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typicalgirls - Re: [TypicalGirls] Jamie K. Sims: former Cosmopolitan

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Subject: Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

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  • From: pascale amzallou <pascaleamz AT yahoo.com>
  • To: "Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)" <typicalgirls AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [TypicalGirls] Jamie K. Sims: former Cosmopolitan
  • Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 19:44:03 -0700 (PDT)


The city didn't have enough money to pay for basic
things like garbage
pickup, salary increases, various civic services
involving upkeep of
streets, public transportation, schools and parks and
so on. The US government wasn't willing to help the
city out, so the quality of life declined for nearly
everyone. Many of those who could moved out to the
suburbs or elsewhere. NYC was a pit - dirty and
crime-ridden and with the general feeling in the air
that things would get much worse before they got any
better. This was also the post-Vietnam/Watergate/60s
aftermath and I don't think it would be a misstatement
to say that the public malaise resembled a hangover.

In short, the undesirability of living in NYC for many
made it pretty cheap for others.

This is an oversimplification, but hopefully you'll
get the idea. A lot of cities went through similar
dark periods, and many - especially those whose
economies where less diverse and more industrial in
nature - never did recover. Which is why Detroit's
kind of a disaster to this day, and no one really even
can imagine that Gary, Indiana was once a nice place
to live!

Given its geographic importance, size, pre-existing
infrastructure, wildly diverse economy, status as a
tourist mecca and other things, it seems in retrospect
obvious that NYC would rebound in a big way. But in
the 1970s, this was a very debatable issue - I
remember when almost no one would venture past the
sidewalk into Central Park, even in the day!

Pascale


> > “It was cheap then because New York was going
> bankrupt,� she says.
> >
>
> I know it's OT but could someone elaborate on the
> idea above? Feel free to
> take it offlist.


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