It's not supposed to flake, or rust. They're signs of damage -- often of deep neglect.
buildings change hands, no one thinks about maintenance -- real estate investment means it changes hands before that ever matters, up until it does.
I was thinking today about bus stop rain shelters, as one does, and how a lot of people don't seem to realize that advertising ate the world a long time ago, not twenty years ago.
It's easy to tune out. But the bright colors of the cities are just ads, when you bother to look at them, and not the ads on your phone.
today on my bike ride through the rotting corpse of connecticut, as I do every few days;
I saw a building, wrapped in bright red vinyl, advertising yet another apartment complex. This one was empty.
The spalling mentioned above was showing even through the vinyl wrap. evictions long served, the shell game continuing.
I'm sure they'll knock down the 14 stories and put up 6.
and the parents are afraid of that, because the news is afraid of that.
no one asks why, it's just that the screens are addictive, claim the psychologists and the screen companies.
keep them off of them! it's ruining their grades! it's ruining their mood! it's making them apathetic!
zoomers are so cringe.
their parks close at 4pm, because there might be drugs in them. Or people who don't have a bed, looking for a place to sleep. Or, heaven forbid, pee.
or, worse, all that noise from the teens might drive down property values.
they kick you out of malls now if you're under 18 and don't have a parent around.
I wonder how many people actually know that. I don't think anyone over 18 has shopped at a mall in over a decade.
I hate to keep coming back to it, but the spalling is just so obvious once you know what you're looking for. I don't mean to make you dwell.
they tried to blame it on skateboards in the 90s, you know. I can't verify that one.
It hit me when I turned 30. seems smart. shift the obvious rot onto the skateboarders -- always clattering, cutting close, scaring people,
bleeding on the just-bleached pavement. surely they're what's destroying the buildings. But we made the plazas private.
Where no one ever walks. Rotting, all the same, and after the pandemic, the concrete shrapnel isn't even cleaned from the courtyard.
The rebar stains turn it the same color as the skateboarders did. less teeth, i guess.