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Make Downtown Great Again – Cannabis | weed | marijuana
How can we make downtown great again? In many inner cities, there has been a significant increase in vacant retail space in recent years.
Many North American cities have their fair share of empty skyscrapers. Even in small towns, the main streets have become desolate wastelands, with crumbling buildings in some areas and overgrown weeds choking the sidewalk.
Our cities have become skeletons: empty storefronts and derelict buildings like the bones of a long-dead animal. Many of us live in the urban wasteland. Dotted with the remnants of a bygone era. A hollowed-out downtown, a haunting reminder of better days.
But why and how did our inner cities become like this? And what can we do about it? What can we do to make downtown great again?
9 Reasons Your Downtown Sucks
To make downtown great again, we need to understand what went wrong. Why are there so many empty downtown storefronts in North American cities? Here are nine possible reasons:
- E-Commerce Competition: The rise of online shopping has led to a decline in walk-in and brick-and-mortar sales.
- Changing consumer behavior: Consumers are increasingly looking for experiences instead of material goods and are spending more money on services such as travel and dining out.
- Economic crises: Economic crises can reduce consumer spending, causing retailers to run into trouble and possibly shut their doors.
- Rising Rents: Rising commercial rents, particularly in desirable downtown areas, can make it difficult for small businesses to afford a physical presence.
- Shift toward experiential retail: The trend towards experiential retail, which includes entertainment and dining options, has resulted in a shift in the types of stores that occupy storefronts, freeing up some space.
- Urbanization and Migration Patterns: Urbanization and changing migration patterns can lead to shifts in demographics and consumer spending, affecting the profitability of certain retail businesses in certain areas.
- Technological Advances: Technological advances have led to increased automation and efficiency in the retail industry, reducing the need for physical storefronts and possibly leading to closures.
- Government policies: Government policies and regulations, such as B. Property taxes and zoning laws can affect the retail sector and contribute to the number of empty storefronts.
- BlackRock and other large institutional investors have acquired significant amounts of real estate. Whether you have acquired commercial space in your city center depends on where you live. But if not BlackRock, then some other ESG touting hedge fund.
BlackRock owns your neighborhood
If the idea of a billionaire hedge fund buying properties and renting them out to the masses sounds dystopian, that’s because it is.
BlackRock is one of the largest investment firms in the world, with over $10 trillion under management. They have partnerships and investments with several large companies. Including but not limited to:
- letters (google)
- Amazon
- Microsoft
- Berkshire Hathaway
- Apple
- Johnson&Johnson
- JPMorgan Chase
- Procter & Gamble
- Verizon
- Visas
- Walt Disney
- Walmart
Whether residential or commercial, BlackRock and other large institutional investors have acquired significant amounts of real estate. There is nothing wrong with buying and selling real estate in a free market economy.
But this is not a free market economy. And neither BlackRock nor the companies listed above have thrived in a free, competitive system.
BlackRock has insisted on “resetting” capitalism to achieve its goals. Which of course is an increase in their power and wealth under the guise of helping humanity and the climate.
This begs the question – if BlackRock is a crooked, crooked capitalist investment firm, do they have ownership rights to these empty downtown storefronts?
From a legal point of view – yes, they do. But what is legal is not always what is legal. Just ask the indigenous people of North America who are forced into state boarding schools.
Which brings us to our solution: Land Back.
Making Downtown Great Again with the Land Back Movement?
Some indigenous peoples are demanding the return of their traditional lands, which European settlers took through colonization and displacement. This is known as the “land back” movement.
The movement seeks to empower indigenous communities and restore their sovereignty over their lands and resources. It also focuses on protecting sacred sites, preserving traditional ways of life, and restoring traditional structures of government.
Essentially, it is the resurgence of indigenous culture and identity.
“You have to stop crying on the shoulder of the guy who stole your country,” Arthur Manuel, one of the movement’s intellectual leaders, used to say.
Want to make downtown great again? Let the Land Back movement occupy BlackRock-owned properties to assert their sovereignty over their traditional lands.
Of course, the Landback movement is diverse, with different goals and tactics. Not all groups or individuals within the movement agree with my approach here.
But listen to me.
Make Downtown Great Again: Is Land Occupation Justified?
