No.157167
Say what you will about the European colonists, but they could hardly have picked a more beautiful, bountiful, and vast piece of land to destroy everything, murder everyone, and steal for themselves.
I mean, really, what a beautiful place it is, and absolutely massive. The North American territory of the US alone is so much land, and when you combine that with the rest of North America, it's just so incredibly huge and deep. For as beautiful as the land is, there is something deeply shameful about the way so much of it goes to waste on account of the speculative land model, especially when considering the depraved brutality by which Europeans took it. The arteries of European civilization plunged deep into the land, coursing their way across it, and over time new veins joined the old ones and the continent was swept by electrification, phone lines, and automotive roads (but never enough trains)… and yet, atop these coursing sinews, the cities they feed rot and waste. Buildings sit vacant, and fall into disuse and disrepair. Entire sections of cities blossom with derelict storefronts and empty flats, inhabited only by a gallery of the dispossessed. The wealth of men's labor on this vast, beautiful land is funneled in such a way as to prioritize private enrichment and expensive vanity projects over the needs of the public, even as there is so much wealth to go around and so much land on which to live. This is a really shameful fate for such a beautiful land taken in such a horrendous way, that those living in the legacy of the colonization should still suffer such pain and poverty despite all that was taken.
I didn't expect to open this with a rant like that, but the Americas really are beautiful, and the US controls the most beautiful and diverse land north of the Southern continent… and South America is full of profound natural beauty of its own, too. This thread is about the nature and wildlife of the North American continent, and because I don't feel like making another thread for its ruins, it's also about rural and urban decay in North America and especially the US - IE beautiful abandoned buildings and shit.
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No.161758
>>161756Imo online retail is like a third banana after unchecked land speculation and the overextended military. One thing you see in cities around the country is a lot of retail, restaurants, commerce in general that's choked out directly by rent increases and "new management" landlords even when it otherwise has survived competition from big corporate chain stores and online retail. Likewise, the perpetual growth of the amount of land property held by just a few entities always accelerates the rate at which rent and scarcity increase compared to wages. The US government is completely averse to doing anything substantial about it, which isn't surprising, I guess, but it is astonishing to think about. It's still the richest country on Earth, but huge swathes of it have looked like the post-collapse Eastern Bloc for decades purely because of the rapacious greed of leadership and their total refusal to adapt or to reinvest in public goods and services.
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No.161759
>>161758Good point. Apparently this city council is so corrupt they're selling real estate to outside investors and then either try to squeeze them for taxes owed by the deceased, or they demolish the structure after closing and bill the purchaser for the cost of demolition.
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No.161760
>>161756Just got to 4:08. The dead small business with a Libertarian Party message in the window is great, so characteristic that I'm compelled to comment on it even though I have nothing to say besides observing that it's characteristic.
>>161759Scheme-on-scheme violence!!!
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No.161761
>>161760I think that building used to contain a telegraph and a printing press used by the defunct Arkansas Gazette. At least that's what I saw on a 4th grade field trip when the press was still functional.
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No.161762
>>161761That's sad. So much has been totally wiped out. I wonder what printing presses go for these days.