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where are the places that are affordable, nice, and no one knows about or wants to go to
Military is fucked up and all but I feel like it could give me good revolution skills. Would never join up though because I dont want any part in their system.
yeah there's too much indoctrination, and then besides that you become a direct cog in the machine of empire. no good.
I know a lot of my attraction to it comes from growing up in a family with numerous veterans and also feeling like I didnt really belong with a specific group and looking for a source of self worth . Its hard to realize that you've fallen for propaganda and pulling yourself away from it. No good at all.
I feel like being surrounded by that much explicit hatred all day would make me a worse person. That would occur in both scenarios though.
Yeah, it's too much weight on the conscious hearing the constant vitriol being spewed AND having to go along with it to fit in. It would wear me down so fast, fuck that.
depends on branch. army/marines absolutely likely you will get serious combat training regardless of MOS or rank/commission. navy? maybe but even then you'll be on a ship the whole time. AF? lol they don't call it the chair force for no reason, the overwhelming majority people in the AF who don't fly or do flight support end up at desk jobs. if you get into AF OCS you are absolutely going to end up sitting at a desk in BDUs lmao
regardless. not only do I think revolution in a country like this a really idiotic idea I think expecting the military to give you those skills is even stupider. if you want to train you should train on your own to protect, not to expect to go rambo style and voila suddenly USA is a socialist state. not how it works. train to protect your friends, your family, etc. in case things go south and the Q goons and a future GOP president decide to start their own waffen ss. learn how to do first aid/cpr, wound treatment, and some basic firearms/self defense skills (maybe take a class?). if you want to change society your time is better spent doing these things while being a trade unionist. or working in dsa. i know it's a meme but some chapters and caucuses really are very good, you might have to go out of your way to find them but they are out there. that will achieve more concrete improvement in people's lives than LARPing.
look at Brace. despite going overseas and actually fighting against ISIS he's not just sitting around waiting for shit to go down, he's here at home unionizing breweries and making fun of Q/Jan 6 treason larper dumbasses.
if you want to join the military, join if you want a relatively low-effort job in the imperial core that will give you $$ and work experience to improve your material conditions. join if that equation works for you personally. if that's not the case don't bother unless you're obsessed with the idea of prestige/respect and come from a military family and have expectations to uphold.
but joining b/c you think you'll turn into captain america socialist edition? lol hell naw.
that line from the Talmud, made famous by SL -- "he who saves one life, saves the world entire" is something I think every leftist should internalize. it's not always about the aesthetics. sometimes it's just about saving someone. doing simple things like donating to a palestinian relief org, working at a food co-op, showing up for demonstrations, learning how to use naloxone and treating a junkie friend, accompanying a friend struggling with alcoholism to an AA meeting, etc. will make you whole and give you far more real-world experience in helping people should things get bad than LARPing. we all owe debts to each other.
anyways. i digress. goodnight all, i love you dearly
I don't think any city hits all of these, but Chicago is the closest. I'd give a shoutout to Detroit because it nails 1, 3 and 4 but completely fails on point 2.
Edit: don’t know the transit situation in Minneapolis but it’s supposed to be a great city to live in (if you’re white). Milwaukee has a great socialist tradition too but again, idk the transit.
I don't know much about chicago but you might be interested in https://www.walkscore.com/. There are lots of cities, chicago included, that aren't totally connected by transit but are good enough in certain areas that you won't need to use your car often. Minneapolis, atlanta, chicago, and others all have areas that are walkable, just not the whole city, or even most of it.
Minneapolis, atlanta, chicago
mpls and atlanta are far behind Chicago in this respect. Minneapolis doesn't even have heavy rail I think? only light rail/streetcars. ATL is also very very VERY rapidly gentrifying, probably faster than any other city not named Austin
All I meant is that there are parts of the city that you can live in and be 95% car free. Like you'd still need to own a car but only use it to see certain friends or run the odd errand. I didn't know that about atlanta though, that sucks.
it's good, I'd say the fourth best in the country behind NYC, DC, and Boston. middling by international standards but the buses are clean, frequent, and on-time and the el is much the same.
if you learn how to use the Metra in a way that works with your schedule you will likely never need a vehicle, even out in the suburbs.