Every now and then, a demonstration led by indigenous people closes roads, highways or infrastructure to make their voices and concerns heard.
(Although in some cases the protesters are not indigenous but have “woken up” university students who contradict what the local indigenous leadership is saying).
Nonetheless, whenever these demonstrations occur, they often reveal underlying prejudices. For example, there is a movement to build houses to prevent the Trans Mountain pipeline from entering the Secwepemc territory.
Do you want the RCMP to destroy these homes but support the Freedom Convoy’s occupation of Ottawa? Check your premises. That is why it is important to read Rothbard.
Murray Rothbard was a prominent anarchist and proponent of the “Austrian” business school. According to his philosophy, occupying and settling space is justified if the state currently owns it.
Rothbard believed that state land ownership was illegitimate and that individuals should have the right to hold unowned or abandoned land and property.
According to Rothbard, the state has no legitimate claim to property. But what about private property that results from “public-private partnerships” like BlackRock’s relationship with various North American governments?
(Or how private actors have “encroached” on governments with the World Economic Forum to advance their agenda).
Although he did not specifically write about the occupation of land owned by private companies working with the state, we can infer from his principles what his views might be.
That is, occupancy of land owned by a public-private partnership is legitimate if the person (or company) obtained the land through coercion or through violation of property rights.
What about legitimate home residents?
As previously mentioned, there is a diversity of thought and belief within the Land Back movement. Rothbard says if you get the land by duress, then it’s not really private property.
Ergo, BlackRock owns nothing.
However, the issue of land ownership and the treatment of Native Americans by European colonizers is complex and contentious. From a Rothbardian perspective, stealing land from Native Americans would be viewed as a violation of property rights and an illegitimate form of acquisition.
Obviously, the historical treatment of Native Americans and the acquisition of their lands by European settlers was often a violent process that was not always consistent with property rights and home settlement principles.
This leads to ongoing disputes and tensions over land ownership and compensation to this day. So what’s the solution? Well, in that context, we’re trying to make downtown great again, not solve a centuries-old complex conflict.
In this sense, Ludwig von Mises writes:
Ownership in the market economy is no longer linked to the distant origin of private property. These events in a distant past, hidden in the darkness of primitive man’s history, no longer matter to our time. Because in an unhindered market society, the consumer decides anew every day who should own how much. Consumers are delegating control of the means of production to those who know how best to use them to meet consumers’ most pressing needs. Only in the legal and formalistic sense can the owners be regarded as successors of appropriators and expropriators. In fact, they are agents of consumers who are bound by the functioning of the market to best serve consumers. In capitalism, private property is the consummation of consumer self-determination.
Make downtown great again
There is a belief among some Indigenous activists that they should “turn Canada off”. Block roads and critical infrastructure until the government meets their demands.
i have a better idea Occupy empty storefronts owned by global hedge funds and developers.
But this is not an occupation like a protest. This is more like the 4/20 Cannabis Farmer’s Protest in Vancouver. The demonstration is that Canada’s cannabis users can safely buy and sell weed without Big Brother looking over their shoulder.
Likewise, Native Americans may occupy empty spaces in downtown BlackRock. They can “shut down” Canada by refusing to recognize the Crown’s authority.
Imagine a small town where indigenous shops now occupy what were once empty storefronts. Think of the possibilities:
- Cannabis Shops (these already exist)
- Coffee shop
- bakery
- Juice and smoothie bar
- Cannabis Consumption Lounge
- yoga studio
- art gallery
- bookstore
- music store
- barber shop
- spa
- wellness center
- co-working space
- meeting point of the community
- gaming lounge
- Local food market
- bike shop
- gym
- recording studio
- dance studio
The Land Back movement can “shut down” Canada by enticing Canadians to join them. Canadians fed up with the fascist system (because that’s “public-private partnerships”) can become honorary members of the local indigenous tribe. Then they can get involved in these low-cost, local business ideas that promote local craft culture and environmental protection.
You can trade currency that is not a fraudulent debt instrument. They can pay local taxes to a local indigenous tribe instead of the centralized corporate state.
Whether your background is Native American, European or whatever – we are not enemies. The enemy is the state and its lackeys, bootlickers and enforcers.
If we are in unceded Aboriginal territory, then the Crown has no legitimate claim to authority.
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