Detroit VS Hiroshima (56k warning)

[Mr Bean]

This topic began because of a chain letter funny enough sent to me last week by my grandmother.

Very simple it's a compare of contrast of Hiroshima sixty years ago

You know... after America nuked it

And the Detroit of today

After nothing but the economy hit it.

Compared with Hiroshima of today

Not being a native or visitor of Hiroshima I'm not sure if this is Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Regardless the whole email was a semi-right wing rant about the Government cares more about the Japanese than they do real American's whatever.
The point of this thread is to talk about the place of government in helping a city recover. In Japanese case it's recovery from nuclear devastation, large figure death toll and the complete loss of the city core. In Detroit's case it's extreme economic hardship caused by years of negligent and a failure to address underling problems in various US industries regulated by the US Government.

The key issue under discussion is this. What roll if any should a countries government play in the loss of a major city? Does the method of loss matter? If Detroit had burned down rather than slowly side into economic oblivion would it be more or less important for the Government to help the city survive? Should they try and help it survive? In the case of New Orleans where a major strategic port is at stake national security concerns come in play as well as economic and the public good. But what about a large city that's large because everyone moved there? Such as Raleigh in North Carolina or Boise in Idaho. Aside from containing government offices if these cities fell into the sea tomorrow (Highly unlikely in both cases) the companies would lose and the state goverment would be hurt but the Federal Government would largely be untouched. So when should they step in? If at all?

[TrailerParkJawa]

I think in the case of a city leveled by natural disaster or war its alwasy easier to rebuild since your starting from scratch. Cities that die a slower death from economic reasons are a tougher nut to crack. Should the gov't help? Does the gov't even know how to address the fundamental problem? In terms of Detroit could anything have been done?

Given the recent anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake here in the Bay Area this is a relevant topic. Sooner or later the Bay Area is going to suffer an 8.0+ quake. Its gonna do a lot of damage and bring down a lot of industry. So what is the federal gov'ts responsiblity? Obviously, aid and safety to the sick and wounded are expected. But what role the feds play when tens of thousand or hundreds of thousands of home and businesses are leveled and there no insurance to cover it? What happens to the economy when so many HQs for companies like Intel, AMD, Oracle, Cisco, etc are all knocked offline at once?

Not sure the feds can help companies with Disaster Recovery plans, but I do think at some level helping the citizens is inevitable in terms of loans to rebuild.

[AdmiralKanos]

Hiroshima was rebuilt after it was destroyed, but it's been more than half a century. I would imagine that the government is no longer giving it special A-bomb reconstruction assistance, and that if it's thriving, it's doing so because of its intrinsic merits.

[Broomstick]

There is also the problem that, in relation to population size, Japan has far less land suitable for city-building. In North America there is still much empty land where one can build a new city after fleeing an old one. Thus, Japan has a greater incentive to rebuild on top of a destroyed city, whereas in the US in many ways it's easy enough to simply build elsewhere.

[Tanasinn]

The government can't force people to go back to Detroit, which is definitely a factor in why it's such a shithole - everyone with money got out while the getting was good.

As a Michigan native, I can tell you that there's generations of mixed contempt, fear, and disgust with the idea of living in a city that defines American failure and poverty as singularly as Detroit does.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hiroshima was not the only destroyed city in Japan in the first place. Dozens of other cities took massive levels of damage and conventional firebombing attacks killed at least five times as many people as the two atomic bombs. In fact a number of Japanese cities suffered larger proportional losses of urban area totally destroyed, such as Fikui, Toyama (considered 100% destroyed by the USAAF with just .1 square miles surviving), Imabari, Hachioji and Takamatsu. The March 10th 1945 fire raid on Tokyo alone burned out 15.8 square miles of the city, more destruction then both atomic bombings put together. Latter raids would triple the area destroyed. What’s more Hiroshima actually got lucky and its port area and largest shipyard came out almost completely intact after nukage, serving as a springboard for postwar reconstruction and ensuring an immediate economic future for the place. It wasn't mined shut as badly as many other Japanese harbors either. Clearing mines from Japanese coastal waters took until the mid 1950s.

