How is your part of the world doing (both current and future prospects) compared to how it was 30/40 years ago? Please say where you are in the world.
Edit- Thank you everyone for commenting. It has been very interesting for me and hopefully for others. If you are just coming to this post please still comment I am still reading them.
I’m in AZ, USA, and I like it. Everyone outside of AZ is freaking out about the weather, but I enjoy it. I’m much more comfortable in the dry heat than I am in 75°f with humidity.
Anyway, I like that we’re a pro-abortion state and a pro-gun state. I like that there’s a lot of thought diversity here and less anger in general.
cant speak for the greater country but my part of it is pretty good though not so much for me personally. America, PNW.
there’s a lot more jobs here - mid 1980s was when the tech boom hit our area, but real estate prices are very high as well, ~$600k for the area, ~$800k for where I live. it’s basically unaffordable to live here unless you make 6 figures - anything less than that is struggling.
I’m working on a van build so I can move to a more favorable state as I do not make anywhere near 6 figures. got about $40k in it now and probably another $25k to go, roughly.
Honestly, things could be way worse, but could also definitely be better. After many many years of rule under cabinets led by the neoliberal VVD party, earlier this year the cabinet fell. Mark Rutte, leader of the VVD and prime minister for forever, also announced that he was stepping down. Under his party, many scandals erupted and the living standards for many normal people got worse.
And thus it is time for change, but it’s not exactly certain what that change will be. The last polls I saw had the VVD (with a new candidate and seemingly a different course), PvDA/GL (combined list of labour and green party), and a new party called “New Social Contract” (NSC) going pretty even for the lead. But many other parties are also in the mix.
Time will tell of this goes the right or the wrong way, but it’s surely an exciting time for politics. Hopefully income inequality will decrease, people will be happier again, etc.
Overall I’m slightly hopeful about the future. Despite all the problems, it’s still a great country to be in, and I don’t think that that’ll change too much in the grand scheme.
We are still waiting for at least an alternance at the top of the country with the governance of a family for more than 50 years. Since 2020 and the last elections, life has getting more and more difficult for the population and you can feel the frustration in people. Opposition parties are not credible anymore and can't really lead the fight anymore. Just a minority is keeping the money of the country; it's not my words but the president's ones but he can't do anything about it because he is also a pawn in the system and can't do nothing again those who put him there.
Just tired. I can talk about a lot of things but I don't have energy for that. Seems like we are waiting for something, some are talking about revolution. It can happen when the population will say enough is enough but togolese people are too much patient and don't want to die in vain about politics. Also, the last time things got serious, it was with a lot of deaths but it brings a sort of democracy, at least some rights but now we are getting back in every right we got. We were close to changes in 2017 but the opposition parties didn't handle it well and here we are now. The system has weakened them also. They even shut the mouth of university movements and associations that fought for changes for us students.
For the future, only God knows!
Overall, probably way better but the future is uncertain and unemployment is terrible. No Spanish governments seem to have the answer to this. We’re far too reliant on tourism and the pandemic hit hard, with some not recovering despite the support given.
I’ve only been here for a comparatively more short amount of time, but I’m told it’s been more or less the same here, aside from recent natural disasters.
Hardy seems worth reiterating as it’s always in the news, but the US seems like it’s in overall decline for most any reason you can think of. Rising disparity, falling buying power for the average person, stagnant wages, increasing costs, rising political instability, rise of the far right with literal calls for civil war, rise of the far right looking to tear down any social, environmental, educational, or scientific advancements, the steady march towards oligarchy and corporatocracy, and then there’s the global climate crisis speeding up and the realization that we’ve been lied to about saving the world with recycling and EVs while the corporations rake in billions and pollute remorselessly.
30-40 years ago the economy looked steady, you could save the world by filling the recycle bin, and you could afford an education, home, and maybe retirement if you followed the “go to college and get a good job” path that generations before had followed.
Subjectively and objectively I’d say we’re worse off.
Sure, there’s some potential bright spots. Advances in medical care (that you probably can’t afford), fusion power advances (that will probably arrive too late to do any good), rising renewable energy (fought every step of the way by anti-environmental types), and a resurgence in the labor movement (also fought every step of the way by the wealthy and corporations), at least that’s something.
USA. Still kickin. 30-40 years ago actually puts us right astride the end of the Cold War. Before that we were still terrified of the world ending in nuclear fireballs or rampaging hordes of raving communists zerg rushing through the Fulda Gap, after that we fell into a period of extremely hopeful and naive feelings (the 90s) where things seemed to be going very well, that lasted about 10 years. Then the divisive 2000 election and 9/11 occured, dashing that feeling for the next few decades.
I’d put our current state on par with that state of Cold War opposition, when things were still frightening.
Prospects are about as expected. We’re winning some and we’re losing some. We’re pinning most of our hopes on our ability to innovate at the technical level to figure out a way out of this climate mess, now, since we’ve run out of alternatives basically.
On the whole I am cautiously optimistic. Depends what happens to Trump, he’s a powerful symbol.
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