Aug 2, 2003 12:12 AM GMT

Right now the economy is stacked up in my front hall: one clear bag of paper, one clear bag of corrugated cardboard, one blue bag of plastic and metal. Last summer, as the city of New York realized its budget was several billion dollars in the red (and argued amongst itself just how many billion dollars - apparently it's hard to keep track if you're a city), the mayor suspended all glass and plastic recycling. New Yorkers who had finally been conditioned to separate their garbage suddenly had to unlearn those skills, and dump their milk jugs and spaghetti sauce jars into the regular trash. This meant more garbage for the regular trucks to pick up, which cost the city more money; and finally this summer the mayor decided that it was cheaper to let people recycle their plastics after all.

But with a catch: once-a-week recycling pickups were cut back to once every two weeks. And so instead of being able to take the bags of plastic and paper to the cans outside, they pile up in our hallway, awaiting the anointed week when we may turn them over to the authorities.

It's just one of the ways that the city is getting meaner, not in a Giuliani jackboot-style assault, but in a slow tattering into pettiness and parsimony. With raising taxes a political no-no (even with the addition of a state income tax surcharge this spring, tax rates on the rich are still nowhere near what they were ten years ago), Mayor Bloomberg's administration has settled on fines as his preferred method of raising revenue: fines for parking illegally, fines for putting your recycling out on the wrong day, fines for parking at a meter on a Sunday (formerly a free day). And then there is the subway fare, ratcheted up from $1.50 to $2.00 this spring, amid charges that the transit authority had kept double books to make the fare hike look more necessary than it actually was. (A court case confirmed the charges, but ruled that the transit authority could do whatever it wanted anyway.) At two bucks a pop, I find myself leaving the neighborhood less and less - cheaper to stay home and surf the Internet than wander a city with such a high cover charge.

Meanwhile, there are still more layoffs and the threats of layoffs. One friend reported last week that she'd been informed her freelance wage was to be "restructured" (downward, of course) "because of the economy." Somehow, her bosses had never offered her a raise "because of the economy" when things were bright in the '90s. She refused the pay cut, and found another job, one that doesn't pay as well as her old salary, and has less convenient working hours. But she took it nonetheless - because of the economy.

Neil deMause, Brooklyn, NY

Jul 30, 2003 07:06 PM GMT

From here the economy looks...strange. We're lucky, in a way, because there are jobs for a lot of people here in Houston, but because of that it feels like the other shoe has yet to drop. Everyone seems on-edge, afraid for their jobs, their pensions, their insurance. Everyone's taking whatever job they can find, even if they hate it. The thing I notice most is that people who used to work for dot-com startups like I did now cringe when you ask them where they work: "Uh, Exxon." "Yeah, I'm over at Halliburton." "Freelancing for Reliant." We've all collapsed back to the monolithic oil-and-gas industry that underlies most of the city; as bad as it feels, it feels good to get a paycheck again.

Not everybody's been lucky enough to land another office job, mind you. I ran into one of my wife's ex-coworkers, a guy who had run the print department at her company before they went belly-up -- he was working at a little neighborhood coffeeshop I happened to go into, and he tried to hide behind the espresso machine when he saw me. Now when I go into Wendy's, or Blockbuster, or Mister Car Wash, I catch myself thinking, "do I know that guy?" Some friends have taken the slump to be a good thing, a sign that they need to change their lives. I know at least a dozen people who've gone back to school, trying to reinvent themselves as doctors, lawyers, teachers, anything different from what they used to be.

Weirdly, housing prices haven't gone down, but have remained up at the ridiculous Internet-fueled levels they were before the market tanked. The hotshot bank manager who bought my in-laws' condo in the inner loop right before the crash never even got to move in, as far as we can tell -- we heard on the news that his bank was doing layoffs, and then the house was for sale again. People still want to live downtown...they just can't afford to. So they sell their house and move to the edges of Meyerland, to the East End, to the far northern Heights, places near enough that they feel like the city but far enough out that they don't cost more than $300 grand.

Like I said, though, we're lucky. Everybody I know just tries to keep an eye out for one another, helping friends and family along and hoping things go up rather than further down.

Jeremy Hart, Houston, TX

Jul 29, 2003 12:48 AM GMT

Here in our rural area there's little noticeable change. No industries to close, no major changes in economy to report. 40 miles away the cities are booming. Suburbs and new roadways are going up so fast that no county or city map is current a week after the last one is plotted. Housing costs are leaping too, with the median price now at $200,000 plus, in an area where many earn less than $50,000 a year, and most have an income of less than $30,000.

