patrick.net

Feux Follets says

Housing is not "affordable" on minimum wage or slightly above.

Jobs are plentiful - so is low pay, little to no benefits and long commutes for those that take them.

My sister makes shit in Michigan, and lives comfortably because she only pays somthing like $400-600 for rent(Grand Rapids, now Muskegon). My brother-in-law bought his house with $500 down, I believe has it paid off, and works as a pen-tester in Des Moines. My other sister(his wife), has never had to work. They have three kids. My parents are planning on moving to Iowa, not California when they retire, because it's the most affordable. Des Moines has two freeways, no job is further than 30 min commute, and their rush hour is laughable.

I think you're confusing the South/SE with the Midwest.

NuttBoxer says

My sister makes shit in Michigan, and lives comfortably because she only pays somthing like $400-600 for rent(Grand Rapids, now Muskegon). My brother-in-law bought his house with $500 down, I believe has it paid off, and works as a pen-tester in Des Moines. My other sister(his wife), has never had to work. They have three kids. My parents are planning on moving to Iowa, not California when they retire, because it's the most affordable. Des Moines has two freeways, no job is further than 30 min commute, and their rush hour is laughable.

America needs about 10 new major cities and hundreds of new small towns. New Zipcodes like China did from 2006 to 2012, just keep building new ghost towns. While the West was scratching their heads. Why is China printing all of this money to build Ghost towns nobody is buying?
Well as it turned out, when America's consumption boom ended and when Trump threatened to pull back Chinese consumption.
Xi is now evicting the millions of Farmers who's lands were flooded in the 5 Gouges Damn project and forced to move to the major Manufacturing cities. Now that the boom has ended Xi is evicting the street vendors, and the poor that lived in old rundown buildings. And relocating them to new empty Cities that can hold 500K to 1M comfortably.

If he can get them situated in those new towns, get those towns pumping jobs and producing goods for domestic consumption.
China can have what we once had. A self contained producer/consumer economy. Tariffs wont matter, just like they wont matter here if we bring manufacturing back for domestic consumption.

There needs to be so much available RE that unless you're NYC or SF and a few other exclusive Zipcodes. A 3br house should be $79K meidan price.

Patrick says

And again, the same experience with coffee. The brown swill that I thought was coffee in the Midwest has very little resemblance to a strong cup made with freshly roasted high-quality beans.

Check out the episode of Modern Marvels on coffee. This should answer a lot of your crappy coffee questions. But, basically they said that once the family owned coffee companies got bought out by conglomerates, the new owners substituted cheaper ingredients and ruined the taste. Once that happened, coffee consumption plummeted. Then Starbucks came along and changed everything, Having said that, the time frame might match comments above about the Great Depression ruining coffee. the TV show didn't give an exact date since presumably this happened over a period of several years.

Tenpoundbass says

China can have what we once had.

I'd say their gold holdings, and the fact that they actually produce goods is more important than how many times they shift their population around.

Feux Follets says

Patrick says

standard of quality is generally lower.

Based on what metrics is this proven out by ?

The Patrick-meter of what tastes good.

CP tastes like shit.

Getting back to pizza and not all food. Conde Nest seems to have a different take on pizza. Sorry, I'm a homer and will defend my pizza till my death :) That said, you can get great pizza everywhere. Why? Because cooks/chef that can make good pizza move.

https://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2016-04-05/best-pizza-in-the-world-top-cities

Patrick says

Feux Follets says

Patrick says

standard of quality is generally lower.

Based on what metrics is this proven out by ?

The Patrick-meter of what tastes good.

Oh no he di'int.

Feux Follets says

Grand Rapids and Muskegon are not exactly the "garden" spots of the lower peninsula. "Comfortably" living or existing ?

Most people I know are existing, everywhere. I don't count mounds of debt as comfortably living, as that gravy train is soon to end. She had money to come out for my daughters graduation, despite just having moved and changing jobs. I'd say she's doing all right. Grand Rapids is a great city to live in. Good beer, thriving tech. Muskegon was rough. I can imagine it hasn't gotten much better since I've left, though I hear they have revitalized areas. I've been to the UP, lots of woods, not a lot of people, seems like my kind of place. But I don't put much stock in things or money. Anyway, the comparison was Midwest being poorer than the South, let's see what the facts say:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lowest-income_places_in_the_United_States

So out of the top 22, Missouri is there twice to represent your "poor Midwest". The Southwest is more prominently represented with six entries, and the SOUTH is represented 13 times. I'd say your boo-hooing of the Midwest is HIGHLY exaggerated.

WookieMan says

Getting back to pizza and not all food. Conde Nest seems to have a different take on pizza. Sorry, I'm a homer and will defend my pizza till my death :) That said, you can get great pizza everywhere. Why? Because cooks/chef that can make good pizza move.

Okay, any list that has Orlando at #4 for Pizza can be laughed out of the Room.

Their Picture for NY Pizza must be a stock image. That's nothing like a typical NY Pie.

Sorry Wookie!

It's the palm oil in it!

Okay. Well, I haven't seen much of Chicago, but my impression is it's the Orlando of the North. Very wide and low, lots of corporate places.

It looks like any of the more popular Pizzerias mostly became franchises, I tried to disprove my initial impression.

Deep Dish Pizza is Tomato Cake, which explains why Midwesterners model their Tomato Cakes after Chicago. Dry as a bone, no olive oil, Betty Crocker type flour, none of the bubbles in the crust which is required for real pizza. I guess Grandma Olsen and Aunt Brunhilda doesn't keep much Olive Oil in the house.

Correct:


HOWEVER, the thin crust, while not up to NY-NJ Standard, is good, particularly the Cheese-Tomato part. The square shape is wrong. Possibly second-best in the world, although Boston Italian is also excellent (really it's not any different than NY-NJ other than you have to watch the many college places which are cutting the price to serve students, but those are readily apparent from the menu)

AND, the Polish food, the perogies/blintzes, potato pancakes/latkes, pickles, kielbasas, etc. was EXCELLENT.

Chinatown was also great

I didn't make it much beyond the South Loop area, but it was very corporate with a "rehabbed downtown" with mostly chain eateries and a few Yuppie Sushi places.

It is, however, very clean.

Again, Chicago reminded me mostly of Orlando, Car Friendly, long walks, minimal retail/restaurant walkable locations and those mostly corporate. Between Mercy Hospital and the Marriott there was only a McDonalds, Starbucks, and generic hotel bar/restaurants.

My recommendation would be to imitate San Antonio's riverwalk along the Lake, and/or forcibly lower the rents to the many abandoned storefronts between the Convention/Hotel Area and China Town along Michigan Avenue.