I'd be interested to know where you saw these "pictures".
There's a group of people who like to paint the picture that the US is devolving in to a Dickensian nightmare. There is always room for improvement, but as someone who lives here and has traveled extensively I don't think you can say that "lots of people live in squalor".
Sure, we have 300+ million people, so you can find people who are homeless and living on the street, but that would still be the case even if the government offered unlimited free housing.
I saw them on German TV, and OK, maybe also in Michael Moore's movie (not sure, I watched it recently but I am foggy about the details). For example there are pictures of the tent cities that emerge.
To be honest lots of stories from the USA sound disturbing, but then again I can not claim to know every corner of Germany. Perhaps there are lots of people living in squalor here, too.
I have traveled very extensively through the US (still, there are plenty of places I haven't been). From my experience, you'd have to look very hard to find what I'd classify as a tent city.
That being said I know where one is and I've been there working with a local church organization. It's in the woods behind a local shopping center, and at any given time there are about 15-20 people living there.
The church helps out the best they can, but the vast majority of the men living there wouldn't leave if they were offered free housing. Most of them have mental issues, and the only way to really get them out would be involuntary commitment.
In short, it's ridiculous to find a tent city somewhere, film it, and use it to claim that America is devolving into Calcutta.
It's not devolving into Calcutta for sure, but certainly a nation with the wealth that we have can (and I'd argue should) provide a much higher standard of living for the members of society on the lowest rung of the ladder. If not by direct assistance then by structuring society so that the people at the bottom don't bare an unreasonable amount of the burden. (I'm thinking restructuring payroll taxes, tax vouchers for necessities, etc.)
I am not sure if I trust your research. How have you traveled - did you seek out poor places? I don't think tent cities emerge at the typical tourist locations.
Are you saying that there is no problem in the USA, no financial crisis etc? Because I have been hearing other things - but I know the media likes to hype, too...
Yes, plenty of the places I've gone have been by plane, to tourist locations. However, I've travelled extensively by car throughout the middle to lower sections of Georgia and Alabama (fairly poor areas).
I'm fascinated with how technology has changed rural life, so I like to visit small towns just to observe. For instance 10 years ago I noticed fairly substantial differences in the way teenagers from rural areas dressed compared to suburban teenagers (i was a suburban teenager at the time). Now the differences, in apparel are closing rapidly. Also, when I was a kid and the Nintendo 64 came out but everyone was out of stock. All you had to do was drive to some small town (Hazlehurst, GA) Walmart to find one. Now because everyone is so connected, that same Walmart had a line out the door on the day the PS3 was released.
I'm also the type of person who likes to go to a city with no plan in mind and just wing it. A few friends and I, went to New Orleans about 2 years after Katrina, we got a hotel near Bourbon Street, but we spent most of our time just walking. We walked for miles, covered a huge part of the city, and definitely ended up in some places where we probably shouldn't have gone.
In summary, yes I've definitely been in places where one would expect to find tent cities.
I'm not saying they don't exist, but if you do find one, it's likely to be just a handfull of people living in the woods, not what I'd really call a "tent city."
Also there is a problem in the US, there is a financial crisis, but the average person gets up everyday and goes to work. They may be worried about the economy, but no more than the other stuff the 24 hour news warns them about (you know--child murderers, plagues, terrorists etc...)
There's a group of people who like to paint the picture that the US is devolving in to a Dickensian nightmare. There is always room for improvement, but as someone who lives here and has traveled extensively I don't think you can say that "lots of people live in squalor".
Sure, we have 300+ million people, so you can find people who are homeless and living on the street, but that would still be the case even if the government offered unlimited free housing.