960 (start of modern era in USA) or 1965 (after the
end of the Baby Boom) would, among people born after that year, have
the privilege of residence in California.
Dave Simpson
(who owns books on how California used to be, when I was growing up there,
and books about the state wayyyyyy back in the Fifties -- talk about uncrowded!)
Dave Simpson
Mark Roberts wrote:
>| b) Not every part of St. Louis metro is trashy. I live in one part that
>| isn't like that.
>
>Just curious: where? In St. Louis County or in one of the exurban
>counties?
It's in St. Louis County -- University City.
>| c) This place is just dying to be "discovered,"
>
>I think "dying" is the key word. The defense cutbacks in 1989-90
>really hit St. Louis hard.
What's needed is for there to be interest sparked in it as an alternative
to Minneapolis (probably the #2 city in the Midwest currently) as well as
to Chicago or other alternative Midwestern locations such as Indianapolis
or Columbus. If this sparking of interest be due to a big defense contract,
or some other reason, the main thing is for this to become "discovered,"
similar (though not necessarily identical) to the case of Seattle and its
"discovery" by outsiders.
The city itself is the classic hole in the doughnut. I think the city and its
terrible government ultimately could be overwhelmed and removed if the
area around it gentrified.
>If it works for you, great. Just don't confuse it with an
>economically vibrant area. It hasn't been for years. Maybe St.
>Charles and Warren counties are growing, but mostly at the expense
>of St. Louis county.
I'm aware the whole area isn't economically vibrant. I refer to it as
another Baltimore or Buffalo. Progress has bypassed it, even fled it.
The thing is, I and others who have lived in other parts of the country
recognize it as having enormous potential and we'd like to see it do
much better than it's doing. Other decayed old cities have raised
themselves out of the hole; Cleveland is the classic example. St.
Louis offers a milder winter, and most people avoid cold winter more
than they avoid a hot, humid summer (which St. Louis has!). We're
of the opinion this place could truly take off, explode, if there were
interest generated in this area as a desireable location. (Note that
we're counting on this change to cause the city government to change,
rather than vice versa. There's no confidence in the city government.)
>(Speaking of crime: is the _Evening Whirl_ still being published?
>What about the _Crusader_?)
I know of neither of this publications. Sorry.
Dave Simpson
A. Moore
>
> Vincent Valencio wrote:
>
> >What a moron to have picked a trash heap over California's sunny
> >beaches. Somebody needs to knock some sense into the fool.
>
> Knock some sense into yourself.
>
> a) Visit the beaches and other stereotypical places you doubtlessly
> think of when you say "California" -- such as Hollywood. Come
> back to us with reports of crowding, crime, litter, gang violence,
> etc..
Last time I went to the beach, the second closest person to me (after my
wife, who went with me) was about a quarter of a mile away. Of course,
our Norther California beaches can be cool and foggy... The closest
thing to a crime in sight was houses overlooking the beach, which should
have been built much further back from the cliff. The only litter I saw
was the typical beach wrack at the high tide line. There was a gang of
pelicans committing acts of violence on fish swimming near the surface.
>
> b) Not every part of St. Louis metro is trashy. I live in one part that
> isn't like that. Only a moron would think the entire metro area is
> bad.
He didn't say bad. He said trashy. There's a difference. Consider
Hollywood, for example...
>
> c) This place is just dying to be "discovered," perhaps if Boeing wins
> the Joint Strike Fighter contract (5000 jobs or so), and wouldn't it
> be nice to ride a home value appreciation elevator? Yes, indeed.
No it wouldn't. We get that all the time. It's a real PITA from the
point of view of everyone but real estate speculators, and some of them
go broke.
>
> d) I'm making great pay by _California_ standards, while living here,
> where it's much cheaper. I laugh at the real morons all the way to
> the bank.
That's why you have so many more millionaires per capita than we do. Oh,
wait a minute, you don't...
>
> Dave Simpson
>
> (who's lived in many cities and traveled throughout North America,
> and knows whereof he writes)
Al Moore
Orval Fairbairn
volksd...@hotmail.com (Vincent Valencio) wrote:
> All I have to say is EEEEwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww St. Luis! What a
> horrible horrible place. I vacationed there recently and the place
> was so heavily littered. The people were very rude, unfriendly. The
> weather was atrocious, the food was bad. And I have seen more crime
> there then in Chicago. There is nothing there. Just like Toronto.
> No class, no culture.
>
> What a moron to have picked a trash heap over California's sunny
> beaches. Somebody needs to knock some sense into the fool.
Gee -- the above description sounds just like Northern CA, from Silicon
Valley up through Marin. -- except fot the weather.
Anyway, what good are the beaches or the mountains if you can't get there
and back in a reasonable amount of time? The self-styled "Progressives" (I
prefer the term "Oppressives") have laid waste to everything that made the
area attractive -- good roads, airports, marinas, etc. and have adopted a
mantra that only public transportation and bicycles are good.
The real morons are those that wish to deny others' enjoyment of life and
wish t odictate the termsof enjoyment.
Mark Roberts
Not bad at all in some parts.
| What's needed is for there to be interest sparked in it as an alternative
| to Minneapolis (probably the #2 city in the Midwest currently) as well as
| to Chicago or other alternative Midwestern locations such as Indianapolis
| or Columbus.
Don't forget about Kansas City.
| The city itself is the classic hole in the doughnut. I think the city and its
| terrible government ultimately could be overwhelmed and removed if the
| area around it gentrified.
A merger is long overdue, as is consolidation of the numerous
municipalities in the county. However, the political will just
isn't there to get this accomplished.
| >(Speaking of crime: is the _Evening Whirl_ still being published?
| >What about the _Crusader_?)
|
| I know of neither of this publications. Sorry.
There used to be a newsstand/tobacconist on the Delmar Loop that
sold those newspapers (they were weeklies). The _Evening Whirl's_
longtime publisher was quite ill, the last time I heard, and I
don't know who published the _Crusader_. The local joke was that
"the Evening Whirl's photographer is the St. Louis Police
Department." Lots of crime stories, many in rhyme.
Dave Simpson
Mark Roberts wrote:
>| It's in St. Louis County -- University City.
>
>Not bad at all in some parts.
It's in the part that's recognized generally as University City. Granted,
with that municipality you could call it a "Tale of Two Cities." (What
I'm writing about here, for readers who are unaware, is that parts of
University City resemble the run-down suburban zone next to the St.
Louis city limits. The Salon writer made a point about the contract
north vs. south of Delmar Blvd. It's not that exact everywhere but he
was close.)
>| What's needed is for there to be interest sparked in it as an alternative
>| to Minneapolis (probably the #2 city in the Midwest currently) as well as
>| to Chicago or other alternative Midwestern locations such as Indianapolis
>| or Columbus.
>
>Don't forget about Kansas City.
I'm not forgetting. (How many have moved there from St. Louis?)
>| The city itself is the classic hole in the doughnut. I think the city and its
>| terrible government ultimately could be overwhelmed and removed if the
>| area around it gentrified.
>
>A merger is long overdue, as is consolidation of the numerous
>municipalities in the county. However, the political will just
>isn't there to get this accomplished.
I have the book that discusses the fragmentation of St. Louis County into
several municipalities. It reminds me somewhat of a book called "New
Jersey's Municipal Madness." The problem is that it many of us in the USA
abhor the possibility of metropolitan government unification, for it's seen
as bloating government despite the theoretical elimination of many things
that are duplicated, and it's just a way to suck more tax revenues into the
central city's black hole.
(If you want a realistic viewpoint of mergers, often in the East you have
not a grid, but a radial or perimeter highway and spokes in place of a
grid. As freeways are obvious physical barriers and obviously apparent
to all, the perimeter freeway well could function in many cases as the
new, outwardly moved limits of the central city. Here, it would be I-270;
Atlanta and DC also could expand to their peripheral highways where
the city limits don't already touch them.)
>| >(Speaking of crime: is the _Evening Whirl_ still being published?
>| >What about the _Crusader_?)
>|
>| I know of neither of this publications. Sorry.
>
>There used to be a newsstand/tobacconist on the Delmar Loop that
>sold those newspapers (they were weeklies). The _Evening Whirl's_
>longtime publisher was quite ill, the last time I heard, and I
>don't know who published the _Crusader_. The local joke was that
>"the Evening Whirl's photographer is the St. Louis Police
>Department." Lots of crime stories, many in rhyme.
I can tell you that the alternative news sheets still are there. There
appear, from my observations, to be plenty of truly alternative (urban
lefty and "hip") publications, plus there are specialized ones such as
some gay community newsletters (a clue to me that there was a gay
presence there). In contrast to the City, the Loop is thriving. Proof is
the mass of people on the sidewalks and the difficulty of parking one's
motor vehicle there. (There is one decent-sized off-street garage to
help.)
Maybe I'm mistaken, but are you one of those who has written off
St. Louis because its city government has been so hopeless? There
are neglected cities that could do well if their "climates" changed.
Look at Oakland, looked down on by S.F. and many in the Bay Area
but which actually has a better physical location than San Francisco's,
for example.
Dave Simpson
David desJardins
> I have the book that discusses the fragmentation of St. Louis County
> into several municipalities. It reminds me somewhat of a book called
> "New Jersey's Municipal Madness."
I assume you mean "New Jersey's Multiple Municipal Madness", by Alan
Karcher. The author was my neighbor in New Jersey (he died shortly
after the book was published).
He also wrote "Lotteries", on the political forces behind gambling as a
source of public revenue.
David desJardins
Philip Crookes
"Orval Fairbairn" <orfai...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Anyway, what good are the beaches or the mountains if you can't get there
> and back in a reasonable amount of time? The self-styled "Progressives" (I
> prefer the term "Oppressives") have laid waste to everything that made the
> area attractive -- good roads, airports, marinas, etc. and have adopted a
> mantra that only public transportation and bicycles are good.
>
> The real morons are those that wish to deny others' enjoyment of life and
> wish t odictate the termsof enjoyment.
As, for instance, by pushing through six-lane highways to destroy all that's
attractive in the beaches and mountains, and fill up even more of the
country with engine npoise and the stink of exhaust fumes.
Yeah, morons, that'd be right.
Philip
Tiny Human Ferret
>
> David Kaye wrote:
> >
> > Dave Simpson wrote the quoted material below:
> > " http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/08/moving_on/index.html
> >
> > Heh...he's one of those guys whose bags I'd be happy to carry to the
> > airport. A whiner. SF is a rough city; it has *always* been a rough
> > city. SF does not love you. It does not love anyone. Rush Limbaugh once
> > said that SF is like a high class hooker you want to love, but who will
> > never love you back.
>
> Hee hee! Can I quote you on this?? :-)
>
> -Brian Robinson in Washington DC
>
> PS--DC does not love you either. DC does not love anyone.
Actually, it loves people all of the time! Well, at least it loves some
people, until just about the time that they get unelected.
> Rush Limbaugh
> once said that DC is like a broken down old crack ho, who you'd like to
> reform, but she just wants your money.
Hey, I've been working to change that, but then again, Don Quixote was
always my middle name.
> God only knows what he said
> about Saint Louis. :-b!
--
Whom thou'st vex'd waxeth wroth: Meow. <-----> http://earthops.net/klaatu/
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>Let them go; that makes more for the rest of us to enjoy. I wouldn't mind
>seeing California's population go from 33.5 million down to, say, 10
>million. Imagine life without crowded freeways, lines at the market,
>brown haze over Oakland....
There still are parts of California I'll consider if I move back to the West
Coast.
Hopefully its government will be reformed. Ideally the northernmost part will
be split off and perhaps joined with southern Oregon. Kill the income tax and
we're talking sensibility...
http://www.viamagazine.com/images/articles/trinriver.jpg
http://www.viamagazine.com/images/articles/trindowntown.jpg
Dave Simpson
Mark Roberts
| >Don't forget about Kansas City.
|
| I'm not forgetting. (How many have moved there from St. Louis?)
