Here in Lawton I see quite a few Black people of all ages wearing face masks in public. Yesterday at the YMCA I saw a couple Black women wearing masks while getting in their workouts. Lately I've seen lots of white people around town wearing masks in public too, but most of those people are in older age groups.
binki said:
Things are crazy here. The state forces each city to build more houses but at the same time creates requirements that raise the price of the house. Flushes 90% of the water in the ocean and cuts water supplies to cities. Deregulates electricity but then can't figure out why electric rates are as much as 500% higher here than elsewhere.
Those conditions can help drive up the prices of housing. Then there is the situation with residential zoning. Various methods of American-style zoning are at the root of what urban planning experts call "the missing middle" in housing. Vast areas of American cities are devoted to R-1 zoning: detached single family homes. Within these R-1 zones the subdivisions will all have homes of similar sizes, visual style and price points. Maybe add a gate and guard shack for good measure.
It is exceedingly rare to find contemporary American neighborhoods that allow a mix of multi-family dwellings, apartments and stand-alone homes. But it is a common sight in European cities. Locations that are building
mixed-use developments in the US are often building high priced "luxury" apartments above the commercial businesses on the ground floor. The missing middle syndrome in housing gives young adults just trying to get started on their own very little choice. Here in Lawton some young adults are faced with the choice of continuing to live with their parents, rent a house or apartment in a bad part of town, or move away from this region. Many are choosing to leave town.
WildWestDesigns said:
As to tech and how people that use mobile can be so backwards with tech. Actually the reason that they don't know basic computing is due to that very thing, mobile usage.
I'm sure mobile devices have substantially worsened the problems in computing literacy. The Mac and Windows operating systems have long offered paths for users to be lazy or dumb at file management. The first computers I used back in high school during the early 1980's used command lines to manage files and run applications. Most computer users these days would be lost if staring into a black screen with a flashing cursor prompt.
WildWestDesigns said:
As to immigration, wide open borders, illegals being able to vote in local elections (New York I believe, at least that was up for a vote and expected to pass last that I read), D and F grades being removed from school grades in at least one Cali district. None of that, in my mind bodes well.
When I was in my 20's I had a pretty hard stance against illegal immigration. Then I learned that stance was very naïve. I still don't like illegal immigration at all. But if I could do a
Thanos-Snap and make every illegal in the US vanish it would cause major disruptions to our daily lives. Visits to the grocery store would be far worse than they are now. The sad fact is several industries have built much of their business models around the exploitation of migrant labor. There is no easy way to undo that. In some cases, even if the businesses are doing everything they can to be legal they have no other choice but to hire illegal immigrants. There isn't exactly big lines of American-born people just itching to work in a slaughter house.
WildWestDesigns said:
Drop in birth rates, tends to happen in more developed countries just naturally. But there are other areas that have impacted people's desire to have kids, some not wanting them period, some concerned about the impact of the extra environmental strain on having more people, some don't want to have kids because of how family law is setup (this is country specific). I would say the later is having more and more of an impact. The ultimate reason behind that last aforementioned impact is also the reason that I would suspect is the demographic shift of those attending college as well.
Cultural shifts are one factor. Digital devices and their virtual connections are contributing to a reduction of in-person sexual activity. When women are educated, treated more equally to men and allowed to have autonomy over their sexuality they tend to have fewer children. In America more women want to have their own careers, make their own money and have their own independence. Having a child will disrupt that in a big way.
Ultimately the fewer kids syndrome is more about money than any other factor. Parenthood in the US has become an extremely expensive life style. Health care, family-sized housing, day care, education and other trappings of parenthood are being priced sky high. Plenty of Americans want to have kids. But they're putting it off hoping the situation will become more affordable later.
Scotchbrite said:
I feel like the days of getting great customer service are over. Sometimes I get frustrated at restaurants, but then I remind myself "hey at least these people are actually working". But customer service all over, not just restaurants, is horrible these days.
Many customer service problems in restaurants come down to management. The close friend of mine who manages a Tex-Mex restaurant is a very good manager. He's strict, but his employees respect him because he's not some douche who hides out in the office. If they're slammed with customers he'll be in the back helping cooks. He'll even wash dishes and haul out garbage if it helps others get dinners out faster. The dirty jobs aren't beneath him. When he's not getting his hands dirty he's out on the floor greeting customers and asking them about their dining experience. This guy isn't trying to be Mother Theresa, but he knows if there are any problems in the restaurant the buck stops with him. His @$$ is the one in the sling if the higher ups get written customer complaints.
