Jeffery

^ Kind of like the Germans are the majority ancestry group in the US, until you add the English, Scots, and Scotch-Irish together and then they are the majority.

Dealing with Defense would be an overall issue dealing with the discretionary budget, which is sort of being solved via the forthcoming recission, but in a blunt way. One could just asssume we cant afford the defense structure we have and just reduce it. I think a consensus is heading that way. Another way of dealing with a discretionary deficit is to increase taxes, like perhaps that Robin Hood Tax, or repealing the Bush tax cuts on the top brackets. Thats where the money is if you want to generate revenue...if the $$$ are going to to the 1% or 10% thats where you go to get the money. Assuming the US economic elite doesn't decamp for the Cayman Islands or something.... Or, of course, seeing more economic growth which would mean more revnue, without having to raise taxes to pay for stuff. The issue with Social Security and the various medical entitlement programs is deeper as they are entitlement spending and present a long term problem. Social Security could be dealt with by extending retirment age, thus shortening the time people spend collecting a pension btw retirement and death. Medical entitlements and things like SNAP...hmm...seems cold to cut people off from that....

Melungeon history is pretty interesting even if its not as fanciful as some would like ...when the narrative was usually the other way around. The "master" having sex with the slaves....in this case the theory is.... "Estes and her fellow researchers theorize that the various Melungeon lines may have sprung from the unions of black and white indentured servants living in Virginia in the mid-1600s, before slavery." ...resulting a sort of back-country "maroon" society, perhaps akin to what developed in the Carribean & Guyanas: "They conclude that as laws were put in place to penalize the mixing of races, the various family groups could only intermarry with each other, even migrating together from Virginia through the Carolinas before settling primarily in the mountains of East Tennessee." So seeing this in the context of what was going on in the Western Hemisphere this actually makes sense. Interesting tale!

.....Census: Minorities now surpass whites in US births..... Which means they are not "minorities" anymore. Or something like that.

Yes ....but I havnt heard much about it since that news article back in the Fall.

Urban Biking seems to be getting a lot of press. There are guides to it like The Urban Cyclists Survival Guide...and Urban Bikers Tips and Tricks...which is a good illustrated how-to on the topic. Ive read the second and am reading the first. ...and, forthcoming from the MIT Press, is ths perhaps a more serious policy/technocratic discussion on urban cycling: City Cycling City Cycling offers a guide to this urban cycling renaissance, with the goal of promoting cycling as sustainable urban transportation available to everyone. It reports on cycling trends and policies in cities in North America, Europe, and Australia, and offers information on such topics as cycling safety, cycling infrastructure provisions including bikeways and bike parking, the wide range of bike designs and bike equipment, integration of cycling with public transportation, and promoting cycling for women and children.

It could also be a running commentary and opinion on what is going on vs finger pointing. The novel nature of the situation is probably topic enough for me. Could be we are stuck in this economic twilight zone "weak recovery" until the next recession. That there is no robust recovery like we had in the 1990s.

^ maybe cheaper oil prices as a result of dampened demand?

I think Dayton could use more demo money. They have a plan but cant execute....

...so are we talking about suburban sprawl or inner city infill?

^ however, the Modern Mayberry concept is not that people actually move to these places to live in a "leafy street & front porch" type of place...the move for the percieved values/safety and they move to subdivisions or large lot ribbon development, not to the small town physical environment, which becomes more a symbol than a place of residence. They are buying into "Mayberry" in quotation marks.

So im going to post a bit on this. You all can too, if you have any opinions, observations, or links and examples....

For about three years now, starting, really, since my visit to the US Social Forum back in June of 2010, the lightbulb has been going on re bicycles and the subcultures that are forming around this technology. It's fascinating. There's the Cycle Chic thing from Europe, which bleeds over into the Tweed Ride scene, which also overlaps with the urban biking thing, which mixes hipsters and a more politically committed indy subculture, and bleeds into the "commute by bike movement'...which crosses into road biking. Then there are the Moujntain Bike, BMX and cylcocross types. Then the more mainstream sports riders and road bikers. And the generic recreation riders. And here in Dayton (and probably other places) there is the more low-income beater bike riders, who are'nt really a self-concious subculture, but are pretty visible on the street and on RTA. This whole scene is really rich. Now Im finding there are publications focusing on this stuff. Urban Velo (for city riders, but with a bit of vague edgy feel to it) Momentum (sort of a feminist angle, but also urban/utiltiy riders) Bicycle Times (again more to the urban cyclist/but also a bit of the sports angle...they recently had an article on "rRandoneuring"). Bicycle (deffo for sports cyclists and road bikers, but good general purpose stuff). ...then there appears to be a host of zines and blogs. Probably the most famous in Bike Snob, who also published a book on the bike scene, back in 2010.

