[Plantagenet]

I just posted in the "Death of Suburbia Thread" that the premise of that thread has turned out to be totally wrong.

What we actually see in the US today isn't the death of Suburbia but the death of cities.

In city after city, the downtown areas are being abandoned to the homeless, drug addicts and drug dealers, and criminals and thieves.

In city after city the downtown hotels and businesses are closing, and corporations are moving their staff out of the huge office buildings because it just too dangerous for their employees to get to work.


Downtown San Francisco is overrun by the homeless, drug addicts and drug dealers, and criminals and thieves. The economy and culture of SF is dying

Since what we area actually seeing in the US today is the death of cities, I've decided to start a new thread on "THE DEATH OF CITIES"

And this isn't exclusively an American problem.....last time I was in Paris I was astonished to see homeless camps in many parts of the city, and drug use and other criminal activity going on in public.

France has always been a well managed and safe country for travelers (with occasional pick pocket infestations near train stations and tourist hot spots) but more and more its looking like a typical US city, with some areas becoming essentially "no-go" zones for the police. And the same thing is going in London, Amsterdam, Rome, etc.

They aren't as far down the road to the death of Cities as we are in the USA, but Europe is on the same track.

Cheers!

[AgentR11]

I always see these pictures of some cities, but when I go into Houston, I don't see anything like that. I'm sure there are areas like that, but there are also areas with lots of brand new development and re-development going on.

Cities will change of course, but I think they'll hang on, messy or not.

[theluckycountry]

Good thread topic plant.
As a point of reference, the CBD and inner city area is by design the commercial/financial center of a nation or a state or region, a place to do business and a often place for those to live who worked there. This necessitated many services there as well, to provide for those engaged in business. And because a lot of wealthy people worked there we saw the high-end shops and expensive entertainments, opera, restaurants there.

But business and finance has changed hasn't it, has consolidated, has gone online. A lot of those hi-end shops have moved out to big shopping centers in the suburbs, and the cities, down here at least, have been morphing into residential centers with endless apartment towers. Who lives in these inner city towers? Some business people, a lot of retired middle class couples, but also a lot of flakey people, a lot of prostitutes and drug dealers. Certainly not Jack and Jill with their two children.

A fascinating topic to explore as even small cities are following this pattern of rapid decline. Thanks Plant.

[Newfie]

We voted with our feet.

Working in transit I look at cities and suburbs as a singular paradigm. What works better are smaller groupings, connected hubs. Maybe 5 to 50 thousand. That meeps you within reasonable distance to food but also within a network of specialists. You may commute to work in an adjacent town, via efficient mass transit. But you walk or bike to the local market, clothing store, hardware, etc.

[theluckycountry]

Exactly! My town is only 3000 but it has all the modern services, even a hospital. Traffic is light and it was the the big city traffic that was one of the main reasons I left to move out here. It's friendly in a rural town, you can stop and chat with nearly anyone, there is an inherent sense of trust in these small communities.

I have never even heard of a homeless person let alone seen one, but go to the minor city an hours drive away and they are living in the parks, in the CBD around the churches, it's really quite amazing that in a rich nation like this so many have slipped through the cracks. Drug and alcohol abuse are the main suspects but also mental illness.

A couple of decades ago the government closed down all the metal health homes and now people with mental issues are shunted into cheap residential units in and around the cities. Trouble is they skip their meds, go off the rails, fail to pay the nominal rent and services and end up on the street. There is no solution to this sort of thing. For millennia cities have had these unfortunate people, beggars, lunatics, alcohol abusers, it's only in the cheap oil age that we were able to care for them and keep them off the streets.

Half Of All Americans View San Francisco As Unsafe New Poll Finds

San Francisco Mayor blames ‘right-wing attacks on the city, including in the media’
According to a new Gallup poll released this week, only 52% of Americans rate San Francisco as safe anymore, freefalling from a previous poll only 15 years ago when the city scored one of the highest ratings and was viewed as one of the safest cities in the entire country.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-08- ... poll-finds
Lying politicians.

[Newfie]

Lucky,

There are ways to deal with this situation but they will never happen. You have to start with the kids, improve their environment, improve their health, improve their education. Then in 3 to 5 generations things will be better.

