[AdamB]

Going to the dump ($125 minimum, 6:00 am appointment, tax funded operation) I went over a bridge. The apron had sunk so that when I hit the sill of the bridge the impact caused my windshield wiper to turn on. (Hope I am using hood enough words to convey.).

In my experience, Pennsylvania in general is a damn disaster when it comes to roads. Not just old crappy ones existing everywhere, but it takes years to make changes or new construction that west of the Mississippi seem to take months.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Going to the dump ($125 minimum, 6:00 am appointment, tax funded operation) I went over a bridge. The apron had sunk so that when I hit the sill of the bridge the impact caused my windshield wiper to turn on. (Hope I am using hood enough words to convey.).

That's interesting. When my father died, I had problems with my 2003 Nissan Altima wipers (presumably the motor), that made me think I had a serious need of repairs. In fact, for years, I carried a squeegee with a handle, in case I ran into a problem when out of town and a persistent rain.

In retrospect, I suspected a significant gap / bump between the driveway and street to the nursing home he was in flexing the wiring harness, since the problem went away pretty rapidly after he died and I no longer went to the nursing home.

Sounds like that might have been a pretty good guess (and I'm pretty clueless overall, re mechanical things).

[Outcast_Searcher]

Nifty little article on sustainability

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/8/10/i-did-the-math-on-my-towns-cul-de-sacs?

Yikes! I always knew that suburban streets cost a fortune but that's beyond the pale.
"low density suburban living requires more roads, curbs, sidewalks, and pipes than it pays for in tax revenue—meaning, it’s not solvent."

They will just have to depave, no other solution to that equation.

Respectfully, wrong, re the "only solution" is "having" to depave. They could do less other things, like using so much tax revenue to transfer money from group A to group B. Or just allocate more money toward infrastructure. This assumes, of course, that the cost figures given are truly accurate, or that the profit margins aren't unreasonable, where more competition would result in more reasonable prices.

Unpaved roads would need MASSIVE maintenance at FREQUENT intervals, likely costing MORE than paved roads, if handled efficiently.

All I'm saying is "shortage" X needs to be looked at objectively, from multiple points of view and groups with different priorities, before we assume that there is "no other solution to that equation" -- for virtually EVERY priority re "needs" government decides "must" be provided to voters.

[Newfie]

In my case it was simply a hard enough bump to cause the wiper control arm to move.

It was a similar bump in Dominica that broke the axel on the rental car and nearly sent us off a bridge into a stream 15’ down. But that was my fault, the “bump” was the bridge beam, still no more than. 2” projection.

Back to degrowth, windshield wiper motors are kind of cool and can be repurposed to other things. They run iff DC, reverse direction with reversed polarity, have surprisingly high torque. I found out that the motor in my boats autopilot is a wiper motor. Quite robust.

[Newfie]

The discussion about roads is interesting. We spend significant time in low density places, 40 miles to a cup of coffee kind of thing. Tough territory, volcanic mountains, low population density. The roads suck by US standards.

In the other hand these roads are connecting communities, small places, that have almost zero economic reason for being. The infrastructure costs to support those communities must be astronomical. And for some places it is a significant burden.

When you get to the out islands in the Bahamas each island has a road, always narrow and in poor shape. The roads were built while the British still controlled and managed the islands. Back then there were farms. And other commercial operations on-going. But when the British pulled out then the people left, the population crashed.

On some of these islands there are more abandoned houses than occupied. Lots of them are, or were, tiny abodes. Many had dirt floors. Churchs and civic buildings are abandoned. About 25% of the population remains, almost entirely on the government dole. Many islands have under 2,000 inhabitants, some under, well under, 500. They have periodic mail boats which bring supplies. Road maintenance is near zero.

Newfoundland had hundreds of “out port” communities. Traditionally everything was organized around the sea. There were no “counties” you were from Trinity Bay, or Bonavista Bay, Green Bay, etc. First there was a railroad and later roads. And later the cod collapsed which, in a single day, eliminated 35% of the islands commerce and 100% for most out ports. Even before the collapse the provincial government recognized it could not support these communities that had no roads. So it closed down hundreds of small population centers and moved the people to “development centers” which didn’t develop.

Our cabin is in one of these out ports that did have a road that linked 2 larger town. The population has decreased from just over 200 to about 50. You drive for miles through bogs and rock and pass no houses. There is some commerce; crab and shrimp. The major income it seems comes from remittances, guys with jobs in the Alberta tar sands. Our community is unincorporated: no government, no taxes, no fire or rescue, no nothing. It is one of the last unincorporated communities.

