What a trip to Seattle and Portland taught me about commodified cities, collapsing downtowns, and why conservatives keep losing the culture they refuse to build.
Renn writes "Perhaps this indicates a sort of cultural exhaustion, or Douthatian decadence, on the left. If that continues, then perhaps it means the left isn’t as destined to culturally rule as I indicated above. If true, this commodification would represent an opportunity for the right to transcend the car dealer mindset and start positively reimagining the kind of country and the kinds of communities it wants to live in."
Yeah right. That is not how cities are built, nor is it why cities are built. Nobody imagines anything. It's all reactionary. Chicago exploded from about 112,000 residents in 1860 to nearly 1.7 million by 1900, a fifteen-fold increase that made it the fastest-growing major city in the world. Railroads, the stockyards, steel, and massive waves of European immigration—plus a total rebuild after the 1871 fire—drove it past Philadelphia to become America's second city by 1890.
Renn's title is spot-on, The End of the Cool City. His diagnosis is perfect; the commodification of cities. It's also global. And he is right about the revolutionary left; they have conquered a wasteland. Their revolutionary voters are so repellent, the Democrats are condemned to minority status until they purge themselves of the, 'burn it all down' crowd. Cities since ancient times were necessary for human collaboration. We are THE species when it comes to collaboration. Cities are no longer useful for collaboration. They are unnecessary. Therefore, urban culture is dying. Community commodification is indeed what is happening. The one size fits all, end of community actually.
Shenzhen went from a fishing-and-farming border town of roughly 30,000–300,000 people (depending on how you count the surrounding county) in 1980 to about 17.6 million by the 2020 census—arguably the fastest urbanization in human history. Deng Xiaoping's designation of it as China's first Special Economic Zone turned it into a magnet for migrant workers and manufacturing, and eventually the tech capital home to Huawei, Tencent, and DJI. The end of the Cool City indeed.
Cities have never been cool, but they have always been necessary - until now.
Portland is still funky and laid back, while Seattle, its economically successful sister, is full of educated, elitist, type A personalities. The Seattle culture is like the careerist/hustle of NYC combined with the outdoorsy/fitness of Denver. The ratio of men to women is also so high that it's impossible not to notice.
Renn writes "Perhaps this indicates a sort of cultural exhaustion, or Douthatian decadence, on the left. If that continues, then perhaps it means the left isn’t as destined to culturally rule as I indicated above. If true, this commodification would represent an opportunity for the right to transcend the car dealer mindset and start positively reimagining the kind of country and the kinds of communities it wants to live in."
Yeah right. That is not how cities are built, nor is it why cities are built. Nobody imagines anything. It's all reactionary. Chicago exploded from about 112,000 residents in 1860 to nearly 1.7 million by 1900, a fifteen-fold increase that made it the fastest-growing major city in the world. Railroads, the stockyards, steel, and massive waves of European immigration—plus a total rebuild after the 1871 fire—drove it past Philadelphia to become America's second city by 1890.
Renn's title is spot-on, The End of the Cool City. His diagnosis is perfect; the commodification of cities. It's also global. And he is right about the revolutionary left; they have conquered a wasteland. Their revolutionary voters are so repellent, the Democrats are condemned to minority status until they purge themselves of the, 'burn it all down' crowd. Cities since ancient times were necessary for human collaboration. We are THE species when it comes to collaboration. Cities are no longer useful for collaboration. They are unnecessary. Therefore, urban culture is dying. Community commodification is indeed what is happening. The one size fits all, end of community actually.
Shenzhen went from a fishing-and-farming border town of roughly 30,000–300,000 people (depending on how you count the surrounding county) in 1980 to about 17.6 million by the 2020 census—arguably the fastest urbanization in human history. Deng Xiaoping's designation of it as China's first Special Economic Zone turned it into a magnet for migrant workers and manufacturing, and eventually the tech capital home to Huawei, Tencent, and DJI. The end of the Cool City indeed.
Cities have never been cool, but they have always been necessary - until now.
Thanks for visiting!
Portland is still funky and laid back, while Seattle, its economically successful sister, is full of educated, elitist, type A personalities. The Seattle culture is like the careerist/hustle of NYC combined with the outdoorsy/fitness of Denver. The ratio of men to women is also so high that it's impossible not to notice.
This one may be of interest https://x.com/aaron_renn/status/2072148540353356078