The train between concourses in Atlanta Hartsfield airport is full of the heat, sweat, and silence any traveler comes to expect. There are three electric signs explaining the situation – one in English, one rolling between French, German, and Spanish, and the last one the more artful display of Arabic, Japanese, and Korean. Whichever one made the most sense to any particular traveler was unclear as we all kept our language to ourselves. Certainly, for many of them, English would have been enough – and not just because we were at the portal to Atlanta. To many people around the world, the language of the new globalization is the youngest one of all.
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Category Archives: Urban Life
Life in da big city, and in Saint Paul as well.
Call to Action
It’s just a word. That’s the main thrust of many of the comments on my last blog entry, several e-mails, and a lot of tweets. The other side of the same argument is that words can be very powerful, so what’s the point in using that power to scare people? If we call it a Depression, a Recession, or a Banana it doesn’t really make any difference except the potential for panic. Why do I want people to panic?
Just as the power of words leads many people to think we might as well avoid the incendiary word, taking away its power, the goal of using the word Depression for me is to actually avoid panic. I want to confront this thing head on.
Organize
Many organizations are finding themselves in trouble they didn’t anticipate. Corporations, government agencies and nonprofits alike find that at the end of a long period of emphasis on individual achievement the advancing Depression sees them surprisingly vulnerable. This isn’t a totally unexpected. Organizations of people exist for a reason, and when times change the first thing people often do is retreat even more inward. Eventually, however, getting through hard times will require people to work together, which is to say refocus on why it works better with many hands. That may produce some unusual results.
Tuchusocracy
The moment of terror comes slowly at first, rolling under your subconscious before you really know it’s there. Only once it’s too late do you recognize the signs were there all along – the big stacks of papers that serve as fortifications and the large cups of coffee that can provision any siege. Everyone else knew it, why didn’t you?
It was destined to be one of those marathon meetings from the start. You walked right into a trap. All you can do now is squirm your tuchus (TUCK-us, Yiddisch for “backside”).
Renno!
In the city of Saint Paul, there are 2200 plus vacant homes, and the inspection staff at the city agree that they are probably counting about half of the total. That means about 4% of the units are vacant in the City overall, and a lot more expected to hit foreclosure. As bad as this is, I’m quite sure that Saint Paul has a better handle on this than most cities across the nation, and is far ahead of any suburb.
What does this mean for the future?
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 