The worrisome signs are there though. Businesses that close their doors unexpectedly. Restaurants that literally close their doors while customers, who moments before were eating lunch, are suddenly asked to leave. Panhandlers in a nearby small town, and more and more men and women seen on the local highways wearing backpacks, thumbing for rides. Local library systems that can no longer support "fulltime" services so million dollar buildings sit there empty and unused for 5 days out of the week. It's in the lack of raises for county employees for two and three years at a time, while the cost of living rises by increasingly larger percentages each year.

That's the economy in the rural South, a frustrating picture of plenty juxtaposed against increasing poverty.

Terri C., rural Georgia

Jul 28, 2003 10:17 PM GMT

In Astoria, a neighborhood deemed "the new Bohemia" by Time Out New York in 2001, real estate costs have skyrocketed over the past 4-5 years (I knew someone renting a one-bedroom for $1700 a month). Recently, there's been a slight leveling off...a downturn even. Still, speculators are buying post-war homes from the elderly, tearing them down, and putting up what my wife and I call "yuppie towers." These ugly, pre-fab buildings are eye sores...mere filing cabinets for those poor souls fleeing Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Mom-and-Pop stores are vanishing...but we now have Victoria's Secret, Starbuck's, Domino's, and all the other signs of creeping homogenization. My landlord tells me her property taxes and water costs have both risen dramatically in the past six months and I've begun to envision a time when I must leave the neighborhood in which I've spent my entire life. To go where? Who the hell knows?

Mickey Z., Astoria, NY

Jul 28, 2003 06:59 PM GMT

1. small apartment
2. small dog
3. groceries on the credit card
4. bicycle instead of subway
5. cooking at home
6. waiting till next year for the dentist
7. year before last year's shoes
8. putting up with the boss
9. not having kids
10. debt

Shannon Rothenberger, New York, NY

Jul 28, 2003 02:58 PM GMT

When we moved from prosperous Park Slope to down-at-the-heels Flatbush a little over a year ago, the first thing I noticed was the absence of panhandlers. They had been everywhere on 7th Avenue, through the Reagan years and the first Bush recession and the '90s bubble, mostly sitting on milk crates outside the ubiquitous Korean fruit stands, quietly asking "Spare some change?" Some were mildly annoying, a couple I'd befriended, and one - an older white man who looked uncannily like William Burroughs and had for years used the same shtick: "I was just mugged, can I borrow a quarter to make a phone call?" - I studiously avoided. But in the new nabe, nothing. I figured if you're a panhandler, you go where the money is.

This spring, though, I started to see them here and there, mostly by the subway entrance; new faces, but the same tired, patient look. The trick now is to figure out: is this a sign of desperation, or that our new neighborhood is starting to be colonized by people likely to have spare change?

Neil deMause, Brooklyn, NY

Jul 28, 2003 02:52 PM GMT

It looks like my parents getting a second mortgage.

It looks like my father panicked that his benefits are being cut at his "secure" state job.

It looks like dark circles under my eyes from working one full-time job and as much freelance as comes my way.

It looks like gratitude that I finally found a job.

It looks like trying to decide whether to replace the bald tires (two with slow leaks) or take the dog to the vets.

It looks like friends helping friends to get through the hard times.

Davida Gypsy Breier, Baltimore, MD

Jul 28, 2003 02:48 PM GMT

What does the economy look like from where I am?

Grim.

Teachers have been laid off. Some were called back, but not all. There are new school buildings, but will there be enough people to staff them? Before the buildings were built citizens were told there would be no layoffs. There were.

Plants have closed. A plant recently closed in the village where I live. I wonder where the people will be absorbed in my tiny town of 4,000?

I recently heard from a colleague that our air force base, a major local employer, is on the short list to be closed. Although I'm not a huge fan of the military I wonder what it would do to our local economy. Will it turn the towns of southwest Ohio where I live into mere ghost towns?

There is a hiring freeze in the library systems nearby (though not in the one in which I work), and talk of curtailing bookmobile service and staff layoffs. Hours have been cut, and materials budgets have been reduced. I wonder about the future health of our democracy when its citizens may not have ready access to information.

Teachers have been laid off. Some were called back, but not all. There are new school buildings, but will there be enough people to staff them? Before the buildings were built citizens were told there would be Alan Greenspan says that we are out or nearly out of the recession. The stock market is slowly rebounding. But consumer debt continues to grow, as do mortgage foreclosures. And I don't see lots of economic growth on the horizon.

Lisa M. Kreutter, Yellow Springs, Ohio

May 22, 2003 10:47 PM GMT

This is a test, to see what it looks like.