This is a great idea! I haven't seen anything like it and also I think you kill of the forum to discuss photos and just attach comments to photos directly (sort of like instagram). Wonder if there is anything legally against chipping in like this?
I like this idea. Now do you propose that a municipality create a startup accelerator with the requirement for funding being that you are willing to relocate?
Would be pretty amazing if they through in office space / housing for the first few years. One would have to believe it would pay off quickly.
Now do you propose that a municipality create a startup accelerator with the requirement for funding being that you are willing to relocate?
I think that could work. I'd focus on long-term projects and an "autonomy fund": $100,000 per year to 100 top-notch engineers. The city gets a non-voting 37.5% stake (implied valuation of $266.67k per year) in whatever you build, and you have to have at least half of your employees working there at least 45 days per year, or maintaining a residence (tax base).
This sort of decline has hit nearly every major city, Detroit is just the worse off. Have you been to Philadelphia or Baltimore recently? Husks of their former glory.
Smaller cities implode as well. I was just in Newburgh, NY - a once gorgeous, historic town on the Hudson just 60 miles from Manhattan, now the murder capital of New York State. Literally. Driving around that town is like visiting the set of The Wire.
I couldn't help but think of what Newburgh would look like if it was in France, Germany or England. Probably a tourist attraction. Makes you kinda depressed at how easily Americans give up on urban areas.
It doesn't seem like there's any great pattern out there for managing a declining urban area. Everyone knows how development should work - increasing density and infrastructure - but I don't think there's a good plan for what to do when an area inevitably goes into decline (and they all do sooner or later, if only temporarily.) Like NYC in the 70s, when folks were burning down buildings because it was better than maintaining them.
I used to visit Newburgh a fair amount when I was younger. Do you think by chance the large number of historical buildings is actually whats creating part of the problem?
No, I don't think so. I'm not really sure how historic buildings could cause blight.
I know a big "urban renewal (read: slum-clearing) project in Newburgh demolished the historic waterfront in the 60s/70s. Then they never built anything to replace it.
Historic buildings can cause blight the way that any building restriction can. They limit supply and raise costs. Historic buildings in particular, affect the ability for new business owners to bring in businesses as well as limiting homeowners.
Another great example of that is Washington DC, which has incredibly strict building limitations and a large number f protected historical buildings, which means that despite massive tourism, the city is largely a slum with millions of workers choosing really long commutes over living in the city.
The urban rot problem is intrinsic to real estate. People don't sell when the value goes down. The fuckers hoard for decades (keeping prices artificially high) while the poor suffer and everything goes to hell.
Then, after something more like 30 or 40 years, real estate is affordable again (sometimes dirt cheap) and people can buy, but not most of the people who live there.
Thanks for the comment! I don't want us to ignore the situation but it seems like the laser focus we are currently putting on the subject could be a bad thing for women in general.
I love how this shallow and superficial article has been on the front page all day. I struck a chord and obviously people saw something in it. Leave it at that and stop being so negative.
So is the imbalance addressed by showing more women that STEM is a valid choice from an early age or is it that we start at the firms and try to work your way backwards? At a certain point is it a systemic failure?