I doubt that figures are kept that would be specific enough to
tell, but in my own experiences in Kansas City and Columbia, I've
encountered more than a few people originally from St. Louis.
| I can tell you that the alternative news sheets still are there. There
| appear, from my observations, to be plenty of truly alternative (urban
| lefty and "hip") publications, plus there are specialized ones such as
| some gay community newsletters (a clue to me that there was a gay
| presence there). In contrast to the City, the Loop is thriving. Proof is
| the mass of people on the sidewalks and the difficulty of parking one's
| motor vehicle there. (There is one decent-sized off-street garage to
| help.)
See <http://www.lowlifeguide.com/lowlifepages/radio.html> (note
that the entry for KZJZ is out of date).
| Maybe I'm mistaken, but are you one of those who has written off
| St. Louis because its city government has been so hopeless? There
| are neglected cities that could do well if their "climates" changed.
| Look at Oakland, looked down on by S.F. and many in the Bay Area
| but which actually has a better physical location than San Francisco's,
| for example.
For me, St. Louis primarily is unattractive on a cultural basis:
too conservative and too technophobic. (Aside: yesterday's Wall
Street Journal article describing Edward D. Jones and its absolute
avoidance of network technology is, to me, describing all too typically the
attitudes I ran into during my time in Missouri. Yes, Jones is a
successful brokerage and there's a place for it, but they may well
be doing things in such a way that will cap their future growth.)
It also is a cliqueish place once you scratch beneath the surface,
as my remark about the question of "where did you go to high
school" was intended to indicate. I certainly wouldn't mind
visiting again: the CWE, the Delmar Loop, and South Grand all are
interesting urban destinations.
I don't have it with me right away, but a great book on St. Louis
history is James Primm's _Lion of the Valley_. You're close to
quite a few good bookstores, so I'm sure you will be able to find
it.
As for Oakland, I compare it more to Kansas City: a tremendous
amount of physical assets offset by a municipal inferiority complex
and inattentive leadership. While Jerry Brown is a controversial
figure, he cannot be accused of being inattentive and, I think,
has been an asset to Oakland. He gets things done and doesn't put
up with having projects sliced and diced by a thousand squabbling interest
groups. Kansas City still has *that* problem.
I also think the freeways going through Oakland did considerable
harm to its central area: for instance, the waterfront and
Jack London Square are sundered from the rest of the central city
by I-880 and I-580 slices right through the Grand and Lake
area. (The history of Oakland's waterfront generally has been
an appalling mess, with private interests locking it up for much
of the city's early development, thereby creating development
patterns that did much to harm downtown's later development.)
While CA-24 slices right through Rockridge, that area is doing well
regardless, primarily because of its proximity to BART. Grand-Lake
is so-so and downtown seems on the verge of a takeoff but the
velocity isn't quite there yet. Montclair is a world unto itself
but is surprisingly dowdy considering the demographic profile of
that area.
Boomer
Mark Roberts wrote:
>
> It also is a cliqueish place once you scratch beneath the surface,
> as my remark about the question of "where did you go to high
> school" was intended to indicate. I certainly wouldn't mind
> visiting again: the CWE, the Delmar Loop, and South Grand all are
> interesting urban destinations.
OK. Being from STL, I hear this crap all the time about asking someone
who is
from STL metro where they went to high school. Let me try to clear this
up.
It's not intended to be a cliquish question. There's logical reasoning
behind
it. The St. Louis metro area is comprised of many municipalities in St.
Louis
and neighboring counties in Missouri and Illinois. St. Louis County
alone has
close to 100 separate municipal governments. School districts in the
area cover
geographical areas which typically take in many different
municipalities. By
asking someone "where did you go to high school?" you're really asking
them -
what part of the metro are you from? If someone told you they grew up
in
Flordell Hills, you wouldn't know where the hell that is. On the other
hand, if
they told you they went to Jennings High School, you would know the
general
geographic part of the metro area without getting too specific. At that
point
you could ask "my friend so and so went there; do you know them?" If
the
conversation goes well, you just might get laid. Understand?
Stop trying to read too much into it. Your taking yourself too
seriously.
Boomer
David Kaye
" Regrettably, you'll have to accept an overall increase. Think of it as
" the price of attractiveness -- a microcosm of California as a whole.
I predict that California will lost significant population as great
numbers of people decide to marry and have children and bring them up in
Utah or some other godforsaken place. Good riddance.
--
(C) 2001 Let all your things have their places; let each part
David Kaye of your business have its time. -- Benjamin Franklin
David Kaye
" [....] The self-styled "Progressives" (I
" prefer the term "Oppressives") have laid waste to everything that made
" the area attractive -- good roads, airports, marinas, etc.
Uh, no. The progressives are the people who saved the entire region from
being paved over. It's the progressives who fought against having yet
another bridge, the so-called "southern crossing" between Candlestick and
San Leandro. It's the progressives who are fighting paving over the bay
with more runways for SFO. It's progressives who are trying to preserve
what little beauty the Bay Area has left.
It's you auslanders who come here with your cars and SUVs and crowd the
roads. It's you people who are despoiling the Bay Area.
Sooner or later you'll have to face the fact that public transit is the
only reasonable alternative to paving everything over with roads.
--
(C) 2001 When you see a worthy person, endeavor to emulate
David Kaye him. When you see an unworthy person, then examine
your inner self. -- Confucius
David Kaye
" Hopefully its government will be reformed. Ideally the northernmost
" part will be split off and perhaps joined with southern Oregon. Kill
" the income tax and we're talking sensibility...
I used to be in favor of Northern California splitting off, but the Great
State of Jefferson (Del Norte, Curry counties, etc.) is a dirt poor
backwater filled with gun nuts and speed freaks. Northern California
actually *needs* Sacramento in order to survive.
--
(C) 2001 Guilt is the mafia of the mind. -- Bob Mandel
David Kaye
David Kaye
" What's needed is for there to be interest sparked in it as an alternative
" to Minneapolis [....]
I think you've hit on a great slogan, "St. Louis, an alternative to
Minneapolis." I like it. Please go there and get a job in their tourist
bureau.
--
(C) 2001 Graduation is a funny thing. It probably helps that
David Kaye I went to clown college, though. -- Justin E. Kerner
Mark Roberts
|
| Mark Roberts wrote:
|
| >
| > It also is a cliqueish place once you scratch beneath the surface,
| > as my remark about the question of "where did you go to high
| > school" was intended to indicate. I certainly wouldn't mind
| > visiting again: the CWE, the Delmar Loop, and South Grand all are
| > interesting urban destinations.
|
| OK. Being from STL, I hear this crap all the time about asking someone
| who is from STL metro where they went to high school. Let me try
| to clear this up.
| It's not intended to be a cliquish question.
That doesn't mean it isn't.
And as for as taking oneself too seriously, it appears you have a
lot to teach us in this regard.
Mark Roberts
| Dave Simpson wrote the quoted material below:
|
| " What's needed is for there to be interest sparked in it as an alternative
| " to Minneapolis [....]
|
| I think you've hit on a great slogan, "St. Louis, an alternative to
| Minneapolis." I like it. Please go there and get a job in their tourist
| bureau.
If case you haven't noticed, he already *is* there.
Orval Fairbairn
<d...@removethis.area.com> wrote:
> Orval Fairbairn wrote the quoted material below:
>
> " [....] The self-styled "Progressives" (I
> " prefer the term "Oppressives") have laid waste to everything that made
> " the area attractive -- good roads, airports, marinas, etc.
>
> Uh, no. The progressives are the people who saved the entire region from
> being paved over. It's the progressives who fought against having yet
> another bridge, the so-called "southern crossing" between Candlestick and
> San Leandro. It's the progressives who are fighting paving over the bay
> with more runways for SFO. It's progressives who are trying to preserve
> what little beauty the Bay Area has left.
Exactly why I call them "Oppressives." They wish to dictate how everybody
spends their free time and wish to eliminate such ameneties as good GA
airports, freeways that can get you through (and out of) town, marinas
where you can keep a baoat and sail the Bay, etc. All the Oppressives want
is public transit (which serves only a limited market), bicycles (local
market) and trains (again limited destinations).
The Oppressives think with narrow field-of-view and cannot tolerate anyone
with different interests.
David Barts
> I'll buy all of the above except the affordable-places-to-live part.
Well, it all depends on just how you define "affordable". But
seriously, if one is really motivated to live in a place, one can
usually find something at below-market rates: I could have probably
ended up sharing a house in the Bayview with someone I met there and I
doubt my share of it would have been more than $400/mo. But it was a
really rundown house in a really rundown neighborhood that had no
shops or restaurants of interest to me nearby, and there were other
cultural (for the type of scene I like, the Bay Area falls short of
Seattle or Portland) and climactic (like the author of the Salon
article, I really missed the change of seasons) issues propelling me
back north.
If I really, really wanted to live in SF I could have probably made it
work. But I didn't really, really want to live there.
--
David Barts
Portland, OR
David Barts
> Exile on Market Street wrote the quoted material below:
>
> " I'll buy all of the above except the affordable-places-to-live part.
>
> month. My friend Danny pays I think $300 to share a 3-bedroom. Cliff up
> the street pays $250 to share a 5-bedroom -- sure, that's a lot of
> roommates, but the place is huge. I know a woman who lives in a store
> front converted into an apartment for $600 -- all to herself.
Sure, it's possible to live cheaply in SF, if you know the right
people, if you really try, if you really want to (see my other post on
this thread). Of course, it's all the more possible to live cheaply
in cheaper cities.
Ultimately, the question of whether one place or another is worth it
is based on personal, subjective values. Blanket statements like "San
Francisco sucks" or "St. Louis is for losers" are not true.
John Bianco
>
> When I rented in SF, I paid $1750/month for a 1+ bedroom on Church
> Street. After I left it, the landlord leased it for $2200/month.
> Those renters have since broken their lease, as indicated by a sign
> I saw on the apartment last month offering to rent it for
> $1875/month. The peak year-2000 bubble has burst, but the year-1999
> bubble hasn't...yet. And maybe it won't.
>
> As for the article generally...well, it reminds me of the classic
> Usenet formulation, "don't let the door hit you on the ass on the
> way out." St. Louis may indeed be a pleasant place with plenty of
> free parking and polite people. But it's a backwater. It's not
> geographically isolated, but it is economically and governmentally
> isolated. For the latter, you can thank the 1876 charter that, at
> the time, fixed St. Louis' boundaries for the maximum future growth
> that was thought possible.
>
> Backwaters often can be pleasant places, especially if you've been
> dealing with a Gold Rush...and, face it, the Bay Area has had a
> Gold Rush economy the last few years. But they're still backwaters
> with limited opportunities for economic and social mobility. And
> St. Louis *is* stultified. Given that I went to high school in St.
> Charles County, just across the Missouri River from St. Louis
> County, I just barely escape the dreaded St. Louis question that
> marks a person for life: where did you go to high school? Think
> about the social and religious stratification that's inherent in
> just that one question.
>
A little more than a year ago, I decided enough was enough and decided it
was high tim eto leave the Bay Area and I moved to what amounts to a
backwater, Sacramento. So far, all I can say is that I miss the Bay Area as
much as I miss the flu, and this comes from someone who grew up on the
Pennensula. Trust me, for most people, opportunities in the Bay Area are
just as limited as they are in Sacarmento, or other cities that are
considerd backwaters. Rent is 2-3X, maybe even more higher, yet pay for most
positions is maybe 15-25% more in the Bay Area. Not to mention that for
whatever reason, people in the Bay Area just have a arrogance and meaness to
them that make life just unberable.
> The author is very enthusiastic about the CWE. That's good. One of
> the best bookstores anywhere is Left Bank Books on Euclid. There
> are a couple of really great newsstands on Euclid. Among
> the most pleasant dining experiences I've had are eating outside at
> one of the sidewalk tables at Duff's. But could he try living
> there? Could he try to buy one of the mansions in the nearby
> private places? He'd certainly get more for his money than what he
> would pay in the Bay Area, and a nice light-rail system
> would be within walking distance, but he'd be buying into St. Louis and
> its problems: political incompetence, sharply delineated
> segregation, and a floundering economy.
