A number of communities affected by the law refused to comply.
There were some minor rumblings here like that. They went nowhere because the Town Council basically said "We don't have funds to pay the fines for non-compliance." Which amount to $1 million -- the number that sticks in my head is per day, but it might have been per month. Anyway, enough that nobody was jumping up volunteering to personally donate the cash to cover it.
Maybe you're having a (perfectly understandable) inflammatory reaction to the state of the nation, too. I figure that's a factor in my long (for me) comments.
I'm sitting here laughing at myself, looking at my novella-length posts in this thread.
I've just started a short course of prednisone to deal with an inflammatory reaction I'm having to COVID, which I had back in June.
My wife and I were visiting with friends yesterday and they asked about it all. Was it making me aggressive?
No, my wife said. But it's making him talk a lot.
:: rimshot ::
I will try to be more concise, going forward.
Thanks for sharing all of that, wj.
The immediate situation in my area is this: in 2021 MA passed a law requiring that towns with public transportation access, or towns adjacent to them, had to allow multi-family zoning in areas near the public transportation.
A number of communities affected by the law refused to comply. Most or all of these are upper-middle-class bedroom communities. Failure to comply is likely to result in the loss of significant state money, and the state may also appoint a special manager to write a compliance plan for you.
I live in one of those towns, and the issue has been front and center. Folks who object to the law give lots of reasons for their objection, but basically they DO NOT WANT multi-family housing. Or, more multi-family housing, we already have some.
They have a point. The town is already pretty densely populated, more people will require more services, etc etc etc.
But the town also has a lot of very, very wealthy people in it, and many more who are aspirationally very, very wealthy. Those folks don't want development that is going to make the town look down-market, because it will undermine the market value of their property. And those property values are, indeed, high - insanely high, because there is a lot of money chasing housing in this area.
So a lot of folks who work in the town - tradespeople, cops, nurses, teachers, mechanics - live somewhere else. A lot of people who work in the town *and grew up in the town* live somewhere else.
It's a really old town, and there are some old-timers and children and grand-children of old-timers who still do hands-on labor. Lobstermen, couple of boatyards. But they're aging out.
And so, segregation by class.
It's not a universal thing, the vote to not comply was quite close - a lot of people here would be more than fine with complying.
The political angle of all of this is that the folks who instigated the vote against complying were notable local MAGAs, and the folks who voting against compliance were likewise on that end of the spectrum.
I personally live in a neighborhood that sounds like it's a lot like yours. Neighbor across the street are a cop and nurse, to the right is a postal worker and the buyer for a museum gift shop, to the left is a retired local photo print shop owner and nurse. Folks behind us are a bit more upscale, but their street is a little more upscale, so I guess that makes sense.
Basically, we live in the starter home neighborhood of our town, closer to downtown Salem than to our own downtown. But even our more modest neighborhood is likely out of reach for a lot of middle class working folks. We bought in 2002, we would likely never be able to do so now.
There are lots of similar stories to tell from around here. The schools in my upper middle class town are not so great, because we don't pay well, because people DO NOT WANT TO PAY TAXES and the wealthier folks in town just send their kids to the private school. Salem is running into conflict over a proposal to allow a very limited kind of multi-family housing - basically, in-law units that could be rented or used for extended family housing.
The town I live in is quite old - settled in 1629, mostly by fishermen and somewhat famously by drunks and ne'er do wells who couldn't get along with the Puritans in Salem. It has a history as a working town - fishing, boat building and related trades, light industry - there was even a small airplane factory here at one point. But those folks are getting pushed out. The ones who are still here are largely folks who've been here a really long time and got in before the big real estate gold rush(es). Or come from families who've been here forever.
The folks to our right bought their place a couple of years ago. It's a bog standard mid-century suburban colonial, 3 bed 1 1/2 bath, 1/8 acre plot. It went for almost $900K. They're working people - postal worker and museum gift shop buyer - so maybe there's some family money there, who knows. But holy crap, that's a lot of money for a perfectly nice but totally unremarkable house in a perfectly nice but totally unremarkable neighborhood.
That's the scene here.
Two quick websites for getting a sense of the geography of income inequality in major US cities: https://inequality.stanford.edu/income-segregation-maps
These show increases in concentration of rich and poor over time, but the levels of concentration vary by city. https://inequality.media.mit.edu/#
This one looks not just at neighborhood median income, but tracks the places that people of varying economic backgrounds visit in several cities to show the geography of daily association.
Hard to say if these patterns persist outside of major metropolitan areas. I imagine that smaller data sets lead to greater uncertainty of results.
They do not prompt wealthy college-educated folks living in islands of privilege to welcome cops, welders, nurses, and carpenters into their neighborhoods. They certainly and absolutely *DO NOT* prompt those people to do anything that would make lower-income housing more available in their communities, because that would put the assessed values of their own lovely homes at risk. And if the schools in their areas are not up to snuff, they quite often respond by sending their kids to private school, rather than take whatever steps would be needed to improve the local public schools.
Without going into the gory details of my own situation, I can tell you that I live this stuff. Live around it, live with it.