Did I mention the whole population was starving so much that US troops let them collect scraps from the mess halls for several years after the war?

With all of Japan deveasted, it was natural, urgent and unavoidable that rebuilding occurred at all points simultaneously and on an emergency basis just to fend off mass homelessness and all the dangers of disease and social unrest that could cause. No one was picking or choosing which places to help on a grand scale. The comparison with the long term economic driven decay of Detroit is nearly nonexistent.

Detroit is so bad they already have a major program running to knock down vacant buildings, and Obama has proposed expanding it and extending it to other US cities. That’s exactly what we need to do too. A federal rebuilding effort doesn't make one lick of sense.

[Winston Blake]

A small-scale analogy:

- A family's house burns down. A local charity donates money to help them rebuild. They move back in. The house is well-maintained, and an extension is added.

- A family moves house because the parents can't find work in that area. No-one else wants to move in. The empty house decays.

Even if the house was fully renovated by the charity, at great cost, the simple fact is that nobody really wants to live there.

[Darth Wong]

Detroit is so bad they already have a major program running to knock down vacant buildings, and Obama has proposed expanding it and extending it to other US cities. That’s exactly what we need to do too. A federal rebuilding effort doesn't make one lick of sense.

It's an interesting experiment. If entire tracts of run-down housing are wiped clean and replaced with natural meadows, the city would take on a weird complexion halfway between a metropolis and a small town. Of course, that's a huge improvement over a run-down metropolis.

[Stuart]

Not being a native or visitor of Hiroshima I'm not sure if this is Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

It's Hiroshima. Look at the top quarter of the picture, center-right. There's a sort of dark circle with fewer lights than the rest of the city? Ground Zero. Right at the edge of the picture there's a black square? That's Hiroshima Castle, the headquarters of the Japanese forces in the area.

The recovery of decayed city land and its restoration to open countryside is an interesting project. It might be that we are seeing the end of the megalopolis in the sense that we presently understand it and that the huge cities will eventually be replaced by much larger areas containing a mix of smaller communities and open ground (where possible of course; some countries just haven't the space to do it. In Germany the major communities are around 250 kilotons apart and Japan ran out of space years ago). There's a school of thought that suggests 1 million is about the largest any city can get before it hits systemic structural problems that makes it effectively ungovernable. That's probably a bit pessimistic but there's a grain of truth there.

Back in the 1950s, there were serious proposals that all U.S. cities should be essentially abandoned and dispersed as a defense against atomic attack. Thermonuclear weapons killed that idea off but a faint shadow of it can be seen in the Interstate Highway system.

[Darth Wong]

In Germany the major communities are around 250 kilotons apart and Japan ran out of space years ago

250 kilotons apart? Have you been running nuclear wargames again?

[Sea Skimmer]

It's an interesting experiment. If entire tracts of run-down housing are wiped clean and replaced with natural meadows, the city would take on a weird complexion halfway between a metropolis and a small town. Of course, that's a huge improvement over a run-down metropolis.

About 3,000 buildings have been knocked down so far in the city, the problem is with no true long term plan and funding for it they haven’t been able to move on to also tearing up redundant roads and cutting certain utility lines yet. If they could do that they’d not only reduce crime and blight but also save a fair bit of money on maintenance. It’d also make any future park areas less likely to harbor crime because criminals are lazy and unlikely to stray all that far from cars which bring in more customers to buy drugs and hookers. The advantage from increased police density alone could be equal to several deployments of Robocop.

[Darth Wong]

So it's only being done half-way? That's unfortunate. It will end up looking more like a lot of vacant lots in a dead neighbourhood, as opposed to reclaimed natural space.

[Stuart]

250 kilotons apart? Have you been running nuclear wargames again?