Simple eh?

[Plantagenet]

There are ways to deal with this situation but they will never happen. You have to start with the kids, improve their environment, improve their health, improve their education. Then in 3 to 5 generations things will be better.

Simple eh?

Unfortunately our cities are going entirely the wrong direction with the kids. There is probably zero chance of "improving their education" for many big city kids in public schools because these schools have been this way for decades already with no change because there is one party control of the local political system.

The public school system is a disaster in city after city across the USA. There are many schools in large cities in the USA where not a single child reads or can do math at grade level, or at best there are a handful in the entire school.

Report-reveals-no-students-proficient-math-reading-60-Illinois-schools

And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, Gavin Newsome and other liberal D politicians in California have supported both defunding the police and decriminalizing shoplifting. I'm sure they did this imaging they were helping poor kids of color who were getting arrested for shoplifting......by legalizing shoplifting they probably felt they could stop these kids from getting a criminal record. But was happened instead is that it has created a culture of criminality in our big cities and vastly expanded the number of shoplifters, drug users and other criminals to the point that virtually all the stores in places like downtown San Francisco are closing because they lose so money to shoplifting and to organized gangs doing smash and grab robberies. And not only the stores...the big hotels are closing and the corporate offices are closing and moving their people to somewhere else where it is safe.



Cheers!

[mousepad]

The public school system is a disaster in city after city across the USA. There are many schools in large cities in the USA where not a single child reads or can do math at grade level, or at best there are a handful in the entire school.

https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/ ... 0years.pdf

What you blame the school for when they have to teach glorified monkeys? Table 3 on page 265 summarizes it nicely.

Worldwide Average Differences Among Blacks, Whites, and East Asians
IQ test scores: "85 102 106"
Decision times: "Slower Intermediate Faster"
Cultural achievements: "Low High High"

[Plantagenet]

The URBAN DOOM LOOP is coming to a city near you

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/urban-doom-loop-could-pose-105045782.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kcnVkZ2VyZXBvcnQuY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMeeB7FNRr6ClqksXwkI8JvhJD9ekG9kzDKCT5Nr5w5mnPr7Vcjsziy5iqGkdMy9gNrSsc_x1CvbfivLHh7r75khhaD8LftI4I9fQzJJX4byhWkf20tcKMrfHHYUr6Bzz_y0axzUHCmLuuBa9kkx5Ic2mAEqT2ILfrP54x1Al7RY

Increasing crime rates in urban areas is driving out stores and hotels and corporations and business which in turn destroys property values which undercuts the tax base and reduces tax revenue to cities which then cut services and police which leads to increasing crime rates which drives out......


Things tend to go bad slowly until suddenly everything goes bad all at once....

Cheers!

[Tanada]

I have a thought, give it a solid review and let me know how you feel about it.

Until the 1750's at the earliest there were no cities run under a Democratic model of governance. Most were either appointed autocracies from higher authority or they were placed in charge through inheritance in the feudal sense. This means the people in charge were beholden not to the general masses but to the people who had significant financial or personal stake in the cities being well run. Cities were generally friendly for business because that was their entire reason for existence.

In our modern system where the people holding office keep that office by appealing to the lowest common denominator and also feed into the small minority of activist voices because they are seeking mass appeal by doing so. As a result you get NYC and Detroit raising taxes so high they chase many businesses away from the city core, which then leaves an unemployed population who demand further tax supports to keep them voting for the people in charge. It becomes a viscous cycle where uninformed or misled voters feed into supporting the very people who are destroying the tax base and chasing away the jobs, which also feeds in with automation reducing the need for labor reinforcing the employment crisis in the big cities.

[noobtube]

The public school system is a disaster in city after city across the USA. There are many schools in large cities in the USA where not a single child reads or can do math at grade level, or at best there are a handful in the entire school.

https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/ ... 0years.pdf

What you blame the school for when they have to teach glorified monkeys? Table 3 on page 265 summarizes it nicely.

You call American children "glorified monkeys." Hmmm. Are you American? Because if so, wouldn't that include you?