I have the recurring feeling that I am living in a different universe. This town is chock full of highly educated people. Has been since I was growing up here in the 1950s. (The town was a twentieth the size then, but its character hasn't changed much.) A lot of my neighbors are college educated; a couple used to teach college.
But my next door neighbor is a cop. (Not sure where. San Francisco maybe?) The guy a couple doors down is a farrier. (Yes really.) Great folks, not particularly well educated; one says he still marvels that he managed to graduate high school. In short, nothing like the class segregation described.
The town is mostly single family houses; archetypal suburbia. But there are also apartment buildings. No more houses being built the last decade or two; we ran out of space. But new apartment buildings are still going up. Afordable ones; at least what passes for affordable for California.
Like I say, a different universe. Not that I doubt for a minute that the problem exists. Just that it's outside my lived experience.
What that Mets hat does is show an interest in breaking down that barrier. And a refusal to sneer at the people he's talking to.
I'd like to try to be very clear about what I'm saying about Brooks.
I fully believe he wears the Mets hat in an effort to break through social barriers. And who knows, perhaps his conversations about the Mets do expand into topics of greater substance vis a vis our various public and social dilemnas. And no, I'm not being sarcastic in saying that.
And no, I don't believe Brooks is sneering at the people he's talking to, or at anyone in particular.
My issue with Brooks is that he seems to feel that the world's problems can be resolved through improvements in our personal, private virtue.
Want to break through the socio-economic barriers that divide the college-educated professionals from their working class counter-parties?
Sign up for one of the volunteer opportunities on the Weavers' website. In my area, those opportunities are (1) lead playtimes for homeless kids who are living in area shelters and (2) drive seniors to appointments.
Those are great things to do. I have done, and continue to do, similar things that somehow don't appear on his list - put in hours at a local food bank, provide overnight chaperoning for homeless families camping out in my church. Cook meals at a local homeless shelter. And so on.
What I can tell you from my experience with these things is that they *do not solve* the systemic problems that cause families to be homeless, or seniors to be without any form of useful public transportation. For example.
They do not prompt wealthy college-educated folks living in islands of privilege to welcome cops, welders, nurses, and carpenters into their neighborhoods. They certainly and absolutely *DO NOT* prompt those people to do anything that would make lower-income housing more available in their communities, because that would put the assessed values of their own lovely homes at risk. And if the schools in their areas are not up to snuff, they quite often respond by sending their kids to private school, rather than take whatever steps would be needed to improve the local public schools.
Without going into the gory details of my own situation, I can tell you that I live this stuff. Live around it, live with it. The class divide, as Brooks notes, is quite real. But signing up for a two-hour shift playing with homeless kids is not going to solve it. Driving somebody's grandma to her haircut is not going to solve it. Those are more than fine things to do, let's all go do our share of them.
But they don't address the root causes of the class divide. The class divide is fundamentally about money and power - who has it, what can they do with it. Me, a retired white software guy with basically enough money living in a nice suburban bedroom community going and playing with homeless kids at a local shelter *does not house that kids family*. It *does not magically provide that kids family with the resources to get them the hell out of the shelter*.
Right?
And Brooks' digs at the Democrats in the "segregation" piece are unwelcome, and frankly less than honest. The educational "red state surge" is frankly not all that. Some states have improved from really bad to somewhere between middling and pretty good, which is an outstanding result. And that's it. And education in some other red states absolutely suck, as does education in some blue states, or parts of some blue states. And education in some red states is actually exemplary, as it is in some blue states. It doesn't appear to have all that much to do with whether you're in a red state or blue state.
Brooks talks about working people feeling that have no power. And he's not wrong, most of the power in this country belongs to wealthy educated folks. How did that happen?
In this country, historically, the way that working people have gained any measure of political and social power was through organization. Organized labor. Unions.
I don't see Brooks supporting organized labor. I don't see him calling out for greater labor participation in corporate governance. I don't see him calling out for employee ownership or other forms of meaningful equity in businesses.
Those are the things that give working people power.
I don't see Brooks calling for any of the kinds of systemic changes that would actually address the "class divide" by *making the fucking divide smaller*. On the contrary, his history is one of supporting the kinds of (R) policies that exacerbate the problem.
And his solution is for all of us to volunteer to do helpful stuff in our local community to "bridge the divide" and "rebuild social trust".
More meaningful forms of creating social trust, IMO, would be relaxing local zoning rules to make affordable housing in your neighborhood available. Would be supporting institutions like the CFPB so that fucking predatory financial institutions would stop ripping people off. Would be finding a sane way to fund public education so that It's not just rich towns that get good schools. Would be supporting organized labor and employee participation in equity ownership and governance.
I think David Brooks is a decent person. I think he intends good things. And I think he's incapable of challenging the assumptions and policies of the conservative institutions that have been his professional home, and whose policies are largely responsible for the social ills he laments.
He's a nice man. And he doesn't get - seems incapable of getting - the connection between the things he has spent his life endorsing, and the problems he clearly sees. So, his solution to things is for everyone to be nicer, volunteer, and talk to each other.
If you want working people to have more power, support the things that have been the source of that power, historically.
If you want people of different educational and social backgrounds to mix, make it possible for people with less-privileged backgrounds to live in places where the more-privileged people live.
