On a street in the United States, there appeared zombie-like figures, like the walking dead.
This street is located in Philadelphia, USA, called Kensington High Street.
This feels particularly incomprehensible. How did Philadelphia become like this. You know, Philadelphia is a historic city in the United States.
The United States has a total history of only two hundred and forty years, and there is even a historic city. The historyless United States has a historic city, which is a miracle in itself. Philadelphia is equivalent to China's Xi'an, and in addition to Xi'an, There is Luoyang, there is Kaifeng, there is Nanjing and Beijing, and the United States has only one Philadelphia in terms of history.
It was the headquarters of the U.S. Independence Army and the command center of the American Revolutionary War.
From 1790 to 1800, it was the capital of the United States, where two continental congresses were held, where the Declaration of Independence was drafted, where the U.S. Federal Constitution was written, and where pennsylvania it was located was known as the Vaulted Stone State. It has hosted world expos, manufacturing output once accounted for 30% of the United States, here once established the first bank and the first stock exchange in the United States, is the first American city in the United States to be listed as a World Heritage city.
Some people say that enlarging Philadelphia is the United States, and shrinking the United States is Philadelphia.
In such a city, why is there a zombie street?
Let's first look at the history of Philadelphia, why it became the base camp of the American Revolutionary War, why it is called the city of Horcruxes of the United States, and the spiritual core of the United States.
When it comes to Philadelphia, we have to talk about one person, William Paine.
This man is known as the Father of Philadelphia, and he was the architect of Philadelphia, which may have been the first city to be designed according to personal ideas.
There are many statues of him in Philadelphia now, and there is an unwritten rule that no building in the city can be taller than the statue of William Paine, and if it is high, then something big will happen, and the city will go downhill, first of all, sports performance is not good.
Philadelphia is an important sports town in the United States, the NBA has a 76ers team, Chamberlain, Iverson have played here, football, baseball are also very powerful, but one year, there is a new building that does not talk about Lou de, it is higher than the statue of William Paine, and as a result, after that year, Philadelphia's sports performance plummeted, which is a shame in Philadelphia's heart. Someone in the back made a new statue and put it on the tallest building, calming the city, and Philadelphia's athletic performance was revived.
It can be seen that Philadelphia is William Paine's territory, and Philadelphia must be under William Paine's watch.
William Paine was an Englishman, an aristocrat, a second-generation official, and his father was also named William Paine.
William Paine Sr., call him Old Ben, a British admiral who fought in two Anglo-Dutch Wars and helped the British snatch Jamaica from Spain.
The old guest was very good to the British royal family, and in 1642, the English Civil War, Charles I was executed. The old guest supported the royal family, and finally the British restoration, Charles II came to the throne, and the old guest played a great role.
Charles II is called the King of Joy, put in China, may be Yang Guang's level, especially like to play cards, in charles II's card friends, there are old guests. Old Bin was a master, always winning cards, and in the end, Charles II owed Old Bin sixteen thousand pounds. The British royal family has money, but cash is not to say that there is money, anyway, this money is owed, and there is a chance to repay it later.
What chance is that old Bin's son, William Paine Jr., that is, Little Bin.
Speaking of this small guest, for the old guest, it is particularly unconscious. This buddy did nothing else, and after going to college, he came into contact with a sect called the Quakers.
This denomination is also called the Society of The Faithful, also known as the Sorority. The purpose of this sect is a bit like Chinese Zen Buddhism, that is, not to engage in any complicated rituals, no pastors, no churches, even the Bible can not, as long as you have God in your heart, then God will illuminate you, you can talk directly to God, your ideas do not need to go through the church, through the pastor, you are in direct contact, there is no middleman to make a difference, you say it is good or not. This church is also called the Trembling Sect, and it is said that when the Quakers make contact with God, their whole body trembles with excitement.
The Quakers also advocated the equality of all religious people, that all were brothers and helped each other.
After Xiao Bin arrived at school, he accepted this idea, and the young man, who was very simple and beautiful, was touched by this, how pure faith, which was much stronger than what Catholicism was. He became a follower of this sect, and he did not expect that he would establish a Quaker utopia for the Quakers in the future.
At that time, of course, his behavior was a great rebellion, the Bible could not be wanted, Christmas could be done, the church could not, then all the money and energy we spent was wasted, and then you still had to criticize the church, how do you not go to heaven, canonize you a great saint of heaven. Eventually he was expelled from the university, and he was imprisoned for it, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London in qincheng, England. His father also once squatted, but the time was short, and his father did not understand his style, hating iron and steel. But in the end, I still forgave this son, my own, like Chinese football, I can't play Japan, I can't play Australia, but what can I do, think about it before the round slap, my own, follow myself, don't fight and don't scold.
