America's a Mess - Look Around You'll See It

Submitted by Jeff Buster on Sat, 03/24/2012 - 13:47.

Always one for foreign travel I decided to take a side trip to Rome NY. Leaving the interstate in Utica I stopped at a big box strip mall to get a 3gang outlet so I could power this computer and the wireless hotspot at the same time. Then I took the route toward Rome.  It was a depressing scene with practically all the former commercial businesses, out of business – vacant and dilapidated.  For-Lease signs everywhere emphasized the pathetic mood.  The lumber yard was out of business; car franchise show rooms were closed due to the 2008 US auto meltdown and consolidation. There was commercial carnage for mile after mile. Most all of these buildings will get torn down eventually. 

New big box developments have a massive negative impact on our historic commercial infrastructure.  This (hidden) cost needs to be identified and explicitly shown on our national as well as community balance sheets.  Maybe there would be a way to transition to the efficiencies of big box without totally  devastating and wasting the traditional commercial establishments.

When I got to Rome, things were even worse.  Rome Cable had a multi block industrial manufacturing complex which is now broken windows, No Trespassing signs, and asbestos contamination.  Much of the machinery was rusting inside under a collapsed roof.  The burden of figuring out what to do with the polluted brownfield is of course now the community’s.  They own it. 
Why is it that when a corporation is making money the shareholders and management take all the money home and when a business fails the local community is left holding the bag.  This doesn’t seem very smart.  Just as banks are supposed to put money into an insurance fund for the event of a possible failure and inability to pay depositors, corporations, depending on the industry they’re in, should be required to contribute to an insurance fund that will clean up should they fail.
 
There were lots of vacant, rundown houses around the old cable factory, similar to situations in Cleveland, Ohio and Buffalo, NY, - all across the country -community after community- much like Rome  Our tax money is being used to demolish vacant housing while the corporate banks, whose lending policies are largely responsible, are allowed to skate free.
 
While Rome burns, I’m going to watch some NetFlix, or maybe the Cavs, or go to bed.
 
 
 
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Burn and Pillage--your $$$ squandered

Submitted by lmcshane on Wed, 03/28/2012 - 07:10.

There were lots of vacant, rundown houses around the old cable factory, similar to situations in Cleveland, Ohio and Buffalo, NY, - all across the country -community after community- much like Rome  Our tax money is being used to demolish vacant housing while the corporate banks, whose lending policies are largely responsible, are allowed to skate free..

I want to scream at the "decision-making" that allows wholesale destruction of our built environment while we ...sleep...

Meanwhile, too, this story was relegated to a back page in the PD today:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012/03/cleveland_fires_waste-to-energ.html

 

Cleveland fires waste-to-energy consultant for faulty financial analyses
Published: Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 6:30 PM  
 
And, to add insult to injury--
 
 

Positively Cleveland announces 5-year plan to boost tourism
Published: Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 5:36 PM

Does any one else notice how our streets, roads and bridges are crumbling???  Who, in their right mind, would make CLE a tourist destination with a poisonous incinerator, and a crumbling infrastructure?? 

Oh, and, let's pass another school levy to make it right this time!!

CLE+ will no doubt vote for Jackson, the puppet mayor, again...the definition of insanity.

No worries...while Rome burns, indeed.