A very interesting and poignant story. I notice you did not mention the Interstate as causing the destruction, as liberals would have it.
I remember hearing about red lining, but I was very young so the subject didn’t interest me at the time. I didn’t pay any attention to it. It wasn’t until I was older and had seen a different sort of red lining thet I understood it as it directly effected me.
During the Clinton years, commercial fishermen in the Pacific North West were being forced out of their generations and life long profession because they were the wrong race. Many were forced to sell their homes because there was no longer any work, the communities revolving round commercial fishing since the early part of the 20th century.
In stepped the realtors offering them low ball prices in the 10s of thousands of dollars, but more money than most had ever seen in one pile. So they sold out, moved to the city, or entered the Clinton retraining programs which, when they were finished, discovered they had been trained for jobs that did not exist or had been phased out.
The realtors? Since the homes of many commercial fishermen were built on the coast or on the Columbia River near the ocean or other locations with views of the ocean and mountains, they resold the homes to uber-rich Californians and Texans for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash (big money for a home then), realtors laughing all the way to the bank.
The fishermen? Homeless, penniless, unskilled and jobless, wife divorced. Having to remake themselves and their lives from scratch at all ages.
I thought of going back to the beautiful town overlooking a large bay with a view of the Cascades and Olympic mountains I once called home for 30 years, but was forced to leave, too many memories would come flooding back, I’d get sick to my stomach. I can never go home again.
But according to the article, we all should really blame the interstate system for enabling literal hoards of wealthy people to come into our area, our homes, our lives and push us out so they can enjoy the views while playing on pretend country farms overlooking the Pacific Ocean with views of the green and snow capped mountains in the distance. We get to enjoy the view of our neighbors yard ...
There’s a lot of truth in what you say, that the interstate system has massively destabilized our traditional society, religion, marriage, extended family, small town living, relations between generations, all of it. As well, the population of the U.S. has more than deoubled in my lifetime, so of course all the prime locations on the waterways and oceans or with mountain vistas, etc. have been overloaded with whomever can pay top dollar. It’s worldwide, because the rise of antibiotics has come along also, meaning none of the regular die-offs that used to come like clockwork. We haven’t let covid do its thing, either.
What did you mean about the commercial fishermen not being the right color — was the Clinton admin trying to say that black or brown folks were being denied the ability to gain licenses?