The roads are not good by US standards. Most are adequate, some are really bad, going back to unpaved. Folks generally don’t drive at night. Many roads are unmarked and nearly impossible in fog. And moose are a very credible threat I have narrowly avoided.

Both in the Bahamas and Newfoundland, and other places we visit the cost of maintaining these roads and power lines is high on a per capita basis. Especially when there is no tax base to support it. But what are you going to do, move the people? That is a tough decision and dosen’t always work well.

I think it is wise to view the toads we have as valuable resources that we may have trouble repairing or replacing in the foreseeable future. I would like to see all highway expansion stop, we need to learn to live within reasonable limits. I support maintaining what we have, and there is a very great deal to he done in that direction. We have thousands of bridges in substandard condition that need repair. But also we need to out how to make the infrastructure we have last as long as possible.

[vtsnowedin]

A couple of points:
One unless your house has a dock on the ocean or navigable river ,if it has no road connecting it to it is a useless lot. Imagine humping all your goods in and out over an Indian trail.
Second: there is a amount of daily traffic where it becomes cheaper (especially on a per car basis) to build it on a high standard and pave it. It varies of course from region to region and climate to climate, and prevailing soil types, But in general about 500 ADT (average daily traffic) which would count you going out in the morning and coming back after work as two trips. More trips then that and the action of tire torque kicks out aggregate out of the wheel paths and creates pot holes and wash boarding that have to be periodically graded back out. Graders and their operators don't come cheap so it adds up. Also an unpaved road adds to silt runoff that pollutes the adjacent streams harming the streams ecosystem.
My town has about 60 miles of roads other then the state highways running through it which amount to 20 miles. Of those town miles they maintain just eight of them as paved and the rest as graded gravel and crushed rock. I would argue that more pavement would be economical but my industry bias would get shouted down at town meeting.

[Newfie]

Vt,

Each locale has its own characteristics and the solutions w be tailored to the location. Incan follow your logic in your town.

My post was more relating to what degrowth looks like where I have seen it.

I could have included large parts of Philadelphia where the manufacturing base has disappeared. But thats for another time.

[Tanada]

Unlike a lot of members here I grew on a gravel paved rural road. The county would send the grader around about twice a year, once in June and again in October. The rest of the year you learned to drive around the potholes and in the spring to drive on the ridges the previous vehicles ruts had put in the muck. If you were good at that you could navigate even in six inches of muddy gravel muck. If not you buried yourself and gad to be towed out.

There were places where a couple dump truck loads of gravel would gave made a wonderful difference but county taxes were low so over half the county road network was gravel paved rather than concrete or asphalt. A lot of residents had pickups with a high wheel base or four wheel drive but I always had two wheel rear wheel drive and I never got stuck because I knew what was necessary and I paid very close attention during the muck and mud season every spring.

I find that a lot of people are distracted or inattentive drivers and they proved it often enough. Gravel roads require different habits and reflexes than hard paved roads.

[Newfie]

Yup, grew up on dirt roads myself.

A fun Saturday or Sunday would be spent tooling around the woods.

Dad and Mom would get the inside seats. Me and the dog were stuck in the bed.

[Newfie]

Collapse possibilities and sensitivities of 10 nations compared.

Not a great article but fairly good.

https://thedebrief.org/10-modern-civili ... -collapse/

[vtsnowedin]

Unlike a lot of members here I grew on a gravel paved rural road. The county would send the grader around about twice a year, once in June and again in October. The rest of the year you learned to drive around the potholes and in the spring to drive on the ridges the previous vehicles ruts had put in the muck. If you were good at that you could navigate even in six inches of muddy gravel muck. If not you buried yourself and gad to be towed out.

There were places where a couple dump truck loads of gravel would gave made a wonderful difference but county taxes were low so over half the county road network was gravel paved rather than concrete or asphalt. A lot of residents had pickups with a high wheel base or four wheel drive but I always had two wheel rear wheel drive and I never got stuck because I knew what was necessary and I paid very close attention during the muck and mud season every spring.

I find that a lot of people are distracted or inattentive drivers and they proved it often enough. Gravel roads require different habits and reflexes than hard paved roads.

I think I can match you on the poor quality of the roads where I live.
I cant say I have never got stuck as I had to try to go to work good roads or bad.
One time the town dump trucks had left duel wheel wide trenches in the road attempting to reach places further on that they thought were worse.Trying to navigate this hazard I slide off the hump left in the middle to the left and was in deep enough that I could not open my drivers side door. A neighbor with a small bulldozer saw my plight and putted down and twitched me out to the nearest high ground. I never got to repay him the favor sadly.

