Sanpaku, the Fanatic

[sanpaku_backup]

So I was a little bleak and vague in my last post. To put it succinctly, so as not to excessively bore the people who will be bored by it -- and for the benefit of people who don't read my other blog -- the synagogue near me, to which I devote a lot of my life and energy, has voted in principle to move quite a ways away from us.

For lack of a better word, I feel heartbroken about this. I am basically here (as in "Rhode Island") in large part to live out the absurd dream of being in a neighborhood where I could afford to live and yet walk to synagogue, as well as other things like the parks and the water and the library and the school. But in addition to it being my selfishness, there is a religious principle involved, though the details are, as you would expect, kind of esoteric.

But there's a secular side of this as well, something about the thought of the place becoming an abandoned synagogue that I find incredibly depressing. It's part of this weird fantasy nostalgic view I have of urban neighborhoods and the things they represent, and the connection we have to the past and other ways of living. This is not new to me; I actually spent a fair amount of time in Baltimore searching for and finding abandoned shuls, which are strewn through the urban landscape of every American city. It's more than just archaeology, too. I think it's the sense that the kind of life I want to live was possible not so long ago, and then people picked up and fled like rats to the dullness of the outer suburbs, for no sane reason. I can't come to terms with it. Indeed, I don't understand why people live like that today.

The whole experience has concentrated a certain strain in my thinking that veers toward the aggrieved and the fanatical. I take it all much too personally, when really it is just the way things are. I wonder sometimes about this whole eccentric enterprise and its tendency to produce a Philip Rothian moment of complete estrangement from everyone around you.

It's very hard to explain, especially in the confines of this cynical little medium. Another way to put it is that it's easier for me to make connections to places, to buildings, than to people. Dammit if people won't let you down every time.

Comments

there is no map, and a compass won't help at all

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

As we both so recently know, buying a house is an act of faith. I'm sorry about the let down.

Re: there is no map, and a compass won't help at all

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Well, I knew this was probably coming. I decided that it was worth having the house even if they moved, and that's still true. We'll figure something out. It's just frustrating to have most of the pieces fit for once and then start falling out again.

How are you guys enjoying your heating bill? :-)

hot hot hot

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh! Our heating bill is so HOT that we just huddle around it for warmth. No, we can't afford hot cocoa-- we have to pay the heating bill!

Rates are up something like 65% in the last two years, which is totally awesome. I love paying a $300 heating bill!

Re: hot hot hot

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

That's about what we pay too. I'm kind of stunned. Oil is really expensive. Of course, it doesn't help that it seems a lot colder and snowier this year than usual.

[cellio]

At this point, if it weren't for my congregation, I'd be moving outside city limits. Our government is corrupt and the taxes are onerous (and with the city in bankruptcy, that's not going to get better). I wonder how much urban flight boils down to economics, and then people either decide to drive on Shabbat or found new congregations.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Well, cities have always been corrupt and had high taxes, but people used to want to live in them anyway. So what I'm talking about is not today but the 1960s. People built all these urban shuls in Baltimore the 1950s and then packed up and left within 10-15 years, primarily because of white flight, i.e. they got scared and conned by real estate developers and so forth.

You and I differ politically, of course, so we're going to look at this issue differently. Personally, I have a hard time believing people choose where to live based on small differences in the property tax rate. Cranston (where I live) is famous for its corruption and was in bankruptcy and all that, and recently raised its taxes dramatically, but we still moved here along with a lot of other people last year (property values went up 22% here last year).

Oddly enough, the folks at the shul who live far to the south live in tony areas with high taxes. The town of Charlestown (the sticks) has a higher tax rate than the city of Providence -- actually a lot of the small towns here do if you look at the millage rates (and there's no local income tax here). So I don't know whether Pittsburgh or Rhode Island is more atypical.

I think the fundamental reason Pittsburgh's in crisis today is because, as with other cities, so much of the tax base has already left and the population remains has more problems. If the only people that lived in Pittsburgh were people who now live in Mount Lebanon, there'd be lower taxes. Given how badly the underlying economy of Pittsburgh has deteriorated, it's amazing that it isn't much worse than it is, ie Baltimore or Detroit. Somehow they've staved off the wolves this long, but the end is probably in sight.

[cellio]

Well, cities have always been corrupt and had high taxes, but people used to want to live in them anyway.

