New York is dead. Las Vegas is reborn. And the lesson is that walkable cities are just a demographic shift away from destruction, while car-based cities are resilient.
New Mayor Bill de Blasio, former Dinkins aide and “the guy with the Black Wife and kids” has pledged to end Stop and Frisk, and given that he got elected over all the other candidates with far more money, he has reason to mean what he says. Choosing Bill Bratton as his new Police Commissioner is merely a fig leaf on the inevitable crime explosion, which many from Laurie Anderson to Annie Liebowitz have yearned for (it kept the rents down, whadda ya gonna do?) So the transition from “safe” Times Square filled with corporate America: ESPN Zone, Disney, the Today Show, etc. to squalid “shooting galleries” filled with addicts shooting up with needles, gang bangers, “polar bear hunting,” prostitution, in other words “Taxi Driver” the movie, is going to be rapid. A lot can happen in a year. Even two.
Unwary tourists who don’t really understand how the city changed (i.e. the police are now leashed against the feral, Black-Dominican-Puerto Rican underclass) are going to be victims. Quite a number of them. Times Square will quickly be the province of prostitutes, drug users, gang members, and junkies, all showing corporate America who owns and runs the place. Hint: its not the corporate people. Within a few years, New York will once again devolve even or especially in Manhattan, to what it was under Dinkins. A squalid hell hole. Known to be dangerous.
And how New York dies, and how rapidly, will prove to America and the world that walkable cities are a death trap. That only the car-based city can resurrect itself, being by its very nature resilient to demographic change. As New York dies, Vegas is reviving. Vegas stands to benefit from industries and institutions fleeing New York. And might even challenge Los Angeles as America’s business and cultural capital, as opposed to its political capital, Washington DC. This could well presage a movement towards a more blue collar, Vegas-oriented society.
New York shifted in the past ten years or so from Whites at 47% to 33%, and Black from 28.4% to 25.5%, Hispanic from 27% to 28.6%. Asians accounted for the rest of the gain. [Sources here and here]. Decline of White voters meant, well de Blasio as Mayor. Blacks declined as well, but not as much as the White decline (mostly Middle/Working class). The Hispanic and Asian gain was enough to make de Blasio Mayor, particularly with low participation and high Black turnout with Black block voting. Demography is destiny. In a place like NYC, held up only by a police force empowered to stop and frisk the most likely criminals (young Black and Hispanic Men), who the mayor is matters.
Mayor de Blasio promised to end stop and frisk. He means it, this pledge plus his identity as the “Black candidate” got him elected. So the vast criminal underclass now knows it can carry weapons illegally and prey at will on tourists, the Eloi-like Upper Class, and of course, each other. Already the subways have reverted to Dinkins like hellish conditions, with gangstas and the homeless criminal class acting at will. The NYPD knows full well that they will face an outcry at best and jail at worst in any confrontation with the non-White criminal class (which is about 99% of the criminals in NYC). Thus, wave and walk on by.
The first prominent victims are likely to be Broadway-bound tourists, generally middle aged or older White ladies who saved up for years to see a show. Dead or severely injured by “Knockout Game” i.e. Polar Bear Hunting, by “youths” (Black youngish criminals) seeking to knock out an unsuspecting (White) victim with one punch. Or, shootings “just for fun” (i.e. status among young men leading to sexual success, the real motive for “motiveless” crimes). This will have significant impacts on Broadway.
Broadway shows require significant investments, but when successful can run for years or even decades. The London production of Cats ran for 21 years and other big name musicals have run nearly as long in London and NYC. Big musicals require lots of expensive sets, designers, costumes, and often big name stars. But, tickets can easily run $150 for the hot shows, and at a 2,500 seat theater, that amounts to nearly $375,000 on a full, week-end night (Friday and Saturday). Obviously matinees have reduced prices and therefore gross revenue, and many nights play to less than packed houses. But these big, Andrew Lloyd Webber style musicals are quite popular (generally with middle aged and above White ladies from the middle to upper middle class) which is why there regularly several on Broadway and in London’s West End.
What Broadway can’t abide is their customers recoiling in danger because they’ve been killed or shot or beaten into the hospital. New York, and London, have lots of hotel rooms, though pricey. They have many things to do and see besides big musicals: world class museums, famous places showing up in films and tv shows, architectural and other wonders like the London Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Chrysler Building, Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Central Park, etc.
Ladies of a “certain age” will save up for years to visit these cities, take in the sights, and see those shows. There’s a lot of money to be made.
But the customers have to show up. And already, shows are shifting to … Las Vegas. Elton John (basically a Broadway show complete with fabulousness) is playing Caesar’s Palace for the better part of a year, and so is Britney Spears. Already there are talks of importing some Broadway shows to a Vegas casino, and Cirque du Soleil already has a permanent home in Vegas.
Vegas has plenty of hotel rooms and airline flights, and the rooms are likely cheaper than NYC by a fair margin. There’s things to do and see: Casino gambling, various museums, Hoover Dam, and so on. Nothing like London or New York City. But safer.
Because Vegas is a segregated town. Segregated by the Automobile. Physical distance, the lack of rapid transit, and lack of “walkability” means that poor areas are physically separated from the nice tourist ones. It is possible for the people living in the Vegas ghettos and barrios to walk to say, the Strip. But they’d have to brave the searing desert heat (or chilling cold in the Winter) to do so, and have to walk maybe 12 to 13 miles. That’s work. And the whole point of being a thug is avoiding at all costs, hard work.
I fully expect a number of Broadway shows to simply move to Vegas, and more than a few launch in Vegas to start with. After all, its a business not a charity. Vegas has the customers, the facilities, and a large visitor base already existing, with various thug-related incidents to be sure: mostly related to rapper entourages, but nothing like the free-fire zone of de Blasio’s NYC, which is sure to resemble “Escape from New York,” “Death Wish,” “Taxi Driver,” and “Warriors” all rolled into one non-stop movie in real life.