[theluckycountry]

In the small town I live in I can see the effects of degrowth just in the collapsing back roads. These once well maintained bitumen roads are 'withering' so to speak, dying, which is the opposite of growth. Growth actually stopped roughly 25 years ago when the endless conversion from gravel to blacktop stopped abruptly. It's interesting to drive around the hills and note the number of bitumen roads that begin at one end, off some major road, run for say 12km to another major road, but in the middle is a 2 or 3 km section of gravel. Like an unfinished project, which is what they are basically. And they are everywhere out here.

When people in planning circles or green towns movements speak of Degrowth it's always on the basis of a controlled return to something more sustainable, but that is never how it works in the real world. In the real world money, or access to resources, stops flowing and you get a collapse of whatever was built. Just like a person who gets old and starts to have health issues, the doctors continually patch them up but they know in the end that old person will be dead soon. This is how I view global road networks.

Unfortunately they are still building new highways, and housing developments based on the previous investment trap mentality. By the time they admit we need to switch to a gravel road system, perhaps with some new plant based additive to make them more resilient (a dream) there will be very little energy left in the ground to accomplish this. Ie: building the fleets of graders needed for maintenance, ripping up all the problematic concrete and bitumen roads.

Perhaps this current collapse in the industrial system we built up over the past 100 years will remove the need for many roads, if it continues at the pace it has been over the past 2 years there will be a lot less cars driving, and that's oil saved as well. I see it already on my roads, less traffic because of the increased unemployment and the work from home transition. Poor people don't drive cars except for essential trips. poor people don't have plumbers, and lawnmowing contractors, and delivery drivers visiting all the year long.

[Outcast_Searcher]

In the small town I live in I can see the effects of degrowth just in the collapsing back roads. These once well maintained bitumen roads are 'withering' so to speak, dying, which is the opposite of growth. Growth actually stopped roughly 25 years ago when the endless conversion from gravel to blacktop stopped abruptly. It's interesting to drive around the hills and note the number of bitumen roads that begin at one end, off some major road, run for say 12km to another major road, but in the middle is a 2 or 3 km section of gravel. Like an unfinished project, which is what they are basically. And they are everywhere out here.

OTOH, life expentencies, living standards on average, and the amount of roads and housing available continue to improve rather consistently, over time.

So there's that.

But I know, you have doom to sell, whether backed by credible facts or not.

[Newfie]

Out,

It is the difference between looking backward and looking forward.

The standard disclaimer: past return are no guarantee of future performance.

Just one example; China has a coal crunch. They did. Not have a crunch until they did, and now the do.

[Revi]

Roads are an amazing thing. I hope some of them hold up for a while. It costs around $2500 a mile for a gravel road and $5000 a mile to maintain an asphalt road. Not surprising that some are being poorly maintained.

[Newfie]

In some places without a stable tax income base you get “capital improvements” that then can not be sustained.

This kind of thing goes on in third world countries. The want a road, for good reason, they find someone to help pay for the road, but then they can not maintain it. The above photos are of a bridge on a portion of an island ring road, incomplete.

Clearly an older bridge, all of the marking, signs, handrails, etc are long gone. The handrails are actually in the creek where they went in some previous accident. The locals were sympathetic and were as helpful as possible, they understand how it can happen.

The bridges on the leeward side of the island are worse. Many were taken out by previous hurricanes, years ago. The Chinese come in and rebuild. Cheap way to buy UN votes. And the US does little.

Not to be too smug about it I have seen the same issue in the USA, AMTRAK is an example I have experience with. When you work for Amtrak you work for the federal government, the vehicles have federal plates. There is small income from fares. Small income from states. Uncle Same is the main source of funds, so it is a political football.

Without an adequate and stable income source they do only the minimum maintenance, that stipulated in all RR’s by the FRA and daily operations. They get by day to day but any major work or improvements are covered by grants. But the grants do not cover maintenance.

To solve this dilemma they have adopted a strategy called “capital maintenance.” In short they just abandon some amount of maintenance and apply for a capital grant to do an “upgrade”, or “replacement”, or “enhancement.” If the funds don’t come this year (decade), then they will come next year (decade.)

The worse part of this is that it has almost totally eliminated the concept of maintenance from the workforce. The necessary routines and structures are not there, or exist only where some spark of enthusiasm is keeping the flame lit. It is not an institutional concept, at least in the ROW departments.

Now I am sure, 100%, that upper management would call me a bold liar. Middle management, would do the same, unless you know the guys and have their confidence. Only then do the honest opinions come forth. Or in a formal review.

The point of this missive is that degrowth, crumbling infrastructure, can be visible. But it is sometimes carefully carpeted over. And it is here in the USA.