[theluckycountry]

Lucky,

There are ways to deal with this situation but they will never happen. You have to start with the kids, improve their environment, improve their health, improve their education. Then in 3 to 5 generations things will be better.

Simple eh?

Yes, and I would suggest not just the education they receive in school either. The problem is at all levels of society from the crap they watch on their smartphones and on TV, to how the parents behave and interact with them, to the consumerist pressures they experience that turn little girls into models/sluts and little boys into hip hop little gangsters.

It's the breakdown of the entire society basically, and though this starts at the top it's mirrored all the way the down the food-chain. A neighbor, a part time business man spends half his day gaming in front of a multi screen arrangement in the living room and goes into the garage to pull cones every few hours. The kids see all this and listen to him telling them how they need to study and get a good job, lead a decent life. He can't see the hypocrisy in what he's doing but I can see it in the kids eyes and in their demeanor. They scurry into and out of the home, embarrassed no doubt by Dad's lifestyle. We know what's likely to happen when these kids move out, they'll be on drugs in no time and the daughter probably pregnant. I've seen it so many times I don't need a 'study' to convince me.

[theluckycountry]

NYC's Crumbling Infrastructure On Full Display As Century-Old Water Line Floods Times Square

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is dealing with yet another problem: A century-old water pipe broke early Tuesday, flooding midtown streets and the city's busiest subway station.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nycs- ... mes-square

Whatever, no big deal one waterpipe, but most cities are old and all the infrastructure in them old. Down here the government doesn't replace many old water pipes, too expensive. They have a machine that bores out the crud and then they sleeve it with a new plastic pipe. The overall pipe diameter is reduced but the pressure increased because the old one was so clogged with rust and mineral buildup. Then there is the sewage network which doesn't lend itself to this sort of fix. It needs to be dug up in it's entirety.

Then we get to the issue of the lifespan of a steel reinforced concrete tower, 60 to 80 years if it was built well. Many of these went up in the 1970's and eighties and will have to come down in the decades ahead. No big deal if there is plenty of room around them but often they are built very close together making demolition a nightmare. And will they be worth demolishing in the future? Even now the value of newish towers have fallen due to lack of demand (post-covid) and the only thing that makes the equation work is that you can use the land to build a bigger one and recoup the demo+land costs.

Imagine these cities in the future, in an energy starved world, one where building materials are sky high? Imagine a city full of crumbling abandoned old buildings, who would want to be walking around them? Well that's a bit apocalyptic but unless they can find a way to make our cities valuable again I could see it coming. They still spend inordinate sums prissing them up with new bridges and tunnels and whatnot but that is simply the "previous investment psychology" or "previous investment trap" where governments are locked into the old ways and continue building monuments to their names.

I detest going into the city center now. It's nothing like it was 40 years ago. Back then it was vibrant and clean, full of interesting shops and tasty food outlets. Now it's just roadworks and closed footpaths, empty shops and cheap asian cuisine, homeless people occupying the benches and wandering around crying out their madness. 1970~1980, the peak of western civilization, the peak of energy use per capita too.

[noobtube]

NYC's Crumbling Infrastructure On Full Display As Century-Old Water Line Floods Times Square

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is dealing with yet another problem: A century-old water pipe broke early Tuesday, flooding midtown streets and the city's busiest subway station.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nycs- ... mes-square

Whatever, no big deal one waterpipe, but most cities are old and all the infrastructure in them old. Down here the government doesn't replace many old water pipes, too expensive. They have a machine that bores out the crud and then they sleeve it with a new plastic pipe. The overall pipe diameter is reduced but the pressure increased because the old one was so clogged with rust and mineral buildup. Then there is the sewage network which doesn't lend itself to this sort of fix. It needs to be dug up in it's entirety.

Then we get to the issue of the lifespan of a steel reinforced concrete tower, 60 to 80 years if it was built well. Many of these went up in the 1970's and eighties and will have to come down in the decades ahead. No big deal if there is plenty of room around them but often they are built very close together making demolition a nightmare. And will they be worth demolishing in the future? Even now the value of newish towers have fallen due to lack of demand (post-covid) and the only thing that makes the equation work is that you can use the land to build a bigger one and recoup the demo+land costs.

