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points by neom 3 days ago | 0 comments

Last month I visited the Scottish Borders and generally found this to be true, especially in Hawick, Galashiels, Kelso. I wasn't shocked however as I find the situation in Canada to be very similar (in the UK switch cannabis dispensaries for chippies). 25 years ago when a Wal-Mart came to the small town I grew up in, only took a couple of years to gut the high street, certainly Amazon threw fuel on that fire.

[–] morkalork 3 days ago

Every time a big box store (Staples, Best Buy, Toys R Us that kinda thing) location in my area closes down, it's not replaced with another. Instead one of those liquidation "Amazon returns" type stores opens. It makes retail look very sick.

[–] cassianoleal 3 days ago

I wish they'd replace the chippies with cannabis dispensaries here. Though then they might need to open new chippies to serve the stoners. Win-win, maybe?

[–] throwup238 3 days ago

The trick is to combine the two and deep fry your chips in THC oil.

[–] RobotToaster 3 days ago

I was thinking deep fried edibles.

[–] ishouldstayaway 3 days ago

Oh that definitely exists. I've bought a bag of THC chips before.

[–] hocusPokeUs 3 days ago

Chips are fried edibles ;)

[–] epolanski 3 days ago

The harsh reality is that more often than not the shops don't add much value over ordering online and having it delivered. Of course there are exceptions, but even then malls are more convenient and have easier parking.

Progress will unavoidably kill more and more physical shops, but this has huge cons: cities are emptier and more dangerous.

In the average European mediterranean city shops provide lights, vibe, safety.

As people feel less secure, because it's getting dark at 5-6 pm half the year (the time people usually leave work) and shops are closed, they also go downtown less accelerating the death of other businesses.

And the only people on the streets are either those returning home, drunks, or immigrants doing god knows what. And this progressive decay accelerates. The only shops left are then bought en masse by foreign entrepeneurs, often working the place with their families 16 hours per day to squeeze pennies.

Any random downtown in Italy bar the most touristic places that have people all year suffers of this, even major centers (100k+ citizens).

[–] passive 3 days ago

This is mostly good things for people to think about, but... "immigrants doing god knows what" just looks like racism dropped into an otherwise reasonable ramble. Hopefully that's not how you meant it.

[–] throwaway-blaze 3 days ago

It is not racism if they can point to actual statistics. It is racism if they just say it's immigrants but it's not. Which is it?

[–] netsharc 2 days ago

It's racism because how to even tell if people are immigrants? "Oh we're in Britain but they're not white. Must be immigrants.". People born and living all their lives in Britain who are not white or speaking to their friends in English can probably fill a whole city, but the implied thought of "not white, must be immigrants" is racism...

[–] bnteke 3 days ago

in this case looks a lot like racism to me

[–] epolanski 3 days ago

It's the reality of most cities in northern Italy, e.g. the one my SO lives in: Reggio Emilia.

If you go out after 7 pm most of the year half the people downtown are immigrants selling drugs, doing petty crime or whistling and annoying women.

I see and live that, and have female family members and friends being assaulted by these people, and they are immigrants.

It's not a matter of skin color, but demographics.

They are young, male, unemployed and from a different culture, they are more prone to decaying and aggressive behavior. But it's a fact, they make the cities less safe and they dominate the stats in petty and violent crimes.

[–] mmarq 2 days ago

Reggio Emilia, like pretty much everywhere we refer to as “provincia” (essentially Italy outside Rome and Milan), has never really had much going on after 6 pm. That's certainly not a new phenomenon brought about by drunk immigrants.

[–] passive 3 days ago

Unfortunately, the most powerful men in the world at this point are known to harass and assault women. That doesn't mean it's ok when the powerless do it, but you should be careful about attributing it to their demographics. It's something men need to address globally, not try to scapegoat immigrants for.

One of the only "facts" we know about crime is that it correlates very closely with poverty, which makes sense, since those who are doing well have more motivation to avoid disturbing the status quo.

[–] backhold 3 days ago

The most powerful men in the world do not loiter in city centres, which is what the commenter is referring to. It is a common phenomenon across Europe, readily observable, that groups of young men, commonly (but not exclusively) foreign, loiter in loose groups in town and city centres, where they appear to be doing... nothing.