...and a review by Joel Garreau (of Edge Cities fame) in the Wilson Quarterly, who is a bit sckeptical about the Great Inversion these The Urban Future ...I'd add the book "Searching for Whitopia" as another counter-example showing sprawl would be continuing as Middle America flees to the so-called "Modern Mayberrys". But oddly enough one is seeing "loft housing" popping up in suburbia around Dayton. There is a nifty new urbanist development out in Beavercreek in the "defense edge city" off Pentagon Blvd/I-675. And I think another one is planned out in Centerville, in the still-open country south of me...

A book on how suburbia is changing.... The Great Inversion. The author wrote one my favorites on Chicago ("The Lost City"), but this is an OK journalistic summing up of recent trends. He looks at sprawly places like Gwinnet County but also mentions Cleveland...specifically Cleveland Heights and vicinity....

I'm interested in seeing what the purchasing agent index or poll shows. That used to be a good leading indicator....

...and the Conference Board leading indicators arent looking too hot, as posted upthread. So we have a weak economy heading into a fiscal crisis, with international economic issues coming into play, too. I'm guessing these trends will all intersect in 2013, to produce a new recession...we should see indicators of this starting in the Fall (Yes this is a prediction).

I thought this was a good article, discussing how the chickens are going to come home to roost as the stimulus of federal spending is removed from the economy, coupled with taxes going up as cuts expire taking money out of the economy. Sounds like the later 1930s all over again; the "second Depression" that occured in response to Congress & FDR cutting back on spending due to a misguided desire for austerity will have an echo in the US, perhaps after the elections....yeah, we'll get austerity all right..... Roubini on "The Fiscal Cliff"

I went to an event at the Mercantile Library back in March, I think, and sort of got a taste of the intellectual side of the city there...I liked it. I guess this is why Cincy is able to support a bookstore like Joseph Beth.

Alfred Wainwright, Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, Eastern Fells, and Erwin Raisz, Principles of Cartography. I'm reading these because Im thinking of taking up mapping (doing hand-drawn maps) of my travels as a little hobby, to send to friends. Wainwright has some nice maps and lettering for walks, and Raisz did those wonderful landform maps. So Im trying to learn from them. For more serious reading, there is this great hefty Rizzoli pub: When Art Worked, The New Deal, Art, and Democracy ..the book also treats the Federal Writers Project and the theatre project, too...not only the visual arts. But it goes in depth, touching on HABS as well as the famous murals. This book was a good find...

Intellectual Cincinnait? According to two lists....both "well read", and "literate". The only Ohio city to make these lists Americans Most Literate Cities Cincy is @ 7 Americas Most Well-Read Cities Cincy @ 17.

I think it is a depressing argument to say a neighborhood should be denied upgraded services in order keep out the wealthy. That, to me, reeks of condescension and a cruelty of good intentions. The argument in LA, which is a stronger argument than the anti-gentrification argument, was that rail transit made a claim on both intial capital investment and then on O&M, which competed with bus transit...I think the O&M budget is the real issue.... That bus transit would be shorted to support the rail transit, which had limited benefit to or narrow benefit vis a vis the larger transit system and its users. This is a valid argument. If the "pie" ...the O&M budget for transit, are not increasing, a new slice is being carved out to support this "better service", but the result would be across-the-board "worse service" for everyone else...a squeezing out affect. Tho that Portland example seems to say operating costs are lower. I used to be a big supporter of rail transit, including streetcars, but I am becoming more skepitical due to the equity issue and due to my actually using public transit again and seeing what service improvements would really mean.

I think Cleveland has a very clearly defined downtown. River, lake, freeway. Agree.

Positive attention to Cincy from a national, albeit specialized, news source: Getting it Right in the Queen City ...editorial taking about the mayor and his support for urbanity: Malloy is making the case for Cincinnati’s urbanity, for its cityness, as a competitive advantage, something that many small and midsized cities have long scorned. He has put public space, place making, and mixed-use development at the center of his mayoral agenda. And he makes the case that it’s not downtown versus neighborhoods or city versus suburbs, but that an integrated, economically dynamic region only thrives when the center really holds

Downtown Cincy is the part btw Central Parkway and the river. OTR isnt really downtown. Its a close-in neighborhood, like the Oregon is in Dayton. So if you want to do a pop count keep the boundary as Central Parkway.