Imagine these cities in the future, in an energy starved world, one where building materials are sky high? Imagine a city full of crumbling abandoned old buildings, who would want to be walking around them? Well that's a bit apocalyptic but unless they can find a way to make our cities valuable again I could see it coming. They still spend inordinate sums prissing them up with new bridges and tunnels and whatnot but that is simply the "previous investment psychology" or "previous investment trap" where governments are locked into the old ways and continue building monuments to their names.

I detest going into the city center now. It's nothing like it was 40 years ago. Back then it was vibrant and clean, full of interesting shops and tasty food outlets. Now it's just roadworks and closed footpaths, empty shops and cheap asian cuisine, homeless people occupying the benches and wandering around crying out their madness. 1970~1980, the peak of western civilization, the peak of energy use per capita too.

American cities have always been barely-controlled chaos. It's just that today you have all the finances going toward vanity projects... skyscrapers, stadiums, and arenas subsidizing FIRE (finance/insurance/real estate), athletes, and entertainers. It is entirely unproductive at a time when the productive capital of the country is shrinking, not growing.

Plants, factories, and production facilities are not sexy, but they pay the bills and offer good jobs. But, for some reason, too many want an office job pushing paper and playing office politics instead of actually making something people want.

As you mention, basic infrastructure is being neglected to build another glass box, another house of sport worship, or another stage for American Idol-atry. Having said all that, the cities at least have the most desirable land. The suburbs are a vast, unending, soul-less, money pit, with absolutely no identity, or much of a financial future without subsidy from the core city.

America is a mess right now.

[Plantagenet]

NYC's Crumbling Infrastructure On Full Display As Century-Old Water Line Floods Times Square

American cities have always been barely-controlled chaos. It's just that today you have all the finances going toward vanity projects... skyscrapers, stadiums, and arenas subsidizing FIRE (finance/insurance/real estate), athletes, and entertainers. It is entirely unproductive at a time when the productive capital of the country is shrinking, not growing. .

[/quote]

And huge amounts of money are also going into housing the homeless and the millions of illegal aliens that have flooded into the US over the last two years.

In New York City Mayor Adams recently estimated the cost of housing all the illegal immigrants at 12 BILLION DOLLARS!!!!! It doesn't help that NYC is putting them up in luxury hotels and paying top dollars for them to stay there.

adams-nyc-migrants-cost-12-billion-dollars

When Joe Biden opened up the southern border and allowed the massive influx of illegal immigration to occur, I'm not sure he thought through how badly this might impact places like New York City and other cities where many penniless illegal immigrants wind up living on the streets.


Welcome to New York City where only the homeless can afford to stay in the best hotels....

Cheers!

[theluckycountry]

Youth brawls draw hundreds to 2 California malls
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... e-response

Chicago TV news crew robbed at gunpoint while reporting on a string of robberies
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wi ... -102652494

Just business as usual in American cities? Perhaps, but perhaps things are progressively getting worse over time. That is certainly the case in Australian cities, which are in no way as crime ridden as our US counterparts, 'yet'. It's doubtful we will ever catch up, we will probably always lag, but at what point do you say enough is enough and move away?

The crime reported was over the top in the Trump era but as soon as biden was in office it was like a media blackout was in place. The riots continue though, but now there is a twist.

Union Square Melee Proves Riots Have Little to Do with Real Political Grievances

August 07, 2023

The most revealing thing about Friday’s Union Square pop-up riot is that as police dispersed the mob, members started chanting, “Black Lives Matter.”

Make no mistake: This was not a protest on the part of teenagers drawn to 14th Street by Kai Cenat, an online “influencer” with millions of followers, including thousands eager for free PlayStations he used to lure them to demonstrate his importance. But as dozens in the crowd were being arrested for vandalism, they realized they had a useful line of defense: invoking the movement predicated on police mistreatment of minority youth.

The NYPD was not intimidated into turning a blind eye toward the destruction of food carts and cars — not this time around. But the chant pulled up the curtain on what has long been the dirty secret of mass protests, from the Watts riots to the rampages accompanying the “protests” of the police homicides of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

There’s always been a significant part of the crowd that is, in Harvard social scientist Edward Banfield’s legendary phrase, “rioting for fun and profit.”