>
Its a debate of being in a rat race, and that is what the Bay Area has
become, and living a slower place of life. I myself, almong with most the
people I grew up with decided the rat race was not worth it.
> Sure, I'm nervously carrying a mortgage, my company has had one
> round of layoffs and there are rumors of more. But it depends on
> where your priorities are. I still think there's a lot of economic
> opportunity in the Bay Area. Even though technology companies are
> retrenching for the moment, it probably won't last. Even though VCs
> aren't funding companies now, they'll have to start again someday,
> otherwise they won't make any money at all. What we have is a
> return to normal and it will just take time to work through the
> hangover. If easy parking is a high priority in your life, then the
> Bay Area probably isn't the place to be. If economic opportunity is
> a high priority in your life, then St. Louis probably isn't the
> place to be. If you want to get decent bread, well, in St. Louis
> you'll probably have to drive 125 miles west to a bakery on Ninth Street
> in Columbia.
>
> But again, what's important to you may not be important to other
> people. I'm not sure the Salon writer totally gets that. Nor do a
> lot of people who post to ba.transportation.
>
> --
The Bay Area may sink alot further than people expect it to, and of
course, its going to pull down Sacramento into the mess as well. Many people
are compareing what is happening now in the IT/tech industry in the Bay Area
to what happend after the Aerospace/defense/electronics industries collapsed
in the South Bay after the Space program and Vietnam war ended. QWhile as
you said, the 99 bubble has yet to burst, as the unemployment rate approches
5%+, not only will the 99 bubble burst, but tens of thousands of people will
forclose on their property in a short amount of time.
John Bianco
"Vincent Valencio" <volksd...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:88e6ca33.01080...@posting.google.com...
> All I have to say is EEEEwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww St. Luis! What a
> horrible horrible place. I vacationed there recently and the place
> was so heavily littered. The people were very rude, unfriendly. The
> weather was atrocious, the food was bad. And I have seen more crime
> there then in Chicago. There is nothing there. Just like Toronto.
> No class, no culture.
>
Excuse me?!?!? Rude and unfriendly? The Bay Area has the marked cornerd on
people who are rude and unfriendly big time. And no, I am not some East
Coast transplant to the Bay Area, I grew up on the Pennensula, and I will
basically say that people in the Bay Area make New Yorkers seem polite by
comparison, If there is one thing that disgusts me the most about the Bay
Area, is the attitude of the people here. It has become a enviroment, where
people do not even say "hi" to each other. Its a enviroment where people do
not even bother to get to know their neighbors. Yes, there are pockets of
the Bay Area not like this, but the general attitude is just a rude,
arrogant attitude.
Lets just put it this way, whenever I go back and see family and friends, I
get physically ill as I go over the Altamont Pass back into the Bay Area,
and leaving the Bay Area feels like a escape from a rotten, disgusting, vile
prison. Yes Sacramento is not the end all be all, far from it, but at least
its not the extereme rat race.
> What a moron to have picked a trash heap over California's sunny
> beaches. Somebody needs to knock some sense into the fool.
>
>
>
> Dave Simpson <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
news:<nFdc7.2848$NJ6....@www.newsranger.com>...
> > http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/08/moving_on/index.html
Vincent Valencio
you described is consistent based on my own experiences. I don't know
what causes it really but one wield guess is the overall atmosphere.
The place is so high tech and so sterile mostly. There is nothing
warm about certain areas. This might have a direct effect on the
people living there causing them to be more withdrawn. Things must
have been very different in the past where Victorian architecture and
styling must have been more warm, comforting, and inviting. The Bay
Area could be a very fast pace world and you just have to keep up with
it. But only some parts of the bay are like that. I'm sure
fisherman's wharf has friendly folks with different strokes. And
there was always more then plenty of kind loving San Franciscans to
talk to while riding BART and the cable cars.
And I was treated so poorly in St. Luis. When I was at the grocery
store the shoppers were all running around with the carts and two
ladies bumped into me without looking and saying "excuse me." And
while I was walking down the side walk in an area where the Arch was
clearly visible I remember some mean scruffy looking guy that was in
my path who literally picked me up and moved me over so he can
continue on his way without ever altering his course. The whole time
we were there it rained and rained and trained. It was so cold. At
the hotel the lady at the desk had a really bitchy attitude problem
and she didn't want to deal with us was the cold feeling. With a very
harsh voice she got one of the bell boys to direct us to our room. He
literally tossed our bags and suitcases through the rooms door and one
landed on the dirty floor instead of the bed and all it's contents
spilled out. Our room was so cold and drafty that we caught a cold
and Jeffry a flue. And of course more and more BS the whole time.
Like the soup with hair and a fly in it at some fancy restaurant etc.
At the gas station some a few idiots in a hurry just cut in line! The
only time the clouds finally cleared up and the rain stopped with a
rainbow coming out was while we were leaving. I never want to see
that horrible place ever again! For as long as we live none of use
will ever set foot any where near that city within a 100 mile radius.
St. Louis is cursed!
-Vince
"John Bianco" <Z...@nospam.xx> wrote in message news:<TkLc7.48012$Kd7.28...@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com>...
Kate Wintjen
St. Louis is a big place. Obviously you found a crappy area. I've lived here
my whole life and never had that consistently horrible a treatment. (And, you
can't do anything about the weather; just like anywhere else that has to be
lived with.) There are plenty of friendly people and places in St. Louis, and
I will admit it has its share of rude a**holes too. I've stayed in Chicago;
it's often got more cold/rude people than St. Louis. Drivers are far worse,
for example. However, I'm sure Chicago has its share of nice areas, but
probably all in the northern region (I primarily stayed in the southern parts)
where it's also more expensive.
--
************************************************************
E-mail provided is a legit email address that is permanently
"on vacation". Any e-mail sent to it is assumed to be SPAM.
I will post my real email address in a message on request.
(in form username AT server DOT com/net of course).
************************************************************
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>Uh, no.
In fact, yes. The word "progressive" as it applies to politically active
leftists is a misnomer.
> The progressives are the people who saved the entire region from
>being paved over. It's the progressives who fought against having yet
>another bridge, the so-called "southern crossing" between Candlestick and
>San Leandro.
This makes them retrograde and contemptible. The Southern Crossing
has long been needed. Insist on a BART right-of-way and rec trails on the
crossing structure(s) to accompany (*** NOT *** to replace) the freeway lanes
and then you're on firm ground.
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>" What's needed is for there to be interest sparked in it as an alternative
>" to Minneapolis [....]
>
>I think you've hit on a great slogan, "St. Louis, an alternative to
>Minneapolis." I like it. Please go there and get a job in their tourist
>bureau.
I'm satisfied living in, and being an asset to, the St. Louis metro area.
Of course, St. Louis might compete with Minneapolis in advertising in
Silicon Valley. ("Here, it's a park. In [St. Louis], it's your yard.")
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>I used to be in favor of Northern California splitting off, but the Great
>State of Jefferson (Del Norte, Curry counties, etc.) is a dirt poor
>backwater filled with gun nuts and speed freaks. Northern California
>actually *needs* Sacramento in order to survive.
I wouldn't rush into making such embarrassing lefty misstatements.
You left out the normal people, which form most of the population there,
plus the eco-lefty-types and the ex-hippies.
Your statements strongly imply you haven't spent much time there.
You also left out southernmost Oregon.
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>" Regrettably, you'll have to accept an overall increase. Think of it as
>" the price of attractiveness -- a microcosm of California as a whole.
>
>I predict that California will lost significant population as great
>numbers of people decide to marry and have children and bring them up in
>Utah or some other godforsaken place. Good riddance.
Sorry, but reality intrudes. Though many continue to leave California,
plenty of others move the other way. And that's not even considering the
source from south of the international border.
tsk, tsk
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
John Bianco wrote:
> A little more than a year ago, I decided enough was enough and decided it
>was high tim eto leave the Bay Area and I moved to what amounts to a
>backwater, Sacramento. So far, all I can say is that I miss the Bay Area as
>much as I miss the flu, and this comes from someone who grew up on the
>Pennensula. Trust me, for most people, opportunities in the Bay Area are
>just as limited as they are in Sacarmento, or other cities that are
>considerd backwaters. Rent is 2-3X, maybe even more higher, yet pay for most
>positions is maybe 15-25% more in the Bay Area. Not to mention that for
>whatever reason, people in the Bay Area just have a arrogance and meaness to
>them that make life just unberable.
There's a tenseness, a sense of being guarded, and a lot of impersonality.
I suspect David Barts might have noticed this as a cultural difference between
his Northwestern homes and the Bay Area. This also is one similarity shared by
Northern and Southern California.
> Its a debate of being in a rat race, and that is what the Bay Area has
>become, and living a slower place of life. I myself, almong with most the
>people I grew up with decided the rat race was not worth it.
It doesn't even have to be a slower pace of life, just less crowded and more
civil.
My parents stayed a few years after my brother and I grew up, then they left for
Oregon and don't miss California. They and we remember the way it used to be.
> The Bay Area may sink alot further than people expect it to, and of
>course, its going to pull down Sacramento into the mess as well. Many people
>are compareing what is happening now in the IT/tech industry in the Bay Area
>to what happend after the Aerospace/defense/electronics industries collapsed
>in the South Bay after the Space program and Vietnam war ended. QWhile as
>you said, the 99 bubble has yet to burst, as the unemployment rate approches
>5%+, not only will the 99 bubble burst, but tens of thousands of people will
>forclose on their property in a short amount of time.
Plenty of us knew it was a financial bubble and this, coupled with the basest
of connotations about a "Gold Rush" site which are true in the case of the Santa
Clara (Silicon) Valley, make the bursting of the bubble and a bust that ought to
at least compare to the boom, and ought go deeper and longer, take on a moral
as well as financial and social tone.
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
John Bianco wrote:
> Excuse me?!?!? Rude and unfriendly?
I think Mr. Valencio was trolling. St. Louis metro is distinctive because of
the friendliness of its residents, particularly compared to other metro areas
even nearby. (Part of this, it is suspected, is the Southern influence of the
state, from its history.)
> The Bay Area has the marked cornerd on people who are rude and
> unfriendly big time.
Actually, there are other places that are worse. Much of developed California
is not civil, though. There's a lot of self-centeredness, and poor behavior
there.
Much of the more developed parts of Southern California are like that as well.
Phoenix is worse, though, and Atlanta is worse! Drivers in Atlanta LEAN on
their horns for no reason and people there, largely transplants from the
Northeast
and Midwest, are coarse, vulgar people that are rude and often shout, as if they
were stupid barking dogs. I was glad to leave Atlanta. Compared to that, in
the
Bay Area and Southern California you have rudeness and incivility but much is
just due to self-centeredness, a lack of concern for the effects of one's words
and
actions on others.
Between the Willamette Valley in Oregon (where people are friendly) and the
northern end of the Central Valley and slightly onward, to Redding, you have an
interesting change. (David Barts, you may have noticed this.) As you head
south
from Eugene the valley narrows and then you leave it. As you make your way to
the south, there's a physical change. Crossing Sexton Mt. Summit on I-5, you
find
that whereas north of it it was mainly wooded with occasional clearings, to the
south
it is mainly grassy with occasional groves of trees.
More importantly, when you stop at somewhere like Grants Pass, you find you will
notice a change in the environment, due to a different way of life. The pace is
more
rushed and there's more tenseness in the air, and (if you have spent time in
California)
you'll sense a greater potential for rudeness or other hostility.
Then you get into California, say to Redding or south of it, and it's even more
so.
> It has become a enviroment, where people do not even say "hi" to each other.
You don't say "excuse me" sometimes if you bump someone, or otherwise admit
you were wrong, because too often it's taken by the other person as an
invitation to
be rude and otherwise abusive. "On guard..."
> Lets just put it this way, whenever I go back and see family and friends, I
>get physically ill as I go over the Altamont Pass back into the Bay Area,
>and leaving the Bay Area feels like a escape from a rotten, disgusting, vile
>prison. Yes Sacramento is not the end all be all, far from it, but at least
>its not the extereme rat race.