With Broadway shows sure to move to Vegas, slowly at first, then accelerating, you will see film and TV production move from New York City to Vegas. The New York/New Jersey environment was America’s first film capital, but production moved to Hollywood to escape both brutal winters that hampered filming and Edison’s patent enforcement harassment. As America’s cultural and business capital, however, New York remained a radio, and then TV center of production, with a nice business of New York set movies running throughout the decades.
This nexus of film and TV production depends on the pool of Broadway and off-Broadway actors. The Equalizer, Blue Bloods, Person of Interest, Elementary, Kojack, Law and Orderen, all shot in and around New York City and employed a large number of theater actors. It was not difficult to find victims, witnesses, and villains there, because the pool of professional actors was large and talented. Not the case in say, Toronto, Chicago, Philly, and other places where auditions have to be done far from production, mostly in LA.
As Broadway (and inevitably, off-Broadway) shows move to Vegas, so will the theater workforce. And film and tv production will follow the workforce. This has significant impact on the position of America’s cultural capital. Which depends on being the Los Angeles alternative for TV and Film Production. That’s because Vegas is fundamentally a different city than New York.
New York has always been a water-transport business center, with a centuries old business class that jostles for status and aspires to an aristocratic spirit. First as a port, which remains fairly important for the East Coast, and then as a point for Great Lakes commerce (via the Erie Canal and Hudson River), New York was a shipping town. For a while, also a manufacturing town. But shipping and the related finance functions have dominated New York since the days of the Dutch settlement. And with finance and shipping in particular, comes the pretensions of aristocratic refinement. Museums, opera houses, symphonies, competition among the business elite for the most mannered, refined, elegant possessions, houses, clothes, and accessories make New York a very different place than Vegas.
Vegas is essentially a tourist trap created by the Mob, extended by publicly traded gambling companies, designed to separate as much money from tourists as possible. With a side business in conventions, golf, and other tourism related things, Vegas has very few pretensions and remains at heart a blue collar town. While blue stocking aristocrats in New York City, the kind you might see in HGTV’s “Selling New York” would sneer at white haired old ladies and men in shorts and flip flops feeding quarters into slots, Vegas loves those people. They’re … money on feet. As a mass-market tourist operation for adults, Vegas is at pains to make people comfortable without requiring class markers like formal dress, and high status, just to attend entertainment. Want to see some fabulous magicians with White tigers? Sure, show up in your flip flops. Money is what matters.
Which makes for an interesting contrast. HGTV (used) to show “Selling New York” with ultra rich people buying hideously expensive Manhattan real estate through an orbiting ecosystem of fawning, suck-up women and gays. “Selling LA” showed the West Coast side of the sycophancy and groveling by the shysters out for a big commission. For a while, it was a mainstay for HGTV. [Which seems to have gone downscale for now, offering cheap Canadian content of the Property Brothers and other budget minded shows.] Meanwhile the History Channel, A&E, and the Discovery Channel have a whole Vegas based ecosystem. If its not Pawn Stars, its American Restoration, or Counting Cars, or Flipping Las Vegas, or Selling Las Vegas. All featuring Blue Collar White guys, struggling to make a deal or a flip that makes them a profit.
While the New York based shows emphasized the women and gays fawning over the rich people, the Vegas shows offer Blue Collar White guys with expertise in various areas, struggling to make deals or complete work that will make them a profit. Often, the expertise will be surprising, such as the true market value of a condo, a car, or a piece of Americana. There will be buffoons for comic relief, fake “tension” and such, but generally the blue collar protagonists win or at least avoid a big loss. And their customers are interesting too. Generally older, Blue Collar culture (though not means) White people, they spend often up to $40,000 on cars, or up to $20,000 on various restored items, collectibles, and such.
See, a “Very Vegas Christmas”:
Publishing of course will move to LA. Already much of the profit in publishing comes not from some “Great Literary Novel,” but selling the rights to say, the “Hunger Games” to a major studio, and generating profits off what amounts to a two hour plus commercial for the book. But Publishing will resist moving longer than Broadway, given the institutional inertia. Broadway and film/tv production are ad-hoc affairs, done and then disbanded. Publishing houses last for decades or centuries. But even they are not immune to crime, and publishing has an Achilles Heel. The industry depends on young women.
Most of the readers, assistant editors, junior agents, and the like are young or youngish women. Uniformly White, from an Ivy or near-Ivy college or university, they work for generally peanuts, often receiving parental support, hoping to move up to one of the few higher slots that pays enough to live decently in an expensive city like New York. Publishing and being an agent for writers is “respectable” in a way that say, working in a pawnshop isn’t (unless the young woman gets on TV, then all bets are off). Young women will live three or four to an apartment, and put up with a certain level of crime, to pursue “respectable” careers that give prestige and status, and pursue that elusive higher level Alpha male (a Wall Street Master of the Universe, Publishing/Authorial God, big-time “journalist” etc.) One higher in appeal than just the indie-rocker/addict found in places like Minneapolis.
But young women are sensitive to crime, and will not take risks beyond a certain level. That level can float around, based on the quality of the Alphas, the status offered by working in a position, but ultimately too high a level of crime and violence drives them away.
And it will be interesting to see how Publishing’s foot soldiers react to being in Los Angeles. While New York City has plenty of in-shape women and a modicum of fashion models, there is not the dichotomy of life in LA for women.
On the one hand, LA is filled with women who are about four feet tall and look like a barrel. The influx of Mexicans from places like Chiapas or Michoacan makes LA look very, very Indio. Not the Vincente Fox, six foot five, “Conquistador American” Mexican, but Southern Mexicans with very little European blood. And on the other hand, every would be actress and singer is in LA, frantically watching her weight with aerobics, pilates, yoga, organic seaweed and cucumber diets, competing for the very few openings in movies, tv, and manufactured pop tarts (Britney, Miley, Selena, etc.)