If you want to build social trust, address the gazillion forms of corruption that distort and undermine people's trust in public institutions. Start with making sure that everybody gets to vote, and that their votes aren't neutered by partisan gerrymandering - which of course means walking back yet another bullshit SCOTUS decision.
Trust is built on hearing and respecting each person's voice. It's built on, not just the perception, but the tangible reality of fairness. And not just while you're driving a nice old lady to her haircut, although by all means do it there as well. But also in the voting booth, in the workplace, in the doctor's office. In people's dealings with banks and insurance companies. In the immigration office. Right?
The kind of almost cartoonish venality and abuse of power we see with Trump has been building for decades, and it's the modern conservative movement, in which Brooks is knee-deep, that planned for it, laid the groundwork for it, built the institutions to make it happen.
He won't see that. Doesn't seem capable of seeing that. Where's Kamala's education plan, he asks. It's the (D)'s fault.
Yeah, no it's not. But he'll never own that. So I don't care for him. Don't hate him, don't wish him ill. But don't think he's got much to offer us. For all the reaons enumerated at probably tiresome length above.
And with all of that, I think I've been sufficiently unkind to David Brooks for one day. He's a nice man, in the context of all the shit that is going on he is very, very, very far from being public enemy #1. I appreciate his lack of cynicism and his instinct toward moderation.
The current state of the nation has me in kind of dark place. Thank you for indulging my rant, apparently I needed to get some crap off my chest. I promise I'll do my best to cheer up.
Night all.
In this interview, an urban warfare expert, who has frequently been in Gaza, describes the current situation as unprecedented. One reason is that, unlike most urban warfare scenarios, where civilians can evacuate combat zones, in Gaza, civilians are compelled to remain in the heart of the fighting. "John Spencer is a retired U.S. Army Major and leading expert on urban warfare, known for his frontline experience, strategic insights, and influential writing on modern combat in cities." War Expert Debunks Gaza Lies - John Spencer
Here is a really good discussion between Ezra Klein and Philippe Sands about Gaza and genocide: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-philippe-sands.html
Sands pretty much has the same position I have: it is pretty clear that it is genocide but endlessly debating the matter is a distraction from the daily horror and might even be counterproductive. Obviously, nobody cares what I think and why should they, but Sands, as both a prominent human rights lawyer and author of several books on the matter, including one about the "inventors " of the words "genocide" and "crimes against humanity", has a bit more weight to throw around.
A propos de rien: Hannah Arendt seems to be all the rage in certain circles of the US intelligentsia, which is great since we need eclectic but sharp and principled thinkers now more than ever, but please learn how to pronounce her name correctly: the stress is on the the first syllable, not the second.
I'd like to hear what nous and wj have to say about Newsom's counter-gerrymander initiative.
I strongly supported the initiative that set up our nonpartisan redistricting commission. I really, really hate to see anything that weakens it.
That said, like nous I will vote for this one-time, Congressional districts only, change. It's tragic that it has come to this. But the world is how it is, and the alternatives are worse. As long as nobody tries to make it a permanent change, or extends it to state legislative districts, I expect it to pass.
It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common.
For the first 3/4 or more of the 20th century, baseball was one of the things that bound people together in this country. Rich or poor, black or white, city or country -- people, whether they followed the game closely or not, were sufficiently aware to be able to talk about it. Their favorite team might not be the local one, but nobody got too exercised about that.
I think two things happened. One was technological: television. Baseball games can be readily followed on radio (presuming good broadcasters, which most were). But football is a TV game. You can't really appreciate what is happening without seeing things unfold. Somehow, football seems much more divisive than baseball.
The other was cultural. It became de rigueur for the upper classes to look down on the game. One could be interested, and many were. But showing interest was not the done thing. If you must talk about sports, talk about something lacrosse, which the lower classes don't do.
What that Mets hat does is show an interest in breaking down that barrier. And a refusal to sneer at the people he's talking to.
russell: I hear you.
Thanks GFTNC.
My comments about Brooks were probably off-topic, and probably not that constructive or useful. I'm sure I do him a disservice, at least to some degree.
I'm generally disgusted with the state of public life here in this country at the moment, and I think it colors my thoughts about a lot of things. Disgusted doesn't quite cover it - angry, broken-hearted, feeling generally helpless to know how to counter the widespread and gob-smacking folly and senseless cruelty that we are obliged to live with, and under, at the moment.
It sucks.
I appreciate your more generous thoughts about Brooks' work, it reminds me to look for the positive.
Better days, y'all.
Sorry, I posted that before I saw russell's and nous's. nous: thanks for further link. I read the synopsis which refers to it tangentially, but will certainly follow up.
russell: I hear you. And I can only hope that a lot of other people reading the NYT are less subtle than you, and take the general theme of the piece (segregation by income and education) seriously when they may not have seen it in quite that way before. It's easier to be virtuous when your larder is full.
A truer word was never spoke.
GftNC - the analysis of how the humanities and social sciences actually end up subsidizing STEM are not in the review synopsis that I linked, but rather in the book being reviewed, so here's another link that gets at those details some more (esp. in section 2): https://profession.mla.org/the-humanities-as-service-departments-facing-the-budget-logic/
There's a lot more analysis like this in The Great Mistake.