Well, many in the Central Valley are commuters to the Bay Area because it's out
in the Valley that people must go to find affordable homes. Ideally one day
much
industry and many jobs will relocate to the Valley to go where more people are.
You may find that a mixed blessing, but overall I think it's better for
California.
Now what's interesting (and you probably understand why) is David Kaye's comment
about people leaving to raise their kids elsewhere. The question everyone must
ask
is why this is happening (yes, it is happening).
Dave Simpson
A. Moore
>
> David Kaye wrote:
>
<snip>
> > The progressives are the people who saved the entire region from
> >being paved over. It's the progressives who fought against having yet
> >another bridge, the so-called "southern crossing" between Candlestick and
> >San Leandro.
>
> This makes them retrograde and contemptible.
But two minutes later in another posting, Simpson wrote:
> I'm satisfied living in, and being an asset to, the St. Louis metro area.
That being so, I can see your point of view. Further pavement of the San
Francisco Bay Region can not but improve your quality of life in St
Louis.
> The Southern Crossing has long been needed.
If we thought we needed it, we'd have built it.
> Insist on a BART right-of-way and rec trails on the
> crossing structure(s) to accompany (*** NOT *** to replace) the freeway lanes
Whatever for? I'd rather insist that more of the newcomers and looters
go home. I certainly don't see any advantage acruing from making things
easy for them to come and further obliterate my home.
Al Moore
Dave Simpson
Vincent Valencio wrote:
>What makes the culture from place to place rude and unfriendly?
1. Too much crowding (too many people)
2. Poor parenting and scummy peer pressure, even in adulthood(!)
There may be lessons here in Rome's decay and fall as well as
Britain's decline -- i.e., it's the United States's turn now.
>And I was treated so poorly in St. Luis. When I was at the grocery
>store the shoppers were all running around with the carts and two
>ladies bumped into me without looking and saying "excuse me." And
>while I was walking down the side walk in an area where the Arch was
>clearly visible I remember some mean scruffy looking guy that was in
>my path who literally picked me up and moved me over so he can
>continue on his way without ever altering his course. The whole time
>we were there it rained and rained and trained. It was so cold. At
>the hotel the lady at the desk had a really bitchy attitude problem
>and she didn't want to deal with us was the cold feeling. With a very
>harsh voice she got one of the bell boys to direct us to our room. He
>literally tossed our bags and suitcases through the rooms door and one
>landed on the dirty floor instead of the bed and all it's contents
>spilled out. Our room was so cold and drafty that we caught a cold
>and Jeffry a flue. And of course more and more BS the whole time.
>Like the soup with hair and a fly in it at some fancy restaurant etc.
>At the gas station some a few idiots in a hurry just cut in line! The
>only time the clouds finally cleared up and the rain stopped with a
>rainbow coming out was while we were leaving. I never want to see
>that horrible place ever again! For as long as we live none of use
>will ever set foot any where near that city within a 100 mile radius.
>St. Louis is cursed!
I'll agree that it's cursed, but it's by the City's arrested-in-time old-time
urban-dinosaur Democratic Party political machine government.
I've never experienced what you describe above.
Were you here in springtime? Whereas springtime on the East Coast
can be wonderful (it may have stolen the show for me away from autumn),
here it's "fickle" and you are whipsawed between good and poor weather.
The cold, dry "army of Canada" and the warm, wet "army of Bermuda"
have their main battle ground here, where the two air masses are always
colliding. Not only every big battle but it seems nearly all of the smallest
skirmishes are fought here in springtime, so you never can expect decent
weather.
People are very low-key here, but they frequently take the initiative and
say that the autumn here is splendid, so that's probably your best time to
come visit (barring your child's school). The weather's better and also it's
after Labor Day so you have less tourist crowds. (But, on the Loop school's
in session so the establishments are flooded with students and hangers-on.)
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
A. Moore wrote:
>> > The progressives are the people who saved the entire region from
>> >being paved over. It's the progressives who fought against having yet
>> >another bridge, the so-called "southern crossing" between Candlestick and
>> >San Leandro.
>>
>> This makes them retrograde and contemptible.
[...]
>> I'm satisfied living in, and being an asset to, the St. Louis metro area.
>That being so, I can see your point of view. Further pavement of the San
>Francisco Bay Region can not but improve your quality of life in St
>Louis.
Non sequitur.
>> The Southern Crossing has long been needed.
>
>If we thought we needed it, we'd have built it.
False. We wanted it for ages in the Bay Area, but many opposed it.
>> Insist on a BART right-of-way and rec trails on the
>> crossing structure(s) to accompany (*** NOT *** to replace) the freeway lanes
>
>Whatever for? I'd rather insist that more of the newcomers and looters
>go home. I certainly don't see any advantage acruing from making things
>easy for them to come and further obliterate my home.
They're coming anyway. What matters is to build the crossing that's long been
needed, to relieve the Bay Bridge among other reasons (fill in the gap that is
present in crossing the Bay is the main reason).
Dave Simpson
A. Moore
>
> A. Moore wrote:
>
> >> > The progressives are the people who saved the entire region from
> >> >being paved over. It's the progressives who fought against having yet
> >> >another bridge, the so-called "southern crossing" between Candlestick and
> >> >San Leandro.
> >>
> >> This makes them retrograde and contemptible.
>
> [...]
>
> >> I'm satisfied living in, and being an asset to, the St. Louis metro area.
>
> >That being so, I can see your point of view. Further pavement of the San
> >Francisco Bay Region can not but improve your quality of life in St
> >Louis.
>
> Non sequitur.
Perhaps I should have said that it could not be expected to harm your
quality of life. But St Louis has certainly benefited from the economic
drive provided by the SF Bay Area in recent years, as has the rest of
the nation. Some, at least, see further pavement of the SF Bay area as
necessary to continuance of that drive. So even without the rephrasing,
I don't think it's a non-sequitur.
>
> >> The Southern Crossing has long been needed.
> >
> >If we thought we needed it, we'd have built it.
>
> False. We wanted it for ages in the Bay Area, but many opposed it.
Who's we, then? Some wanted it. Others didn't. I've lived in the SF Bay
area for over 50 years, and never saw any particular need for it. AFter
the Loma Prieta earthquake, we were even able to cope with the loss of
the Bay Bridge for a while. If there were a need for the Southern
Crossing, it wouldn't have required a majority vote of Bay Area
residents to get it approved and built. I don't think there was a
majority approval for even one of the existing bridges, and there was
pretty widespread opposition to BART.
>
> >> Insist on a BART right-of-way and rec trails on the
> >> crossing structure(s) to accompany (*** NOT *** to replace) the freeway lanes
> >
> >Whatever for? I'd rather insist that more of the newcomers and looters
> >go home. I certainly don't see any advantage acruing from making things
> >easy for them to come and further obliterate my home.
>
> They're coming anyway.
Anything that makes it harder for them to justify coming is all to the
good, IMHO. And, of course, at the moment, they seem to be leaving,
which is fine with me. Long may it last.
> What matters is to build the crossing that's long been
> needed, to relieve the Bay Bridge among other reasons (fill in the gap that is
> present in crossing the Bay is the main reason).
As I pointed out, the existing bridges seem to be able to meet the
existing need. It's a nuisance when one of them is closed, but it's
hardly a catastrophe. Filling the "gap" isn't much of a reason -- thanks
to the presence of the bay itself, there will always be a gap. The
traffic studies published when the southern crossing was first proposed
indicated that adding a crossing would only increase the total traffic,
so that instead of relieving congestion on the existing bridges, it
would transfer that congestion to freeways and surface streets, and lead
to an overall increase in congestion. That was according to CalTrans,
BTW.
Al Moore
Exile on Market Street
(Mark Roberts) wrote:
> Dave Simpson <nos...@newsranger.com> had written:
>
> | It's in St. Louis County -- University City.
>
> Not bad at all in some parts.
>
> | What's needed is for there to be interest sparked in it as an alternative
> | to Minneapolis (probably the #2 city in the Midwest currently) as well as
> | to Chicago or other alternative Midwestern locations such as Indianapolis
> | or Columbus.
>
> Don't forget about Kansas City.
You beat me to the punch here. Bless its insecure soul, the city has been
trying for decades to position itself as the Midwest's #3 metropolis
(despite its cross-state rival still being bigger overall), and I think
it's even managing to succeed. The central city even managed to gain
population this past decade without annexing territory.
> A merger is long overdue, as is consolidation of the numerous
> municipalities in the county. However, the political will just
> isn't there to get this accomplished.
Two cities, two different mistakes folks feel need undoing:
In St. Louis, it was the city fathers' 1876 decision to separate from St.
Louis County. Here, the remedy makes sense, given the relative competence
of the city and county governments. Claytonites might be upset, though, at
the prospect of the county seat moving back into the Old Court House.
In Philadelphia, there is quiet talk about it being time to "undo 1854" --
the first of the great wave of 19th-century municipal consolidations. This
talk is prompted to some extent by the relative success and healthiness of
Center City (the pre-1854 City of Philadelphia) in contrast to the
destitute condition of many outlying districts (North Central Philadelphia
especially), but there are also those who argue that the worst-off
districts would actually benefit from having smaller, more responsive local
government that is closer to the residents. Northeast Philadelphians, who
have mounted secession drives on several occasions over the past few
decades, would no doubt rejoice at the prospect.
Neat bit of statistical trivia: if the 1854 consolidation were to be
undone, the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City CMSA would be the largest
metropolitan area in the country with a central city population of under
100,000. About 65,000 people reside within the pre-1854 city boundaries.
--
Sandy Smith, University Relations / 215.898.1423 / smi...@pobox.upenn.edu
Managing Editor, _Pennsylvania Current_ cur...@pobox.upenn.edu
Penn Web Team -- Web Editor webm...@isc.upenn.edu
I speak for myself here, not Penn http://pobox.upenn.edu/~smiths/
"That Tony Lombardo guy that you share your life with -- is he homosexual
too?"
--Late former mayor and talk-show host Frank Rizzo, to _Philadelphia Gay
News_ publisher Mark Segal on the first night of Rizzo's talk show
---------------------------(as reported in Segal's _PGN_ column 8/3/01)--
Exile on Market Street
wrote:
> Mark Roberts wrote:
>
> >
> > It also is a cliqueish place once you scratch beneath the surface,
> > as my remark about the question of "where did you go to high
> > school" was intended to indicate. I certainly wouldn't mind
> > visiting again: the CWE, the Delmar Loop, and South Grand all are
> > interesting urban destinations.
>
> OK. Being from STL, I hear this crap all the time about asking someone
> who is
> from STL metro where they went to high school. Let me try to clear this
> up.
> It's not intended to be a cliquish question.
[explanation snipped]
>
> Stop trying to read too much into it. Your taking yourself too
> seriously.
Okay, so there's a geographic component to the question.
But my impression based on several visits there was that the distance
between St. Louis Country Day/John Burroughs and, say, Clayton High (or
even Ladue?) was greater than that between Pembroke(-Country Day & Sunset)
Hill/Barstow and, say, Shawnee Mission East.
Perhaps that's because the money's a little newer in KC, or maybe spread
around a wider part of the population.
--Sandy Smith, PCD'76
Exile on Market Street
<nos...@newsranger.com> wrote:
[gotcher back next time, Dave]
> >Then again, if you were coming from points east or south, and your ultimate
> >destination was somewhere in the West, you usually *did* have to pass
> >through St. Louis (and change modes of transport there) on your trek, so
> >maybe I should cut some slack here.
>
> One of the books I own pretty much got it right -- the "Crossroads State,"
> and St. Louis would have been better known as the Crossroads City (as it
> was in the day when waterways were the real highways).
The major splits in the national map/psyche -- East vs. West, North vs.
South -- are all recapitulated within the borders of the Show-Me State.
Dave Simpson
A. Moore wrote:
>> >> This makes them retrograde and contemptible.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> >> I'm satisfied living in, and being an asset to, the St. Louis metro area.
>>
>> >That being so, I can see your point of view. Further pavement of the San
>> >Francisco Bay Region can not but improve your quality of life in St
>> >Louis.