Not to mention that in LA, the Mexican underclass monoculture has eliminated the high/middle brow culture that still exists to a degree in New York City. You can find car shows, tattoo expos, Smiths / Morrissey cover bands (Mexican emo/goth kids love Morrissey for some reason), but not much Opera, Ballet, Symphonies, or high brow theater. Sure the odd “at loose ends” star like Brian Dennehy might do a one man show (otherwise known as a “hire me” public audition) but the odds of say, seeing a Harold Pinter or David Hare play in LA are exceedingly slim. As is finding a good bookstore, or deli, or anything else relating to middle and high brow culture.
For Publishing’s young women, their non-White competition will be non-existent, for the most part, but they will find themselves in shock at how beautiful and in shape the most pretty girls are in the competition for Alpha males. Who are, in many ways, far more Alpha than the biggest Wall Street Master of the Universe. Said Master won’t make the money that even say, a lower level movie star Alpha makes (think Leonardo di Caprio or Shia La Boeuf). Certainly nothing like say, Robert Downey Jr. money. Not to mention white-hot fame. No one asks for the Masters of the Universe autograph, gushes over them in the streets, and begs for a picture. Even some middling Alpha on a pay cable TV show few watch will get that.
The shock will be, women in publishing who help set fiction standards, mores, etc. finding that having the correct Ivy League school counts less than the shape and firmness of their ass, the beauty of their smile, and their ability to improvise and adapt in social situations. Up against the Kristen Bells of say, 2003, beautiful young women who trained their whole lives to act and sing and have the faces and bodies to prove it, the publishing women will have to adapt or fail. The anger, and then the acceptance will be interesting to watch. As will the inter-female class fights between beautiful blue collar women (as actresses, they can’t waste time going to college and not working) and non-beautiful but pretty Ivy League women.
New York City has other industries of course. Fashion, and Finance. Both are already moving out to other places.
Fashion has moved already in part to Miami, and Los Angeles. Warmer climes, a more distributed, reliable network of suppliers, is part of the reason. Design requires prototypes and models, and its easier to shoot in LA or Miami, with more light and better weather. LA in particular has a network of existing, small-run, high cost apparel manufacturers who can take a design and make it into a run of say, 100 dresses, in a very short time. Actual mass market production will remain in China and Bangladesh for the time being of course, chasing cheap labor. But just like young women, the fashion designers and customers are crime sensitive beyond a certain level. It might float around a bit, but too much street crime impacts the ability to get models into fittings, secure fashion shows, and attract celebrities and journalists.
The ability of designers to create ad-hoc security for shows is likely to have them moving out NYC last, but the lure of better weather, and high rollers in Miami and LA is likely to drive at least some of them to lucrative and less competitive markets. The critical part will be the ability of small suppliers to quickly sew together prototypes for fashion shows. Too much crime impacting these suppliers and the fashion people will be forced to move.
And when everyone gets in a car to go places, this makes people behave differently. More individually. More atomized. This is why liberals hate hate hate car-oriented cities. And cars generally. They give too much freedom and autonomy to average people. Even elites who drive cars don’t want to give it up. Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear might be your typical BBC snob, but he loves his cars too much to care about Global Warming and the like. When Live Aid and former Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof complained on Top Gear that Clarkson was not aware enough of the environment, Clarkson replied he was aware of it, he just didn’t care.
Get enough elites in cars, and the average of them will move rightward. Not a lot, but some. And that can make a difference.
Finance of course has already largely moved out to Connecticut already. What remains in New York are colocated data centers offering high speed trades, a few technicians to serve the servers, and a few people to meet with regulators and the like. Pimco, one of the largest bond-funds in the world, is headquartered in Newport Beach, California. Wealth can move anywhere, London, Geneva, and it generally does not like favelas, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero to the contrary. The wealthiest individuals generally move heaven and earth to find safety by … moving. To places like Geneva. Or London’s West End. Or San Francisco. Or Georgetown. You can’t enjoy your status versus the lumpenproletariat when you’re dead. The Wealthy are risk-averse. Pretty much all of the wealthy in Brazil and South Africa fled long ago, those that remain must do so to maintain political log rolling and favor banking and the like. Elon Musk, a South African, does not for example reside there.
Once enough of the wealthy flee New York City, there will be a flood. Since the wealthy are also herd-like in their behavior, and tend to cluster together. Vegas being blue collar is unlikely to be the beneficiary, but the wealthy are global. Expect more luxury condos and houses in London, Geneva, Singapore, and Dubai.
Which brings us to our conclusion. New York City has since arguably, the 1780’s been America’s business and cultural capital. It is the place where publishing, finance, fashion, and good part of the non-LA based movie and television production has been centered. New York and New Yorkers have shaped the American imagination from I Love Lucy, to the Honeymooners, to All in the Family, to Person of Interest and Elementary. New York is where America’s greatest terror attack happened, and where Wall Street ruled. New York is where America’s brightest and most ambitious went, and even Sinatra sang about that.
But clearly the city is dying. It cannot survive another massive crime wave certain to happen as demography overwhelms the city (White flight, and Dominican/Puerto Rican influx). To be America’s business and cultural capital, New York had to remain mostly White. And its not. Hence de Blasio.
Which sets up the battle of the hipsters and car guys. Places like Vegas are dominated by a large group of non-hipsters. Mobsters, corporations, blue collar artisans and dealers (that’s the Vegas ecosystem of the History Channel reality shows), all espousing a more rightward view than the hard core religion of liberalism: PC, “diversity,” “Multiculturalism,” “Global Warming,” and the rest. Hipsters dominate in places like Seattle (home to a real-life Communist City Council member advocating worker take over of Boeing), San Francisco (home to the lower echelons of the tech Oligarchs and court orbiters) and Portland, but those places don’t have the critical mass nor the key industries of fashion, publishing, tv, and movie production to be heavy hitters culturally. They are of interest, and retain the hipster class, but the loss of hipster central in Brooklyn and parts of Manhattan are heavy blows to hipsters and the junior elite class.