I think the commenter has expanded further on what he or she thinks they ARE doing, I reserve judgement - but this phenomenon is apparent.

[–] nsoam 3 days ago

That is completely true and fascinates me. If you go to any city centre, train station, etc. in Europe, you will find lots of black people just... doing nothing. They are just there, sitting, perhaps alone, perhaps many of them. They aren't even talking or doing anything, they just stare into the distance. They are part of the scenery. I have no idea what this means, who brought them here, what they actually do (if anything), and who's going to take them away (and when).

[–] epolanski 3 days ago

Nobody is scapegoating anything.

I'm just stating a fact: the presence of dangerous immigrants in downtown Reggio Emilia or Modena make these cities less safe, especially for women.

Immigrants make less than 10% of the population but account for 52% of small and 74% of violent crime, while sexual harassment reaches almost 90%.

I have been assaulted twice, my SO and her friend have been, and anybody we know has a similar story.

They make locals less prone to go shopping, and as shops close it enforces the vicious cycle of people not going downtown and thus more shops closing.

[–] FiniteField 3 days ago

>One of the only "facts" we know about crime is that it correlates very closely with poverty

Yes, but be careful about implying that the dominant causation is poverty -> crime. Crime is the best cause of poverty because it makes doing business impossible and forces every actor to make every aspect of their life more and more inefficient in order to protect what they already have. Places like, say, Singapore are case studies in how a crackdown on law and order is all it takes to make a place go from very poor to extremely wealthy in a generation or so.

[–] snapcaster 2 days ago

"is all it takes"? did you watch a 30 second youtube short on singapore and decide this?

[–] black6 3 days ago

Why is it so hard to admit that there is a cultural (and, by extension, racial) component?

[–] cthalupa 3 days ago

Because in a large number of cases, people are conflating economic situation with culture or race. And many of these so-called cultural or racial components disappear in the "home" country when you look at people in the middle class and above. Just like violent crime rates drop massively for those same races and cultures in the country they have immigrated to when they gain economic independence.

It's quite possible that high levels of immigration of unskilled or otherwise unemployable people is a bad thing for a country that shouldn't be allowed. That is a very different thing than acting like the reason it is a bad idea is because of their culture or race.

[–] lukan 3 days ago

Of course there is one, but what exactly is "immigrant culture"?

That is my problem with the whole thing, all just gets thrown into one bag "immigrants". The women assaulting islamist gets the same label as the homosexual atheist fleeing where they are in charge. (And never mind that the bible contains mostly the same bad passages as the quoran and I never done the numbers, but I assume if we count and plot "muslims killed by non non muslims vs "non muslims killed by muslims" - that number would not match the felt reality)

[–] ifwinterco 3 days ago

Acknowledging that contradicts liberal ideology, which is the closest thing most people have to religion in modern western society.

It's not merely a bit controversial, it's heresy

[–] AlexeyBelov 2 days ago

Because it's not true in general. You've written a couple of meaningless statements just to signal something.

UPD: looked at your other comments... wow..

[–] snapcaster 2 days ago

It's our religious belief (or closest thing to it) and overall it's adaptive. It's like asking a Christian why it's so hard to not just admit god isn't real. There aren't many monoculture ethnostates doing great right now and they're pretty much all on the path towards extinction given current fertility rates

[–] CamperBob2 3 days ago

Why is it so hard to admit that there is a cultural (and, by extension, racial) component?

What does "by extension" mean? Culture is voluntary. You can (and should) walk away from a flawed culture. Race is an unsheddable fixed attribute.

Meanwhile, both culture and race see more variation within groups than they do between groups, making discrimination a losing proposition even aside from its inherent immorality.

[–] mythrwy 2 days ago

"You can (and should) walk away from a flawed culture."

To a limited extent as an individual. One can't simply remake the entire world they were born within.

[–] FiniteField 3 days ago

>both culture and race see more variation within groups than they do between groups

Btw, the premise underlying this fact is a fallacy. It is the norm for population groups, even meaningfully differing ones, to have "more internal variation" than between groups.

There is more variation in height within sexes than between them, but despite this there is still a very (statistically and culturally) significant difference in average height between men and women.

It's even possible for two distributions to be completely separated by a given variable while still having more internal variance.

