If you want to burn the banks, just wait a bit

Fig. 1. “The iconic Crescent stands as recognizable landmark in the upscale neighborhood of Uptown, Dallas.” Photograph by Dallasedits [pseud.], July 5, 2016, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

I lived in San Francisco’s South of Market Area (SOMA) for a couple years before moving to the Santa Cruz Mountains. It turned out the place in SOMA was within a block of, if memory serves, five gay bars. I came home one night to find a circle jerk session in progress, on another, a homeless man curled up right in front of my door. My upstairs neighbor was forever complaining of excrement and condoms on his front stairs. The neighborhood certainly wasn’t desolate then, even as my long period of unemployment and underemployment had begun. But I guess it is now.^[1] I’ve been hearing from passengers, as well, that downtown San Francisco is desolate. It’s all hard to imagine, I know, but some things, trust me, you cannot unsee.

If you look at the uniform resource locator (URL) in the citation for Matthew Kupfer’s article, you’ll notice the words doom loop. In the article itself, he avoids saying so, but this does sound very much like the beginning of a doom loop. The article is mostly about the disappearance of residents, who fled to work from homes someplace else,^[2] but apartment buildings are just as surely commercial real estate as office space.

Between this and bond value fluctuations that have already led to multiple bank collapses, one has to suspect a few more banks will be feeling a squeeze.^[3]

Ryan Deto and Justin Vellucci, “Downtown Pittsburgh is rebounding, but less smoothly than some would like,” July 2, 2023, https://triblive.com/local/downtown-pittsburgh-is-rebounding-but-less-smoothly-than-some-would-like/

Matthew Kupfer, “From Tech Haven to Has-Been: San Francisco’s Once-Thriving SoMa Neighborhood Struggles To Find Footing,” San Francisco Standard, July 3, 2023, https://sfstandard.com/community/san-francisco-soma-doom-loop-drugs-homelessness/

Illiberalism

Fig. 2. Photograph by Joachim F. Thurn, August 1991, Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F089030-0003, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.

Times of Israel, “In U-turn, Netanyahu said to reassure ministers override clause has not been shelved,” July 2, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-u-turn-netanyahu-said-to-reassure-ministers-override-clause-has-not-been-shelved/

Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh

Housing

Fig. 3. Most of the homeless encampments I’ve seen around Pittsburgh have been on the North Side. This one is downtown, right by a Parkway (Interstate 376) onramp. Photograph by author, May 22, 2023.

Before covid-19, Downtown [Pittsburgh] attracted more than 70,000 workers each weekday. In April 2020, that figure dropped below 10,000, but some office workers have returned. About 54% of office space Downtown was in use in April, according to the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership.^[4]

The plan is to convert much office space to housing, some of it allegedly “affordable.”^[5] In neighborhoods where people would actually want to live, as opposed to the many that are overrun with blight and the problems of poverty, Pittsburgh is no longer as affordable as it once was.

My landlord has been threatening to raise my rent significantly, to $1,000 per month from $775, and I believe would have this year, had I not been hit by Uber’s pay cut for drivers.^[6] From what I can see, he appears to be correct that he really can get that much for this tiny, about 300 square feet, apartment above his garage. (Between this and the driving, which has gotten markedly worse,^[7] Erie is back on my agenda, probably with Section 8 housing.)

Fig. 4. Map of downtown Pittsburgh by Google Maps. Screenshot taken by author, July 4, 2023, fair use.

I think a problem with Ryan Deto and Justin Vellucci’s article—and with the perspectives they report—is that they all treat downtown Pittsburgh (figure 4) as a single neighborhood. I can’t really fault them for this, because pretty much everybody does it, but it misses some nuance.

If you go on the Allegheny River side of downtown, which includes the Cultural District, it is indeed generally bustling along a corridor between Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Liberty Avenue, from the convention center right through to Point State Park. The area around Point Park University is generally kept about as nice as old city streets can be kept—there are student dormitories there, so the number of people in that part of downtown has not dropped as much as in the area. Market Square, with its accursed cobblestone streets, I think benefits from a synergy between Point Park University and the Cultural District; retail spaces seem all filled and out-of-control pedestrians add to a cobblestone hell for driving. Finally, the areas around entrances to the William Penn and Monaco Hotels on William Penn Place seem to be aggressively kept presentable.

Fig. 5. Along Smithfield Street, beneath Mellon Square. Photograph by author, June 2, 2023.

But most the area between Ross Street, Liberty Avenue, Wood Street, and Fort Pitt Boulevard, even across from the Embassy Suites Hotel (figure 5), and extending out even through areas taken over by Duquesne University along Forbes Avenue and Fifth Avenue in the Uptown neighborhood remain remarkably desolate (as does all of Uptown outside of the main Duquesne campus atop a hill).

Michael Korsh, “Homes in the shadows: Out-of-state LLCs often conceal ownership of Allegheny County’s dangerous and decaying homes,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 2, 2023, https://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2023/07/02/allegheny-county-pittsburgh-decaying-homes-llc-owners/stories/202307020059

Imperialism

Russia

Ukraine

Wagner mutiny

Speaking on the Telegram messaging app for the second time since leading an aborted insurrection last month, [Yevgeny] Prigozhin said “we need your support more than ever”, as he thanked backers inside Russia.