America will soon see that pedestrian oriented “creative class” cities don’t work. They fall prey to Black/Hispanic crime waves. And die, for New York a lot more rapidly than Detroit did. While cities like Vegas, which have problems of water resources, over priced bubble real estate, and a Hispanic and Black underclass of its own, has the ability to rise Phoenix like because the car can provide security. In the battle for White America’s cultural sense, I’d bet on the “car guys” of Danny Kroker (the Count of Counting Cars) and the other Vegas artisans and dealers. Not the hipsters. Because people will actually buy the stuff the Vegas guys sell.
whiskeysplace 
I don’t think Bratton is a fig leaf at all. It’s a signal that, despite the electioneering rhetoric popular with his voters, that di Blasio will continue two decades of anti-crime policy. Maybe they’ll have to change the name of ‘stop and frisk’, or pretend to bring it and other effective profiling policies under the control of some ‘race-neutral’ regime, but the progressives will do what it takes to prevent crime from exploding under their watch again. If nothing else, it’s too much damage to the brand.
The NYPD certainly doesn’t agree. They are basically walking by and waving. Not arresting anyone. They seem to be reading the tea leaves. And that likely came down right from the top. Don’t arrest Black and Hispanic perps.
NONE of the big money people helped get de Blasio elected. So he owes them nothing. All he has to do is ride the warzone into re-election. His base loves it.
But time will tell. We will see soon, one way or another.
Then why appoint Bratton at all? Why not pick some diversity hire from the ranks who is more certain to be ideologically aligned and politically loyal? That’s especially important if you need someone who can trusted to help you fiddle with the statistics without leaking to the press. I don’t think Bratton’s that guy.
I wonder if the big money people want Di Blasio out or replaced. Let’s say they do. If you are right, then crime will spike, and both the Republicans and big money types will use that fact against Di Blasio. The Democrat establishment, I believe, has a vested interest in not being tarred once again as the ‘soft on crime’ / ‘naive, ivory-tower, liberal squishes letting this city go to dogs’ party, so they would want him ousted and would use their friends in the press to rail against him constantly. It won’t be told as the fault of NAM’s, it’ll be spun as being Di Blasio’s bungling.
But let’s say Di Blasio and his people are not strategic morons and can see all that coming. They’d want to hold it off. They would calculate that while it was great rhetorically, that actually relaxing on policing is not worth the risk.
Or maybe not. Maybe they’re true believers and crime will spike and they will get some ribbing from the press. You conclude that they will withstand the political pressure from the party and the press and hold fast to their ideology with the support of their large NAM power base behind them. But they could just as easily relent and let Bratton do his thing, whether acknowledging it publicly or not. That seems likely to me.
The last possibility is that Di Blasio lets up and nothing happens to crime at all. If that were the case, then we would both be deeply wrong in our models of how the world works, but that result would be a good one.
Just me, but cycles matter, to a degree. Murders have declined (to the best of my knowledge) over the past 20 years. Some of the decline has been due to improvements in Emergency Room procedures and technology; other reasons for the decline have been increased incarceration; but it has declined. It is not impossible for policy mistakes to manifest themselves in the form of a spike in crime.
If there IS a spike in murders, the press will have a field day with it and the Mayor will run from it so quickly the heads of pundits will spin like the rotors of the Amazon Drone.
Since DeBlasio is an open Leftist, the most effective way to determine when he is wrong is to see if his lips are moving.
Barton is a fig leaf, but you are confused as to what he’s covering up. The NYPD is one big diversity hire, and if a NY cop pulls out his gun you better duck, because he or she doesn’t have a clue how to use it. The NYPD did a lot of smart things in the early nineties, but the fact is, it was more likely the huge avalanche of Wall-Street-money-fueled gentrification that reduced crime by pushing the criminals into the outer boroughs. Stop-and-frisk was a much needed crutch that helped incompetent EOE-hire cops do their jobs, but that crutch has been kicked away, and once the outer-borough thugs figure out what they are up against (probably already have), they’ll be back, and so will the “good old days” of the 80s, when they had fence in Union Square Park because it was the only way they could stop the drug trade there.
2 word =dumb %ss
I remember hearing all those d-bags talk about how ‘real’ and ‘gritty’ NYC was back in the day. I even saw that documentary that featured all of those weakass dorks complaining about all the safety and ‘Disney’ of current NYC. F–k them. They are wusses and deserve what they get. You want “deathwish”? Please stay in NYC and don’t move out when in happens…..tough guys.
Yeah, I hate NY, too.
Whiskey, if the future of New York is to be gutted culturally and then the financially as you believe then what spin would we get? The see-no-evil among us is tantamount to a mass psychosis. There was a popular magician a few years back who made the statue of liberty disappear.
The magic it takes to hide the New ‘New York’ will be a daily challenge for the MSM and their Eloi followers but I have faith they can do it. As a city, New York will simply not be mentioned. Problem solved. So how do you like living in country/culture that has gone completely bats in your lifetime?
Whiskey, as a native New Yorker and Nevadan of 15 years standing (although Reno-Tahoe Division), I savor your words, and missed them immensely.
I’m going to guess that even a hardcore radical like Bill DeBlasio is going to taste a solid dose of reality after taking office, just as his predecessor John Lindsay did when he took office at the beginning of a transit strike that shut down the subway and bus system. You’ll know when that happens because you’ll hear all kinds of talk about sellout from his supporters, and possibly loss of Working Families party backing.
