Tag Archives: the great unraveling

Goodreads Review: On The Clock – What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane

On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane by Emily Guendelsberger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is tremendous and timely. A perfect digital-age follow-up to Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed – on (Not) Getting By in America.” Through her jobs at Amazon, Convergys (a call center for client ATT) and McDonald’s, Guendelsberger’s story rips the bandage off of any illusion we might have that these “new” jobs created since the Great Recession (although of course, McDonald’s has been around since the ’50s) are anything like fulfilling or even capable of providing anything remotely resembling a middle class income.

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Guendelsberger says at one point that if you are not part of the working class in American you will never truly see what these jobs are like – and I’m grateful I never had to, though some of my earlier jobs as restaurant dishwasher or apartment building doorman were quite soul-sucking in their own regard. A theme throughout is her internal knowledge that “I get to leave” – a realization familiar to me as well, because I always knew those uber-shitty jobs of youth were temporary. For so many people, that’s no longer the case in post-Great Recession America. Highly recommend this book.

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A Tour Of Abandoned Detroit Neighborhoods

I’m reading Richard Florida’s “The Great Reset,” which is his take on how economic upheavals (like the one we’re going through) lead to a huge change in how capitalism works – what and how things are consumed, where and how people live, etc. Hence, a “re-set.”

He spent a good deal of time discussing Detroit, a great city which rose out of a Long Depression in the 19th century, and the perils that can and do befall localities too heavily dependent on one industry. He directed readers to YouTube to see videos of Detroit’s Urban Decay.

This is one of the videos I found. There are more – some compilations of hauntingly beautiful stills of abandoned theaters, train stations and factories; others, like this one, a drive-by compilation of desolation set to music.

I’ve read about this decay for years but have never been to Detroit. I’ve also never seen video like this. If nothing else, it was the enormity of the area and what must have been the human toll there – neighborhoods shattered, families uprooted and displaced, nature finally taking over everything once the rest is gone (urban prairie – complete with raccoons, pheasant and a real-life beaver). Continue reading →

BBC – Newsnight: Paul Mason: Gary, Indiana: Unbroken spirit amid the ruins of the 20th Century

Link to BBC – Newsnight: Paul Mason: Gary, Indiana: Unbroken spirit amid the ruins of the 20th Century.

Derelict Theater in Gary, Indiana

If you have the time, read the story and watch the BBC video on Gary, Indiana. It’s interesting to see how this piece differs because it comes from the British media, not our own. An outside perspective on decay – surprisingly, not totally gloom and doom, there is some hope here – the high school of the arts, for example, and the idealistic teenagers who are pretty much like teens everywhere.
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Of other interest are the economic arguments on “what must be done” – government stimulus, tea party tax cuts to allow private enterprise to “create jobs” – I put that in quotes ’cause we that don’t work – but I’m also unsure of any kind of long-term benefit from government stimulus that’s not followed up by something sustaining.

You do wonder about the racial part of this. Would majority white towns be allowed to disintegrate like Gary? Maybe they already are, and we just haven’t seen the BBC pieces on them. Discuss.