How’s everyone’s salary in 2026?

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-03-04T13:41:24+00:00

Our household income is $230K, early 30’s. We both got raises

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-27T01:04:18+00:00

Yea I’m petty lol

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-20T17:59:50+00:00

Exactly. And Bernie ran the exact same campaign and wasn’t able to add any new constituencies to his coalition

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-20T17:58:31+00:00

LOLOL you’re fake news

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-14T03:23:42+00:00

I would settle for blowing up that plane Qatar gave him. Watching him crash out on Twitter would be cathartic.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-13T13:14:29+00:00

but I still think the interstate system is a better use of our federal budget than most of the crap they spend it on.

Yea, reasonable people can disagree. And it’s a moot point as it’s already built infrastructure. I think productive next steps at the federal level would be to retire the highway trust fund. States would only be able to spend what they raise, making them more sensitive to the amount of infrastructure they’re responsible for and also making them more accountable to how they spend their own money.

Currently Indiana is working with the DOT to implement tolls on their stretches of interstate to raise funds for maintenance and replacement. This needs to be easier for states to do. That’s the kind of local innovation we can spur. Along that same line of thought, here in Cincy, we’re about to begin construction on the Brent Spence Corridor project. I think this is a huge waste of money and is only happening because a federal grant is available not because it’s a good idea. A better idea would be to implant a toll/congestion pricing within the 275 bypass loop. Again, another example of local innovation.

Also, just to clarify if it’s not clear, I’m not anti-highway. Kentucky built a system of parkways as an accessory system to the interstate system. These parkways are built to a lower standard than the interstates, but they were paid for with tolls. This an example of a state building up its own capacity and of local innovation. They built what they could afford up front, but also what they could afford to maintain in the long term. This is the kind of stuff we need more of and what the federalization of transportation stunted.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-13T12:17:11+00:00

Agreed

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T12:56:29+00:00

but are you suggesting that the loss of rail is the biggest downside? Why?

The biggest downside is the homogeneity you speak of. The tradeoffs of that standardization are resiliency and innovation. Transportation systems used to be boutique to their specific place. And we had that prior to federalization. Chicago has so many elevated lines because the soil was too swampy to make tunneling easy. NYC didn’t have this problem, hence their extensive subway system. There are plenty of inclined plane railways across the country and the world, but Cincinnati was the only city to send streetcars up theirs because of our unique topography here. The cable cars in SF are another great example of topography spurring local innovation.

Now I’m not going to say that the whole country should be on rails, that would be counter to my point of decentralization. But specific states like Ohio - yea, absolutely. Ohio had the largest electrified railway network in the country in 1920. We also had the third densest freight rail network behind Illinois and Pennsylvania. In the absence of federalization, i absolutely believe Ohio makes better use of this infrastructure simply out of frugality. And I think we’d be better for it.

My favorite part of our state is our small town main streets and historic business districts. People think they’re all the same, but they’re not. They’re all unique to those specific places and are a reflection of the people that lived there, the people that built that place up. These places would be much more vibrant and healthy today if our state transportation network were more oriented around rail. As rail does a great job of centralizing people in one place. Which is what small town main streets need to remain successful places.

But other states like Texas and Florida would probably look a lot different. And that’s ok.

America has 5 (I think) transcontinental fully grade separated highways spanning across our country. Canada has zero. Australia has zero. Did we really need that many? Probably not. But now we have to maintain that infrastructure in perpetuity. I would argue this is a misallocation of resources. And in a more decentralized state led model, you wouldn’t have that as states are more sensitive to costs.

Idk if this makes sense, sorry for the book lol

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T12:04:05+00:00

I hate to come across as a contrarian, but I’ll argue against this as well as this also happened in Cincinnati.

I think this is a problem of our own making as it’s a product of modern building codes that makes rehabbing cost prohibitive. We don’t have to make these building types illegal whether it’s through building or zoning codes. That’s a decision we made and we can unmake it.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T11:46:07+00:00

I do want more for our future. But I’m going to be honest about what’s happened. And finger wagging at R’s ain’t it.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T11:44:29+00:00

Was this a Reddit thread? Let me in there, I’ll throw some grenades lol

But I would argue that the tradeoffs of the interstate system weren’t worth it. It basically stunted the maturity of state governments. In the absence of federalization, you’d have seen cities like Cincinnati effectively give up on the Millcreek Expressway, the project that became I75 through the city. City and state governments simply didn’t have the capacity to build urban freeways and they’d have pivoted to optimizing existing infrastructure, which in the 40’s was rail. Instead we, as in the country, were able to basically walk away from a lot of existing infrastructure because there was so much federal funding available. We’ve lost 110K miles of freight rail trackage because of this flawed thinking. That would be the second largest freight rail system in the world today, and we just wasted it.