True. I don't have a good-enough sense of history here; are there more, and more-accessible, jobs outside of cities now than a few decades ago? I have the impression that one car per adult in the house (as opposed to one shared by everyone) is also more common, which gives people more freedom when public transit isn't up to snuff. Just speculating out loud, mind; I think white flight is also a big factor in many places.

As for taxes, in Pittsburgh both property and income taxes are higher than in many of the surrounding communities. This is certainly true of the one I left to move into the city, and it's also true of the one my parents live in. So this, combined with having fewer people overall (i.e. rates are going up, not down) is driving people out.

The state stepped in last year to manage our bankruptcy. Too soon for real results. Having a tax-and-overspend governor may impede the process. We'll see.

I think the fundamental reason Pittsburgh's in crisis today is because, as with other cities, so much of the tax base has already left and the population remains has more problems.

Yup. And while some infrastructure costs can't be scaled back as population declines, others can -- but the folks benefitting from those positions are well-connected politically, so anyone on city council who wants a political future is not going to make the needed cuts. We have half the population we did a generation ago; we need to restructure some things. You've heard me rail against unions in the past (and ma nishtanah hayom hazeh?); in this case they're not really even protecting workers but, rather, padding the coffers of the leaders. Case in point: our public-transit system is in financial trouble (and just got a large band-aid from the state), but instead of cutting the top levels and deciding that maybe they can't afford a construction project of dubious value, they're cutting routes (and thus drivers) and raising fares -- making it even harder for poor workers to continue working in the city. This does not serve the public interest.

Sorry -- got off on a rant there.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

...when public transit isn't up to snuff.

Yep, no question. People used to live in such a way that their lives and the transit system dovetailed. No turning back the clock, but the wholesale destruction of the public transit system in many cities and replacement with car-promoting policies also had its centripetal effect... well, that's my other rant.

In Baltimore, though, the areas that I'm talking about (Liberty Heights, Park Heights) were in the city itself, detached houses, kind of like a Dormont or Lawrenceville type area (like where I am now). I.e., garages have space for 2 cars. But they left anyway.

I know Pittsburgh is plenty corrupt -- just ask my parents sometime about what they think about the downtown merchants and their hold on the politicians. And let's not even start with the stadium insanity. But after you live in Chicago and Providence, Pittsburgh-level corruption just seems so darn... cute! :-)

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

That's really, really depressing, what's going on at your shul. :(

What are they planning on doing to the old building? Selling it?

If you are ever in Portland, Maine, go take a look at the abandoned synagogue they have there. Well, it's not *really* abandoned -- a small group of mostly old men have services there every week -- but
the building itself is beginning to show its age, and there is no community to take care of it. We went upstairs to take a look around, and decided to go back downstairs because the _floor_ we were standing on didn't feel safe. The pine trees have overgrown to the extent that you won't even notice a building there from the street.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

They were told by a developer that they would get $1 million for it, with the building to be knocked down and the property turned into a strip mall. (That's the irony: it's a very desirable location, middle of the state, on a major road leading to 95.) Yes, it makes my heart sink just to think about it.

It would certainly mark me as a fanatic to say to them, hey, incidentally, you're going to majorly fuck up my neighborhood with all this.

I davvened in a shul like that in Baltimore, as I may have mentioned to you when I visited. I think they've since given up the ghost. It was a very affecting place. I should write about it sometime.

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

Aha! Strip mall. :/ The shul I went to briefly in Texas was actually located in a strip mall (walking distance!), but then they went up and moved away too, but that wasn't so bad, since I was visiting. :/

Hard to be non-Orthodox though and care about the whole not driving thing. I think I'm lucky... our shul ain't going nowhere.

The most depressing thing about the synagogue in Maine -- they were doing the wrong parsha for the week.... (They were also doing triennial -- but I think that typically follows along with the same parsha everyone is doing?) It was kinda sad... but they were there out of love and conviction, and somehow the very fact that they were off by a week made me very sad and somehow seemed symbolic.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Hard to be non-Orthodox though and care about the whole not driving thing.

This is my mishegas, and what makes me a fanatic. It also leads me to tilt at any number of windmills.

I'm lucky... our shul ain't going nowhere.

If I could afford a house where you guys are, I would move there in a second.