Guilty as charged The quote actually comes from the 1980s and the kilotonnage figure differs from version to version but it's essentially true. Germany would not have been a healthy place come WW3 although the carbon footprint could be reduced by turning off the streetlights since the population would be glowing so brightly.

Decitification though could have interesting implications. One is that it might make inner-city mass transport economically viable. It would be interesting to envisage a "future city" that actually consists of a complex of small townships separated by strips of countryside and linked by high-speed rail (monorail?) transport. that would do things like make electric cars much more plausible since they would be used primarily for transport within such small towns. Law enforcement would be easier and the cities could return to the system where police officers were expected to actually live in the communities they police (half the problems with US city police forces is that don't do that, cops can't afford the real estate prices. So they live one place and police another; they behave like an occupying army because that's precisely what they are). The danger is that socially the small townships may split apart, some becoming wealthy reserves, others near-ghettos. Some would end up being dominated by nut-jobs of varying types, others would be quite reasonable pluralistic places to live.

[Sea Skimmer]

So it's only being done half-way? That's unfortunate. It will end up looking more like a lot of vacant lots in a dead neighbourhood, as opposed to reclaimed natural space.

A few small park areas have been created in the city, but the simple matter is places that need this done are also the same places without local money to do a proper job of it. That’s why Obama wanted to make a federal program to do so, but he hasn’t moved past his initial speech on the matter since spending priorities in both fiscal terms and political capital are rather absorbed into other efforts at the moment.

One of the problems is its rare that you get totally abandon areas, and forcing out people with emanate domain takes a protracted expensive legal fight since cities never want to pay even close to what land is worth. If you don’t have total abandonment you can’t go tearing up the streets and utilities.

Philadelphia has been making its own small efforts in this direction too, broke as the city might be Philly has way more money then Detroit. Two large former industrial areas, the Port Richmond docks and the east end of the Philadelphia naval base have been largely leveled and allowed to overgrow as our biggest examples. The latter is closed to the public, but the former is informally open and used heavily as an ATV and dirt bike area. We are lucky that many of our blighted areas are totally abandon industrial parks so they can be flattened at will. IIRC though part of the naval base is now going to be redeveloped into an expanded port area… just as soon as we beat New Jersey in court. The worthless bastards are blocking the enlargement of the Delaware shipping channel (already approved and funded by the federal government like 15 years ago) to ensure more ships go to Jersey ports on the Hudson river.

[Medic]

Decitification though could have interesting implications. One is that it might make inner-city mass transport economically viable. It would be interesting to envisage a "future city" that actually consists of a complex of small townships separated by strips of countryside and linked by high-speed rail (monorail?) transport. that would do things like make electric cars much more plausible since they would be used primarily for transport within such small towns. Law enforcement would be easier and the cities could return to the system where police officers were expected to actually live in the communities they police (half the problems with US city police forces is that don't do that, cops can't afford the real estate prices. So they live one place and police another; they behave like an occupying army because that's precisely what they are). The danger is that socially the small townships may split apart, some becoming wealthy reserves, others near-ghettos. Some would end up being dominated by nut-jobs of varying types, others would be quite reasonable pluralistic places to live.

I'm reminded in that by Ft. Riley. Sure, there is a not-insignificant portion of any military post that lives off-post (in both Soldiers and DoD civilians) but it is all layed out reasonably close together and walking to work or carpooling are quite common. City-data.com is interesting looking at military posts compared to just their off-post residences in just those rates. (Riley versus Junction City)