Honestly those first two are gonna be pretty much mutually exclusive. In the US. San Francisco and NYC are the only places I can think of that you can reasonably get around on public transportation.
Boston is pretty good too, enough of the city predates cars that it's decently walkable, and the T isn't terrible by US standards, they even got some new trains in the last couple years. Very very expensive but cheaper than nyc or sf.
I dont think youre describing any city anywhere if it has to meet all those requirements
My great grandparents were Austrian but I don’t think Austria’s policy is as lenient as Italy’s lol
the German s/u-bahn+RE+ICE system is incredible. the only country that does regional rail better than Germany is France and that's an incredibly high bar.
viel erfolg mein Freund
Minneapolis, Sacramento, Madison, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Buffalo.
All facing some degree of gentrification, but that's every city in the US right now.
Between toxic air from ever worsening wildfires and inhospitable weather (108f today!!!!), Sacramento is fucked long term :sadness:
I mean, it's on a delta that's unlikely to ever dry up completely, so the fire risk is less than that of, say, Malibu. And it's not hotter than Phoenix. And it gets ton of sun, so solar is a good option to power your AC.
Yeah Sac itself will probably never burn. More that between the heat and the toxic air from fires up in the mountains, you’ll be confined to your home for ever increasing periods of time (if that’s an option for you). The last couple of years have been miserable…I have family in Sac who are giving serious thought to leaving (especially as house prices have gone insane with Bay Area tech workers pricing locals out), and like OP are struggling with the answer as to where.
Yeah, I think so. I was considering it. Busways aren't rail, but they're pretty good. Add to that fact that, if you don't mind hills, Pittsburgh has some pretty cheap neighborhoods close to downtown and yeah, for sure.
a lot of people want to live in cities in America right now, esp. wealthy yuppies. the problem is most of these neighborhoods don't have enough actual houses/units to go around. wealthy neighborhoods block development of both public and private housing in theirs, and the burden gets shifted to poor neighborhoods who have less power to say no. this then starts a positive feedback loop as more and more yuppie-centric businesses like cutesie new gyms and bars and axe throwing places attract more attention to the neighborhood, causing further gentrification and displacement, etc.
another issue is that all the new housing being built is being built for a profit motive by megadevelopers with very few local/private firms doing business. lot sizes are too big for that, causing these huge block swallowing generic developments (called 5-over-1s or texas donuts) and it's nearly always overpriced and poor quality. this is why there's so much "missing middle" in the housing market right now, everything is either a dense urban apartment or a sprawling mcmansion and there's no in-betweens like townhomes, 2/3/4-flats, 6-plexes, quadplexes/duplexes.
the reason is that cities have their entire regulatory frameworks designed to reward these rent-seeking, predatory developers by prioritizing big projects over small ones. a lot of solid housing is actually illegal to build now b/c of fucked up zoning regs while extreme luxury developments and skyline-fucking-up bullshit is totally legal since these fat cats know how to jump through the hoops. the faircloth amendment also continues to limit how much public housing the federal government can build, meaning cities have to finance these things themselves.
since the cities are more mired in neoliberal grift than they are interested in providing housing, you can guess why they haven't taken it upon themselves to build public housing in lieu of the feds.
i don't really know how this is going to get better anytime soon. wealthy NIMBYs have too much power and poor neighborhoods have too little to actually force these developments to be built in an equitable way.
Chicago? There are some affordable neighborhoods and it fits most of your points reasonably well.
Philly maybe? Or Baltimore? That's a hard to fit criteria. There is a massive housing crisis in the US right now.
Philly is good. Plenty of affordable places. Also plenty of gentrification, though. Every US city is gentrifying now though so that's kind of an unreasonable expectation.
Public transit isn’t that robust but it’s cheaper than Philly. PA is actually one of the better states if you’re concerned about climate or weather issues; it’s just humid as hell during the summer
Usable public transit is the biggest issue.
Consider Olympia, WA, Tacoma WA, Sacramento CA, Ashland OR, Eugene OR, and Everett WA. Most of those hit like 2.9 of the 4 things you listed.
Come to the only major American city to have ever elected 3 socialist mayors.
