I read this Jane Jacobs book a few years back. I am starting to think she is right about the decay and rot that is creeping into contemporary society.

The following is a summary of Jacobs’ description of the decay in each area.

Community and Family
People are increasingly choosing consumerism over family welfare, that is: consumption over fertility; debt over family budget discipline; fiscal advantage to oneself at the expense of community welfare.

Higher Education
Universities are more interested in credentials than providing high quality education.

Bad Science
Elevation of economics as the main “science” to consider in making major political decisions.

Bad Government
Governments are more interested in deep-pocket interest groups than the welfare of the population.

Bad Culture
A culture that prevents people from understanding the deterioration of fundamental physical resources on which the entire community depends.

But then again, if was sitting in the same seat in fifty years ago, the decay probably would have looked even worse — things weren’t exactly looking up when you looked out in the window of the world in 1969 with the Vietnam War underway, crime and inflation creeping in, and the wheels just about ready to come off the economy as the world plunged into the 1970s.

And she makes a still very valid point when it comes to ideology:

Overall, Jacobs argued that the very concept of “ideology” is fundamentally flawed and detrimental to both individuals and societies, no matter what side of the political spectrum an ideology comes from. By relying on ideals, she claimed people become unable to think and evaluate problems and solutions by themselves, but simply fall back on their beliefs for “pre-fabricated answers” to any problem they encounter.