Google Earth reveals the basic layout of Ft. Riley rather well: Custer Hill is the horse-shoe shaped cluster of built-up area, Camp Funston is the conspicuously rectangular area to the east and Forsyth and Main Post are to the South on either side. There's 1-4 miles between any 2 of these with pretty much undeveloped wilderness between all of them, save the odd helicopter pad, ATV off-road site, electrical plant or water treatment facility; random stuff in other words but not any of it very land-consumptive. This makes hitting deer a big-fucking problem but at least you can hunt them, too. (bow-only however, owing to proximity to residences) This place sucked without a car (and still did without, but only cause it's Kansas and cause the per-capita cop rate and cops-per-mile of road here are ... probably the highest in the Army) but it is nice in that you never have to go far to get away from it all with easy access to the countryside for exercise, camping, hunting fighing, or off-roading. Simply adding rail to flank the existing roads would greatly reduce the traffic problems that got worse the longer I stayed there. (mostly cause there were almost no 4-lane roads, just one direction one way, and one another, from the top of post to the bottom, with few exceptions)

Lastly though, Ft. Riley did in fact have a "ghetto." (Colyer Manor, but it was in fact casually referred to as the ghetto) Oh sure, it's not like people get shanked and shot there every night like in Detroit but it happens to be a family-residence area that 1) has the oldest / shittiest houses 2) the lowest ranks and 3) the most drama going on at any given moment in time, compared to the rest of post. Any self-respecting couple got the hell out of Dodge at the soonest possible point, I know my last boss did, partly cause of some random black guy who was stalking the neighborhood for a few weeks (who was eventually caught, can't remember if his actions were more perv-like or thief-like; though it doesn't really matter) and other drama more and less shocking. (noise, animals, adultery, general assholery accompanying a large group of college-aged adults nominally married and living close together) That highlights neatly your last hunch I bolded and I'd put it as bluntly as the fact that the human detritus has to and does settle somewhere, or else there never would be a "bad side of town." Although on-post housing on Ft. Riley is of course free and everyone's employed (their housing allowance or BAH is equal to their rent) the housing areas were generally stratified by rank -- therefore pay -- and rank has it's privileges. So shit -- even as a relative term -- pools in one place. (barracks life is entirely different -- they are college dorms in all but name, with the odd 30 and 40 year old )

It is worth noting that Colyer Manor isn't the ONLY area lower-enlisted families (privates to specialists) could live on-post, and they could always find a house off-post, but it was singularly the only place where they comprised the majority with little exception. As one former co-worker opined about the area, the constituent couples that lived in that area probably brought their lifestyle with them, i.e., the Soldier came from a ghetto before signing up or simply had the personality and temperament to LIKE the area and the spouse... well she (most are "she") probably came from that city or another city immediately around another Army post and FYI as a rule*, those places are fairly sleazy or backwoods hicktowns, although I don't think any are actually ghetto's.

*Rule for the Army; can't speak to USAF, USN, or USMC. The above post isn't limited to Ft. Riley though, since Army posts NEED training area and therefore have a lot of brush / woodland area compared to a typical city, all in close proximity to a large economic area full of people, as a rule. Exceptions are the tiny posts like Ft. Sam Houston, in the middle of San Antonio.

[Gil Hamilton]

Ah, Stuart. I got a question. Is the ability to say really disturbing things in a nonchalant, conversational fashion something you were born with or was it the result of on the job training?

Anyway:

Decitification though could have interesting implications. One is that it might make inner-city mass transport economically viable. It would be interesting to envisage a "future city" that actually consists of a complex of small townships separated by strips of countryside and linked by high-speed rail (monorail?) transport. that would do things like make electric cars much more plausible since they would be used primarily for transport within such small towns. Law enforcement would be easier and the cities could return to the system where police officers were expected to actually live in the communities they police (half the problems with US city police forces is that don't do that, cops can't afford the real estate prices. So they live one place and police another; they behave like an occupying army because that's precisely what they are). The danger is that socially the small townships may split apart, some becoming wealthy reserves, others near-ghettos. Some would end up being dominated by nut-jobs of varying types, others would be quite reasonable pluralistic places to live.

I think it depends on which city you are talking about. Some break up more seemlessly into self-sufficient towns more than others, often depending on how they formed.