[–] skinfaxi 3 days ago

> One of the only "facts" we know about crime is that it correlates very closely with poverty, which makes sense, since those who are doing well have more motivation to avoid disturbing the status quo.

What are some of the other "facts" "we" know about? Are you conveniently ignoring the Epstein class and all we've learned?

[–] bbg2401 3 days ago

Why have you placed “facts” in quotation marks?

[–] valleyer 3 days ago

The original use of quotation marks in English, before scare quotes came along, was to suggest that the words you're using came from someone else. Fun fact: that's actually why they're called quotation marks.

That's what's going on here. @passive is repeating the word "fact" from the parent comment.

[–] thin_carapace 3 days ago

we live in a (post truth) society

[–] BigTTYGothGF 3 days ago

Wasn't too long ago people in the US were saying those kinds of things about Italians.

[–] saithound 3 days ago

Yeah, we remember. And thanks to the attitude displayed in your comment, these complaints were not taken seriously. until these specific Italians ended up with control of massive illegitimate industries, gambling, and loan sharking, ran protection rackets that victimised and intimidated thousands of legitimate small businesses, and murdered hundreds of innocents.

[–] skinfaxi 3 days ago

So people should have been discriminatory against Italians? What are you getting at?

[–] FiniteField 3 days ago

There was always the option to just not let them in in the first place. Many people at the time (HP Lovecraft being an example) thought that Ellis-Island migration into the United States was an existential mistake.

[–] linksnapzz 3 days ago

...which was finally ended by the RICO act; which is almost certainly unconstitutional, but has been allowed to fester b/c the Mob was (so far) worse.

[–] cucumber3732842 3 days ago

>but has been allowed to fester b/c the Mob was (so far) worse.

It's been allowed to fester because the late 20th century was (so far) the high water mark for societal tolerance of that sort of thing and it hasn't been abused enough since to really see much legal scrutiny.

[–] linksnapzz 3 days ago

..and in the case of some of those Italians, they were absolutely right.

High-trust Anglo civilization is not compatible with the attitude towards civil authority common in the 19th-century Mezzogiorno. It took literal generations to fix.

[–] cucumber3732842 3 days ago

>High-trust Anglo civilization is not compatible with the attitude towards civil authority common in the 19th-century Mezzogiorno. It took literal generations to fix.

Waspy paternalism gave us eugenics, multi-generational welfare and plenty of other great stuff so it's not like the alternative is all that much better.

[–] linksnapzz 2 days ago

Whataboutism: Is There Anything It Can't Do?

[–] jawilson2 2 days ago

Ah, yes, Italy, where the men are famously very respectful to women and never whistle or catcall...

[–] throwaway85825 3 days ago

When commercial rents aren't artificially inflated it allows for a greater diversity of businesses. There are tons of businesses that could exist if the government wasnt so intent on running a plantation economy.

[–] laughing_man 3 days ago

How are they artificially inflated? Do you mean through taxation?

[–] epolanski 3 days ago

I'm not sure what government has to do with it, it doesn't set the price of rents.

Rents do get progressively lower in distressed areas because they are distressed, and higher in high demand ones, but that's not enough when less customers are entering your shops anyway.

[–] throwaway85825 3 days ago

Government adds mountains of red tape, taxes employers to death and has reduced the spending power of the median worker to below poland through its plantation migration policy.

Commercial units sit empty instead of lowering rents because of the 'extend and pretend' in lending. The banks can't afford to revalue commercial real estate at the current market rate. It's like the 70s again.

[–] throwaway-blaze 3 days ago

You are right that the units sit empty because the banks have loan covenants with the landlords that minimum rent is XX, which is higher than the unit is currently worth.

It isn't so much extend and pretend, its landlord CANT lower the rent without violating their loan.

If you get government involved, this will just get more expensive. We need to wait it out until the landlord can't pay the loan anyway and is forced to sell the building at a massive loss. Then the new owner will have a new loan with a new price floor and the dance can start over.

[–] Terr_ 3 days ago

> It isn't so much extend and pretend, its landlord CANT lower the rent without violating their loan.

IANAPropertyGuy, but IIRC the banks don't really want to foreclose on it anyway, because that means recognizing that they made losing loans and they don't want to have to figure out what to do with the building that can't be sold off for much.

