[PRCo] Re: Fw: North side details

[John Swindler]

Concerning whether communism is fondly remembered, Fred, I'll let you know 
in a few weeks:  my wife leaves on a mission trip to Novosibirsk tomorrow.  
But I suspect that all societies have the same ranges of human outlook:  
it's just that the percentages are different.  John


>From: Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com>
>Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>Subject: [PRCo] Re: Fw: North side details
>Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 20:09:04 -0500
>
>Continued off topic warning!
>
>I somewhat disagree with my learned colleague Edward that communism was not
>fondly remembered throughout most of its coverage area.  Your fondness or 
>hatred
>for the former state run economy has a lot to do with your age.  If you are 
>64
>years old and you have had difficulty finding a decent job since the 
>economic
>shift in the early 1990s, you probably will not like capitalism. You went
>through most of your life with a guaranteed make believe job and make 
>believe
>wages, and, while you had  not been rewarded with great riches, you did 
>have a
>modicum of comfort.  You would have had an apartment at state regulated 
>rates
>(can you imagine $50 month today).  You had free health care.  You took off 
>most
>Friday afternoons.  And you waited in lines to buy bread.  I'm recalling 
>two
>shop workers for the street railway in Naumberg in the Deutsche 
>Demokratische
>Republik back about 1991.  Two years later I passed through the city again 
>and
>wanted to give them pictures of themselves in front of a streetcar.  They 
>no
>longer worked for the city.  Policies had changed.  They no longer had play 
>jobs
>for play money.  The trolleys were not running.  They had been replaced 
>with two
>Mercedes Benz buses, which could be fixed on demand by the local
>Daimler-Chrysler dealer.  There was no shop force.  And these were men in 
>their
>50s that were suddenly out of work.  If you had seen the East in 1980 or 
>1990
>with all the factories going full blast (and smoke everywhere), and then 
>you saw
>it in 1995 with three-fourths of the factories closed, you can understand 
>how
>the old timers felt.  Communism, for them, was a security blanket.   (As a
>peripheral comment:  There was a great rush to throw out all the old stuff 
>in
>the early 1990s, but many of the favored commodities (including a cola 
>drink
>which I thought tasted like it should have come off the back of a medicine
>wagon) have come back by public request.
>
>If you are 40, you were probably able to adapt and are comfortable with the
>change. Maybe you even moved to the west.  You are now probably making far 
>more
>than you ever had before.  You now have a Fiat or a Volkswagen. Maybe you 
>even
>drive a Beamer.   You drive to a brand new supermarket in the burbs to buy 
>your
>groceries.  The name may be different but the concept is the same as 
>K-Mart.
>In fact I actually remember seeing a new Wal*Mart just a few blocks from
>downtown Jena.  There are all sorts of new jobs, which, of course, require 
>new
>skills.  (I'm painting a picture of East Germany.  Russia is much more 
>dismal.)
>
>If you are in the 20-30 range, you have no idea what communism so asking if 
>they
>like it is irrelevant.  You can only go on what your parents told you.   
>It's
>been 15 years now and asking a teenager or twenty-something is like asking 
>a
>teenager in this country about Lee Harvey Oswald or the meltdown at Three 
>Mile
>Island or how to use a rotary dial phone.
>
>Fifteen years ago I found a track maintenance worker in East Germany who 
>was
>very down on communism.  In his case, he was old enough to remember the 
>world
>before 1945.  And maybe he remembered what Grandma told him about the world
>before 1914.   If he is still around today, perhaps his pension covers 
>expenses
>and perhaps it doesn't ... not being sufficient is an acute problem in 
>Russia.
>
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>Harold:
>
>Regarding welfare housing in Europe ... it exists.  For example, the 
>British
>call them council homes after the city or county council.   There are a lot 
>of
>large blocks of council apartments on the southwestern light rail line in
>Sheffield, England, and that is what forced them to reevaluate proof of 
>payment
>fares.  The kids took the ticket vending machines home to empty the coins 
>in
>comfort.   There are similar public housing programs everywhere.  Maybe,
>however, they do a better job than we do of maintaining the older
>infrastructure.  Maybe because I've never been inside an English council 
>home or
>a similar structure elsewhere.  I've been in many European homes but they 
>were
>not people on welfare. (That is not a jab.)
>
>There was a nice college text book written by an urban history prof at 
>Franklin
>and Marshall College here in Lancaster, and it used this city for the point 
>of
>discussion.  One of the issues he found important was tearing down their 
>slum
>housing without first thinking through where are we going to move these 
>people.
>Does that not remind us of tearing down the Lower Hill and moving the 
>people to
>Homewood?   Does it happen in Europe?  Yes, but I cannot believe it happens 
>to
>the same degree that it does here or there would not be so many homes going 
>back
>2, 3, 4, 5, 6 centuries.   There is another aspect to redeveloping European
>cities ... The U. S.  and the British helped to redevelop a lot of them 
>after
>World War II because we left a lot of empty spaces in cities like Hannover,
>Mannheim, Dresden and Berlin.  And the Germans wiped out one-third of the
>housing in London.  Different kind of urban renewal?
>
>Ed was 100% correct, however, in his comment about the Europeans taking 
>their
>money.  The governments have many social programs that have to be funded in 
