Creative Class

Foreclosures are surging in the Chicago suburbs, according to this report in Chicago Business (h/t: Alison Kemper). Foreclosures jumped between 25 and 70 percent in suburban counties outside the city. Foreclosure filings for the six-county metro area are the the highest since the onset of the housing crisis. The main cause of the new foreclosure wave appears tied more to the real economy than to the financial mess.

But, the most interesting item in the report is the spatial distribution of underwater homes.

In the far western suburbs along the Fox River from North Aurora to Elgin, nearly one in five homes listed for sale is a foreclosure or a short sale.

Foreclosures fell by 8.4 percent in the city of Chicago.

Fifteen Chinese cities are building subway lines according to the New York Times.

Money quote: “Nobody is building like they are,” said Shomik Mehndiratta, a World Bank specialist in urban transport. “The center of construction is really China.”

How many U.S. cities are doing the same? And, by the way, how much of the U.S. “stimulus” is going to subways?

I won’t lie – at first this one seemed so easy that it was almost a chore. I mean, come on? Michael S. Steele, the new African-American National Committee Chairman of the GOP, says that the party needs to apply its core values to the “urban suburban Hiphop setting” with an “off the hook” PR campaign. What more do I have to say – the joke kind of writes itself right?

”There was underlying concerns we had become too regionalized and the party needed to reach beyond our comfort” zones, he said, citing defeats in such states as Virginia and North Carolina. “We need messengers to really capture that region – young, Hispanic, black, a cross section … We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

All jokes aside, it is interesting that he used culture to describe two very different types of space. The point that he seems to be groping at is that Hiphop has diluted the severity of the cultural-spatial barrier between urban and suburban that existed so starkly and significantly before in North American culture. Arguably, a strong historically embedded anti-urban sentiment was the wind behind the sails of the great ship suburbia. Moreover, just 30 years ago in the U.S. to be “urban” signified being black, and to be “suburban” signified being white, and there was not much culture common to them. 40 years ago moreso. Down the highway was still a world away. There was no “setting” that bridged the urban and suburban worlds.

Considering both how young the culture itself is (born in ‘73) and how different and often separate the two spatial experiences and modes of life are, it speaks volumes for the flexibility and capacity-for-participation of the culture. Not that it was looking for the surprising and, as Jon Stewart pointed out, kind of hilarious acknowledgment from the GOP.

So while seeing a quote like that attributed to the Chairman of the Republican party makes me giggle a little bit (pause), I also try not to loose the significance and speed of that historical progression. From some “urban phenomenon” that republicans abhorred in the 80s, to something they’d consider as part of their bridging strategy a generation later – albeit in a somewhat corny and contrived fashion.

All of that is just to say about this week’s musical selection – while he might not have meant it quite this way, in memory of the Notorious B.I.G. who died 12 years ago on March 9th, I’m sure he would agree that it bears observing:

Things Done Changed.

My last few postings have been criticized by many for appearing to be angry. To be honest with you, I am angry. Things I care about such as homelessness, mass transit, food stamps, the arts, and education are getting short shrift. Moreover, all over Europe and increasingly in Asia, people who feel they have gotten short shrift are angry and showing up in the streets to articulate that anger. Good for them. We will not be heard unless we express our disappointment and anger. Squeaky wheels get oiled.

In an article in the Guardian today it was revealed that the Labour government in the UK will announce a grant of 40 million pounds for charities that are being slammed by the global depression. The Guardian contrasted that with the already 500 billion pounds that have been devoted to saving the UK banks. UK banks being quite stingy with their executives have already provided in excess of 1.8 billion pounds for their bankers’ bonuses.

Consider the Obama stimulus, which, when all is said and done, will be mostly tax breaks for the wealthy, significant funds for the military department, and what is left of the funds for education, mass transit, etc., will be chicken feed to what will be forked over to the wealthy. Whether the stimulus turns out to be $800 million or $1 billion, it is nothing compared to what the bank bailout bill to follow will cost. Already, the Fed, Treasury, FDIC, etc. have committed in excess of $8 trillion in subsidies, guarantees, interest rate cuts, ad infinitum to financial institutions. A substantial portion of this has already been skimmed off in dividends, bonuses, and perks. But the next tranche aimed at protecting the foolish investors, incompetent managers, and greedy executives will be far in excess what remains in the “stimulus” for us.

Do you really believe the arts and other creative endeavors can survive this massive transfer of the remaining wealth to a select few? What could we do to increase creativity? Under Roosevelt, musicians, artists, architects, and other creative folks received funds to be creative. The great Woody Guthrie wrote songs for the WPA, Alan Lomax toured the South recording folk music and blues, and painters created paintings in post offices and federal building across the nation. This was good stuff. Check some of it out at this site.

Consider the new media that allow ways of reaching out that we have never even thought about before. Why not stimulate things like this? What are your ideas on how we could stimulate new ideas and directions? How can we take this opportunity to have the government support people using old and new forms of creativity?

At 93, he provides razor-sharp insights into the current crisis in this interview in Japan’s Asahi Shinbum (via Mark Thoma).

I think it is definitely the worst crisis since the 1929-1939 Great Depression, both in America and globally, and I think it was an unnecessary breakdown as there was no need for America to have a meltdown.

When George W. Bush became president in 2001, he inherited a country with quite sound (fundamentals) from President Bill Clinton with an overbalanced budget. … George Bush will go down in the history books as the worst president that America has had in more than 200 years. And, that couldn’t have happened if the voters had not moved to the right …

One is the Iraq war, which is a disaster. It’s as bad as the Vietnam War and the Vietnam War entangled four or five presidents and there was no victory. … But the other reason is because people on Main Street in America are hurting. The reason they’re hurting goes back to 1995 when Alan Greenspan, as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, made no efforts to curb the stock market bubble.

So the American electorate is very unhappy. Free trade and globalization add to world productivity. It also adds to the potential standard of living of many people, but unequally … The whole history of capitalism has had up-bubbles in real estate and down-bubbles after something different. This time the new fiendish Frankenstein monsters of financial engineering blinded the eyes and the minds of everybody.  The CEOs and the chief financial officers are the most surprised people. Nobody learned any lesson from Long-Term Capital Management. And what happens with this “new financial engineering” is an incredible “super over-leveraging” and you don’t even know you’re doing it. You know, it’s as if you’ve been blindfolded. And nobody learned any lesson from that. …  And this all could happen only because Bush, with his “compassionate capitalism” appointed incompetent people …

This is a new crisis because if you look at its bottom it says, “Made in America” (laughter). It’s not Thailand. It’s not Mexico. It’s not Argentina. It’s America. And, of course, it spread from there. Could you believe that the whole country of Iceland is bankrupt? Icelanders were the happiest people two years ago. They’re the unhappiest people today. …

Rome was not built in one day, and Franklin Roosevelt did not get full employment. It took about seven years. Now I don’t say it’ll take seven years this time, but it won’t be done with a balanced budget and it won’t be done with “inflation targeting” …

Spending in the direction of the poor part of the population (is important) because those are the people who are most likely to re-spend. If you primarily spend in the direction of your millionaires, that won’t make any difference.