For example, Pittsburgh's existence as a single "city" is actually the result of a bunch of towns that were all built around the same area gelling together over time. While it's hard to neatly isolate Pittsburgh by bits of countryside (the city basically follows the general topography made by the rivers and mountains), reorganizing Pittsburgh into little individual townships wouldn't be that hard at all, since Pittsburgh is so neighborhood oriented anyway.

On the other end, it's very very hard to do this to a place like Tucson, which seems to only neatly subdivide into Tucson and South Tucson. There would have to be ALOT of reorganization there and while there are sections of Tucson that would surely be glad to be rid of responsibility for el barrio, it can't really be done in an easy fashion. Some metropolitan areas are going to stay metropolitan just by their nature, while others can neatly subdivide into self-sufficient units.

[Jeremy]

Decitification though could have interesting implications. One is that it might make inner-city mass transport economically viable. It would be interesting to envisage a "future city" that actually consists of a complex of small townships separated by strips of countryside and linked by high-speed rail (monorail?) transport. that would do things like make electric cars much more plausible since they would be used primarily for transport within such small towns. Law enforcement would be easier and the cities could return to the system where police officers were expected to actually live in the communities they police (half the problems with US city police forces is that don't do that, cops can't afford the real estate prices. So they live one place and police another; they behave like an occupying army because that's precisely what they are). The danger is that socially the small townships may split apart, some becoming wealthy reserves, others near-ghettos. Some would end up being dominated by nut-jobs of varying types, others would be quite reasonable pluralistic places to live.

Stack people like bricks, let the effluent flow down hill, and keep the sludgepiles far enough apart to maintain clean zones?

[Stuart]

Ah, Stuart. I got a question. Is the ability to say really disturbing things in a nonchalant, conversational fashion something you were born with or was it the result of on the job training?

On-the-job-training in an environment where doing just that was expected. After all, if one was to get all upset over the deaths of a few thousand people, what would one do when dealing with the deaths of hundreds of millions? Much better to stay calm about things.

I think it depends on which city you are talking about. Some break up more seemlessly into self-sufficient towns more than others, often depending on how they formed. For example, Pittsburgh's existence as a single "city" is actually the result of a bunch of towns that were all built around the same area gelling together over time. While it's hard to neatly isolate Pittsburgh by bits of countryside (the city basically follows the general topography made by the rivers and mountains), reorganizing Pittsburgh into little individual townships wouldn't be that hard at all, since Pittsburgh is so neighborhood oriented anyway. On the other end, it's very very hard to do this to a place like Tucson, which seems to only neatly subdivide into Tucson and South Tucson. There would have to be ALOT of reorganization there and while there are sections of Tucson that would surely be glad to be rid of responsibility for el barrio, it can't really be done in an easy fashion. Some metropolitan areas are going to stay metropolitan just by their nature, while others can neatly subdivide into self-sufficient units.

This is indeed true. Some cities break down easily into a number of self-sufficient communities, indeed that's just what they were until very recently. For example London as we know it today is basically a creation of 1850-1900 when the gaps between the villages got filled in. So, going backwards wouldn't be that hard. Many American cities though are laid out so they are essentially unified wholes and cutting them up would be difficult to do quickly. It might happen anyway; if transportation costs start to rise quickly, driving 20 odd miles for daily shopping would become uneconomic so that could lead to a resurgence of local stores and the decline of huge centralized malls and shopping precincts (bye-bye Wallyworld). Thus, given time, its conceivable that smaller dispersed communities would grow, leaving the gaps between them to decay and eventually be bulldozed. The catchword is time; most things can be accomplished if people allow enough time.

In the 1950s, the dispersion plans were quite draconian. People wouldn't slowly evolve their new communities, the inhabitants of an area would essentially be dragged out of their homes, transported to a new community site, then their old area bulldozed and rebuilt as a small community or simply abandoned. The British actually did something slightly similar with the creation of the so-called "New Towns" in the 1950s and early 1960s although they didn't use quite the level of coercion that US dispersal plans contemplated and the motivation was more finding homes for homeless than dispersal against atomic attack. Even so, the level of social problems caused by the dispersal was worrying and many psychiatrists made their names (and a lot of money) studying the problem. Naturally they never came to specific conclusions (why disrupt a gravy train by doing something useful).