And, for a more recent and visible example, look to Revi’s post in “Collapse Probably Wont Happen” for a description of the situation in PR.

[The_Toecutter]

The point of this missive is that degrowth, crumbling infrastructure, can be visible. But it is sometimes carefully carpeted over. And it is here in the USA.

I make use of crumbling infrastructure every day when I visit job sites. I see lots of bridges held together with wooden boards where there used to be concrete with missing chunks of concrete from their pylons, potholes that could total a car(I have to be especially careful near these using my little trike that I built, as hitting one at 45 mph would be a death sentence), guardrails that are damaged/missing, street signs that are missing, and entire sections of the power grid still using components from the 1910s and 1920s that should have been replaced the better part of a century ago.

The official statistics in this country regarding inflation, unemployment, and quality of infrastructure are about as credible as Saddam Hussein having won 99% of the vote in a fair election. And I see a lot of anger among the common people, anger that won't be abated with a few lousy stimulus checks.

What is frightening is that we haven't seen shit yet if current trends continue.

[AdamB]

And I see a lot of anger among the common people, anger that won't be abated with a few lousy stimulus checks.

And what, in your experience, are the common people angry about? Is it political, economic, just general irritation at a lack of something, or perhaps cultural or generational?

[The_Toecutter]

And what, in your experience, are the common people angry about? Is it political, economic, just general irritation at a lack of something, or perhaps cultural or generational?

Lots of things.

Loss of living standard. Rapid loss of opportunity. Shortage of living wage jobs. Constant media lying about the true state of things and gaslighting of the public. Politicians who pretend there's no problem or who make problems out of non-issues while the peoples' needs go ignored and their views unrepresented.

Most people around here didn't grow up as a child dreaming that they'd be slinging crack rocks on the street corner so they could make the next rent payment, prostituting themselves out near the local motel so they could feed their kids until the next check, or stealing what they needed from the local Dollar General WHILE working a crappy minimum wage job that falls short of affording basic sustenance. It comes down to most honest people willing and able to work being priced out of basic survival if they follow that path, let alone being able to afford an actual future(consider the cost of a college education these days). Thus, crime flourishes and hopelessness is ubiquitous.

Whenever a cop shoots someone, there is a major risk of it starting a riot around here as has happened numerous times over the last 10 years. There are entire sections of my city with nothing but abandoned store fronts and boarded up buildings for blocks at a time. Hordes of homeless people are camping in alleyways and abandoned buildings and I see them every day.

The city I live in isn't exactly remarkable as far as major U.S. cities go either. According to official government statistics, it is average in many measures.

For the bottom 50% of the population, this is closer to a 3rd world country than a 1st world country. Prior to the COVID shutdowns, 3/4 of Americans lived paycheck to paycheck, 2/3 of Americans can't come up with $500 in an emergency. This has only worsened as a result of the government's COVID policies.

In my case, it took me a year and a half of applying for jobs virtually every day, even going door to door, just to get a crappy minimum wage job washing dishes, after thousands of applications. I have an electrical engineering degree and at the time had about 9 years experience in that field, and was applying to jobs in my field as well as any crap jobs I could find just to have money coming in to avoid exhausting my hard won savings. I have no criminal record, an excellent credit score, and otherwise no blemishes. In 2019, one of the grocery stores I applied to that was advertising an open position had a line of people an eighth of a mile long stretching around the block. Yet at the same time that I see and experience this, I'm expected to believe the unemployment rate was only about 4% at that time. Fortunately for me, I found work in my field again this year. It only took, well, about 3 years and many thousands of applications, and thousands of hours spent applying to places, while companies bitched they couldn't find people with my skillset then proceeded to ignore my existence while demanding foreign VISA applicants.

All of these massive riots around the U.S. we've been seeing over the past decade did not occur in a vacuum or without reason. Just because the comfortably middle class have been able to afford to insulate themselves from the growing poverty does not mean things are well. It's getting more Mad Max-like around here with each passing day within the neighborhoods I live and travel in, and I've currently got a front row seat to the shit show. And what a shit show it is.

I've now got the money to splurge on a camera. Maybe I should buy a camera and ride around and show you all what these streets have become. Detroit, MI, Gary, IN, and Baltimore, MD are not anomalies. This country is completely falling apart and is in a state of incipient collapse. You will not see this ugliness looking at the official statistics or watching the cable news. It's not just the metropolitan areas suffering this fate, but so too are many small towns in flyover country, even complete with their own mass homeless encampments. The official statistics on homelessness within the U.S. are easily off by at least one order of magnitude.

[AdamB]

And what, in your experience, are the common people angry about? Is it political, economic, just general irritation at a lack of something, or perhaps cultural or generational?