Hence strategically looking the other way when landlords off "first X months free" deals in lieu of an officially-lower rent.

[–] electroweak 3 days ago

This is exactly the case. On my Canadian high street the redevelopments are either empty or exclusively high cost businesses. I looked at the rent arrears notice posted on one failed shop and the rate would exclude anything not a money mill. They'll be no lutiers or second hand bookstores in the shiny towers on my street.

[–] cowlevel 3 days ago

What if you had a rental agreement where you pay $x for y% of the property but the landlord lets you use the whole thing and x/(y*0.01) > minimum rent?

Or you pay minimum rent but your landlord gives you some of it back?

Idk, there's probably room for creativity here

[–] lifestyleguru 3 days ago

You cannot have real estate as an investment (sometimes the only one without capital gains tax), and simultaneously people living around and hanging out. Investment real estate pushes permanent inhabitants out.

[–] throwaway-blaze 3 days ago

This is incredibly wrong.

Investment real estate has traditionally been a way for individuals and small landlords to build wealth over time. More recently, governments have decided that they want to add tons and tons of regulations to rentals, making it impossible for small landlords to continue to make a profit. Hence, they sell to big landlords who are impossible for tenants to deal with.

[–] skinfaxi 3 days ago

You are conflating non local and local government. Your town doesn't levy capital gains but your state or nation may.

[–] cowlevel 3 days ago

Do you understand where that "built wealth" comes from? It doesn't appear from the ether - it's transferred from one person to another. In this case, it's transferred from a legitimate useful business to a rent-seeking investor who creates no value but holds value hostage. And if the amount of "built wealth" is too high, no business exists that can afford to pay it, and so it doesn't get "built".

[–] skinfaxi 2 days ago

Wealth is zero sum?

[–] graemep 2 days ago

Wealth from land ownership is zero sum.

[–] skinfaxi 2 days ago

Doesn't this assume land can't become more productive over time? Like was Las Vegas real estate as valuable when it was barren desert?

[–] lifestyleguru 2 days ago

Even worse, wealth is vacuumed up.

[–] asdff 3 days ago

Traditionaly as in since what post redlining ban downzoning in the 1960s? No peasant was expecting their hovel to be an investment vehicle where they’d replace the doorknobs with cheaper furnishings and 10x their investment and somehow their peasant kids working peasant jobs would afford that.

I mean isn’t the whole rub the cost of housing is outpacing wages? Goes to show how short our historical perspective really is.

[–] lifestyleguru 3 days ago

> No peasant was expecting their hovel to be an investment vehicle

It is not:) There had been a fortunate coincidence of factors such as economy, job market, demography, immigration from EU countries which all enabled it. That's all over now, it's gone.

What happens when all rent is extracted? We're about to find out.

[–] mmarq 2 days ago

Of all the problems Italy has, cities being overrun by drunks isn't really one of them, unlike in the UK.

Italian cities are depopulating because of economic decline, not because people feel increasingly unsafe after 5.

[–] matteoraso 3 days ago

>In the average European mediterranean city shops provide lights, vibe, safety.

It's incredible how much of what we consider safety ultimately boils down to totally arbitrary vibes. There are tons of cities in the mediterranean that are way more dangerous than the worst parts of the uk, but because Italy has better PR (and isn't the target of right-wing hysteria), nobody cares.

[–] laughing_man 3 days ago

People respond to what's happening locally. There's no question UK towns have been getting more lawless and dangerous than they were, say, twenty years ago. It may not be very bad in absolute terms, but that's not the criteria people use for comparison.

[–] turbonaut 3 days ago

There is a lot of question if this is the case: https://policinginsight.com/feature/analysis/most-crime-has-...

[–] graemep 2 days ago

Lawless but crime rates are far lower?

[–] laughing_man 1 day ago

Well, when you charge assaults as breach of peace, your assault rates go down.

[–] skinfaxi 3 days ago

> It's incredible how much of what we consider safety ultimately boils down to totally arbitrary vibes.

Are there parts of society where this is different? This whole going concern is vibe-based.

[–] touristtam 2 days ago

I am pretty sure there has been similar scenarios unfolding across the EU to various degrees, and I have heard more than one rumours of forcing those big supermarket chain to have local shops to help bolster the high streets footfall.