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not sure city decentralization is the wave of the future, but it's definitely one viable model. The catch is that cities where people still honestly want to live (like, say, New York) aren't the ones decaying, so there's no compelling reason to start spreading them out into interconnected self-sufficient nodes. You might as well go the arcology route.

The cities that are decaying, conversely, are the ones that no one really wants to live in; if Detroit isn't going to be an industrial center there's honestly no reason to be there as opposed to any other place in the country. So there's no incentive to come up with a way to reorganize the city along some new paradigm and create "New Detroit" unless you're committed to staying there and stand to lose everything if the city goes away. Which is, come to think of it, exactly the situation the Detroit city government is in.

Cities live or die depending on whether their location is desirable in and of itself, so we're not likely to see a dying city suddenly revitalize itself with the Urban Layout of Tomorrow.

In the 1950s, the dispersion plans were quite draconian. People wouldn't slowly evolve their new communities, the inhabitants of an area would essentially be dragged out of their homes, transported to a new community site, then their old area bulldozed and rebuilt as a small community or simply abandoned. The British actually did something slightly similar with the creation of the so-called "New Towns" in the 1950s and early 1960s although they didn't use quite the level of coercion that US dispersal plans contemplated and the motivation was more finding homes for homeless than dispersal against atomic attack. Even so, the level of social problems caused by the dispersal was worrying and many psychiatrists made their names (and a lot of money) studying the problem. Naturally they never came to specific conclusions (why disrupt a gravy train by doing something useful).

Intuitively, I suspect it would have been a bad idea in any event, even without the advent of bigger-footprint bombs. We'd be talking about a catastrophic disruption of the economy with effects that would take years or decades to subside. The purely economic costs of the plan might actually be on the same order of magnitude as the cost of the bomb damage.

MIGHT, I said; please don't rip this up too hard if I'm getting my order of magnitude estimates wrong.

[Gil Hamilton]

This is indeed true. Some cities break down easily into a number of self-sufficient communities, indeed that's just what they were until very recently. For example London as we know it today is basically a creation of 1850-1900 when the gaps between the villages got filled in. So, going backwards wouldn't be that hard. Many American cities though are laid out so they are essentially unified wholes and cutting them up would be difficult to do quickly. It might happen anyway; if transportation costs start to rise quickly, driving 20 odd miles for daily shopping would become uneconomic so that could lead to a resurgence of local stores and the decline of huge centralized malls and shopping precincts (bye-bye Wallyworld). Thus, given time, its conceivable that smaller dispersed communities would grow, leaving the gaps between them to decay and eventually be bulldozed. The catchword is time; most things can be accomplished if people allow enough time.

Some more than others. If transportation costs suddenly rose in such a manner, it would be an unmitigated disaster for, say, Los Angeles, but places are are less a sprawl (by design or by topography) would pull through well enough. In such a climate, those places that weren't massive urban sprawls would organically decouple back into decentralized towns while other cities would probably require emergency aid.

Further, another result I could see with that is that while there would be some amount of decentralization, it would be the utter death of suburbia. Our suburbs can't survive a disruption of the car economy, they are inherently unstable that way. I'm glad people in your profession invest largely in gallows humor, because I can't imagine the nightmare that would evolve in the suburbs if there was a sudden distruption in fuel, food, et cetera, given how far past the carrying point of the land most suburbs exist in.