However, don’t think that The Cathedral isn’t on to your forecast. The War on Cars continues unabated, the goal being to drag Vegas down to NY levels.
Glad to see you writing again.
Whiskey:
Glad to see you posting again. As a lifelong NY’er I can agree that the city is falling apart due to the collapse of Big Finance (thank you, CRA!).
Intellectual capital can locate anywhere, and by relocating to Low-Wage-istan, you will see a hollowing out of the middle class that built the fortunes of Corporate America. Try selling a 1%-per-year fee structure for rolled-over 401K money to an unemployed 46-year-old male with two kids in private school.
The Radicals of the Left are in charge, forcing Die-Worse-City Re-Education on the masses. Just me, but DeBlasio (and Obama as well) seem like they are out of place. They belong with the Abby Hoffmans and the Jerry Garcias they emulate. They have no real place now. They are as removed from the 1960’s counter-culture as I am; which is to say completely. But they still think the same way.
Walter Wriston once pointed out that capital (money and intellect, leading to production) will go to places where it is well treated, and avoid places where it is not.
Big Capital remained in NYC largely because it was well-treated (to some degree) and began to recognize other regions would treat it well as NYC government started to get greedy. Have you ever noted that the MTA always tries to build additional lines (2nd Avenue) every time the market reaches new highs?
That has been a contrarian indicator for years; government gets bloated off of the rising market; City officials hope that it will continue, and spend as if that continuation is guaranteed; runs massive deficits when those same markets falter; raises taxes to cover shortfalls, making things worse for those left standing.
When the Lumpenproletariat are marching with pitchforks and torches, the monster they want is the capital owned by others. Politicians are sensitive to this and use it to buy votes. I used to think that when Jim Broadbent, as Boss Tweed in Gangs of New York said “those are a lot of votes we’re buryin’ boys!” it was hyperbole; now I am pretty sure it’s accurate.
But I now realize why I loved NYC so much in the past; sad to see it change so much.
Magnificent rendering. Large parts I agree with and I really like how you show that certain industries require their own ecosystem for survival. I have rarely seen the issue laid out so succinctly.
Negros and Squat Monsters seem to have a limited area within they operate, much like a shark “roams” a particular area cruising for food. By eliminating the controlling forces (stop and frisk) the population explodes as the boundaries fall. Cities that use cars can recover if the White population resists AND there are large amounts of terrain (needing cars).
As to Blasio, I have never seen a White Liberal political figure “grow up” and face reality once they have power. Sadly, New York was a great city, once.
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“Up against the Kristen Bells of say, 2003, beautiful young women who trained their whole lives to act and sing and have the faces and bodies to prove it, the publishing women will have to adapt or fail. The anger, and then the acceptance will be interesting to watch.”
There’s something beautifully poetic about this statement…
You present some interesting scenarios Mr. Whiskey. Very interesting indeed.
Only time shall tell whether your assessment is right or wrong, but for now, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, you seem to understand the landscape of group dynamics rather well. I have now bookmarked Whiskey’s Place for further perusal.
Off this particular topic but concerning male female relations and the future of men.
Like one of the reviewers says, I read this book 20 years ago and I still think about it. It is a penny…..plus shipping, used.
The hottest upcoming broadway show (at least for me) is going to be when someone uploads a clip of some snotty gawker media drone being treated to a round of DeBlasio-era knockout game. Turn trendy Williamsburg into a war zone?
Yes, they can.
Oh I so hope this happens in spades! Those effete, smug asses at Gawker Media should be the first to experience weaponized diversity.
Whiskey,
Your post helped clarify an article i read from Comic Book Resources about DC Comics moving west on Oct. 29th Note the date, it was 7 days before the election of Be blasio as Mayor. I think they are going to be the first of many publishers that you see move west as the internet lowers all barriers to publishing except “left like publishing culture”. They’ll move to L.A. first then various other cities as they try to find the right “culture” in which to survive.
The other thing, is how many comic book characters make New York their home base? Quite a few! How many will now be moving West as well? I don’t know but fictional settings seem to often follow the movements of the various authors.
Great Article,
Corey
link for article: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=48808
Corey, off the top of my head Marvel’s characters: Spider-Man, the Punisher, Daredevil, Dr. Strange, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, and Ghost Rider make NYC their home. You can add most of the Top Cow characters (Witchblade, Darkness, etc) and some of the pulp comics such as Dynamite, Image, etc.
My brother is pretty well informed on the DC Comics move, it was in the works for over three years, predating de Blasio — DC has done a very, VERY poor job of utilizing its deep, and strong comic book characters in movies as opposed to Marvel. So this is part of a general re-org to make the division stronger and make Marvel type money. But that still stands — NYC is losing out to the Hollywood global money. Marvel’s Avengers made so much money not off the movies themselves as much as all the toys and so on they sold to Chinese, American, Japanese, and other kids and young teens and their parents.
In order to make that money, you need close coordination. Which means the comic book publisher needs to be in LA. The writers of course live all over the US, that doesn’t matter. But the publishers and editors need to work with the Studio people. Hence: LA.
Whiskey,
After reading your comment, I think your right because the type of move that DC is making is by no means a small undertaking, But why this year and under this new Mayor. Frankly, I don’t see why moving New York to LA is going to help them sell any more merchandise than they already are, the potential for new sales seems to have peeked which makes sense because most of these properties are 75 years old.
I was wondering if you have seen the sale rates for the new Superman movie action figures from the new movie. I haven’t but recently I have traveled from St. George, Utah to Austin, TX to Houston, TX. I was looking for gifts and based on shelf size and stocked shelves DC figures seems to be the slowest selling merchandise on the Action Figure market. Behind, TMNT, Transformers, GI Joe, Avengers (Marvel) and perhaps tied with Power Rangers in popularity. The shelf area for DCU always seems stocked or on the clearance end-caps at the local Target and Wal-Mart. Do you really think such a move is going to help DC make more money on Action Figures?