Tony P. - I find it tragic that Newsom has opted to put redistricting up to a vote, but I fully understand and accept the necessity of it, and will vote in support of it when it comes to that. This all could have been avoided had the Roberts Court done the right thing and allowed the Wisconsin gerrymandered districting to be struck down. It's fully on Roberts' shoulders that partisan redistricting is considered to be allowed under the constitution. Likewise, their systematic erosion of voter protections under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has allowed the GOP to attempt this latest scheme to disenfranchise opposition voters by wasting their votes on non-competitive districts and empowering their own voters in competitive districts.
I'd gladly vote to go back to non-partisan redistricting after the fact if this GOP power grab is unsuccessful. I don't want to disenfranchise Republican voters, but neither am I going to get caught up on principle while the other side cheats to win.
I don't know if it will be enough to break the fall, but taking the high road is conceding the contest, and that cannot happen.
It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common
Yes, I think that is correct. And yes, I agree that trying to make connections and find common ground are good things. And yes, I understand that the motivations of the callow art student in the Pulp song are quite different.
In general, I think Brooks is a decent person.
But I also think there is, probably inevitably, a limit to the degree to which someone from Brooks' background and in Brooks' position can understand and speak for the experience and interests of people who do not share his advantages. Mets hat or not.
Brooks tends to frame things in moralizing terms. I think he does that honestly, because it seems like his personal values and interests lead him to think in those categories. Which I don't fault him for, exactly, but I think it causes him to miss the mark in a lot of ways. And it also makes him seem like something of a scold. To me, anyway.
His argument often seems to be "Gee, we should be better people". Well, OK, yeah, I guess we should all be better people. But transforming the general character of the public doesn't seem like a particularly practical approach to what are actually, in many cases, systemic problems. Problems amenable to concrete solutions, solutions that you could actually implement. And that would actually make people's lives better in ways that would, in turn, make it a hell of a lot easier to be "better people".
It's easier to be virtuous when your larder is full.
And that's probably enough from me about Brooks. He strikes me as a basically decent person. I just can't think of anything I've read of his that seemed especially useful. And, intentional or not, I personally find what I take to be the moralizing tone of his work kind of condescending.
Just my opinion, offered more or less as an aside.
Speaking of California, I'd like to hear what nous and wj have to say about Newsom's counter-gerrymander initiative. Any lurking Californians are especially welcome to comment as well.
Come to think of it, I'd like to hear from the Texans among us, too, even if Abbott doesn't.
--TP
So much fascinating info, thank you all! It's quite clear that my impression of the relevant southern states' educational standards was seriously out of date. I haven't yet read nous's Reichman link on CA higher education, but I will certainly do so - I'm particularly interested in the Humanities subsidising STEM aspect. The story about wearing a Mets hat to break the ice with "ordinary people" just makes me think of that Pulp song. You know the one.
russell, I think Common People is a brilliant song, but to me it describes a different phenomenon. The girl in it is acting as a tourist, sampling the ways and customs of an utterly foreign culture. It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common (but who may find they do when they start to talk). I think it is like when people from completely different backgrounds and experiences love the same music, and can talk passionately and knowledgeably about it. The ability to do this, and to value it, seems to me to be a good thing.
There's a thing in the education literature called "the Colorado Paradox". We are quite mediocre at getting resident kids through K-12, and into and through college. But we have the 2nd or 3rd most educated workforce in the country. Mostly it's an accident of geography and history, and is probably not reproducible.
Isn't what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education?
Prop 13 contributed, certainly. But, as nous notes, it's far from the whole story.
Property taxes are a big part of funding primary and secondary education. But they aren't the only source. Also, the problem of reduced results has occurred even in places where there is relatively rapid turnover of home ownership. (Taxes weren't capped by Prop 13. It just froze assessments of property values, on which taxes are based, until the property changes hands.)
Funding for the University of California, and for the state university system, is totally unrelated to property taxes. It comes directly from the state budget, and from whatever tuition gets charged to make up the shortfalls. We could provide more funding from the state budget, and so reduce tuition. We chose, and continue to choose, not to.
If anyone is looking for a really thought provoking analysis of what has happened to higher education in the US with a focused look at California and the UC system in particular, I'm currently reading Christopher Newfield's book The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Rather than try to summarize his points myself, I'll link to a review published by the American Academy of University Professors that has a fairly complete synopsis to give you an idea of where Newfield is coming from: https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/103-4/failure-privatization
Yes, Prop 13 has had a damaging effect on education funding in California, but that was all made much worse when Schwarzenegger instituted austerity measures, and then compounded by both Brown and Newsom continuing the policy of allowing the burden of university funding to be covered by tuition increases rather than public funding increases.
There are some other interesting bits of analysis that come out of his research that fly in the face of the public discussion as well - the biggest to my mind being that the Humanities actually subsidize STEM, rather than the other way around.
Well worth the read.
These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
Isn't what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education? And Prop 13 didn't have anything to do with the left and had everything to do with people who labeled themselves as conservatives.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Giving Away the Store”
A number of communities affected by the law refused to comply.