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/union-square ... rievances/

Kai Cenat: The online “influencer" faces incitement to riot charges. Which of course will amount to nothing.

[EnergyUnlimited]

I just posted in the "Death of Suburbia Thread" that the premise of that thread has turned out to be totally wrong.

What we actually see in the US today isn't the death of Suburbia but the death of cities.

In city after city, the downtown areas are being abandoned to the homeless, drug addicts and drug dealers, and criminals and thieves.

The more I observe it, the more I am convinced that these changes are by design.

This is not just a stupidity or some unintended by-product of social and economic changes but long term deliberate policy of impoverishment of masses by insisting to make everything equal.
It has nothing to do with with rich getting richer and poor getting poorer (and fatter) either.
I am convinced that if all the wealth of billionaires (and millionaires) and corporate wealth have been distributed to improve living condition of the poor, then after about 1-2 years of temporary improvement everything would fall back into a deeper hell hole than it is now.
Discussed trends are universal to entire western world, not just US.

It can be seen in nearly ALL old western democracies, maybe with very few exceptions like Switzerland.
It seems that entire western social paradigm is flawed and tilted to cause ruin of all nations who embraced it.

Perhaps in reality:

- All people are NOT equal and never will be,
- Refugees are mostly pests rather than valuable work force,
- Women are serving better in kitchen and bedroom rather than in politics, labor or academia,
- Racial prejudgements are statistically sound regardless of many observable exceptions,
- Multiple genders are not a social phenomenon but mental diseases,
- Helping poor results in more poor and as such does not make sense with the exception of short term emergency assistance,
- Most of modern university courses are worthless
- Duterte from Philippine have found the only possible working solution to massive drug problem - by shooting dealers and users.
- Progress driven above optimal level leads exclusively to progressive and exponentially accelerating growth of entropy.
- High minimum wages are only leading to increased poverty and accelerating refugee influx,
- Duty first and safety last, not the other way,
- Too big to fail banks and corporations are pests and certainly not valuable employers and pillars of economy,
- Democracy where mob elects its government is a social dead end and constitutional republic is not much better,
etc...

Since what we area actually seeing in the US today is the death of cities, I've decided to start a new thread on "THE DEATH OF CITIES"

At some point most will need a mercy nuke - to ameliorate pain and shorten suffering.

And this isn't exclusively an American problem.....last time I was in Paris I was astonished to see homeless camps in many parts of the city, and drug use and other criminal activity going on in public.

Universality of this phenomenon indicates that West is mostly a failed project.
20 years ago West was observed from here with envy, but now most people are frightened realizing that the same might be coming soon in a theater near them.

Now you have Energy Unlimited's conjecture:
The only way to make all members of group equal is to make them as poor as the poorest member of this group and the only way to make them equally educated is to make them as stupid as most stupid member. To make them equally healthy you need to make them as sick as the sickest member.

[theluckycountry]

Now you have Energy Unlimited's conjecture:

Well the only thing I will disagree with in your post is that it is of design. Certainly parts of the process, as every wealthy interest group feathers it's own nest, but from my perspective all we see is simply a consequence of the human species running riot on a beautiful planet. I mean it's not the first time it's happened, it's just the most efficient example of planetary abuse and the human species is the prime target of it's it's own abuse.

According to a study published in Nature in 2020 the weight of all human made stuff has surpassed the weight of all things living on this planet for the first time in human history.

https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/ ... um=reader2

What the hell is substack anyway? But what the story highlights is that the junk we have made from oil basically now exceeds in weigh the entire bio mass of the planet. All trees all animals, all of it.
550 Giga Tons of concrete; 92 Gt of Bricks, 65 Gt of asphalt for roads. Quite an accomplishment and most of it in basically a few decades. Exponential growth, so we'll have exponential collapse of course.


I'm feeling lazy tonight so I'm having baked beans out of a tin with some grated cheese melted in. It all came by truck from 2000 km south of me of course, but the chilli sauce came from Thailand on a ship and the smokey sauce I added to that came from the U.S. Thank you oil. And thank you coal for powering up the stove and the lights. Oh but I am having with it three long chilli I grew in my backyard. That's the reality folks, about all you can grow in the average yard is a few salad addons. Don't ever expect to survive eating out of your garden, that's a homesteader's myth. One bad season and you're a corpse.