>>
>> Non sequitur.
>
>Perhaps I should have said that it could not be expected to harm your
>quality of life. But St Louis has certainly benefited from the economic
>drive provided by the SF Bay Area in recent years, as has the rest of
>the nation. Some, at least, see further pavement of the SF Bay area as
>necessary to continuance of that drive. So even without the rephrasing,
>I don't think it's a non-sequitur.
My point of view isn't that the Bay Area need continue to be paved.
Fixing some obvious flaws in the system is needed but it's not the same
as any massive paving campaign.
Yes, St. Louis and everywhere else have benefited from Silicon Valley's
products. I'd like to see the area here actually progress and develop some
of that drive rather than continue to be bypassed by progress and rely on
other areas. There's a lot of potential here and I don't think and hope it's
not as with Brasil. That is, while it has great potential, I don't think and I
hope it's not also true: "and it always will."
There's a fine central area between being backward and bypassed by
progress, and being overcrowded and suffering the ills of crowding, crime,
decadence, and poor government that characterizes such decadence (as
is the case of California).
>> >> The Southern Crossing has long been needed.
>> >
>> >If we thought we needed it, we'd have built it.
>>
>> False. We wanted it for ages in the Bay Area, but many opposed it.
>
>Who's we, then? Some wanted it. Others didn't.
Right. I grew up in the Bay Area and I know what the facts are.
In the Bay Area you not only have NIMBYs but you have strong anti-growth,
anti-road, and anti-progress sentiment by many. (They frequently err in their
misperception of what constitutes real versus imagined problems.)
> I've lived in the SF Bay area for over 50 years, and never saw any particular
> need for it. [...]
You must not travel much in the East Bay, or to the East Bay from the upper
Peninsula. If you do, your statement is at the least very unrealistic.
>> They're coming anyway.
>
>Anything that makes it harder for them to justify coming is all to the
>good, IMHO. And, of course, at the moment, they seem to be leaving,
>which is fine with me. Long may it last.
Fine to reduce crowding and other ills, but it's pathological to welcome
anti-progress as a means to such an end.
>As I pointed out, the existing bridges seem to be able to meet the
>existing need. It's a nuisance when one of them is closed, but it's
>hardly a catastrophe.
They don't meet all the need. And the existing situation is a nuisance;
no one need wait for a bridge closure.
> Filling the "gap" isn't much of a reason -- thanks to the presence of the
> bay itself, there will always be a gap. [...]
The Bay is the obstacle that needs to be crossed or pierced. The southern
part of the Bay is well described as a long north-south-oriented barrier or
obstacle. The transportation solution to the barrier problem is to cross it at
a number of places, forming rungs of a ladder. Where a rung obviously is
missing, as with the Southern Crossing, is a gap in the system that should be
filled. This Southern Crossing belongs somewhere between I-580/238 and
Alameda. (An extension of 238 would be good for continuity but locations
north of there service the area better.)
There's another kind of gap elsewhere that long should have been filled,
which is connecting the Golden Gate Bridge to the rest of the highway system.
Many, almost certainly most, people in the Bay Area want it; it's stupid not to
have that gap closed. But there is severe opposition from a small minority who
oppose it irrationally.
It's poor behavior such as that that rightly gets derided and worse by we who
know better.
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, wrote:
>The major splits in the national map/psyche -- East vs. West, North vs.
>South -- are all recapitulated within the borders of the Show-Me State.
How true it is. K.C. is a "border town" in that sense, and of course St. Louis
is as well. (D.C. is such a place also.)
So, do I expect a true nothern (or Midwestern) winter coming up, then, now
that I've been sweltering in a Southern-style summer?
Dave Simpson
Exile on Market Street
(Mark Roberts) wrote:
> Exile on Market Street <smi...@pobox.upenn.edu> had written:
>
> | The rent? $2400 a month. And that comes with fighting half of a Bay Bridge
> | commute and no access to BART (why didn't they put a Treasure Island
> | station on the Transbay Tube?).
>
> Because the Tube doesn't go anywhere near Treasure Island.
All righty, then. Actually, I spoke with my brother last night, and I
overstated his rent -- it's actually $2100, and he pays one-third -- an
amount that would get him a nice little one-bedroom in Wash West.
[ObTransit:] And he doesn't own a car. He takes Muni from Treasure Island
into the city proper. (I had him taking AC Transit, but he reminded me
where the city boundary lay.)
> When I rented in SF, I paid $1750/month for a 1+ bedroom on Church
> Street. After I left it, the landlord leased it for $2200/month.
> Those renters have since broken their lease, as indicated by a sign
> I saw on the apartment last month offering to rent it for
> $1875/month. The peak year-2000 bubble has burst, but the year-1999
> bubble hasn't...yet. And maybe it won't.
For my brother, the bloom is off the rose. While he enjoys working in that
Trader Joe's, it'd be too long before he was eligible to rise into a
management position. So he's off to Seattle, hoping to work for Darth
Vader in a customer-support capacity.
However: my brother also told me what Trader Joe's paid its managers.
After wondering out loud what I was doing working at this job to my
colleagues this morning, they remided me that that was in San Fran. (I
guess I should avoid asking what a Genuardi's manager earns. And then
again, my position, despite my title, is not considered "management" -- I
do not directly supervise underlings, though I am technically responsible
for supervising workstudies [whose supervisors must be full-time employees;
the editor of the _Current_ works part-time]).
> Backwaters often can be pleasant places, especially if you've been
> dealing with a Gold Rush...and, face it, the Bay Area has had a
> Gold Rush economy the last few years. But they're still backwaters
> with limited opportunities for economic and social mobility. And
> St. Louis *is* stultified. Given that I went to high school in St.
> Charles County, just across the Missouri River from St. Louis
> County, I just barely escape the dreaded St. Louis question that
> marks a person for life: where did you go to high school? Think
> about the social and religious stratification that's inherent in
> just that one question.
I've given a quick gloss on this in another post.
> But again, what's important to you may not be important to other
> people. I'm not sure the Salon writer totally gets that. Nor do a
> lot of people who post to ba.transportation.
So I see. I don't share Dave's political views, but I think he may have a
point or two.
Dave Simpson
Exile on Market Street wrote:
>In St. Louis, it was the city fathers' 1876 decision to separate from St.
>Louis County.
Yep, they wanted nothing to do with those tenders of melon fields.
Back then (though the zenith, around 1940), cities were _important_.
>Here, the remedy makes sense, given the relative competence
>of the city and county governments. Claytonites might be upset, though, at
>the prospect of the county seat moving back into the Old Court House.
It's a nice building, though.
Plus maybe it'll tone down the desire to advertise that Clayton hotel on those
stupid billboards. "The Athlete" I could handle, but "The Actress" and "The
Politician" should be shot without warning. (Time to get a paintball gun and
put on my hiking boots...)
Some of the tacky I-170 billboards have been reshuffled. Northbound the worst
now is "LASER HAIR REMOVAL" with Baby and her pet-dog boyfriend or husband,
and southbound we now get treated to Hooters.
Dave Simpson
Mark Roberts
| that I've been sweltering in a Southern-style summer?
|
but partly cloudy weather.
Also expect unusually high snowfalls whenever a low pressure system
pulls in from the southwest. You will then get heavier snowfalls in
Missouri the farther southeast you go.
Dave Simpson
Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, wrote:
>The major splits in the national map/psyche -- East vs. West, North vs.
>South -- are all recapitulated within the borders of the Show-Me State.
Though Kansas City is in the East, it has a western flavor to it with its
nearness to the Great Plains. (Some of the K.C. outlying suburbs, when
I visited K.C., reminded me of Phoenix -- though the gridwork wasn't as
large.)
Indeed you have the South[east], Northeast, Midwest, and the West
converging (the Northeastern flavor is faint but St. Louis was Yankeefied,
after all). For this reason as well as near-geographic-centrality it's a shame
that the federal capital wasn't relocated to St. Louis after the end of the
Civil War (in time for the centennial in 1876), and nowadays if it were
moved there or to K.C. (which is closer to the geographic center of the 48
states), I'd find it a sensible idea if we were to ignore temporarily the cost
and disruption issues, as well as the Northeasterners' likely "from our cold,
dead fingers" reaction. And it's good to have that regionalist viewpoint
supported in contrast to the "bi-coastal" concept that is actually stronger
than when it was a faddish term back in the Eighties. (I have paraphrased
the late baseball coach Earl Weaver -- "baseball is pitching and home
runs" -- when discussing the basics of the most important parts of the USA
and its implications for first-time foreign visitors: "The USA is California
and the Northeast." However, it's false that everything between the east
and west coasts is nothing other than "fly-over country." Regionalism and
the substance of life outside California and the Northeast is alive and
well and it would be well to have a centrally-located capital counteracting
too much superficial "bi-coastalism." At least with the exodus of many
from California, the rest of the West is being "discovered," and respected
and appreciated.)
(This can be printed at 200% scale, Landscape format.)
http://www.ukans.edu/carrie/kancoll/books/thayer/marv649.jpg
Note that in the second ("bi-coastal") map, St. Louis is so insignificant, it
simply is the terminus of a southwest air-travel ray from Chicago.
http://www.zanesville.ohiou.edu/geography/canadaus/california/
Dave Simpson
(who's never heard anyone ask anyone else what high school they attended,
but has heard and read of this phenomenon -- still waiting to observe it in
real life)
David Barts
> Excuse me?!?!? Rude and unfriendly? The Bay Area has the marked cornerd on
> people who are rude and unfriendly big time. And no, I am not some East
> Coast transplant to the Bay Area, I grew up on the Pennensula, and I will
> basically say that people in the Bay Area make New Yorkers seem polite by
> comparison, If there is one thing that disgusts me the most about the Bay
> Area, is the attitude of the people here. It has become a enviroment, where
> people do not even say "hi" to each other. Its a enviroment where people do
> not even bother to get to know their neighbors. Yes, there are pockets of
> the Bay Area not like this, but the general attitude is just a rude,
> arrogant attitude.
Well, as David Kaye said in an earlier post, "It's a hard place." It
really is, in terms of the cost of living, the fast pace of life, and
general rudeness (especially rudeness of drivers to anyone not in a
car), and in some ways it's always been: ever since the Gold Rush days
there's been a large element there with a "get rich quick, I'm only in
it for myself" attitude.
There are, of course, positive attributes to the Bay Area as well
(some of which I miss quite a bit), but overall the negatives
outweighed the positives for me, too. (Every time I ride a bicycle on
Portland streets I thank my lucky stars I'm no longer in the Bay
Area.) But to each his own.
I don't think I'll ever feel as bitter about my Bay Area experiences
as you do, however. I'll definitely be back for a visit, to see
friends and to enjoy some of what I miss about the place.
Dave Simpson
Exile on Market Street wrote:
>> But again, what's important to you may not be important to other
>> people. I'm not sure the Salon writer totally gets that. Nor do a
>> lot of people who post to ba.transportation.
>
>So I see. I don't share Dave's political views, but I think he may have a
>point or two.
So I'm not all bad. (* whew *)
The Salon writeup was brought to my attention by someone else. I'm
not a reader of Salon. (I don't care for their politics nor for
superficiality.)
They sometimes do show the same kind of creativity that you otherwise
don't see except in some "alternative" publications (as opposed to the
major papers, who often gotten lightweight).
Dave Simpson
A. Moore
>
<snip>
>
> There's a fine central area between being backward and bypassed by
> progress, and being overcrowded and suffering the ills of crowding, crime,
> decadence, and poor government that characterizes such decadence (as
> is the case of California).
Let's not confuse growth with progress. The San Francisco Bay Area had
already been at the forefront of electronic technology for half a
century before the catastrophic growth began. The vacuum tube amplifier
was invented here in 1906. The Cyclotron partical accelerator was
invented here, as was the transistor. Growth was slow, after the
backwash from the Gold Rush settled out, until WWII, when San Francisco
and Oakland expanded rapidly, and after the war that expansion began to
spread throughout the area. Growth resulted from progress, not the other
way around.