In such an event, suburbia might be the first to get the bulldozer and turned back into food production to support the urban centers that are left over, while rural areas largely stick with the carrying point of what can be supported by subsistence agriculture. Assuming there isn't a disruption of scientific progress, that may not be a small number depending on how sophisticated your food production techniques and how much access to power you have, but it might be tiny and many small towns could just dry up. Hopefully, the next generation of photovoltaics that we are currently working on (I say we to include myself, since the research group I'm likely joining is concerned with them) will live up to their promise and we can make cheap, efficient solar cells by the square kilometer. Here's hoping.

In the 1950s, the dispersion plans were quite draconian. People wouldn't slowly evolve their new communities, the inhabitants of an area would essentially be dragged out of their homes, transported to a new community site, then their old area bulldozed and rebuilt as a small community or simply abandoned. The British actually did something slightly similar with the creation of the so-called "New Towns" in the 1950s and early 1960s although they didn't use quite the level of coercion that US dispersal plans contemplated and the motivation was more finding homes for homeless than dispersal against atomic attack. Even so, the level of social problems caused by the dispersal was worrying and many psychiatrists made their names (and a lot of money) studying the problem. Naturally they never came to specific conclusions (why disrupt a gravy train by doing something useful).

You know, I've heard the joke about Cold War tacticians, where the punchline has the tactician going "Defeat the Soviet Union?! What a terrible career move! Our job is to continue to defeat the Soviets, not defeat them!"

On topic, if the change that necessitates the formation of such new communities is slow enough, it will happen fairly naturally in many places, while others will suffer. If it happens rapidly, particularly as the result of a war or a major natural disaster, then chances are we as a whole are seven different shades and hues of screwed anyway.

[Ariphaos]

Along Stuart's line of thinking, I've been wondering of late if it would be good to make zones of the United States more autonomous. Divide by say, hydrological basin (adjusting a bit for major, high-permeability aquifers, and dividing up the Great Lakes), combine as necessary for three or so economic subunits. Each would have their own currency, regulations, etc.

[Winston Blake]

Along Stuart's line of thinking, I've been wondering of late if it would be good to make zones of the United States more autonomous. Divide by say, hydrological basin (adjusting a bit for major, high-permeability aquifers, and dividing up the Great Lakes), combine as necessary for three or so economic subunits. Each would have their own currency, regulations, etc.

That sounds like it would be extremely inefficient and cause enormous duplications of labour. I can see value in victory gardens and things, such that a zone could largely support itself. However, you seem to be suggesting balkanising the U.S. into a confederation of Disneylands with mutually incompatible Disney dollars. For what possible purposes?

[Ariphaos]

Considering each division would have multiples of your entire country's population, what does that make of your currency? Should we call Australia Disney Island from now on? Your vote has a dozen times the power to regulate your government's financial activity as opposed to mine. For the possible purpose of reducing that ratio to three or four.

For the practical purpose of correcting California's deficit? Seriously.

A universal currency is not the perfect solution.

Would also be a lot easier bringing Single Payer into the states if the rape caucus couldn't filibuster it for the entire country. Holding them more accountable for the geographic regions they govern would be nice, too.

[Samuel]

How about no? Your plan appears to be an attempt to replicate CIS. Would you like me to explain why that might just be a bad idea?

Your vote has a dozen times the power to regulate your government's financial activity as opposed to mine. For the possible purpose of reducing that ratio to three or four.

When did we get to vote for members of the Federal Reserve? More seriously the idea of fine tuning manipulation of the currency goes against the goal of stability. Reducing the area held by one currency makes minor blips more likely to affect things.

Would also be a lot easier bringing Single Payer into the states if the rape caucus couldn't filibuster it for the entire country. Holding them more accountable for the geographic regions they govern would be nice, too.

We had this discussion a week ago. The conclusion seemed to be abandoning our comrades in the urban centers would be wrong even if the rural areas were controlled by reactionaries. There were comments about staying the course and how they would be eventually be overcome by civilization... maybe it was the Afghanistan thread. The important point is that we already have something like that (states) and I don't see how your plan would increase accountability.

As for getting policy passed, I think it would take more effort to dismantle the Union than pass single payer health care.