gentrification

The death toll from the Grenfell Tower fire in West London continues to rise, as authorities are now indicating the number of residents burned alive may be at least 60 now, as more bodies were found in the stairwells of the high rise. This is not including some of the top floor flats which have yet to be forensically investigated. 
Apparently, Prime Minister Theresa May did try to meet with residents, victims and community leaders, but the visit came to an abrupt end as angry protests chased the prime minister’s car as May made a hasty escape from an irate mob.

IMAGE: Grenfell Tower in West London, pictured along side the Wicker Man.
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21st Century Wire
The week saw one of the worst urban disasters in recent history, as runaway fires consumed a low-income high-rise council estate in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea. So far, police have confirmed 17 dead and have indicated that they expect to find many more fatalities.

The new issue of the Harvard Business Review carried an adaptation by urbanologist Richard Florida from his new book, The New Urban Crisis, warning about "a sterile sameness" that's been hard to miss taking over cities we all used to love and feel inspired by. I don't think Florida is as worried about it as I am...

Last week, urbanologist Richard Florida did a post ostensibly about Vancouver, but completely relevant to all the great cities of the West. As he said, "Young, affluent, highly educated people have flowed back to downtown cores in cities like London, New York, San Francisco and Vancouver.

Jay Dyer, Hesher and Patrick Henningsen cover the 21stCenturyWire Fake News Week, highlighting the MSM’s greater hits of total retardo deception and madman nonsense.
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Lost in the overall dreariness of Donald Trump’s victory on election night was the decent amount of better news on more local levels. The decriminalization of marijuana continued its forward progress passing on eight of the nine public referendums on which that some version of issue appeared. Though perhaps the most intriguing news came out of Los Angeles where voters overwhelmingly passed a referendum that will fund a public transportation system that the city has been haltingly working towards for decades.

Jay Dyer
21st Century Wire
A classic JaysAnalysis interview: Former Asst. Secretary of Housing, Catherine Austin Fitts joins Jay Dyer to discuss the systemic corruption that plagues the U.S. economic sphere. From the black budget to Enron to BCCI and the bailout, Fitts deconstructs how exactly we got into the mess we’re in, including the tie-ins of black markets.

DNAinfo caption: "Flooding along the East River waterfront on the Lower East Side as Hurricane Sandy barreled toward New York on Monday, Oct.

In search of a haircut, I found Analog, Eugene’s favorite barber shop according to Yelp. Also a tattoo parlor. Upstairs, the walls are lined with LP album covers of the 60s, 70s and 80s, with good tunes on the sound system. But it was too busy that morning, with a long wait.

House keys not handcuffs: Melodie, 57, has been living on the street since 2007. She keeps her belongings attached to her at all times. Photo by Ekevara Kitpowsong, whose solo exhibit, City People, is on view now through July 31 at Modern Times Bookstore Collective in San Francisco.