>
> >> >> The Southern Crossing has long been needed.
> >> >
> >> >If we thought we needed it, we'd have built it.
> >>
> >> False. We wanted it for ages in the Bay Area, but many opposed it.
> >
> >Who's we, then? Some wanted it. Others didn't.
>
> Right. I grew up in the Bay Area and I know what the facts are.
>
> In the Bay Area you not only have NIMBYs but you have strong anti-growth,
> anti-road, and anti-progress sentiment by many.
Actually, I don't know more than a few who are anti progress. Most seem
to know the difference between progress and growth. The two are quite
independant of each other. It's my belief that the growth we've
experienced in the last 30-40 years will probably stifle further
progress originating in this area. The environment is no longer
conducive to innovation. We've been overtaken by various kinds of
looters. We used to pride ourselves on our fabulous engineering and
scientific schools. Now we have a branch of the Wharton School of
Business. That, to me, pretty much spells the beginning of the end as
far as progress is concerned. It used to be that people here went into
business because that was how they could do what they wanted in the
technical line. Now people go into business for the purpose of
exploiting existing technology to make money.
> (They frequently err in their
> misperception of what constitutes real versus imagined problems.)
>
> > I've lived in the SF Bay area for over 50 years, and never saw any particular
> > need for it. [...]
>
> You must not travel much in the East Bay, or to the East Bay from the upper
> Peninsula. If you do, your statement is at the least very unrealistic.
I admit that I try to avoid the freeways during rush hour.
>
> Fine to reduce crowding and other ills, but it's pathological to welcome
> anti-progress as a means to such an end.
Unfortunately, I see most of the newcomers as being anti progress. How
much technological innovation has come from China and India, anyway, or
even New York City, for that matter?
>
> >As I pointed out, the existing bridges seem to be able to meet the
> >existing need. It's a nuisance when one of them is closed, but it's
> >hardly a catastrophe.
>
> They don't meet all the need. And the existing situation is a nuisance;
> no one need wait for a bridge closure.
>
> > Filling the "gap" isn't much of a reason -- thanks to the presence of the
> > bay itself, there will always be a gap. [...]
>
> The Bay is the obstacle that needs to be crossed or pierced.
I see. You're one of those who percieves a need to fill in the bay.
Never mind it's role in the local climate, or its economic importance as
it stands, It's in the way, get rid of it.
> The southern
> part of the Bay is well described as a long north-south-oriented barrier or
> obstacle.
It also happens to be the source of almost all of the table salt and
salt used industrially in the western US, in case you never noticed.
Until fairly recently, it was also the source of a very large quantity
of cement, produced at Redwood City until the shellfish that provided
the calcium died out. That bridge you think we need will be a lot more
expensive, now that the cement is going to have to come from somewhere
else... While the bay functions as an obstacle to automobile traffic,
it's a pretty important transportation route for freight of all kinds.
Bridges and fill tend to complicate that.
<snip>
>
> There's another kind of gap elsewhere that long should have been filled,
> which is connecting the Golden Gate Bridge to the rest of the highway system.
> Many, almost certainly most, people in the Bay Area want it; it's stupid not to
> have that gap closed. But there is severe opposition from a small minority who
> oppose it irrationally.
>
> It's poor behavior such as that that rightly gets derided and worse by we who
> know better.
I assume you mean that they need to put more freeways through San
Francisco to connect the GG Bridge to I-80/US 101 and the Bay bridge.
Once again, I don't see much necessity for it. Certainly such a freeway
would simplify trips through San Francisco, but since San Francisco is,
in most cases, the terminus of trips, and not on the way from one place
to another, it seems like an expensive waste to me, and I travel fairly
regularly between the south bay and Santa Rosa. The lack of such a
freeway adds only about 20 minutes to that trip at most.
Al Moore
David Kaye
" outweighed the positives for me, too. (Every time I ride a bicycle on
" Portland streets I thank my lucky stars I'm no longer in the Bay
" Area.) But to each his own.
I tried living in Portland for 6 years. I never felt acceptance when I
was in business there. It seems that unless your ancestors came to the
place in conestoga wagons in the early 1800s, you'll never *really* be
accepted. And they take care to throw it up in your face all the time,
"Native Oregonian" this and "Native Oregonian" that.
I was turned down for a public relations job after beating ou 2 dozen
other candidates and coming down to 2 finalists, myself and someone else.
"I'm sorry, even though you're more experienced, we decided to give the
job to a Native Oregonian."
The state DMV actually puts out car license plates for Native Oregonians.
There are a lot of things that make Portland a wonderful place, but it
will always be a second-class city, hampered by its Native provincialism.
Filmmaker Gus Van Sant summed it up recently when he finally moved out of
Portland to New York. "There's nothing going on there. It's a small
town." That's quite a mouthful to say for a city of 600,000 and a metro
area of 3 million. But it's true. Regardless of its size, Portland is a
small town -- and always will be.
--
(C) 2001 The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents,
David Kaye and the second half by our children. -- Clarence Darrow
David Kaye
" I'll agree that it's cursed, but it's by the City's arrested-in-time
" old-time urban-dinosaur Democratic Party political machine government.
Actually, it's that old-time urban-dinosaur Democratic party political
machine that created the Golden Gate National Recreaation Area, a federal
park preserve. That was political machine honcho John Burton's lasting
legacy, and the thing he was most proud of. Preserving a coastline and
breathtaking scenic vistas from commercial development could *not* have
been done without a political machine's influence. Left to the
capitalism, there'd be nothing but high-rise Marriotts and Hiltons at
Ocean Beach today. Trust me on this. Just look at Miami Beach for an
example of what might have happened, had the political machine not blocked
it.
--
(C) 2001 The term "acid test" does not refer to LSD. Early gold
David Kaye assayers used acid to test ore for gold content
David Kaye
" My point of view isn't that the Bay Area need continue to be paved.
" Fixing some obvious flaws in the system is needed but it's not the same
" as any massive paving campaign.
It's clear that the more you build roads, the more cars will fill them up.
When I-680 was built in the 1970s, people thought it was folly. The
freeway was *empty*. Then people began moving further and further from
their jobs. Instead of living in San Jose, they moved to Walnut Creek and
Benicia. Before long, 680 became one of the most crowded freeways in the
region.
For any fool who thinks that building more roads will solve congestion,
they only have to look at LA. LA has built freeways, criss-crossing the
basin about every 4 miles in every direction. LA's freeways are so
congested that people who know better take the side streets if they want
to get anywhere.
Conversely, in SF, Valencia Street was reduced from 2 lanes to 1 lane (to
allow for a bike lane) a few years ago. The result is that now traffic
along Valencia moves *faster* than it did before.
The example of reducing road size to improve traffic flow has shown up
time and again.
--
(C) 2001 A little nonsense now and then, is cherished
David Kaye by the wisest men. -- Willy Wonka
David Kaye
" If case you haven't noticed, he already *is* there.
Actually, I hadn't noticed. I thought he had visited there and was
contemplating moving there. I think I'm getting Dave Simpson mixed up
with someone else.
Maybe it's time to change the Usenet standards to allow different
typefaces and colors. Photos would be nice, too.
--
(C) 2001 Though I am not naturally honest, I am so
David Kaye sometimes by chance. -- William Shakespeare
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>There are a lot of things that make Portland a wonderful place, but it
>will always be a second-class city, hampered by its Native provincialism.
If we come as assets to any community, we don't worry about gripes from
the natives while we put the place on the map. Also, I believe there's no
need for concern about provincialism nowadays. California cars no longer
get rocks thrown at them or get vandalised, that I know about.
On the other hand, as a native Californian I do have honest grudges
against so many migrants from elsewhere. It's ruined California.
And Portland and Seattle are fine places, similar to what the Bay Area
used to be like (and in no need of "education" from places such as New
York).
>Filmmaker Gus Van Sant summed it up recently when he finally moved out of
>Portland to New York. "There's nothing going on there. It's a small
>town." That's quite a mouthful to say for a city of 600,000 and a metro
>area of 3 million. But it's true. Regardless of its size, Portland is a
>small town -- and always will be.
It's a first-rate city that's cosmopolitan as are other cities on the West
Coast,
in no need of any culturalism from the East.
If you want many people to leave, you're asking for a small-town physical
change in the Bay Area, and also, how do you face the eclipse of the Bay
Area several years ago by Southern California?
Dave Simpson
David Kaye
" I wouldn't rush into making such embarrassing lefty misstatements.
" You left out the normal people, which form most of the population there,
" plus the eco-lefty-types and the ex-hippies.
I've spent time there. Believe me, I've spent more time there than I ever
intended to. I'm not speaking about Humboldt County, which seems to do
okay, and is a bastion of progressive people and politics.
But Del Norte County especially is, as I said, a dirt poor enclave of
speed freaks and gun nuts. I'd also be inclined to add Siskyou and Modoc
Counties to that appraisal as well.
" Your statements strongly imply you haven't spent much time there.
" You also left out southernmost Oregon.
Your statements imply that YOU haven't spent much time there, since
Southern Oregon makes up part of what is called the "State of Jefferson".
As I said, Curry County (which is in Oregon, since you obviously don't
know) and Del Norte County in California make up Jefferson along with some
interest from people in other California counties of Siskyou, Modoc, and
Lassen. A serious attempt to carve a new state was tried a couple times,
most notably in 1941. Maybe if you'd spent some time there...
--
(C) 2001 By the time we've made it, we've
David Kaye had it. -- Malcolm Forbes
David Kaye
" Ultimately, the question of whether one place or another is worth it
" is based on personal, subjective values. Blanket statements like "San
" Francisco sucks" or "St. Louis is for losers" are not true.
Exactly, which is why I say good riddance to people who complain about SF
and choose to move elsewhere. Sure, there are things not to like about
SF, things not to like about PDX, things not to like about
St. Louis.
It's this "holier than thou" attitude that the ex-Friscans are showing
that makes it funny. That's what gets me. Are we supposed to beg them to
come back? No way. We *like* it here without them.
--
(C) 2001 Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive
David Kaye evidence that you are wonderful. -- Ann Landers
David Kaye
" Sorry, but reality intrudes. Though many continue to leave California,
" plenty of others move the other way. And that's not even considering the
" source from south of the international border.
Yeah, reality does intrude. California is a place a lot of people want to
be. And after the rest of America has been turned into shopping malls
and fundamentalist bible churches, I can understand why people want to
move here instead.
What's funny about this was that I spent part of June driving about 1200
miles through California, on roads where mine was often the only car on
the road for miles. I'd stop to chat with friendly people, see beautiful
sights, and camp in breathtaking places. There is another California for
people who want to experience it. And for the record, I didn't set foot
in Jefferson* even once during that time.
* See reference to the State of Jefferson.
--
(C) 2001 Your work is only as good as your concentra-- Hey look!
David Kaye A cloud shaped like Snoopy! -- Martell Stroup
David Kaye
" All righty, then. Actually, I spoke with my brother last night, and I
" overstated his rent -- it's actually $2100, and he pays one-third -- an
" amount that would get him a nice little one-bedroom in Wash West.
So, he pays 1/3 of $2100 or $700 for one bedroom in an apartment versus
$700 for a 1-bedroom apartment elsewhere. I fail to see the difference.
Chances are the 3-bedroom place he's living has a larger living room and
larger kitchen than a comparable 1-bedroom apartment would have elsewhere.
Plus, he's got the company of roommates. Sounds good to me.
" [ObTransit:] And he doesn't own a car. He takes Muni from Treasure Island
" into the city proper. (I had him taking AC Transit, but he reminded me
" where the city boundary lay.)
Incidentally, SF owns a slice of the old Alameda Naval Air Station. Yes,
SF actually touches land in what we think of as Alameda.
" For my brother, the bloom is off the rose. While he enjoys working in that
" Trader Joe's, it'd be too long before he was eligible to rise into a
" management position.
The easiest way to rise in a company is to be consistent. Who knows what
the future will bring? With people leaving SF, it might be only a short
time before he'd rise to the level he wants.
" However: my brother also told me what Trader Joe's paid its managers.