In the end, Xiaobin inherited his father's inheritance. The old man forgave him, greeted the king, and let my son go. Xiao Bin came out, after coming out, the faith will not change, but also engaged in Quaker that set, the British society does not tolerate him, finally, Xiao Bin thought about it, here is not to leave the grandfather, there is a place to stay the grandfather, then I go to other places is not good. At this time, Britain was developing North America, because Charles II was engaged in restoration, many became knights from the Dragon Minister, and william Paine Jr.'s father had to have land because of this knighthood, and The British had so much land that Charles II was reluctant to divide it, so he distributed a lot of people's land to North America thousands of miles away.
Xiao Bin said, then I will also go to North America, I will not stay in Britain, in addition, you do not still owe our family sixteen thousand pounds, so you give me a piece of land in North America, this debt will be offset.
Charles II saw that this could be ah, one can send away this Quaker activist, the other can also sell debts, he gave a piece of land under New York in North America to William Paine Jr., Charles II is also generous, this land is almost equivalent to the area of the British mainland. There are a lot of woods in this place, and Xiaobin named it Sifania, which means big woods, and the King of England said, "You have to add your father's name, don't forget, this is to cancel his debt." So he added his father's name, which was Bin, and it became Pennsylvania.
Then there are states, and there must be cities. After Xiaobin came here, he began to plan to build a city, ordinary people play my world, build a city in the virtual world, but Xiaobin is really an offline planning city, according to his idea, this city is a green city, buildings and woods are integrated with each other.
Most importantly, it will be a free city where people of any religion can come, not only the Quakers, but of course, the main force that came in the first place was the Quakers. He enacted laws prohibiting the mistreatment of anyone on religious grounds and advocated treating all who believe in God as siblings. And although he is the owner of this land, he did not become the emperor of the land, but he was very tolerant, and did not leave himself a lot of privileges, the law was jointly made by the people of this land, he decided the rent and taxation, the court adopted the jury system, and in order to adapt to future changes, Xiaobin also announced that the law could be amended, which is also the amendment bill behind the United States. Therefore, the founding of the United States is equivalent to starting a pilot here. Many of the ideas of the founding of the United States come from The Utopian thoughts of Xiaobin.
The land here is very cheap, half sold and half given away, so it attracts a large number of people, including France, Sweden and other countries to land in North America, Philadelphia as the first choice, Philadelphia full name is Fela delphia, is Greek, the meaning of the city of friendship. The relationship with the Indians here is also good, there is no gun to grab the land, all the land is bought by way of buying, at that time, the Indians who can't mix in other places will come here to live here. Soon, Philadelphia grew, and even the population once surpassed that of New York, which had developed earlier.
As the governor of this place, Xiao Bin did not engage in any money, and his willingness was to make this place his utopia, a city-state experiment, not for money, but to practice his Quaker ideas.
The Quakers now have few followers, but hundreds of thousands, but they have produced many celebrities, such as President Nixon and movie star James Dean. Quaker's relationship with China is also good, the completion of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States is the Quaker President Nixon, during World War II, the international medical team stationed in Yan'an is the Quaker medical team. Because of the medical aid in World War II, Quakers as a sect also received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Quaker also helped build a school in China, that is, Chengdu West China Union University, the landmark building of this school is the typical Quaker architecture, Quakers have sent many architects, have formed their own genre, the United States Capitol Hill is also designed by them. This school valued education, and there were two universities in the United States, both founded by the Quakers, Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and Cornell University in New York. The side dish is a cornell student. It seems that good universities also produce inexplicable students.
The Quakers are also particularly good at business, the core of the University of Penn Wharton School of Business is the Quakers, they have a lot of their own brands, such as a Quaker cereal, the advertising slogan is that the quality and credibility of the Quakers are as honest and reliable as the Quakers, and the avatar on the packaging is the Quakers.
There is also a Quaker in England, and the founding family and the town where they live are all Quakers.
And Philadelphia is the city of Quakers, the city that can best realize the spirit of Quakers, and it is also the freest and most open city in the United States. So it became the vaulting stone of the American spirit, the city of Horcruxes in the United States. It eventually became the birthplace and base camp of American independence and nation-building.
This is philadelphia's old history, so why is zombie street?
In fact, this is also a status quo in the United States, and such neighborhoods can be seen in the United States.
The reason for this is the shattering of the American dream.