Also on Monday Wagner was actively seeking recruits to train in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, according to the group’s ads on Telegram.

The moves come in spite of an agreement, whose details were revealed by Russian president Vladimir Putin, by which Wagner fighters were supposed to choose between signing contracts with the Russian defence ministry, going home or following Prigozhin into exile in Belarus. . . .

[A Wagner recruiter] added that a recruit would sign a contract with Wagner, not the Russian defence ministry. “We have nothing to do with them. Have you seen the statements of Evgeny Viktorovich [Prigozhin]? We will not sign any contracts with them.”

Prigozhin was careful not to challenge the Kremlin explicitly in his voice message on Monday, while he defended his “march of justice” towards Moscow last month as an effort to fight traitors and “mobilise our society”. “Soon you will see our next victories at the front,” he added.^[8]

Anastasia Stognei, “Prigozhin appeals for public support as Wagner continues recruiting,” Financial Times, July 3, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/68b98279-7904-4ffd-84b2-07fda79755f0

China

Taiwan

I’m remembering, a bit faintly because it wasn’t something I tracked at the time, that something similar to the financial outflows apparently now occurring from Taiwan^[9] happened in Hong Kong before the Chinese crackdown there. It pushed up real estate values especially in Vancouver, where much of the property sat vacant as just a parking place for Chinese money.

Apparently, this isn’t a huge, destabilizing move:^[10] “The ultra-rich already have a large part of their assets overseas anyway,”^[11] but now the “middle rich” are joining them.

Kathrin Hille, “‘People are nervous’: Taiwan’s wealthy shelter money overseas in fear of China conflict,” Financial Times, July 3, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/075b4caf-fa5b-4ec0-a66a-c769612e5e65

^[1]Matthew Kupfer, “From Tech Haven to Has-Been: San Francisco’s Once-Thriving SoMa Neighborhood Struggles To Find Footing,” San Francisco Standard, July 3, 2023, https://sfstandard.com/community/san-francisco-soma-doom-loop-drugs-homelessness/↩
^[2]Matthew Kupfer, “From Tech Haven to Has-Been: San Francisco’s Once-Thriving SoMa Neighborhood Struggles To Find Footing,” San Francisco Standard, July 3, 2023, https://sfstandard.com/community/san-francisco-soma-doom-loop-drugs-homelessness/↩
^[3]Vivien Lou Chen, “Moody’s sees risk that U.S. banking ‘turmoil’ can’t be contained,” MarketWatch, March 23, 2023, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/moodys-sees-risk-that-u-s-banking-turmoil-cant-be-contained-f478df49; Telis Demos, “Welcome to the Superprime Banking Crisis,” Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/welcome-to-the-superprime-banking-crisis-9ab6b6d2; Victoria Guida and Sam Sutton, “‘There’s going to be more’: How Washington is bracing for bank fallout,” Politico, March 12, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/12/silicon-valley-bank-fallout-washington-00086662; Ashley Rindsberg, “How the Bank Collapse Goes Nuclear,” Tablet, March 22, 2023, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-bank-crisis-goes-nuclear; Joy Wiltermuth, “‘This is a risk confronting all banks,’ ex-FDIC chief Sheila Bair tells MarketWatch,” MarketWatch, March 23, 2023, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/regional-banks-get-the-attention-but-worries-are-more-widespread-says-ex-fdic-chief-bair-a7e7eb56 ↩
^[4]Ryan Deto and Justin Vellucci, “Downtown Pittsburgh is rebounding, but less smoothly than some would like,” July 2, 2023, https://triblive.com/local/downtown-pittsburgh-is-rebounding-but-less-smoothly-than-some-would-like/↩
^[5]Julia Felton, “Pittsburgh streamlines process to convert unused Downtown office space into housing,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, December 8, 2022, https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-streamlines-process-to-convert-unused-downtown-office-space-into-housing/↩
^[6]David Benfell, “A life worth living,” Not Housebroken, February 18, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/12/27/a-life-worth-living/↩
^[7]David Benfell, “Reckless driving as routine,” Not Housebroken, January 28, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2023/01/25/reckless-driving-as-routine/↩
^[8]Anastasia Stognei, “Prigozhin appeals for public support as Wagner continues recruiting,” Financial Times, July 3, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/68b98279-7904-4ffd-84b2-07fda79755f0 ↩
^[9]Kathrin Hille, “‘People are nervous’: Taiwan’s wealthy shelter money overseas in fear of China conflict,” Financial Times, July 3, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/075b4caf-fa5b-4ec0-a66a-c769612e5e65 ↩
^[10]Kathrin Hille, “‘People are nervous’: Taiwan’s wealthy shelter money overseas in fear of China conflict,” Financial Times, July 3, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/075b4caf-fa5b-4ec0-a66a-c769612e5e65 ↩
^[11]Winnie Fang, quoted in Kathrin Hille, “‘People are nervous’: Taiwan’s wealthy shelter money overseas in fear of China conflict,” Financial Times, July 3, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/075b4caf-fa5b-4ec0-a66a-c769612e5e65 ↩

Irregular Bullshit