America in the 70s

[fhdz]

Looks pretty dismal.

Well, it *is* Spokane.

[garbon]

Preparing?  Looks good to go.

Cities hostes world expos in hopes of showing off/attracting talent - not in hopes of getting development aid slotted for 3rd world countries.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Maybe Spokane was planning a homage to Hanoi during the Rolling Thunder raids or something.

[The Minsky Moment]

Not really a conspiracy theory.  Withholding gas from the market was a natural reaction to Carter's windfall profits tax, which tried to protect consumers by holding down the price of gas that was already being drilled before the Arab embargo but allowing it to rise for newly drilled oil.  Producers figured, correctly, that the windfall profits tax wouldn't last forever and they would come out ahead if they waited it out.

There's a number of problems with this theory but the biggest one was that the windfall profits tax was enacted in 1980 and the gas shortages were in 1979.

[Sheilbh]

The tax was also apparently only abolished in 1988, which seems to overstate its economic wrecking powers.

[jimmy olsen]

Here's a bunch of photos of a New York neighborhood that will soon be bulldozed away. Willet's Point in Queen, an iron triangle of 255 autobody shops with only one native resident. Just broken street upon broken street of rusting tin shacks, stacks of decaying cars and car related refuse.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2013/11/15/willets_point_queens_iron_triangle_autobody_shops_new_york_city_neighorhood.html

[garbon]

Well one thing I will say for slate, it is consistently terrible.

[Grey Fox]

Why you say that? What's wrong with that article?

[grumbler]

Why you say that? What's wrong with that article?

Garbo is much too much too kool for skool to have need any reasons for his near-universal disdain.  There's nothing wrong with that blog entry (it isn't an article, per se); I think it is interesting to see places like that, though I am much less astonished than the author that such places exist in NYC.

[DGuller]

Wow, 255 body shops in one block?  New Yorkers must be pretty bad drivers.

[mongers]

Wow, 255 body shops in one block?  New Yorkers must be pretty bad drivers.

What happened was 300 entrepreneurs were in a hurry on their way to the banking district to discuss business start-ups, when they crashed; after they'd sorted themselves out, most looked around and thought "this place has a real bad driving problem, why don't I start a panel bashing shop". 

This prefigured the 1st DotCon bubble.

[Eddie Teach]

Garbo is much too much too kool for skool to have need any reasons for his near-universal disdain.  There's nothing wrong with that blog entry (it isn't an article, per se); I think it is interesting to see places like that, though I am much less astonished than the author that such places exist in NYC.

I found the bit at the end about "organic" neighborhoods a bit off-putting, but the pictures were pretty cool.

I bet a large part of the reason auto repair shops tend to congregate is that their presence drives down real estate prices. The stretches of road where there's a lot of garages tend to also have more pawn shops and thrift stores than normal and they have fewer national chain sitdown restaurants or high end retail outlets.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I thought it was interesting.

[garbon]

Why you say that? What's wrong with that article?

Because it doesn't really offer up much of anything. No real history, nothing about how it came about. Just a bunch of photos and text brimmed full of the writer's over-the-top surprise that it exists.

I'm also not really a fan of how it is now being cited on wikipedia.

[Grey Fox]

It seems you still can't accept the characteristics of modern journalism.