>some
>manner.  You can tax the employer, or the visitor, or the resident, but you 
>have
>to take from someone to pay for public programs.  And the Europeans have 
>many
>more programs than we do, therefore it costs a lot more.  Socialized 
>medicine
>(or call it a national health service if you wish) is common everywhere.  I 
>can
>cite, as just one more example, that German women who give birth are 
>entitled to
>a percentage of their income (I think the initial percentage is 100%) for 
>one
>year and it may be two, and a lower percentage for one more year, with 
>automatic
>rights to their job afterward. But that is only the start.  Giving the
>government more than 50% of your income in taxes is not unusual.   It would 
>be
>interesting to have a large spread sheet comparing our social programs with
>theirs.  I don't have that.   I'm not sure how Germany pays for their 
>obligatory
>vacation program (I think it is five weeks for everyone), but someone pays 
>...
>if government doesn't, then it has to be covered by reduced wages.  After 
>all,
>we live in a world wide competitive market and they can't give away 
>vacations
>and compete.    I am going to stop short of being critical of their 
>programs ...
>there just happens to be a lot within the European life style that I 
>appreciate
>(and don't take that to mean I don't like it here).  This can easily 
>degenerate
>into a Republican versus Democratic issue and I don't want that.
>
>And regarding your friend's horror stories about the projects on 
>Pittsburgh's
>north side ... and attempting to project that to Europe.  There is crime
>everywhere.  You and I have had these arguments before.  In the U. S. it is
>normal for the victim to know when it happened ... the purse was ripped off 
>by a
>guy on a running down the street, or the 7-11 clerk found himself looking 
>down
>the barrel of gun, or the person walking down a quiet street was ambushed 
>to two
>guys bearing knives.  I've never read about that in Europe.  Having your 
>pocket
>picket is normal ... you simply do not carry more money in your wallet than 
>you
>are willing to loose. Maybe you want to carry a decoy wallet and put the 
>real
>stuff in a chest pouch.  I've had my pocket picked several times .... it 
>goes
>with being distracted while taking pictures ... it also goes with being an
>American in poor countries.  But I only once felt threatened and I solved 
>that
>by escaping through a McDonalds.  And I guess, with the proliferation of 
>drugs,
>we can expect that level of comfort to change too.
>
>fws
>
>"Edward H. Lybarger" wrote:
>
> > The European governments interfere with OTHER aspects of the citizens'
> > lives, notably their pocketbooks, but they have left the bulk of the 
>failed
> > social engineering to the US of A.  Communism, of course, was the 
>exception,
> > and it is not fondly remembered throughout most of its coverage area.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> > [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of Ken &
> > Tracie
> > Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 12:05 PM
> > To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> > Cc: Scott Greig; Robert Schwerer; paulwey at freecongress.org; Gregory
> > Forster; FRANK GRILLO; Eugene Kittredge; Michael Loth
> > Subject: [PRCo] Re: Fw: North side details
> >
> > Off Topic Warning!
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Harold G." <transitmgr2 at earthlink.net>
> >
> > > Most European cities have not had this urge to redevelop.  Thank God.
> >
> > The day of the average urban dwelling U.S. citizen being guaranteed
> > reasonable stability in a given neighborhood for even one generation is 
>long
> > over.
> >
> > Do Europeans have the same issues with violent, poverty stricken "victim
> > class" people being moved into working class and middle class 
>neighborhoods
> > by well intended but misguided social programs? Programs which give the
> > former the opportunity to prey on the latter, forcing the latter to flee 
>to
> > outlying areas in order to recapture the security and quality of life 
>they
> > are accustomed to?
> >
> > I have friends who grew up on Pittsburgh's North Side. Some told me the
> > horror stories about "the projects" built below their neighborhood 
>during
> > the late 1950s and early 1960s. It started out okay, but by the late 
>1960s,
> > the officials responsible for the housing programs began losing control 
>over
> > this housing project. At first, the crime was confined within the 
>housing
> > complex, but it spread into the surrounding  old, established areas.
> >
> > Only the most politically connected and wealthy can establish themselves 
>in
> > a nice neighborhood and have some control over what the local, state or
> > federal governments dump upon them!
> >
> > I am amazed that so many mass transit supporters and environmentalists 
>align
> > themselves politically with people whose social programs destroy good
> > quality, high density urban living. The very thing which would be 
>conducive
> > to rail transit development. And such development would also protect
> > outlying rural areas from urban sprawl.
> >
> > Try to displace the criminal element and rebuild these "war zones" and 
>you
> > are accused of "gentrification." Kick longtime, established homeowners 
>out
> > to give their land to either deep pocketed commercial developers or 
>public
> > housing projects and it's called "urban renewal."
> >
> > K.
> >
> > P.S.- Please do not read anything racist into this! The last 
>neighborhood we
> > had to flee was next to a Section Eight apartment complex full of WHITE
> > single parent households....households full of out of control children 
>who
> > vandalized and burglarized the longtime homeowners nearby. We were 
>lucky.
> > They never bothered us (READ TWO LARGE DOGS!) We got out just in time.
>
>
>