Lots of things.

Loss of living standard. Rapid loss of opportunity. Shortage of living wage jobs. Constant media lying about the true state of things and gaslighting of the public. Politicians who pretend there's no problem or who make problems out of non-issues while the peoples' needs go ignored and their views unrepresented.

When you talk to these folks Toe_Cutter, what is the context? Are these co-workers, people you meet on the street who strike up a conversation about your mode of transport, blue collar/white collar? For example, never in my life, my entire life, has someone broached a topic like "gee, there is a shortage of living wage jobs". Whining about no job available that they'd like, something involving warming a seat, with a secretary, for a high salary, and no responsibility. I see that comment in the MSM all the time, but never once has a person during some conversation mentioned it. And as it is the media where I've seen this comment, it is hard to claim that they then lying constantly about it.

Politicians being bashed, I hear that one. Not the media though. And loss of opportunity, that could be a topic based on the socio-economic group you are hearing your information from. I'm probably older than you, and I can't say that I hang out with the same socio-economic group I grew up in, but I still have friends from high school I see on occasion, and they certainly have a different view than the socio-economic world I'm in now.

Whenever a cop shoots someone, there is a major risk of it starting a riot around here as has happened numerous times over the last 10 years.

I'm not sure where you live, but cops shoot people where I live, and there is no instant riot expectation. Sure, they have been known to happen, and our local cops are great at tear gassing the homeless population that hangs out near the capital building, but that has been going on pre peak oil (pick your favorite), pre Trump (although his supporters themselves caused the last major riot, not the homeless or disadvantaged), and pre-this century.

In my case, it took me a year and a half of applying for jobs virtually every day, even going door to door, just to get a crappy minimum wage job washing dishes, after thousands of applications.

My daughter, who graduated college in the middle of Covid, took around 2 months to work her way into employment. First part time for a month, then a full time position. A year later, she took her 12 months of experience for a spin, got 3 offers in a week, accepted the second, then turned it down when the 3rd beat it the same afternoon, and is moving on to a publicly traded multi-national corporation with a 35% bump in pay plus bonuses. I know you are an engineer, but it is difficult to see the job market for white collar folks in a bad light right now. Depending on major of course.

My son upon high school graduation applied for post high school positions, and went to work for Target. Then went to Amazon for a couple years. Paying on his student loan as he went, graduating this December. He'll get a job, my bet is before the end of January, and will probably do that at the same time as he gets his masters.

At my place of employment we've recently hired 3 people, one of them had been out of work for a year or two. Another had gone the consultant route, and decided to get something more steady. The third is settling in, relatively young and from the Rocky Mt west, enjoying life in the big city, learning as she goes. All good wages and benefits expected, but none of these kinds of jobs are available without some basic STEM education certainly.

There are places in this country that are economic powerhouses. There are far more that aren't. I've lived in both. Do you have the option of moving to one, rather than the other?

I have an electrical engineering degree and at the time had about 9 years experience in that field, and was applying to jobs in my field as well as any crap jobs I could find just to have money coming in to avoid exhausting my hard won savings. I have no criminal record, an excellent credit score, and otherwise no blemishes.

I've got an engineering degree as well, and have been laid off during down times. That is the way of work sometimes. My other careers have been far less sensitive to oil prices.

All of these massive riots around the U.S. we've been seeing over the past decade did not occur in a vacuum or without reason.

I've got news, the ones in the past decade aren't the only massive riots that have happened in the US. Riots, in and of themselves, are unlikely to be indicative of any one cause, or a favorite one.

This country is completely falling apart and is in a state of incipient collapse. You will not see this ugliness looking at the official statistics or watching the cable news.

And it isn't true just because of the underlying causes of globalization, inequity in incomes, or folks at the bottom end of the socio-economic pile unhappy that the US is more a global finance and technology power than a manufacturing one. This has been happening since Ronny began encouraging union busting back in the early 80's. I'm not sure you were around for that, but the same ideas of collapse and despair were being talked about them, just without social media involved to make people believe it was happening around the corner. Just ask coal miners, or the oil and gas industry about what happened back then, people whining about buy American and not a one of them willing to support the oil and gas industry, only bash them for making obscene profits....as though the supply/demand/price equation was their fault.

It's not just the metropolitan areas suffering this fate, but so too are many small towns in flyover country, even complete with their own mass homeless encampments. The official statistics on homelessness within the U.S. are easily off by at least one order of magnitude.

I regularly drive through every small town county seat I travel past, and homeless encampments there are invisible, if they exist at all. Downtown areas of major cities however, that is entirely a different story.