[noobtube]

In New York City Mayor Adams recently estimated the cost of housing all the illegal immigrants at 12 BILLION DOLLARS!!!!! It doesn't help that NYC is putting them up in luxury hotels and paying top dollars for them to stay there.

When Joe Biden opened up the southern border and allowed the massive influx of illegal immigration to occur, I'm not sure he thought through how badly this might impact places like New York City and other cities where many penniless illegal immigrants wind up living on the streets.

Welcome to New York City where only the homeless can afford to stay in the best hotels....

Cheers!

Youth brawls draw hundreds to 2 California malls
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... e-response

Chicago TV news crew robbed at gunpoint while reporting on a string of robberies
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wi ... -102652494

Just business as usual in American cities? Perhaps, but perhaps things are progressively getting worse over time. That is certainly the case in Australian cities, which are in no way as crime ridden as our US counterparts, 'yet'. It's doubtful we will ever catch up, we will probably always lag, but at what point do you say enough is enough and move away?

The NYPD was not intimidated into turning a blind eye toward the destruction of food carts and cars — not this time around. But the chant pulled up the curtain on what has long been the dirty secret of mass protests, from the Watts riots to the rampages accompanying the “protests” of the police homicides of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

There’s always been a significant part of the crowd that is, in Harvard social scientist Edward Banfield’s legendary phrase, “rioting for fun and profit.”

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/union-square ... rievances/
[/quote]

Crime has always been "bad" in American cities because that's where the wealth is. So, people complaining about crime is like someone complaining about being wealthy.

It is why you had Al Capone, the Italian Mafia, drug cartels, and organized crime. In the heyday of American power and wealth, criminality was in its golden age.

Crime actually indicates things are going good, not bad.

What is different is when you have mass murders in public places like a grocery store (Buffalo), a Dollar General (Jacksonville), a school (Uvalde, Texas/Oxford, Michigan), or a 4th of July parade (Highland Park, Illinois).

The media loves to scream about some petty theft or fight as if its the greatest injustice to mankind. That stuff is meaningless. What has changed in America is that people can't feel safe getting food, or going to school, or to a parade. That is a sign of a deranged society.

And, it is not happening in the big cities of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The craziness is in smaller cities and suburbs, and rural America.

The cities have survived fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, power outages, political corruption, and organized crime, and so on. Why? Because cities sit on the best land, with the most infrastructure investment. Young people, immigrants, and the rich love the cities.

They asked Eddie Sutton why he robbed banks. Well, because "that's where the money is."

Cities are repositories of wealth and luxury and affluence... right next to grinding poverty. It is only natural to expect "crime" to occur. Nothing new.

But, Washington has gutted rural America. The suburbs are a cultural wasteland. And the youth have no future. All because the oil bonanza has come to an end for America. And, this is the result.

[Plantagenet]

Crime has always been "bad" in American cities because that's where the wealth is.

That' sounds nice but lets not ignore the data and the math. The government collects data on criminal activity and when you look at the data its clear crime has recently gotten much worse in big cities in the USA.

people complaining about crime is like someone complaining about being wealthy.

That statement does't make any sense.

When drug addicts living on the street block off a business so customers can't enter, or shoplift so much product that the store has to close it doesn't any sense to expect those people not to complain about it.

People robbing and attacking other people isn't something that people want to put up with. Thats why we have governments that pass laws to discourage criminal activity and police to enforce those laws.

Your implication that people shouldn't complain about increases in crime is silly....people are naturally going to complain when the environment they live in gets worse.

The cities have survived fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, power outages, political corruption, and organized crime, and so on. Why? Because cities sit on the best land, with the most infrastructure investment. Young people, immigrants, and the rich love the cities.

Of course. Those are nice sounding and obvious platitudes about cities.



But platitudes don't change the data about what is happening now in US cities.. It's simply a fact that crime rates in many large US cities have recently surged, and in response businesses, hotels and many workers are fleeing those cities.

Cheers!