Atrios points us to this Times article, by Jennifer Steinhauer, on the foreclosure crisis in Moreno Valley, out by Redlands in the Inland Empire. It’s inhibited by conventions of the genre, and the interviews seem only to have gone so far, but it’s suggestive — it sketches a picture of the community that took root on one street during the boom years, and the strains that were put on it by the bust.
The neighborly virtues of mutual consideration and assistance seem, in this telling, to go hand in hand with wealth, or with the exclusion of those whose wealth isn’t above a certain bar. For the established residents, moving into this neighborhood, ten years ago, was a move up, and a move away from rougher neighborhoods (El Monte, for example). And as foreclosure pushes some of them out, and the prices of the vacated houses fall to 1989 levels, they seem to fear that rough neighbors like the ones they moved away from (South LA is mentioned) may move in.
It’s possible that this element in the story is due to Steinhauer’s spin. Her concrete examples turn out to be a little more complex: for example, the line “I didn’t get this house that I paid a lot of money for to be next to a mechanic” is spoken by one of the new neighbors about one of the old ones, who’s fixing up cars to get by after losing his job. (And in context, it seems she’s objecting to being next to the auto work, not his person.) But the story left me gloomy again about our national inability to live with each other. A decent built and human environment is a right, and it’s one we generally deny to those who can’t pay a lot for it — true I think even if inadequately supported in this case.
The Edge of the American West 
10 comments
August 22, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Bitchphd
I think that the classism you’re thinking might be there, probably is–Southern California is godawful that way.
But not everyplace is, you know.
August 23, 2009 at 3:30 am
jhm
A tangential idea is explored here:
http://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/5702
August 23, 2009 at 8:18 am
bitchphd
JHM’s link has me fantasizing about starting such a company, taking people’s money as a subscription service, telling them that they’ll be transported to an island in the South Pacific, picking them up by helicopter, and fucking kicking their asses out the door somewhere over the ocean without a parachute.
August 23, 2009 at 8:55 am
James B.
Atlas Shrugged: Redux
August 23, 2009 at 10:00 am
Vance
JHM’s link is grim. The correspondent ends with the question, “Do the highly ambitious and wealthy have a different understanding of ‘human nature’ than the more egalitarian and communitarian minded?” I think the Times piece argues the answer is No. The respectable struggle to get ahead is (perhaps intrinsically) a struggle to get ahead of a lot of your fellow citizens.
One sequence that stuck with me is the story of Mr. Hanson, “widely recognized as the mayor of the block”. When the Argentinian Seventh-Day Adventists move in, it’s rumored that they “called the county to report that Mr. Ramirez…was running an auto shop business.” But “in fact, it was Mr. Hanson…who made the call.” Again this complicates the picture of a new wave versus the old, and not in a flattering way.
August 23, 2009 at 10:04 am
TF Smith
You know, I read somewhere that a historical survey of the pre- and post-fall aristocratic families of northern Italy found that none had made it from the late Roman to the early Medieval; I think it in one of the chapters of Brian Ward-Perkins’ “The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization.”
I doubt a collapse ala Jared Diamond will occur in the West, but if it did, I don’t see the current crop of grifters with MBAs as having the requisite skills to impose their will on the rest of the population…if anything, I would expect they would be the first ones against the metaphorical walls, so to speak; sort of like the United Empire Loyalists were, back in the day…
August 23, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Uncle Billy the Un-Cunctator
I’ve always wondered about the PBS show that looked at “happiness” and determined (or based their views on a study that determined) that Denmark was the happiest place, and this being due to its homogeneity. Their two extreme examples were the prince that was employed as a carpenter, and the garbage collector who was as respected as much as any other professional.
But… the Prince’s carpentry is just a nice hobby, right? And though the garbage man and pbs might tell people that they are on an equal footing with the rest of society, respect-wise, one tends to doubt that, doesn’t one? Please elucidate, One.
August 23, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Vance
Haven’t seen that show. Do you remember what they meant by homogeneity? Lack of inequality, or lack of diversity?
August 24, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Uncle Billy the Un-Cunctator
{reaching back into the tarry goop of my memories}
Pretty sure it was lack of diversity.
August 25, 2009 at 7:41 am
Barry
“You know, I read somewhere that a historical survey of the pre- and post-fall aristocratic families of northern Italy found that none had made it from the late Roman to the early Medieval; I think it in one of the chapters of Brian Ward-Perkins’ “The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization.””
That’d be ~600 years, right? That’s a loooooong time for a aristocratic family to endure.