American sociologist Robert Putnam wrote a book called "Our Children - The American Dream in Crisis"
He compared the situation in the United States in the golden age of the sixty-seventh century with the current situation. In the sixties, everyone had food, jobs, everyone had hope, everyone felt that the future was beautiful, everyone had their own American dream, whether you were poor or rich, or middle class, everyone lived in a community, the children in the community, the endless family background was in one community, one school. There is not much difference in life and learning, but now, the society is stratified, first of all, the community is stratified, there are good communities, there are bad communities, good communities with good schools, living in them, are middle-class or rich, they pay taxes, so there are a large number of police to maintain law and order, and in bad neighborhoods, it has become a three-way zone. This has caused the fate of children in two different neighborhoods to be very different.
In the past, poor children could also be admitted to college, and whether they could get into college or not depended mainly on their secondary school grades.
But now it's not, whether he can go to college depends on his family, and the children of rich families have far greater chances of going to college than the children of poor families.
In the past, the wealth of the poor increased faster than that of the rich, which made the people of the whole society feel more rushed, but now, the rich are more likely to become richer, and it is becoming more and more difficult for the poor to change their status.
In the past, it was the father who was outside the master, earning money to support the family, and the mother was in charge of the housework, raising several children together. Working alone as a family allows the whole family to live in a villa, raise two cars, and maintain a high standard of living.
No, now divided into two factions, one is the upper class, this kind of family is unlikely to have only one person to work, often the parents have a job, the family has two incomes, but this is still good, the child can still live with the parents, be well affected.
But in the lower class, generally only one person can work, the other can not find a job, the income is too single, it is impossible to pay for a good education, and the lower class society is more and more unmarried births, unplanned births, or only cohabitation and not marriage, more and more single-parent families, or more and more platter families, the American drama "Shameless" is about such a family.
In the lower family and the upper family, the child's growth environment is completely different, some have suffered from domestic violence, some parents do not support their children to go to college, some parents have their own problems, and some are even raised by grandparents.
It's family, it's community, it's school. Whether a person can go up or not is not how good your academic performance is, but who your classmates are.
Through different neighborhoods, the United States has diverted the children of high-income families from poor families to different schools. Today's parents buy a house and look at the school district first, which has led to the rise in housing prices in good school districts, and good school districts naturally exclude the poor.
Good school districts not only have better teachers and educational resources, but also better family environments and superior family conditions for students. The children of these families not only benefit from good school districts, but also put their own family's good resources into the school, which leads to good schools getting better and better, as we all know, in China, some primary school school games are held in the National Gymnasium near the Bird's Nest.
So, in this case, the United States automatically according to money to demarcate the territory, good families, good schools, good neighborhoods, clear and distinct, in a city, some streets are broken, zombies are walking everywhere, you drive a car in, just like shooting a gangster movie. Very insecure, on the other hand, immediately bright and beautiful, let you feel the prosperity of capitalism.
Therefore, why do we want to engage in university districts in China, that is, to let good school districts and rich communities get rid of fishing, so that poor students and rich students can also study in one school, and American research has also found that poor students also have rich students, which is helpful for their learning. The achievements of a person, the influence of classmates is very large.
The problem of the United States is, of course, also the problem of Philadelphia.
Now Philadelphia still has its two sides, on the one hand, it is the top five big cities in the United States, it is the city of Quakers, it is a friendly city, here or there has just built a street garden, and it is planned according to Xiaobin's greentown concept, which looks particularly beautiful.
But at the same time, people on the other side of the street may be staging a zombie movie. This zombie neighborhood, called Kensington High Street, is Philadelphia's most dangerous neighborhood.
But fifty years ago, that wasn't the case here. According to the recollections of old residents, it used to be safe here, and when it was hot in the summer, children could run to the roof to sleep in the open air, and now they certainly don't have to think about it. It used to be a white working-class area, where people were very close,everyone knew about their neighbors, and everyone cared for each other and maintained the community. In addition to workers, there are also lawyers, doctors and other high-income earners, as well as office workers, and people of different income classes can live in a community. If a child breaks into trouble, someone will immediately recognize you and call you by your name, who, the second egg, Rachel, you have not yet come home, go back and I will tell your parents not to beat you to death. Now no, now see the child, immediately take out the knife, quick, give me your pressed money.
In the past, there were parks, ice rinks, and various jazz and tap dance classes, which were free to attend, equivalent to Chinese square dance. Children can go out and play at will without any danger. On weekends, families pick up brooms to clean the neighborhood together, and now it looks like the place is just a pile of garbage.
Fifty years ago, it was the golden age of the neighborhood, and just twenty years later, the street began to slide, and in another twenty years, drugs entered the neighborhood, and now it has become a zombie street. The streets are not cleaned, the blocks are not public, the police dare not go to the streets, and even the children are afraid to go to school for fear that the way back is too unsafe.