There were some minor rumblings here like that. They went nowhere because the Town Council basically said "We don't have funds to pay the fines for non-compliance." Which amount to $1 million -- the number that sticks in my head is per day, but it might have been per month. Anyway, enough that nobody was jumping up volunteering to personally donate the cash to cover it.
"
Maybe you're having a (perfectly understandable) inflammatory reaction to the state of the nation, too. I figure that's a factor in my long (for me) comments.
"
I'm sitting here laughing at myself, looking at my novella-length posts in this thread.
I've just started a short course of prednisone to deal with an inflammatory reaction I'm having to COVID, which I had back in June.
My wife and I were visiting with friends yesterday and they asked about it all. Was it making me aggressive?
No, my wife said. But it's making him talk a lot.
:: rimshot ::
I will try to be more concise, going forward.
"
nous, lol
"
Thanks for sharing all of that, wj.
The immediate situation in my area is this: in 2021 MA passed a law requiring that towns with public transportation access, or towns adjacent to them, had to allow multi-family zoning in areas near the public transportation.
A number of communities affected by the law refused to comply. Most or all of these are upper-middle-class bedroom communities. Failure to comply is likely to result in the loss of significant state money, and the state may also appoint a special manager to write a compliance plan for you.
I live in one of those towns, and the issue has been front and center. Folks who object to the law give lots of reasons for their objection, but basically they DO NOT WANT multi-family housing. Or, more multi-family housing, we already have some.
They have a point. The town is already pretty densely populated, more people will require more services, etc etc etc.
But the town also has a lot of very, very wealthy people in it, and many more who are aspirationally very, very wealthy. Those folks don't want development that is going to make the town look down-market, because it will undermine the market value of their property. And those property values are, indeed, high - insanely high, because there is a lot of money chasing housing in this area.
So a lot of folks who work in the town - tradespeople, cops, nurses, teachers, mechanics - live somewhere else. A lot of people who work in the town *and grew up in the town* live somewhere else.
It's a really old town, and there are some old-timers and children and grand-children of old-timers who still do hands-on labor. Lobstermen, couple of boatyards. But they're aging out.
And so, segregation by class.
It's not a universal thing, the vote to not comply was quite close - a lot of people here would be more than fine with complying.
The political angle of all of this is that the folks who instigated the vote against complying were notable local MAGAs, and the folks who voting against compliance were likewise on that end of the spectrum.
I personally live in a neighborhood that sounds like it's a lot like yours. Neighbor across the street are a cop and nurse, to the right is a postal worker and the buyer for a museum gift shop, to the left is a retired local photo print shop owner and nurse. Folks behind us are a bit more upscale, but their street is a little more upscale, so I guess that makes sense.
Basically, we live in the starter home neighborhood of our town, closer to downtown Salem than to our own downtown. But even our more modest neighborhood is likely out of reach for a lot of middle class working folks. We bought in 2002, we would likely never be able to do so now.
There are lots of similar stories to tell from around here. The schools in my upper middle class town are not so great, because we don't pay well, because people DO NOT WANT TO PAY TAXES and the wealthier folks in town just send their kids to the private school. Salem is running into conflict over a proposal to allow a very limited kind of multi-family housing - basically, in-law units that could be rented or used for extended family housing.
The town I live in is quite old - settled in 1629, mostly by fishermen and somewhat famously by drunks and ne'er do wells who couldn't get along with the Puritans in Salem. It has a history as a working town - fishing, boat building and related trades, light industry - there was even a small airplane factory here at one point. But those folks are getting pushed out. The ones who are still here are largely folks who've been here a really long time and got in before the big real estate gold rush(es). Or come from families who've been here forever.
The folks to our right bought their place a couple of years ago. It's a bog standard mid-century suburban colonial, 3 bed 1 1/2 bath, 1/8 acre plot. It went for almost $900K. They're working people - postal worker and museum gift shop buyer - so maybe there's some family money there, who knows. But holy crap, that's a lot of money for a perfectly nice but totally unremarkable house in a perfectly nice but totally unremarkable neighborhood.
That's the scene here.
"
Two quick websites for getting a sense of the geography of income inequality in major US cities:
https://inequality.stanford.edu/income-segregation-maps
These show increases in concentration of rich and poor over time, but the levels of concentration vary by city.
https://inequality.media.mit.edu/#
This one looks not just at neighborhood median income, but tracks the places that people of varying economic backgrounds visit in several cities to show the geography of daily association.
Hard to say if these patterns persist outside of major metropolitan areas. I imagine that smaller data sets lead to greater uncertainty of results.
"
They do not prompt wealthy college-educated folks living in islands of privilege to welcome cops, welders, nurses, and carpenters into their neighborhoods. They certainly and absolutely *DO NOT* prompt those people to do anything that would make lower-income housing more available in their communities, because that would put the assessed values of their own lovely homes at risk. And if the schools in their areas are not up to snuff, they quite often respond by sending their kids to private school, rather than take whatever steps would be needed to improve the local public schools.
Without going into the gory details of my own situation, I can tell you that I live this stuff. Live around it, live with it.
I have the recurring feeling that I am living in a different universe. This town is chock full of highly educated people. Has been since I was growing up here in the 1950s. (The town was a twentieth the size then, but its character hasn't changed much.) A lot of my neighbors are college educated; a couple used to teach college.