Personally, I do not see how the change of scenery helps because for a long time now DC, outside of Nolan’s Batman, has been more interested in the short term gain rather than long term. Sure “Man of Steel” made a lot of money but I don’t know, due to the lack of morality in the film, how that helps there bottom line. They didn’t world build, they didn’t do the little things that build anticipation for a sequel that everyone knew was going to happen in some form just because of who the Director and Producer are. They lack the foresight to seed there movies to maximise there intellectual properties and create organic spinoffs. They want Avengers like profit all the profit at once without doing the small amounts of work that lays the foundation for that profit. It’s corporate culture problem not a scenery one.
Thanks,
Corey
I too am glad to see you posting again and this piece is chock full of your tantalizing insights.
What if the elites turn on these creative classes too by removing or interrupting their access to gasoline? A few episodes of the types of queuing for gasoline that we have seen in England in the last several years, only due to strikes, and these creatives will be forced to accept their fate in their elite-chosen city, like wildebeasts on the savanna or boer farmers in SA. Maybe even Hollywood will be forced to behave to their whip.
The New York / Washington axis is the epicenter of NWO power because that is where they want it, and it is backed up by the, to this day anyway, most feared military force on the planet. That may well be changing, but I doubt it will become the Washington/Las Vegas/LA axis.
For those interested, the NY Daily News has an article on de Blasio’s visit to the White House and his national agenda for Progressive Politics.
De Blasio is doubling down on racial “justice” and redistribution of wealth. With of course selected people taking their cut. That’s the whole point.
The thing to remember about the global wealthy — the FT did a series on them a while back — is that they are highly mobile and risk averse. They’re not the older style of wealth that would duke it out politically to save a city they’ve invested in. The Global Wealthy simply sell and move to Geneva. Or London. Or Singapore. Or LA. What’s left in NYC to oppose de Blasio’s reign of crime is … a few real estate interests, Orthodox/Hasidic Jews, Corporate America, and the remaining White middle/working class outer boroughs that did not vote for de Blasio anyway. Corporate America is more likely to simply take a write-off. They’ve never fought to save a city before they’ve invested in, not Detroit, not Chicago, not Pittsburgh, not Atlanta, so fighting for NYC would be unusual for them. The real estate interests (say Donald Trump), the Orthodox/Hasidic, and the rest are too fragmented, don’t have the media megaphone, and don’t have enough voting and physical power to make themselves listened to by de Blasio.
Clearly the trend in the US is for cities to decay rapidly once they attract a critical mass of NAMs. Who seize power often in concert with the FIRE interests (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) to fund big projects/boondoggles like the Staples Center in LA. And then get double crossed as law enforcement becomes a goodie doled out to satisfy the NAM voting block, who whatever else don’t like their young men in jail even or especially if they commit awful crimes. A spread out city that constantly churns avoids this, because segregation is achieved by physical factors, and the FIRE interests cannot congregate. Las Vegas, Boise, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, etc. have relatively few major downtown big time Finance and Insurance industries that in turn attract big money redevelopment Real Estate interests.
Or put it this way, constant churn prevents the landless aristocracy from teaming up with NAMs in Steve Sailer’s “Hi-Lo” team-up.
“The thing to remember about the global wealthy — the FT did a series on them a while back — is that they are highly mobile and risk averse. They’re not the older style of wealth that would duke it out politically to save a city they’ve invested in.”
This theme was touched upon in ‘Batman Begins’ pointing out how the Waynes tried to save Gotham but it was too big.
Glad you’ve posted a few times…it made up for the food desert of posts for so long. Anyway, even when I disagree with you, I love your writing.
The only point you mistake right here is that Vegas has been importing Broadway shows for years. It used to be that shows went on tour to establish themselves, then moved to Broadway to remain as hits. Then, the Gay Age (1970s onward) shows opened on Broadway first, then created a national tour behind them. Now, we have entered the post-Gay Age: Shows open on Broadway, and when they become glitzy hits, immediately start BOTH a national touring company AND a Vegas show. Mostly the tourist friendly stuff (Spamalot was a famous one). Unfortunately, this was tied into the period when Vegas tried become women/families oriented, with poor results.
Also, interesting anecdote about Cirque du Soleil: I knew an old queen who had been a Broadway dancer back in 60s-70s but had long since retired. (His queensh tendencies were subdued compared to the out-and-out faggotry of today; still, he was a mincing homosexual). He once told me when CIrcque first hit it big that he knew that Cirque Du Soleil did not allow gay performers, and so he refused to see their shows. He was quite reliable about the show business information he did still have (one closeted semi-star was in regular contact with him for advice most of his life), so I bought this. This might explain why Cirque du Soleil ensconced itself in Vegas rather than on Broadway — although it probably abandoned its anti-homo policy long ago thanks to the Gay Mafia, it probably holds remnants today still, and a bluer-collar town with more right-wing views would make less of a fuss.
where have you BEEN! i was worried about you
Whiskey, it has never been harder for someone who cannot drive a car to get by in the USA. What do you propose that such people do in this future that you envision?
(And no, “get a cab” isn’t an answer. Such things are beyond the finances of the middle class.)
In SE Asia, the answer has traditionally been motorbikes. Entry-level new bikes can be had around $3,000 USD, I’ve seen used bikes around $700 or so. Ugly but useable used cars can be had around $2,000 or so.
My guess is that most people who need mobility will use motorcycles that have limited funds. Yes they are a pain — grocery getting is horrible, as is the rain and snow. But it beats nothing and for a long time (around 1900-1928 or so) motorcycles outsold cars in the US. Cars were more expensive, roads were horrible, and motorcycles could get by where cars could not.