It became a drug-infested place, the cheapest drug in the United States, and many people from other places came here to buy it. Thousands of people have died in Philadelphia because of drug overdose, so you know why so many people have died in the New Crown in the United States, and Americans are not in a hurry, because in front of the New Crown, there are many more things that make them die, and they are not afraid, they are afraid of this new crown. Americans know their destiny. The local government even felt the need to set up a drug station and organize it so that at least it would not overdose and lead to death. Organizing the masses how to take drugs safely is also what Americans dare to think.
Why is that?
Locals believe it is non-white entry. The logic of white artificial people, our community is not working, because the neighborhood is inhabited by black people. In fact, it is mainly inhabited by white people.
Some people think that drugs enter the block and damage the neighborhood, but in fact, drugs are the consequences, not the antecedents. It is the decay of neighborhoods that leads to the entry of drugs, not the entry of drugs that causes the streets to run down.
So why?
American economists and sociologists have long seen very clearly that it is deindustrialization.
The golden age of the United States is the era of industrialization and advantage. Philadelphia was also an important industrial town in the United States, and everyone had a job at that time. But as the U.S. deindustrialization and U.S. manufacturing declined, philadelphia jobs became less and less. American capitalists settle accounts, engage in factories are tired, we engage in some finance, the world cut a wave of leeks, stronger than anything, or engage in high technology, high added value, let China be a factory, give us production of things, the majority of profits are ours. So, the U.S. economy is two-headed, one is Wall Street and the other is Silicon Valley.
This routine in the United States is good, the least pay to get the most profits, profit maximization, is always the pursuit of capitalists. However, after deindustrialization, workers have no jobs.
Manufacturing is the best welfare for the poor. Kensington Avenue is a predominantly worker block, the factory is gone, the jobs are gone, the unemployed in this neighborhood are starting to increase, there are no jobs, the unemployed people have nothing to do at home, what to do, go to fight, go to grab things. The neighborhood becomes dangerous. After the community was in chaos, the capable, such as lawyers and doctors, moved away, leaving only the poor who could not move, and the neighborhood began to diverge. Rich people live together, pay more taxes, have sufficient police strength, have a better sense of security, and the neighbors have endless contacts, which attracts more rich people. Poor people pay less tax, police are understaffed, and poor neighborhoods are becoming less and less secure, so neighborhoods are becoming more and more divided. There are only the rich in the rich areas, and only the poor in the poor areas.
Similarly, the rich neighborhood has the ability to support good schools, the source of students is more advantageous, the resources of students' families are better, good schools will become better and better, and finally become good schools, and the area where good schools are located is good schooling, that is, the rich area.
Bad schools, students' family conditions are complex, the surrounding environment is poor, natural schools are getting worse and worse. Children who don't read well in school, enter society early, and can't find a suitable job add strength to the chaos of this community.
Finally, the welfare of the United States is not bad, even if you do not have a job, the United States is fully capable of raising you, recently Kirin painted a picture of a bland night in Los Angeles, which was originally a satire on American society, and the new crown epidemic led to the death of the man of the family.
However, if you look at it, the main labor force of the family has passed away, but the family can still afford to live in a big house, raise children, and eat, and life is completely worry-free. If in terms of material life, the low-level life in the United States may be the dream life of other countries, so when the United States withdraws its troops, so many Afghans have to take a plane to the United States.
The deindustrialization of the United States coupled with the high welfare of the United States has led to two results, one is that the channels for the lower classes to rise for the sake of manufacturing are gone, the work is gone, and what struggle and effort are still there, the American dream has been shattered for them, but they have no worries about food and clothing, there is no hope for the future, there is no existential crisis at the moment, people naturally lie flat, and the next step of lying flat is to get by like Kensington Avenue, get by, have nothing to walk zombie steps, and live like this for a lifetime.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="62" >Chinese talk about the warehouse and know the etiquette, and know the honor and disgrace of the food and clothing. But now it seems that it is not all, Americans are not short of food, but without the American dream, it is emptiness. </h1>
This is the status quo in Philadelphia, and it is also the status quo in the United States, a fragmented society, a stratified society, a folded America. In fact, the United States is also aware of this problem, from Trump is talking, to let the factory back to the United States, recently also asked TSMC to move to the United States, but now the United States to revitalize the manufacturing industry, its competitiveness can not be restored?
If not, I am afraid that Kensington Avenue will not be able to return to the golden age of that year, to the time when neighbors supported each other, cared for each other, and the rich and the poor lived together.