But my next door neighbor is a cop. (Not sure where. San Francisco maybe?) The guy a couple doors down is a farrier. (Yes really.) Great folks, not particularly well educated; one says he still marvels that he managed to graduate high school. In short, nothing like the class segregation described.
The town is mostly single family houses; archetypal suburbia. But there are also apartment buildings. No more houses being built the last decade or two; we ran out of space. But new apartment buildings are still going up. Afordable ones; at least what passes for affordable for California.
Like I say, a different universe. Not that I doubt for a minute that the problem exists. Just that it's outside my lived experience.
"
What that Mets hat does is show an interest in breaking down that barrier. And a refusal to sneer at the people he's talking to.
I'd like to try to be very clear about what I'm saying about Brooks.
I fully believe he wears the Mets hat in an effort to break through social barriers. And who knows, perhaps his conversations about the Mets do expand into topics of greater substance vis a vis our various public and social dilemnas. And no, I'm not being sarcastic in saying that.
And no, I don't believe Brooks is sneering at the people he's talking to, or at anyone in particular.
My issue with Brooks is that he seems to feel that the world's problems can be resolved through improvements in our personal, private virtue.
Want to break through the socio-economic barriers that divide the college-educated professionals from their working class counter-parties?
Sign up for one of the volunteer opportunities on the Weavers' website. In my area, those opportunities are (1) lead playtimes for homeless kids who are living in area shelters and (2) drive seniors to appointments.
Those are great things to do. I have done, and continue to do, similar things that somehow don't appear on his list - put in hours at a local food bank, provide overnight chaperoning for homeless families camping out in my church. Cook meals at a local homeless shelter. And so on.
What I can tell you from my experience with these things is that they *do not solve* the systemic problems that cause families to be homeless, or seniors to be without any form of useful public transportation. For example.
They do not prompt wealthy college-educated folks living in islands of privilege to welcome cops, welders, nurses, and carpenters into their neighborhoods. They certainly and absolutely *DO NOT* prompt those people to do anything that would make lower-income housing more available in their communities, because that would put the assessed values of their own lovely homes at risk. And if the schools in their areas are not up to snuff, they quite often respond by sending their kids to private school, rather than take whatever steps would be needed to improve the local public schools.
Without going into the gory details of my own situation, I can tell you that I live this stuff. Live around it, live with it. The class divide, as Brooks notes, is quite real. But signing up for a two-hour shift playing with homeless kids is not going to solve it. Driving somebody's grandma to her haircut is not going to solve it. Those are more than fine things to do, let's all go do our share of them.
But they don't address the root causes of the class divide. The class divide is fundamentally about money and power - who has it, what can they do with it. Me, a retired white software guy with basically enough money living in a nice suburban bedroom community going and playing with homeless kids at a local shelter *does not house that kids family*. It *does not magically provide that kids family with the resources to get them the hell out of the shelter*.
Right?
And Brooks' digs at the Democrats in the "segregation" piece are unwelcome, and frankly less than honest. The educational "red state surge" is frankly not all that. Some states have improved from really bad to somewhere between middling and pretty good, which is an outstanding result. And that's it. And education in some other red states absolutely suck, as does education in some blue states, or parts of some blue states. And education in some red states is actually exemplary, as it is in some blue states. It doesn't appear to have all that much to do with whether you're in a red state or blue state.
Brooks talks about working people feeling that have no power. And he's not wrong, most of the power in this country belongs to wealthy educated folks. How did that happen?
In this country, historically, the way that working people have gained any measure of political and social power was through organization. Organized labor. Unions.
I don't see Brooks supporting organized labor. I don't see him calling out for greater labor participation in corporate governance. I don't see him calling out for employee ownership or other forms of meaningful equity in businesses.
Those are the things that give working people power.
I don't see Brooks calling for any of the kinds of systemic changes that would actually address the "class divide" by *making the fucking divide smaller*. On the contrary, his history is one of supporting the kinds of (R) policies that exacerbate the problem.
And his solution is for all of us to volunteer to do helpful stuff in our local community to "bridge the divide" and "rebuild social trust".
More meaningful forms of creating social trust, IMO, would be relaxing local zoning rules to make affordable housing in your neighborhood available. Would be supporting institutions like the CFPB so that fucking predatory financial institutions would stop ripping people off. Would be finding a sane way to fund public education so that It's not just rich towns that get good schools. Would be supporting organized labor and employee participation in equity ownership and governance.
I think David Brooks is a decent person. I think he intends good things. And I think he's incapable of challenging the assumptions and policies of the conservative institutions that have been his professional home, and whose policies are largely responsible for the social ills he laments.
He's a nice man. And he doesn't get - seems incapable of getting - the connection between the things he has spent his life endorsing, and the problems he clearly sees. So, his solution to things is for everyone to be nicer, volunteer, and talk to each other.
If you want working people to have more power, support the things that have been the source of that power, historically.
If you want people of different educational and social backgrounds to mix, make it possible for people with less-privileged backgrounds to live in places where the more-privileged people live.
If you want to build social trust, address the gazillion forms of corruption that distort and undermine people's trust in public institutions. Start with making sure that everybody gets to vote, and that their votes aren't neutered by partisan gerrymandering - which of course means walking back yet another bullshit SCOTUS decision.
