The Progressive US City Building Self Sufficiency & Preparing For Capitalism's Collapse
Last edited Fri Nov 1, 2019, 01:56 PM - Edit history (1)
The US city preparing itself for the collapse of capitalism. From a festival that helps artists trade work for healthcare to a regional micro-currency, Kingston is trying to build an inclusive & self-sufficient local ecosystem. The Guardian, 10/31/19.
Kingston, New York is a diverse city of 23,000, flanked to the east by Rondout Creek and the Hudson River and to the west by the Catskill mountains. It boasts a rustic industrial waterfront, a colorful historic district and Revolutionary War-era stone buildings. A stranger might call it bucolic.
The streets of uptown are bustling with eateries and, of late, places to buy velvet halter dresses, vintage boleros, CBD tinctures, and LCD tea kettles with precision-pour spouts. But strolling by 10-year-old Half Moon Books, passersby might glimpse a different side of this city. The bookshop’s windows exclusively feature nonfiction on the end of the world as we know it. “I started out putting together a window of utopias,” says bookseller Jessica DuPont, “but somehow I ended up with the death throes of capitalism.”
- Stockade District, Kingston, NY
I moved to Kingston from New York City just over a decade ago, on the heels of the 2008 recession. I was three years out of university, but my fledgling career in media stalled with the economic downturn. Friends of mine – two painters, one in her 30s, the other in his 40s – owned a building with an available apartment on the second floor where I could afford to live and work. My new neighbors – artists, musicians, shop owners, builders, gallerists, restaurateurs – treated me like family.
Our community was diverse in age, but we all had our independent creative pursuits in a place with scant economic opportunity otherwise. Thus, many of us shared the same problem: a lack of access to healthcare. America’s healthcare system has long been in shambles: then and still today, where single-payer care was available, premiums and deductibles were astronomical. Luckily, among our friends were doctors and dentists who valued the work we did as equal to their own. So, we came up with a plan. Drawing on the age-old system of barter, we figured out a way to trade – the art of medicine for the medicine of art.
In October 2010, we launched our first weekend-long festival of street art, live music and health-related events. We called it O+, like the blood type. The general public attended by donation. Licensed health professionals volunteered to staff our on-site pop-up clinic. Over the years, thousands of participating artists, like Lucius, Spiritualized, and locals who played with the B-52’s and David Bowie, have received medical, dental and wellness services worth hundreds – and in some cases thousands – of dollars. Some artists say the care they received even saved them. -More...
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/31/us-city-preparing-itself-for-the-collapse-of-capitalism
Wiki, Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, United States. It is 91 miles (146 km) north of New York City and 59 miles (95 km) south of Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grouped with the New York metropolitan area by the United States Census Bureau, It became New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British on October 13, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga.
In the 19th century, the city became an important transport hub after the discovery of natural cement in the region, and had both railroad and canal connections. Passenger rail service has since ceased, and many of the older buildings are part of three historic districts, including the Stockade District uptown, the Midtown Neighborhood Broadway Corridor, and the Rondout-West Strand Historic District downtown..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston,_New_York
- Kingston, New York is in the midst of a creative renaissance.
- 'A weekend in Kingston, the Hudson Valley’s creative capital.' Kingston: the first capital of New York State. Burned by the British. The former home of a hulking IBM campus. Sounds…dusty, right? Indeed, Kingston has been a sleepy town since the IBM campus—which operated from the 1950s to the early ‘90s and employed over 7,000 people at its height—shut down. The closing of the facility was a major economic hit to Kingston and the surrounding towns in Ulster County. Ever since, Kingston has been a city with an aging population and several historic neighborhoods facing increasing vacancy. Until recently.
Kingston, today, is emerging as a hub of artistic activity and has seen a huge surge in the number of people moving from elsewhere. Unlike many of the more rural surrounding towns, most of Kingston’s newer residents aren’t merely coming to weekend or vacation, but to work, live, and stay. While the Hudson Valley has always had a strong artistic community, Kingston is unique in its deliberate zoning and programming meant to attract, house, and retain working artists and craftspeople..Mary Stuart Masterson’s Stockade Works is helping grow both professional and creative opportunities in the film and television fields. Kingston even has its own minor league soccer team, the Stockade Football Club, whose games draw packed crowds. Add to that a growing number of creative professionals and young families fleeing New York and other cities for lower cost of living and a less harried lifestyle, and you have the makings of a small city in the midst of a true and very unique revival..https://brooklynbased.com/2018/11/07/weekend-kingston-ny-where-stay/
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Ashville too, heard so many good things about it from f & f for years.
Kingston, NY citibus.
Tourism: The City of Kingston is nestled in the heart of Ulster County, New York. It is 91 miles north of New York City and 59 miles south of Albany. Kingston was New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British on October 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga. In the 19th century, the city became an important transport hub after the discovery of natural cement in the region, and had both railroad and canal connections. Passenger rail service has since ceased, and many of the older buildings are part of three historic districts, such as the Uptown Stockade District, the Midtown Neighborhood Broadway Corridor, and the Downtown Rondout-West Strand Historic District.
https://kingston-ny.gov/content/8391/default.aspx