" After wondering out loud what I was doing working at this job to my
" colleagues this morning, they remided me that that was in San Fran.
I'd rather live in an expensive place making buttloads of money than live
in an inexpensive place making little money. Why? Because I like to play
the price spread. I live cheaply and have managed to save enough money
from my last job that I've managed to live off savings for the past 6
months. I figure at this rate I could probably continue to do this for
the next 5 years or so before the money runs out. (Oh, and I eat out
every night and party, too.)
I just couldn't see doing that in a community where $35,000 a year is
considered good pay.
--
(C) 2001 It is better to be looked over that
David Kaye to be overlooked. -- Mae West
David Kaye
" A little more than a year ago, I decided enough was enough and decided
" it was high tim eto leave the Bay Area and I moved to what amounts to
" a backwater, Sacramento.
I don't know about other people's feelings, but I don't consider
Sacramento a backwater in the sense that I consider Portland a backwater.
The reason is that Portland is a large city which anchors a major metro.
It pretends to be a major city.
I see not such pretentions in Sacramento. They have a medium sized city,
and they treat it as such. You don't see articles in the Bee claiming
everyone as a favorite son/daughter who ever happened to set foot in town.
Portland and similar backwater cities have such inferiority complexes that
they even lay claim to murderers and child molestors, thinking that this
will somehow make them seem more "big city" than they are.
I lived in Sacramento once (Fulton Avenue near Alta Arden), and can say
that while there were things I didn't like about Sacto politically and
culturally, I never thought of it as an also-ran filled with losers.
--
(C) 2001 The tongue weighs practically nothing,
David Kaye But so few people can hold it
Mark Roberts
| nearness to the Great Plains.
That's often been said, but the reality is that it is a big city
with big-city problems. Its sprawl is fairly extensive, which may
be why the outer suburbs reminded you of Phoenix.
And a drive down Independence Avenue will remind you much more of
Pennsylvania than it will of Phoenix!
| For this reason as well as near-geographic-centrality it's a shame
| that the federal capital wasn't relocated to St. Louis after the end of the
| Civil War (in time for the centennial in 1876), and nowadays if it were
| moved there or to K.C. (which is closer to the geographic center of the 48
| states), I'd find it a sensible idea [...]
Then you'd have a Missouri-style tug of war over who got the
capital and it would probably end up in California
...in Moniteau county.
(tee-hee!)
Or it could go to Columbia, but they might not want it.
| (who's never heard anyone ask anyone else what high school they attended,
| but has heard and read of this phenomenon -- still waiting to observe it in
| real life)
You haven't been there long enough!
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>" I'll agree that it's cursed, but it's by the City's arrested-in-time
>" old-time urban-dinosaur Democratic Party political machine government.
>Actually, it's that old-time urban-dinosaur Democratic party political
>machine that created the Golden Gate National Recreaation Area, a federal
>park preserve. That was political machine honcho John Burton's lasting
>legacy, and the thing he was most proud of. Preserving a coastline and
>breathtaking scenic vistas from commercial development could *not* have
>been done without a political machine's influence.
Parks and preserves are the subject of more than an old big-city government.
The desire for them, and the objections to them when they aren't needed or
wanted but are perceived as land grabs by the government (particularly if they
benefit campaign contributors), is nation-wide. The big-city dinosaur
governments
are primarily and almost totally concerned about their own little out-of-touch
city environment. They use current politics of nation-wide interest (such as
the
PC excrescence associated with the Confederate battle flag) to exploit city
residents as they see fit.
> Left to the capitalism, there'd be nothing but high-rise Marriotts and Hiltons at
> Ocean Beach today. Trust me on this. Just look at Miami Beach for an
> example of what might have happened, had the political machine not blocked
> it.
It is better than some of the excesses of government. I do agree that there is
support for some public facilties, like parks and recreation areas, as opposed
to
complete privatization, where you must be rich or well-connected in order to
enjoy the use of the lands one desires, at the worst extreme. (Isn't Lake
Arrowhead
down in Southern California now completely private around its perimeter, no
public access, or is a public access site still present, for example? You don't
have to bother finding out if you don't know and don't care -- the issue here is
that I'm aware of what you write about.)
St. Louis features a true, honest-to-goodness urban-dinosaur liberal machine
government, and we are largely delighted to be on the right side, the safe side,
of the city limits -- outside the city, where our pocketbooks as well as our
persons
are safer. (The city has one of those idiotic, archaic taxes, a city earnings
tax.)
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>It's clear that the more you build roads, the more cars will fill them up.
That's not so. It depends on where, and what the travel demand is,
latent as well as blatant.
>When I-680 was built in the 1970s, people thought it was folly. The
>freeway was *empty*. Then people began moving further and further from
>their jobs. Instead of living in San Jose, they moved to Walnut Creek and
>Benicia. Before long, 680 became one of the most crowded freeways in the
>region.
Walnut Creek, Concord, Pleasant Hill, Danville, Dublin, Pleasanton, and
Livermore saw development in the early 1960s and sooner in some parts.
The BART tax was initiated in 1962.
>For any fool who thinks that building more roads will solve congestion,
>they only have to look at LA. LA has built freeways, criss-crossing the
>basin about every 4 miles in every direction. LA's freeways are so
>congested that people who know better take the side streets if they want
>to get anywhere.
False. The freeways normally are faster. Only a masochist would take
Imperial Highway from Downey to Yorba Linda and face 46 stoplights,
for example. That is, unless there remain gaps in the freeway system
there, and yes, there are gaps in LA's system.
You also neglected the reality that in much of LA you have interchanges
as closely spaced as every 1/4 mile, which causes backups, obviously.
>The example of reducing road size to improve traffic flow has shown up
>time and again.
Normally it works the opposite way.
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>" If case you haven't noticed, he already *is* there.
>
>Actually, I hadn't noticed. I thought he had visited there and was
>contemplating moving there. I think I'm getting Dave Simpson mixed up
>with someone else.
For the record: I have recently moved to St. Louis metro from DC metro.
I grew up in the Bay Area (I know what it's like there, and know what it used
to be like) and have lived also in Southern California, Seattle, Phoenix,
and Atlanta. I've not only lived in many places but also travel widely, on
the road for most of my trips, and I am familiar with much of North America.
(I want to do this before I'm too much older and have other things that will
take priority.)
>Maybe it's time to change the Usenet standards to allow different
>typefaces and colors. Photos would be nice, too.
I think Jym Dyer uses a good method -- he uses a special character sequence
to mark the start of anything he writes.
Yes, pictures are good. They can be supplied as attachments.
(No whining about attachments! If you don't like them, don't open them.)
Dave Simpson
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>" Your statements strongly imply you haven't spent much time there.
>" You also left out southernmost Oregon.
>
>Your statements imply that YOU haven't spent much time there, since
>Southern Oregon makes up part of what is called the "State of Jefferson".
I know it does, which is why I mentioned southern Oregon.
>As I said, Curry County (which is in Oregon, since you obviously don't
>know) and Del Norte County in California make up Jefferson along with some
>interest from people in other California counties of Siskyou, Modoc, and
>Lassen. A serious attempt to carve a new state was tried a couple times,
>most notably in 1941. Maybe if you'd spent some time there...
I have spent time there, and I understand what I observe.
Given the misstatements you've made before I suspected you got a county name
in California incorrect rather than state an Oregon county name.
Dave Simpson
wrob
I was just being tongue in cheek. :-)
Anyone see Jay Leno last night? They're doing West Wing
actors in continual rotation -- they all rhapsodize about
their short stays in DC. You would think the entire A-list
lived there these days :-) One fellow in particular spent
three hours in the alley behind the Secret Service HQ (*!!)
practicing his lines -- an especially angry speech against
Congress. He was interrupted by two officers, guns drawn.
They'd been watching him the whole time... Apparently they
thought he was an especially dangerous "White House case"
given that he had been careful to stop saying his lines
to himself whenever he walked by... -Brian Robinson
(* BTW, I reach this conclusion on him saying he was in
an "especially deserted" part of DC, and the officers,
rather than kill him (good thing he was white!) told
him he was at the "FBI satellite office". This is the
common, silly reference to the newly-built Secret Service
club house (ooh, it's a secret!) Just like the CIA used
to pretend it was the FHA, and the info-gathering branch
of the CIA still pretends to be something called MAE-east :-)
Dave Simpson wrote:
>
> "wrob" says...
>
> >PS--DC does not love you either. DC does not love anyone. Rush Limbaugh
> >once said that DC is like a broken down old crack ho, who you'd like to
> >reform, but she just wants your money. God only knows what he said
> >about Saint Louis. :-b!
>
> Dick Gephardt provides him enough ammunition for the time being.
>
> Speaking of DC metro, I liked it there, and have met other people who have
> moved there from California and like it, and you probably have seen quite a
> few California license plates in the last year or so. DC, expensive as it is,
> is
> still a bargain compared to the Bay Area. I asked some people why they had
> chosen DC over Atlanta, and they said DC was far more preferable, which is
> how I feel regarding DC vs. Atlanta.
>
> I recommend DC metro as the place for westerners to try East Coast living,
> and I recommend SF metro as the place for easteners to try West Coast living.
> DC actually is located inland, as is Seattle, another West Coast city, but the
> term still fits as is commonly used. The Bay Area is expensive, but it's the
> place I'd recommend people stay on the West Coast, just as I'd recomend DC
> rather than New York.
>
> Dave Simpson
wrob
>
> SCR wrote the quoted material below:
>
> " I think you're just supporting his point. You sound like a New Yorker.
>
> Well, he complains like that old country song, "All The Good Times Are
> Done and Gone". Nonsense. Everything he's looking for is still here:
> cheap food, cheap liquor, good cheap music, places to jam, affordable
> places to live. They're all here, but a person has to take the time to
> know the lay of the land to find them.
>
> What happened was that so many people came to SF thinking it was
> Disneyland. If you want a theme park, go to Disneyland. SF is not
> Disneyland. It's a hard place. It always has been a hard place, going
> back to the Gold Rush of the 1850s when eggs cost $2 each (in 1850
> dollars, that is) because so many people got wealthy from the gold fields.
>
> Yes, SF is a magical place to some people (including me and most of the
> people I hang with), but it's clearly not for everyone.
>
> I was happy when SF had 630,000 people and feel a little uncomfortable
> that it rose to 800,000. That's a lot more people, so I'm happy that some
> of them are moving away.
Don't you believe in containing urban sprawl?? Look at it this way:
eventually the demand will go down, but the units will remain. Lots more
affordable housing. God only wish that it was of good architectural quality!!
Remember folks, everything moves in cycles. The pendulum always swings
back, my grandfather said.
-Brian Robinson
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>Yeah, reality does intrude. California is a place a lot of people want to
>be. And after the rest of America has been turned into shopping malls
>and fundamentalist bible churches, I can understand why people want to
>move here instead.
You obviously don't get out much if you believe stereotypes like that.
Or do you just ignore anything that conflicts with your beliefs, including
in northermnost California?
People have come to California primarily because of its climate, and
I mean this in a climatological sense, not in a political sense. (Many of
us bristle at the "Left Coast" epithet because the rest of us are tarred and
feathered by it when we don't deserve it.) California's climate is its best
asset and that's why people will continue to migrate there despite what
has happened to it as its developed areas have become overrun, similar
to what's happened in Yosemite or Grand Canyon (South Rim).
Of course, one thing that could be done is to turn the entire Monterey
Bay area into another major metro area, gaining national-class status
in the way Las Vegas or Phoenix probably never could, but San Diego
has. (How's THAT for an anti-growther's nightmare???)
>What's funny about this was that I spent part of June driving about 1200
>miles through California, on roads where mine was often the only car on
>the road for miles. I'd stop to chat with friendly people, see beautiful
>sights, and camp in breathtaking places. There is another California for
>people who want to experience it. And for the record, I didn't set foot
>in Jefferson* even once during that time.
I enjoyed the same many times. If you pay attention you'll note that
when it's especially important to make it clear, I refer to the _developed_
areas of California when discussing overcrowding problems. (I need not
do this all the time any more than you, because from the context it is
obvious what we're writing about.)