Trust is built on hearing and respecting each person's voice. It's built on, not just the perception, but the tangible reality of fairness. And not just while you're driving a nice old lady to her haircut, although by all means do it there as well. But also in the voting booth, in the workplace, in the doctor's office. In people's dealings with banks and insurance companies. In the immigration office. Right?
The kind of almost cartoonish venality and abuse of power we see with Trump has been building for decades, and it's the modern conservative movement, in which Brooks is knee-deep, that planned for it, laid the groundwork for it, built the institutions to make it happen.
He won't see that. Doesn't seem capable of seeing that. Where's Kamala's education plan, he asks. It's the (D)'s fault.
Yeah, no it's not. But he'll never own that. So I don't care for him. Don't hate him, don't wish him ill. But don't think he's got much to offer us. For all the reaons enumerated at probably tiresome length above.
And with all of that, I think I've been sufficiently unkind to David Brooks for one day. He's a nice man, in the context of all the shit that is going on he is very, very, very far from being public enemy #1. I appreciate his lack of cynicism and his instinct toward moderation.
The current state of the nation has me in kind of dark place. Thank you for indulging my rant, apparently I needed to get some crap off my chest. I promise I'll do my best to cheer up.
Night all.
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In this interview, an urban warfare expert, who has frequently been in Gaza, describes the current situation as unprecedented. One reason is that, unlike most urban warfare scenarios, where civilians can evacuate combat zones, in Gaza, civilians are compelled to remain in the heart of the fighting.
"John Spencer is a retired U.S. Army Major and leading expert on urban warfare, known for his frontline experience, strategic insights, and influential writing on modern combat in cities."
War Expert Debunks Gaza Lies - John Spencer
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novakant - No need to correct ME. I've always pronounced it HANnah.
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Here is a really good discussion between Ezra Klein and Philippe Sands about Gaza and genocide:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-philippe-sands.html
Sands pretty much has the same position I have: it is pretty clear that it is genocide but endlessly debating the matter is a distraction from the daily horror and might even be counterproductive. Obviously, nobody cares what I think and why should they, but Sands, as both a prominent human rights lawyer and author of several books on the matter, including one about the "inventors " of the words "genocide" and "crimes against humanity", has a bit more weight to throw around.
A propos de rien: Hannah Arendt seems to be all the rage in certain circles of the US intelligentsia, which is great since we need eclectic but sharp and principled thinkers now more than ever, but please learn how to pronounce her name correctly: the stress is on the the first syllable, not the second.
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I'd like to hear what nous and wj have to say about Newsom's counter-gerrymander initiative.
I strongly supported the initiative that set up our nonpartisan redistricting commission. I really, really hate to see anything that weakens it.
That said, like nous I will vote for this one-time, Congressional districts only, change. It's tragic that it has come to this. But the world is how it is, and the alternatives are worse. As long as nobody tries to make it a permanent change, or extends it to state legislative districts, I expect it to pass.
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It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common.
For the first 3/4 or more of the 20th century, baseball was one of the things that bound people together in this country. Rich or poor, black or white, city or country -- people, whether they followed the game closely or not, were sufficiently aware to be able to talk about it. Their favorite team might not be the local one, but nobody got too exercised about that.
I think two things happened. One was technological: television. Baseball games can be readily followed on radio (presuming good broadcasters, which most were). But football is a TV game. You can't really appreciate what is happening without seeing things unfold. Somehow, football seems much more divisive than baseball.
The other was cultural. It became de rigueur for the upper classes to look down on the game. One could be interested, and many were. But showing interest was not the done thing. If you must talk about sports, talk about something lacrosse, which the lower classes don't do.
What that Mets hat does is show an interest in breaking down that barrier. And a refusal to sneer at the people he's talking to.
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russell: I hear you.
Thanks GFTNC.
My comments about Brooks were probably off-topic, and probably not that constructive or useful. I'm sure I do him a disservice, at least to some degree.
I'm generally disgusted with the state of public life here in this country at the moment, and I think it colors my thoughts about a lot of things. Disgusted doesn't quite cover it - angry, broken-hearted, feeling generally helpless to know how to counter the widespread and gob-smacking folly and senseless cruelty that we are obliged to live with, and under, at the moment.
It sucks.
I appreciate your more generous thoughts about Brooks' work, it reminds me to look for the positive.
Better days, y'all.
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Sorry, I posted that before I saw russell's and nous's. nous: thanks for further link. I read the synopsis which refers to it tangentially, but will certainly follow up.
russell: I hear you. And I can only hope that a lot of other people reading the NYT are less subtle than you, and take the general theme of the piece (segregation by income and education) seriously when they may not have seen it in quite that way before.
It's easier to be virtuous when your larder is full.
A truer word was never spoke.
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taking the high road is conceding the contest, and that cannot happen.
This ^^^^
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Clarification: if it wasn't obvious, by "the ways and customs of an utterly foreign culture" I didn't mean Greek v English, I meant rich v poor.
