Happy 4th of July.
Or not.
Summerfest is going on right now in Milwaukee, I'm almost surprised they didn't cancel it. Attendance is way down anyway: it used to get about a million people over 12 days, this year they'll be lucky to get 200,000. I guess no one has enough money left for $7 beers. I'm guessing not a lot of people are coming up from Chicago either with a trip costing over $30 in gas each way, and Amtrak fares being a bit higher.
Electric rates are starting to take off now, at about twice what it was last year. There haven't been any blackouts (yet) because of capacity, although we lost power for a couple hours when a local transformer overheated and blew up. Plenty of people without power because they just can't afford their bills though, and there have already been several heat related deaths. People are asking for electric subsidies for the city, but the money just isn't there. Police and fire services are stretched to the breaking point and looking for emergency budget increases, but I don't even think they'll get the money.
As usual, when the temperatures went up so did the murder rate. The city is on pace to have over 300 homocides this year, which would put us on par with Detroit or DC (if they haven't gotten even worse.) The north-central part of the city is pretty much a no man's land. I've heard stories of groups blockading streets to carjack anyone ignorant enough to drive through there. Service industry jobs are drying up and more people are sliding down the economic ladder from middle class to working poor to downright poverty.
There is some hope though. Farmers from the surrounding counties have organized a HUGE open air market on weekends in the stadium parking lots (and for that matter, the Brewers are still winning, even though they can barely sell tickets.) More and more employers are encouraging telecommuting and short work weeks to save employees on fuel costs. Bikes are starting to displace motor traffic in the suburbs. The latino community especially seem to have pulled together, setting up street markets for food and locally produced goods and turning unused parking lots and flat roofs into community gardens.
I, however, am getting increasingly paranoid. I don't know how stable my job is at this point and prospects are slim for a mechanical engineer with no college degree. Without steady income or any land to call my own, I'd basically be reduced to scavenging to survive. Some friends and I (my "tribe," mostly 20-something, male, and rather financially unstable) are debating what our options are if (when?) the city is no longer viable. I have an aunt and uncle with a farm about 50 miles north of here, I'm hoping if things get worse I may be able to help out up there. But what is going to happen to the vast majority of urbanites who might quickly end up with no job, no land, and no hope?
4 comments:
Here in South Milwaukee, the answer to the question in your last paragraph would appear to be, "Drink ourselves to death." That's always been the strategy, only now we're doing with home-brewed schwagg-liquor instead of beer and peppermint schnapps from the (now mostly closed and boarded-up) liquor stores.
Oh, and I forgot to mention Summerfest itself. I did have some money set aside to go because going there together every year is something of a big deal to Diane (de facto landlady mentioned in another comment). But it was like a ghost-town compared to years past. That was kind of depressing, as the main reason I appreciated Summerfest in the past was the profusion of attractive young men walking around shirtless in the summer heat. Diane thinks I always bring along the mirrored sunglasses in order to stare at the attractive young women. :-D I am not much inclined to correct that misperception on her part.
There was a halfway decent 80's cover-band performing there, though, so it wasn't a total washout.
BTW, I hope you write something else soon. With what you said about how rough the city's getting, I'm starting to think you're not with us in this world anymore. :-(
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