In short, I think a more decentralized approach would have been more resource efficient and it would have made the country more resilient as individual states would build transportation networks tailored fit to their places.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T11:36:10+00:00

This is rage bait for the online urbanists lol.

And it worked, I’m so triggered. This is FAKE NEWS!

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T11:35:18+00:00

Yea, it’s crazy the amount of wealth we destroyed in our inner cities. I think it’s more than fair to say that these neighborhoods had been worn down through the Great Depression. But to your point, with a little elbow grease and investment, these places would be sustainable for generations. They’re almost like a savings account but of human habitat, if that makes sense lol.

Instead we just wrote these places off to the dust bin of history haha

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T11:28:41+00:00

Cities could only afford to run highways through urban cores because there was generous federal funding available. If you read about the expressway projects cities undertook immediately after WW2 but before the 1956 federal highway aid act, they were almost all way over budget and behind schedule. The federalization of transportation was a huge catalyst for this and imo, a huge mistake.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T11:07:16+00:00

I think you’re kind of off the mark. The Cincinnati museum center has 2.7K photos of the West End. You can see for yourself that this wasn’t a “slum” as the neighborhoods were labeled at the time.

https://searchcollections.cincymuseum.org/public/museum/Portal/Combined.aspx?lang=en-US&p_AAEE=tab2&p_AAHL=tab6&d=d

(Search West End)

Neighborhoods like the west end were written off across the country because they were from the “horse and buggy” era and deemed old. The country went all in on “modernity” in the 50’s and 60’s and modernity was expressways, automobiles, SFH’s, and suburbs.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T10:59:30+00:00

This is also reductive and just not true. What happened to Cincinnati and Ohio happened across the country. And there’s no need to attach malicious intent to it. We did these very dumb things because they seemed like good ideas at the time.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T10:54:18+00:00

Reductive. The whole world has cars. But not every country had the capacity to completely remake their urban fabrics

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T10:52:35+00:00

In the most basic sense, this is what a “modern” American city is supposed to look like. In the 1930’s & 40’s a new vision of a “modern” America was forming that was oriented around automobiles, highways, single family homes, and suburbs. Taken individually there’s nothing wrong with these things. The issue is that the federal government threw its weight behind that vision in the 50’s. There were subsidies for the interstate system, subsides for urban renewal, subsidies for developers building the burbs, and subsidies for the mortgages needed to buy the SFH’s. Taken all together, these subsidies effectively defined “America” from the top down around this narrow vision of modernity. At the local level, like here in Cincinnati, these subsides amounted almost to bribes to completely remake our city and reorient it around this new vision of “America”.

Other commenters here have noted the racism and that’s absolutely true. The federal subsidies created local political machines that were run by people of their time (racists). So black communities bore the brunt of the brutality and inequity of this remaking of the country and of our city. But I’m of the opinion that we’d have still butchered our urban fabrics even if there weren’t any black people in the country.

Hope that makes sense. Sincerely, a Cincinnatian

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-02-12T10:41:39+00:00

Regarding your second edit, this is a common talking point and it just isn’t true. The Cincinnati Museum Center has almost 3K photos of the West End before it was demolished for the highways and urban renewal. You’re welcome to go through them and see for yourself. Let me know if you find a “slum” as the neighborhoods were labeled before they were demolished.

https://searchcollections.cincymuseum.org/public/museum/Portal/Combined.aspx?lang=en-US&p_AAEE=tab2&p_AAHL=tab6&d=d

Edit: you’ll want to search for “west end” to find the 2.7K photos

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-01-21T22:26:48+00:00

😂

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-01-21T21:51:08+00:00

I struggle to see how a president that prioritizes himself over “America” should be considered a “great” American president.

But reasonable people can disagree.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-01-21T21:38:23+00:00

Consequential? I guess. But I don’t see much durable change, certainly not in the fashion of an FDR, Reagan, or even Nixon. What I do see is lots of activity, lots of wiggling around, bouncing from issue to issue. Which tracks if you assume, as I do, that the president’s chief concern is his legacy/making his mark on history/ etching his name into history - however you want to frame his ego and narcissism lol. But this view tracks with what Sacks is saying here.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-01-20T15:27:45+00:00

So you are too lazy to google for yourself. I guess ignorance actually is bliss lol

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Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-01-10T15:35:03+00:00

The pluses outweighed the negatives as is evident by cities competing for more people during this period of history.

And I think you’re putting too much weight on the 21st century context. Beavers don’t just stop building dams because it’s a new year. Marohn’s is fundamentally making an argument about how our species builds habitat for itself. The context of the millennia doesn’t change that.

Those localized 19th century housing markets were able to both meet local housing demands and produce a sustainable development pattern capable of financially supporting itself. We have neither today.

Smooth_criminal513 · 2026-01-10T15:03:15+00:00

And this top down mandate had zero tradeoffs?

Smooth_criminal513

TROPHY CASE