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GftNC - the analysis of how the humanities and social sciences actually end up subsidizing STEM are not in the review synopsis that I linked, but rather in the book being reviewed, so here's another link that gets at those details some more (esp. in section 2):
https://profession.mla.org/the-humanities-as-service-departments-facing-the-budget-logic/
There's a lot more analysis like this in The Great Mistake.
Tony P. - I find it tragic that Newsom has opted to put redistricting up to a vote, but I fully understand and accept the necessity of it, and will vote in support of it when it comes to that. This all could have been avoided had the Roberts Court done the right thing and allowed the Wisconsin gerrymandered districting to be struck down. It's fully on Roberts' shoulders that partisan redistricting is considered to be allowed under the constitution. Likewise, their systematic erosion of voter protections under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has allowed the GOP to attempt this latest scheme to disenfranchise opposition voters by wasting their votes on non-competitive districts and empowering their own voters in competitive districts.
I'd gladly vote to go back to non-partisan redistricting after the fact if this GOP power grab is unsuccessful. I don't want to disenfranchise Republican voters, but neither am I going to get caught up on principle while the other side cheats to win.
I don't know if it will be enough to break the fall, but taking the high road is conceding the contest, and that cannot happen.
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It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common
Yes, I think that is correct. And yes, I agree that trying to make connections and find common ground are good things. And yes, I understand that the motivations of the callow art student in the Pulp song are quite different.
In general, I think Brooks is a decent person.
But I also think there is, probably inevitably, a limit to the degree to which someone from Brooks' background and in Brooks' position can understand and speak for the experience and interests of people who do not share his advantages. Mets hat or not.
Brooks tends to frame things in moralizing terms. I think he does that honestly, because it seems like his personal values and interests lead him to think in those categories. Which I don't fault him for, exactly, but I think it causes him to miss the mark in a lot of ways. And it also makes him seem like something of a scold. To me, anyway.
His argument often seems to be "Gee, we should be better people". Well, OK, yeah, I guess we should all be better people. But transforming the general character of the public doesn't seem like a particularly practical approach to what are actually, in many cases, systemic problems. Problems amenable to concrete solutions, solutions that you could actually implement. And that would actually make people's lives better in ways that would, in turn, make it a hell of a lot easier to be "better people".
It's easier to be virtuous when your larder is full.
And that's probably enough from me about Brooks. He strikes me as a basically decent person. I just can't think of anything I've read of his that seemed especially useful. And, intentional or not, I personally find what I take to be the moralizing tone of his work kind of condescending.
Just my opinion, offered more or less as an aside.
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Speaking of California, I'd like to hear what nous and wj have to say about Newsom's counter-gerrymander initiative. Any lurking Californians are especially welcome to comment as well.
Come to think of it, I'd like to hear from the Texans among us, too, even if Abbott doesn't.
--TP
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So much fascinating info, thank you all! It's quite clear that my impression of the relevant southern states' educational standards was seriously out of date. I haven't yet read nous's Reichman link on CA higher education, but I will certainly do so - I'm particularly interested in the Humanities subsidising STEM aspect.
The story about wearing a Mets hat to break the ice with "ordinary people" just makes me think of that Pulp song. You know the one.
russell, I think Common People is a brilliant song, but to me it describes a different phenomenon. The girl in it is acting as a tourist, sampling the ways and customs of an utterly foreign culture. It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common (but who may find they do when they start to talk). I think it is like when people from completely different backgrounds and experiences love the same music, and can talk passionately and knowledgeably about it. The ability to do this, and to value it, seems to me to be a good thing.
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There's a thing in the education literature called "the Colorado Paradox". We are quite mediocre at getting resident kids through K-12, and into and through college. But we have the 2nd or 3rd most educated workforce in the country. Mostly it's an accident of geography and history, and is probably not reproducible.
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Isn't what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education?
Prop 13 contributed, certainly. But, as nous notes, it's far from the whole story.
Property taxes are a big part of funding primary and secondary education. But they aren't the only source. Also, the problem of reduced results has occurred even in places where there is relatively rapid turnover of home ownership. (Taxes weren't capped by Prop 13. It just froze assessments of property values, on which taxes are based, until the property changes hands.)
Funding for the University of California, and for the state university system, is totally unrelated to property taxes. It comes directly from the state budget, and from whatever tuition gets charged to make up the shortfalls. We could provide more funding from the state budget, and so reduce tuition. We chose, and continue to choose, not to.
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If anyone is looking for a really thought provoking analysis of what has happened to higher education in the US with a focused look at California and the UC system in particular, I'm currently reading Christopher Newfield's book The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Rather than try to summarize his points myself, I'll link to a review published by the American Academy of University Professors that has a fairly complete synopsis to give you an idea of where Newfield is coming from:
https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/103-4/failure-privatization
Yes, Prop 13 has had a damaging effect on education funding in California, but that was all made much worse when Schwarzenegger instituted austerity measures, and then compounded by both Brown and Newsom continuing the policy of allowing the burden of university funding to be covered by tuition increases rather than public funding increases.
There are some other interesting bits of analysis that come out of his research that fly in the face of the public discussion as well - the biggest to my mind being that the Humanities actually subsidize STEM, rather than the other way around.
Well worth the read.
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These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
Isn't what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education? And Prop 13 didn't have anything to do with the left and had everything to do with people who labeled themselves as conservatives.
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