>* See reference to the State of Jefferson.
I know about this already.
Dave Simpson
wrob
No, check that;
we have plenty of yuppies here in DC already. DC may not be a backwater,
but it's still possible to delineate oneself from the yuppies, if only
by how far back your roots go... in SF, all the real people were driven
out long ago. We have a place like that in DC... It's called Bethesda.
Cartoon City, the Pomo Paradise. -BER
Mark Roberts wrote:
>
> Exile on Market Street <smi...@pobox.upenn.edu> had written:
>
> | The rent? $2400 a month. And that comes with fighting half of a Bay Bridge
> | commute and no access to BART (why didn't they put a Treasure Island
> | station on the Transbay Tube?).
>
> Because the Tube doesn't go anywhere near Treasure Island.
>
> | Even with the recent run-up in Center City Philadelphia rents, $2400 a
> | month gets you good apartments in Rittenhouse Square. Do Nob Hill or the
> | Marina District come that cheap?
>
> When I rented in SF, I paid $1750/month for a 1+ bedroom on Church
> Street. After I left it, the landlord leased it for $2200/month.
> Those renters have since broken their lease, as indicated by a sign
> I saw on the apartment last month offering to rent it for
> $1875/month. The peak year-2000 bubble has burst, but the year-1999
> bubble hasn't...yet. And maybe it won't.
>
> As for the article generally...well, it reminds me of the classic
> Usenet formulation, "don't let the door hit you on the ass on the
> way out." St. Louis may indeed be a pleasant place with plenty of
> free parking and polite people. But it's a backwater. It's not
> geographically isolated, but it is economically and governmentally
> isolated. For the latter, you can thank the 1876 charter that, at
> the time, fixed St. Louis' boundaries for the maximum future growth
> that was thought possible.
>
> Backwaters often can be pleasant places, especially if you've been
> dealing with a Gold Rush...and, face it, the Bay Area has had a
> Gold Rush economy the last few years. But they're still backwaters
> with limited opportunities for economic and social mobility. And
> St. Louis *is* stultified. Given that I went to high school in St.
> Charles County, just across the Missouri River from St. Louis
> County, I just barely escape the dreaded St. Louis question that
> marks a person for life: where did you go to high school? Think
> about the social and religious stratification that's inherent in
> just that one question.
>
> The author is very enthusiastic about the CWE. That's good. One of
> the best bookstores anywhere is Left Bank Books on Euclid. There
> are a couple of really great newsstands on Euclid. Among
> the most pleasant dining experiences I've had are eating outside at
> one of the sidewalk tables at Duff's. But could he try living
> there? Could he try to buy one of the mansions in the nearby
> private places? He'd certainly get more for his money than what he
> would pay in the Bay Area, and a nice light-rail system
> would be within walking distance, but he'd be buying into St. Louis and
> its problems: political incompetence, sharply delineated
> segregation, and a floundering economy.
>
> Sure, I'm nervously carrying a mortgage, my company has had one
> round of layoffs and there are rumors of more. But it depends on
> where your priorities are. I still think there's a lot of economic
> opportunity in the Bay Area. Even though technology companies are
> retrenching for the moment, it probably won't last. Even though VCs
> aren't funding companies now, they'll have to start again someday,
> otherwise they won't make any money at all. What we have is a
> return to normal and it will just take time to work through the
> hangover. If easy parking is a high priority in your life, then the
> Bay Area probably isn't the place to be. If economic opportunity is
> a high priority in your life, then St. Louis probably isn't the
> place to be. If you want to get decent bread, well, in St. Louis
> you'll probably have to drive 125 miles west to a bakery on Ninth Street
> in Columbia.
>
> But again, what's important to you may not be important to other
> people. I'm not sure the Salon writer totally gets that. Nor do a
> lot of people who post to ba.transportation.
>
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>It's this "holier than thou" attitude that the ex-Friscans are showing
>that makes it funny. That's what gets me.
Whoever said he really, _really_ was a true "Friscan" in the first place?
> Are we supposed to beg them to come back? No way. We *like* it
> here without them.
Well, don't you characterize all of us who have been around and seen
California's fall as the superficial boob like that Salon writer. What you
can do (not "supposed" to do) is analyze what he wrote, figure out what
is fact and what is hype or superficial, and perhaps wonder about his
(real) motivation(s). His writeup was worthwhile to post here for that
reason, particularly if facts (as opposed to hype) are too close for your
comfort.
Dave Simpson
wrob
>
> John Bianco wrote:
>
> > A little more than a year ago, I decided enough was enough and decided it
> >was high tim eto leave the Bay Area and I moved to what amounts to a
> >much as I miss the flu, and this comes from someone who grew up on the
> >Pennensula. Trust me, for most people, opportunities in the Bay Area are
> >just as limited as they are in Sacarmento, or other cities that are
> >considerd backwaters. Rent is 2-3X, maybe even more higher, yet pay for most
> >positions is maybe 15-25% more in the Bay Area. Not to mention that for
> >whatever reason, people in the Bay Area just have a arrogance and meaness to
> >them that make life just unberable.
>
> There's a tenseness, a sense of being guarded, and a lot of impersonality.
>
> I suspect David Barts might have noticed this as a cultural difference between
> his Northwestern homes and the Bay Area. This also is one similarity shared by
> Northern and Southern California.
>
> > Its a debate of being in a rat race, and that is what the Bay Area has
> >become, and living a slower place of life. I myself, almong with most the
> >people I grew up with decided the rat race was not worth it.
>
> It doesn't even have to be a slower pace of life, just less crowded and more
> civil.
>
> My parents stayed a few years after my brother and I grew up, then they left for
> Oregon and don't miss California. They and we remember the way it used to be.
>
> > The Bay Area may sink alot further than people expect it to, and of
> >course, its going to pull down Sacramento into the mess as well. Many people
> >are compareing what is happening now in the IT/tech industry in the Bay Area
> >to what happend after the Aerospace/defense/electronics industries collapsed
> >in the South Bay after the Space program and Vietnam war ended. QWhile as
> >you said, the 99 bubble has yet to burst, as the unemployment rate approches
> >5%+, not only will the 99 bubble burst, but tens of thousands of people will
> >forclose on their property in a short amount of time.
>
> Plenty of us knew it was a financial bubble and this, coupled with the basest
> of connotations about a "Gold Rush" site which are true in the case of the Santa
> Clara (Silicon) Valley, make the bursting of the bubble and a bust that ought to
> at least compare to the boom, and ought go deeper and longer, take on a moral
> as well as financial and social tone.
Hear hear. FIE! FIE! ;-)
Dave Simpson
David Kaye wrote:
>I don't know about other people's feelings, but I don't consider
>Sacramento a backwater in the sense that I consider Portland a backwater.
Sacramento wasn't a backwater even twenty years ago.
Now, it comes close to being an exurb of the Bay Area proper,
if that can be interpreted to mean "anti-backwater insurance."
Portland is no backwater and is more cosmopolitan and lively than
Sacramento, at least Sacramento as it was as of the late Eighties to
early Nineties (before I moved out of California, and traveled there
as well as elsewhere in the state).
Dave Simpson
wrob
-BER who knows a fellow storefront owner that remembers taking
the trolley to see the Lincoln Memorial under construction.
Matter of fact I know lots of people in my neighborhood who grew
up here in the DC area...
John Bianco
"Dave Simpson" <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
news:Og_c7.5749$NJ6....@www.newsranger.com...
>
> David Kaye wrote:
>
> >I don't know about other people's feelings, but I don't consider
> >Sacramento a backwater in the sense that I consider Portland a backwater.
>
> Sacramento wasn't a backwater even twenty years ago.
>
> Now, it comes close to being an exurb of the Bay Area proper,
> if that can be interpreted to mean "anti-backwater insurance."
>
Sacramento is not going to become a exurb of the Bay Area, its too far
away and too different on a cultural level as well. Yes, there has been a
massive influx of people from the Bay Area to the Sacramento region, but a
massive number of them are not your typical Bay Area sterotypes.
Economically, many of then tend to be in more blue collar jobs, culturally
and politically, these people are conservative.
> Portland is no backwater and is more cosmopolitan and lively than
> Sacramento, at least Sacramento as it was as of the late Eighties to
> early Nineties (before I moved out of California, and traveled there
> as well as elsewhere in the state).
>
>
Sacramento has a decent music scene in Midtown area of Sacramento proper,
elsewhere, and I do not mind this, its basic suburbia.
> Dave Simpson
>
>
wrob
>
> Not bad at all in some parts.
>
> | What's needed is for there to be interest sparked in it as an alternative
> | to Minneapolis (probably the #2 city in the Midwest currently) as well as
> | to Chicago or other alternative Midwestern locations such as Indianapolis
> | or Columbus.
>
> Don't forget about Kansas City.
>
> | The city itself is the classic hole in the doughnut. I think the city and its
> | terrible government ultimately could be overwhelmed and removed if the
> | area around it gentrified.
>
> A merger is long overdue, as is consolidation of the numerous
> municipalities in the county. However, the political will just
> isn't there to get this accomplished.
Sounds to me like there might be a bit of racial subtext here
on the Usenet, last great White Clubhouse in America...
-BER
John Bianco
>
> Actually, there are other places that are worse. Much of developed
California
> is not civil, though. There's a lot of self-centeredness, and poor
behavior
> there.
> Much of the more developed parts of Southern California are like that as
well.
>
Actually, it seems people in So Cal are a little more liad back than
they are in the Bay Area by comparison. While I have not lived down there
for any period of time, I have some family and friends down there and even
they make the comment that while its not a small town atmosphere by any
means, people in So Cal are somwhat friendlier than they are in the Bay
Area.
> Phoenix is worse, though, and Atlanta is worse! Drivers in Atlanta LEAN
on
> their horns for no reason and people there, largely transplants from the
> Northeast
> and Midwest, are coarse, vulgar people that are rude and often shout, as
if they
> were stupid barking dogs. I was glad to leave Atlanta. Compared to that,
in
> the
> Bay Area and Southern California you have rudeness and incivility but much
is
> just due to self-centeredness, a lack of concern for the effects of one's
words
> and
> actions on others.
>
I have heard that about the Atlanta area. It seems that the cities that
are most connected to the "new economy" have the people that are the most
self centerd. To be truthful, Sacramento has too much of the "new economy"
for my taste, but it was the quickest way out of the Bay Area while not
having any lapse in employment. Eventually I want to move to a area that
has as little connection to the "new economy" as possible, though at the
rate things are going, the Bay Area and other areas that are "new economy"
oriented may be in for a very rude awkening.
>
> Well, many in the Central Valley are commuters to the Bay Area because
it's out
> in the Valley that people must go to find affordable homes. Ideally one
day
> much
> industry and many jobs will relocate to the Valley to go where more people
are.
> You may find that a mixed blessing, but overall I think it's better for
> California.
>
> Now what's interesting (and you probably understand why) is David Kaye's
comment
> about people leaving to raise their kids elsewhere. The question everyone
must
> ask
> is why this is happening (yes, it is happening).
>
The Bay Area is a very family unfriendly place. First off, even if Real
Easte drops by 25%, or even 33% in the next few years, it still is very un
affordable, and to add insult to injury, the school systems in much of the
Bay Area is in piss poor condition. Also, and this is not politically
correct to say this, but the Bay Area is experienceing a massive amount of
"white flight", and many of the people who were born and raised in the Bay
Area increaseingly find themselves as outcasts, between the gold diggers
that have migrated to the Bay Area(larely from the New Eangland) in the last
20 years and the immigrants. To be fair, the immigrants have developed
impressive support networks in their own communities and in many ways, they
are seperate from the general culture of the Bay Area.
But that said, people who are working class white and Mexican-Americans
find themselves as outcasts. They find that the jobs they are working only
pay 15% more than they do in areas that have almost 70% cheaper cost of
living. They find that to buy a home in a area that has a good school
district, they have to pay $500K+ , and they find their more recent
neighbors as being rude and unfriendly.
>
> Dave Simpson
>
>