Many media sources have been reporting on the rapidly growing tent city located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in my hometown of Sacramento, California, a city that has seen a dramatic rise in home foreclosures. Estimates place the population of the tent city at anywhere between 300 and 1200. I guess we'll just have to wait for accurate figures from the 2010 Census. The comparison to Depression-era "Hoovervilles" is unmistakable but what do we call these new Hoovervilles since President Herbet Hoover (1874-1964) had little to do with their development? Bush-Lands? Obama-Towns? Do you have a suggested toponym for these shantytowns, of which we are unfortunately likely to see more of?
In other economic geography news, anecdotal evidence points toward Mexican immigrants to the United States returning to Mexico in a mass "Mexodus" because economic conditions are so challenging in the United States.
Comments
Asking what we should call current Hoovervilles is actually an incompetent question – it’s in the class of asking a:” Do you still beat your wife?” question. It is interesting that the site referred to is a collection of Great Depression photographs. During the 1930’s the appeal of the seemingly idealistic communism of the new and evolving USSR resulted in great numbers of Americans, particularly academics, labor union leaders and misguided “do-gooders” who wanted to show how bad our system was compared to the enlightened communists by hippodroming in photographs the worst they could find. The Germans also used these photos to show the German people how decadent we were.
The consensus of today’s historians is that Hoover’s programs were probably more likely to succeed than FDR’s. FDR was considered a demigod by so many Americans that he got elected president 4 times. Yet his programs were unsuccessful and only WWII brought us out of depression. Thanks to Hitler and Tojo and Mussolini? Ironic. I was there.
Don speaks like a true “blinders-on” Republican. How ironic, Don, that war is partially the reason we are in the mess we are in today.
I’ve been seeing this “Mexodus” in our school system in Ga for the past year. It is noticeable.
Don Herschberg says the New Deal did not work, and seals it by saying, “I was there.” Well, I, too, was there, and I join the majority of reputable economists who say that FDR’s programs did work. In fact, they saved our nation form a disastrous economic collapse. The Federal Deposit Insurance Program, still in place, saved the banks by inducing people to safely resume depositing their funds. At his age, Herschberg probably enjoys a Social Security Check. And how did he like working a 40-hour week, an 8-hour day, with time and a half for overtime and double time for holidays, as apposed to the 10-hour day, five and a half day week with no extra pay for overtime under Hoover? The TVA gave us the extra power needed in building the Atom Bomb at Oak Ridge, workers in all industries gained safety protections and the right to unionize, and the WPA-built libraries, schools and public buildings still serve us today, This could go on and on, but suffice it to say that the New Deal set the pattern for the rest of the 20th Century, created our great middle class, and would have protected us from our present dilemma had not its financial regulations been taken away. Yes, Franklin Roosevelt is revered as a great man, and he deserves it.
People discuss the New Deal of the 1930 and the works programs that helped people during the Great Depresion of the 1930′s, and the stimulus packages proposed today as if they are the same. The difference is in the 1930′s most American workers did manual labor. So a stimulus package creating roads, schools, etc. put the out of work people back to work.
Today, though some manual laborers are out of work, most of today’s unemployed are assembly line or office workers. Creating jobs in construction will not put these workers back to work.
For a stimulus package to really work, people have to start making things again, in the United States.
“American Tent Cities” is the name used in the media I see and hear, which is probably statistically inaccurate because right now the “cities” are not large enough to be so designated. I hope they never are.
I don’t think it matters as much what these places are called, as how the problems causing them are solved.
More than 40,000,000 people live in poverty in the USA. That number is likely to increase as the number of and in “tent cities” increases.
I salute the courage, determination, and ingenuity of tent city dwellers, and wish both them and their policy makers well.
As Don suggests in the past some made propaganda out of “Hoovervilles”. It would be easier to do that today with videos of “tent cities” so readily available on the net.
“Mexodus” sounds fine to me because the migrants need to get to Mexico first, even if they are striving to go farther. I wonder if “el tren del muerto” runs both ways now!
Bush-lands or Bush town seem appropriate, since the former president did little or nothing to avoid this situation…
Don may have been there but his judgement of FDR’s policies are wrapped around the same kind of linguistic jargon that people are trying to label Obama with. It is unfortunate that we continue to have such cynicism in this country, but Freedom Of Speech helped make us great and will continue to keep us strong. Too bad he cannot recognize the truth.
Thanks for your comments.
James: “…true blinkers-on Republican” Wrong. I find enough wrong with each party to endorse neither, for many years.
Rickman: “I join the majority of reputable economists who say that FDR’s programs did work” Economists whether reputable or not have a great record of being wrong. Nobel prizes in economics are routinely given to economists of diametrically conflicting theories, both of which don’t work out.
Kenneth: Many of the programs you extol actually delayed recovery according to present day historians.
Mary: I never did see a tent city in the US although I saw many states from the back seat of a Model A during the 30’s. Decades later I did see the UN refugee city at Jericho Jordan. It failed its clients for several generations. While I’ll grant a rose would smell so sweet with another name, Confucius said the first step to wisdom is calling things by their correct names. Gratuitous naming is fraught with future problems and prejudices.
Helms: The biggest mistake was by the congress, shamelessly pandering to the electorate, and forcing bad loans to be made – which was OK with the Clinton administration. The Geo W administration was too late and too weak and did not have the congressional clout to stem this.
Joe: “Linguistic jargon” I’m sorry, actually I strive to eschew all obfuscation.
Don,
The problems started with the Republican Party’s drive to deregulate everything. Started with President Reagan and carried through by Senators Newt Gingrich and Phil Graham. But to give the Democrates their due they took the bribes and kept their eyes closed.
A good understanding of how we got into the mess we are in now can be found at http://www.wallstreetwatch.org. The report “Sold Out” gives an unbiased detail account of where the money came from and who and what it bought.
“Many of the programs you extol actually delayed recovery according to present day historians.” The programs putting people to work building things like Hoover Dam, the TVA and others may not have ended the depression, but having people work and feed their families had to have kept the depression from being worse, at least on humanitarian basis.
Dear Don, With all due respect, you use too many words (and too many big words) to be clear. In my opinion it makes you sound ultra-conservative despite yor claims to the contrary.
I am not a history buff, but I believe niether Past-President Clinton nor Past-President Bush caused the problem we are in entirely. It goes back to 1968 (possibly before) when we lowered the marginal tax rate. In effect, we stopped taxing greed.
Then Past-President Nixon released us from the gold standard and Past-President Reagan relaxed banking laws…
All the while we, the people, stood idly by and let it happen.
I propose that we call them “Shruburbs” (a play on “Bush”).
Kenneth:
Planning by Hoover for the Boulder Dam (later the Hoover Dam) started in 1922, or 11 years before FDR took office.
As to humanitarian programs, no doubt the greatest ever until the Marshall Plan following WWII was the plan run by Hoover after WWI to save Europe from mass starvation.
Ed M:
My crack “I strive to eschew all obfuscation“ is a joke – intended to be funny.
I think we should honor one of the major corporations who likely fired many of these people so that their top executives didn’t have to sell their private jets. Chryslervilles or AIG-towns, anyone? Lehmanlands?
(I also like Shruburbs.)
I got no problem with a Mexodus. Funny how Mexico deals with illegal immigration with an iron fist and the US just lets it slide. I have known a few people personally that have lost jobs to illegals, if Obama wants to create jobs start actually enforcing immigration laws.