OK, let’s get a few facts in play here.
First of all, thank you for the insight about Broadway and how critical it is to the TV/movie/advertising industries around New York. You failed to include Performing Arts, but all these beautiful young people willing to work for peanuts are a critical economic resource to the city. I never thought about that before, and I learned it from you. This shows that your sense for media has not deserted you.
Now, to this paragraph: And how New York dies, and how rapidly, will prove to America and the world that walkable cities are a death trap. That only the car-based city can resurrect itself, being by its very nature resilient to demographic change. As New York dies, Vegas is reviving. Vegas stands to benefit from industries and institutions fleeing New York. And might even challenge Los Angeles as America’s business and cultural capital, as opposed to its political capital, Washington DC. This could well presage a movement towards a more blue collar, Vegas-oriented society.
Yep, walkable areas like reconquered territories in DC, Philly, and Chicago are absolute deathtraps. See Alan Ehrenhalts the Great Inverson for the counter argument, and don’t write another paragraph THIS UNINFORMED until you do.
Now, WHY are creative types headed back into inner urban areas? There are two reasons. Eherenhalt talks about the high cost of gas. Miles driven have been dropping for eight years: “As the average number of miles driven by Americans heads into its eighth year of decline, a new report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund finds that the slowdown in driving is likely to continue. Baby Boomers are moving out of the phase in their life when they do the most commuting, while driving-averse Millennials move into that phase.” What happened in 2005? Oh, yes, the peak year of production of cheap, high-EROEI oil. We can pump more oil now, if the price is ridiculously high, too high to make it a viable option for the middle class to afford; THAT’S while miles driven are on an 8-year decline. It makes oil-powered commutes unaffordable.
The second reason is the increasing value of a DWL’s time. If you’re paid $300 an hour as a lawyer, a 2-hour commute behind the wheel of a car will cost you $600. That land, close to the commercial heart of the city, is too valuable to leave in the hands of people who cannot be bothered to pick up the litter they spew everywhere. They’re gonna go, and they’re not gonna return. Where they’ll go will probably be the McMansion exurbs that high gas prices have made unaffordable for upper middle class white people, at least not the ones who want to breed. I suspect that a 5000sf McMansion would hold 6 mestizo families, nicely.
BTW, suburban sprawl has always been a Ponzi scheme, initiated by the Federal Government to <a href="patriactionary.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/american-genocide/"break up white ethnic neighborhoods.
You also ignored the significant fact in your article, to whit (in bold): New York shifted in the past ten years or so from Whites at 47% to 33%, and Black from 28.4% to 25.5%, Hispanic from 27% to 28.6%. Asians accounted for the rest of the gain.
It was a sad thing for me to read the electoral map and realize that white ethnic outer borough New York is all but gone, with only a few neighborhoods left; I loved those guys, and those places. But the city has become VERY Chinese, very Indian, very Bangladeshi; these groups adapt well to a well-run city culture. Pakistanis, not so much. As to the Hispanics, you ignore the major issue: New York has too many different Spanish groups to have any one take over the city, as happened in LA, and remake it in its own image. The city’s size is its defense here. The other thing is, the city gets a lot of Argentines, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Nicaraguans and Guatemalans. No, not Europeans, but better behaved, and with frankly NO sympathy towards blacks (much like the Russians and Poles that took over parts of the city.)
But it’s the drop in blacks that is most significant. New York was blessed, as opposed to Chicago and Detroit, that only about half its negro population was from the American south. The rest was from the West Indies (and recently Africa; what’s up with that?), where the upper class of those places decided to emigrate to the city. NONE of these groups care for the dysfunctional “culture” of blacks from the US south, and the increasing cost of the city has caused a drop in black population, with a LOT of blacks with connection to the South cashing in their chips and returning there.
ALL these groups wanted to stick it to Bloomberg and whitey, and united in voting for that fucking Sandinista. (Even the Nicaraguans wouldn’t elect an unreformed Sandinista; Daniel Ortega is quite different now.) Give them four years of afro-loving, and their collective dis-love of the dysfunctional African culture (not West Indian) will neutralize him.
Nevada an interesting state. Sen. Harry Reid a Democrat, who is Mormon supports abortion and other liberal causes. He is helping his son get a casino from what I have heard. Wasn’t he behind in just about every poll and on election day the power goes out for 15 minutes and Harry is declared the winner!?!?
But he must be popular like Barry. He received 150% of the votes in some districts.
BTW-The Communist party in Italy changed it’s name to the Democrats
New York shifted in the past ten years or so from Whites at 47% to 33%, and Black from 28.4% to 25.5%,
I suspect De Blasio has a plan to continue, if not ramp up the export of undertow black populations to outlying areas. Whites are escaping the high cost of living and the dysgenic hordes.
Welcome back, Whiskey. It’s good that you have returned.
2 word =dumb %ss
2 words= dumb *ss
I have a Dominican as a neighbor. He is section 8, he dresses like a pimp and he is violent when he’s angry. I had to file a police report against him.
Forgot to mention that he’s from New York City.
I look forward to the day when my comment of December 15th can sing the ancient Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank Whiskey almighty, I am free at last!”
It’s not offensive, just supports its arguments with links.
[Whiskey: Looked for it, could not find it. I think WordPress ate it. It eats about every fifth post I do sigh.]
There are invisible fences in NYC. Taxis wont pick up blacks. The subway can be ungodly uncomfortable. Lack of public toilets. A lot of things to discourage riff-raff and certainly urban camping.
Vegas is too hot and too ugly. I dont see it ever emerging. NYC has old world charm and class. and the demographic explosion has already for the most part happened and NYC still has chelsea and tons of other liveable neighborhoods that are nearly 100% white. Yes the blacks will keep harlem as the border areas. but even that will be driven out if the need for space and jobs grows.
