Fuck I love Northern California. Modesto!
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Northern California just isn't the same anymore
My entire "other" hometown outside of SF is a ghetto now. all of the stores have left, and I just read in the local newspaper there that only one bank remains now. there was always violent crime, but never on the scale that happens today. unemployment is close to 15%, probably higher, and more vacant buildings than occupied buildings stand.
I read in other news around northern california, that people are starting to die in marijuana battles, which show how desperate the situation to make a paycheck has become.
Sacramento has a fucking homeless camp that keeps growing (until they move it). Stockton California is rated amongst the worst cities in America now. the state budget is empty, welfare is empty, food pantries are empty, scholarships to a better future, cut. the rich are okay (of course), but the poorest amongst us have all left...I have no friends left in my hometown or my neighborhood in "the city" Because they all left to seek greener pastures.
cry, beloved California. You have died, and I hope you Rest in Peace.
Fuck I love Northern California. Modesto!
Yeah, well the housing crash had a lot to do with this - particularly places like Stockton which - I think - became the foreclosure capital of the state in 2009.
I've been to the Hooverville up by the bridge in Sacramento - it's strange. There had always been people living by the river, but now it's all out in the open. I thought the Sheriff's department destroyed that camp and made everyone leave though.
In my neighborhood there was a nomadic band of homeless people - at least a dozen if not more - who grouped together. They used to all set up on the steps of this church nearby, but they must have been forced out. Now they set up their tents and shelters in a parking lot near an abandoned Midas and about once a week the cops come and tell them to move (have to protect abandoned buildings you know)... they do for a night or two and then come back.
Fuckin' capitalism.
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That's sad. I think Northern California (especially around the cities of Modesto, Fresno, Stockton, Sacramento, Vallejo, Santa Rosa, Richmond, and Oakland) have been especially hit hard; many of these places had bad economies to begin with, and considering Santa Rosa was strongly dependent on tourists, of which the tourist market has dried up, so now there is nothing but abandoned buildings, and I read just the other day Sonoma Valley Bank has folded. Richmond, which always an armpit, is now a completely failed city, and they don't have any money left for public services, so potholes, broken streetlights, and collapsed welfare payments galore...But at least they have enough money for prisons, right?
fucking capitalism. I just wonder why California was especially hit hard. California is the place that isn't supposed to fail.
The Central Valley has been hit the hardest. Unemployment in Modesto is up around 20% and something like 10% of the homes here are foreclosed upon. We also have one of the worst meth and heroin epidemics in the state, and usually beat Oakland in car thefts per capita per year.
a friend of mine wrote this:
http://libcom.org/library/crisis-cal...al-turns-toxic
sadly, i live in a very bourgeois part of the sacramento area. (dont jump to conclusions, my family is struggling like crazy). also, i have moved somewhere around 15 times in my life and im only 19. ive never gotten to know an area well so for a place like norcal, i kinda get the bing picture(ive lived in the region for 7 years now) but i hardly have any connection with any one place.
the only thing i have really noticed was the rise in homelessness. ive lived in worse areas though. namely Yuba City. racism and poverty all over the part i lived in.
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