The financial industry is hardly dead in fact, its very much the last one standing in America as the 36 trillion dollar banker bailout keeps it going and the main stream starve out keeps the rest of america dying
The NY Fox affiliate thinks otherwise about Vegas:
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/24280415/the-next-detroit-atlantic-city-and-las-vegas-facing-catastrophic-collapse
OK, let’s get a few facts in play here.
First of all, thank you for the insight about Broadway and how critical it is to the TV/movie/advertising industries around New York. You failed to include Performing Arts, but all these beautiful young people willing to work for peanuts are a critical economic resource to the city. I never thought about that before, and I learned it from you. This shows that your sense for media has not deserted you.
Now, to this paragraph: And how New York dies, and how rapidly, will prove to America and the world that walkable cities are a death trap. That only the car-based city can resurrect itself, being by its very nature resilient to demographic change. As New York dies, Vegas is reviving. Vegas stands to benefit from industries and institutions fleeing New York. And might even challenge Los Angeles as America’s business and cultural capital, as opposed to its political capital, Washington DC. This could well presage a movement towards a more blue collar, Vegas-oriented society.
Yep, walkable areas like reconquered territories in DC, Philly, and Chicago are absolute deathtraps. See Alan Ehrenhalts the Great Inverson for the counter argument, and don’t write another paragraph THIS UNINFORMED until you do.
Now, WHY are creative types headed back into inner urban areas? There are two reasons. Eherenhalt talks about the high cost of gas. Miles driven have been dropping for eight years: “As the average number of miles driven by Americans heads into its eighth year of decline, a new report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund finds that the slowdown in driving is likely to continue. Baby Boomers are moving out of the phase in their life when they do the most commuting, while driving-averse Millennials move into that phase.” What happened in 2005? Oh, yes, the peak year of production of cheap, high-EROEI oil. We can pump more oil now, if the price is ridiculously high, too high to make it a viable option for the middle class to afford; THAT’S while miles driven are on an 8-year decline. It makes oil-powered commutes unaffordable.
The second reason is the increasing value of a DWL’s time. If you’re paid $300 an hour as a lawyer, a 2-hour commute behind the wheel of a car will cost you $600. That land, close to the commercial heart of the city, is too valuable to leave in the hands of people who cannot be bothered to pick up the litter they spew everywhere. They’re gonna go, and they’re not gonna return. Where they’ll go will probably be the McMansion exurbs that high gas prices have made unaffordable for upper middle class white people, at least not the ones who want to breed. I suspect that a 5000sf McMansion would hold 6 mestizo families, nicely.
BTW, suburban sprawl has always been a Ponzi scheme, initiated by the Federal Government to <a href="patriactionary.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/american-genocide/"break up white ethnic neighborhoods.
You also ignored the significant fact in your article, to whit (in bold): New York shifted in the past ten years or so from Whites at 47% to 33%, and Black from 28.4% to 25.5%, Hispanic from 27% to 28.6%. Asians accounted for the rest of the gain.
It was a sad thing for me to read the electoral map and realize that white ethnic outer borough New York is all but gone, with only a few neighborhoods left; I loved those guys, and those places. But the city has become VERY Chinese, very Indian, very Bangladeshi; these groups adapt well to a well-run city culture. Pakistanis, not so much. As to the Hispanics, you ignore the major issue: New York has too many different Spanish groups to have any one take over the city, as happened in LA, and remake it in its own image. The city’s size is its defense here. The other thing is, the city gets a lot of Argentines, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Nicaraguans and Guatemalans. No, not Europeans, but better behaved, and with frankly NO sympathy towards blacks (much like the Russians and Poles that took over parts of the city.)
But it’s the drop in blacks that is most significant. New York was blessed, as opposed to Chicago and Detroit, that only about half its negro population was from the American south. The rest was from the West Indies (and recently Africa; what’s up with that?), where the upper class of those places decided to emigrate to the city. NONE of these groups care for the dysfunctional “culture” of blacks from the US south, and the increasing cost of the city has caused a drop in black population, with a LOT of blacks with connection to the South cashing in their chips and returning there.
ALL these groups wanted to stick it to Bloomberg and whitey, and united in voting for that fucking Sandinista. (Even the Nicaraguans wouldn’t elect an unreformed Sandinista; Daniel Ortega is quite different now.) Give them four years of afro-loving, and their collective dis-love of the dysfunctional African culture (not West Indian) will neutralize him.
The leeches in the publishing industry can’t die off fast enough. Why does my e-book cost $10-15? No printing, no binding, no shipping, no shelf-stockers, store managers, and cashiers, no loss from water damage, theft, and accidents, no remainder bin and they still cost more than a paperback.
In a story related to the Liberals and crime thing –
Texas man charged with hate crime in alleged ‘knockout game’ assault
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-texas-hate-crime-knockout-game-20131226,0,3766504.story#axzz2oe0R82ps
White guy charged with knocking out old black guy.
All the people beaten by black mobs over the last few years and this is the guy who draws a Federal hate-crimes charge. And the statements from the Feds in this case are classic examples of the liberal disconnect between their ideology and reality, particularly the reality of crime:
“Hate crimes tear at the fabric of entire communities,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Samuels. “As always, the Civil Rights Division will work with our federal and state law enforcement partners to ensure that hate crimes are identified and prosecuted, and that justice is done.”
“Suspected crimes of this nature will simply not be tolerated,” said U.S. Attorney Magidson. “Evidence of hate crimes will be vigorously investigated and prosecuted with the assistance of all our partners to the fullest extent of the law.”
“It is unimaginable in this day and age that one could be drawn to violently attack another based on the color of their skin,” said Special Agent in Charge Morris. “We remind all citizens that we are protected under the law from such racially motivated attacks, and encourage everyone to report such crimes to the FBI.”
George Orwell call your office.