We visited Baltimore's waterfront historic district a few years ago. It is quite beautiful and diametrically opposite much of Baltimore, which is crime ridden and impoverished. However, with the Baltimore gangs having expanded into the waterfront in random gang attacks against innocent people - extremely violent attacks - and with no apparent arrests and the police explaining they don't have the resources to stop it - we will not be returning. That tourist area is a major source of tax income for the city so as it vanishes Baltimore increasingly will become Detroit. In many USA major cities now controlled by Democrats, the politicians essentially have declared that police are the criminals and criminals are their victims. Many Democrat officials and in general make excuses for criminals, including violent criminals. I don't read or see many Democrats rating against violent crime, only against the police, incessantly. Increasingly, rational police in those cities recognize that they should go to work, avoid doing anything at all and go home for their own safety from their own city's Democratic Party government. Such Democratic Party city governments are financially broke but still spend money on themselves as if they are the federal government and can just print off endlessly more money and write endless IOUs. With few exceptions, riots, looting, gang attacks, ethnical/racially/politically/religiously motivated mass murders occur in Democratic Party controlled cities. Detroit, once one of the USA's greatest cities, is an impoverished, crime ridden hellhole. Chicago murder rates off the charts. Large areas of Democratic Party controlled cities across the rust belt have areas of cities were property values have fallen to nothing. There have now been multiple gang attacks on Baltimore's waterfront and the police saying there is nothing they can do about it. Across the USA, major USA cities controlled by Democrats for decades are in radical decline, financially broke, crime increasing, property values falling, and the police unwilling to do much anymore since the Democratic Party openly has declared war on the police. The only response I see the Democratic party taking in such cities is to use their police resources and dwindling tax resources to build themselves walled rich liberal Democrat safe havens from the chaos they not only created but promote and defend. The rest of the city can burn for all they seem to care, while making excuses for the arsonists as they themselves hide behind their police and move to their walled and defended suburbs outside of the city. I recall when a motion was made in one city to require people in city management positions to live within the city - and it didn't get 1 vote. Live in and under the consequences of the city they run? Unthinkable! Even most of the politicians technically required to have an address in the city to run for office generally have their real home outside it. Can America's Democratic Party controlled major American cities be saved?
Must be a mid-west thing, because out here on the west coast, our big cities are doing quite well, thank you very much.
If the status quo remains the same, the answer is no, these really bad cities cannot be saved. I can think of some things that might turn things around, but they're kind of on the radical side. They cost money for law enforcement, and some fairly radical ideas to bring jobs into those areas. Tax-free enterprise zones, and such. And some rather radical ideas to cut the legs out from under the drug gangs - clinics for addicts, for example, rather than the gang-related street dealer. Btw, did you get my last PM? Seth
And all the Black people are being priced out of those cities, if they haven't already been pushed out. Oakland in the Bay Area is the primary one that comes to mind. Also happened in Seattle and the surrounding metro region, and the East side of Los Angeles. It's a double edged sword. Property values going too high up has problems as well as property values going too far low. And what we have been seeing is prices skyrocket in certain regions after they had plunged in other regions. Anyway, seems like the Democrat-controlled areas on the West coast can do no wrong, since there's so much money over there. Hard to mess up in the big cities when there's so much money available to spend in those big cities.
I think you hit the nail on the head. It is all about money. At one time, Detroit was the envy of America because of the automotive industry, but that has changed. There is now too much competition in the automotive industry and America has moved from a industrial society to an information society. The Internet is where the money is being made, not building things. In Detroit, they (Democrats and Republicans) made the mistake of believing that they could continue to do things the same way they've always been done, but that is not the case. When the paradigm shifts, you have to shift with it or be left behind.
A lot of it is about money but race feeds into it as well (and accelerates things). The internet industry only employs a fraction as many people as the automotive industry once did. It might be the new trend in the economy, but it is not comparable and not a replacement. (i.e. it's not simply just a matter of the mode of profits having changed) That would be like if oil disappeared from the Middle East and was replaced by their own local movie industry. Wouldn't be comparable.
That depends on your definition of well. Poverty is high, cost of living is high, crime is high. Middle class in the north bay are moving further north etc.. I use to live in the Bay Area I left in 95 and it is much worse now. I still live in California and know people in the bay area and many need help to survive. I'm talking about working people. And don't be fooled California could care less about the poor or middle class. And the only green they care about is money.
In a list of the top 25 most populated cities sorted by highest poverty rate, San Francisco and San Jose were at the bottom with 10.1% and 10.7% respectively. Ok, Los Angeles was #9 with 19.5% (Detroit was #1 with 35.7%). Also in the top ten were Memphis, TN, El Paso, TX, Houston, TX, and Phoenix, AZ, all fairly Republican cites. You can see the stats here: https://www.statista.com/statistics...n-the-top-20-most-populated-cities-in-the-us/ As for crime rate, Detroit, MI had 20 violent crimes per 1,000 people in 2016 and St. Louis, MO had 19 violent crimes per 1,000 people in 2016. Los Angeles and San Francisco had 7 violent crimes per 1,000 people in 2016 and San Jose had 4 violent crimes per 1,000 people in 2016. (see stats here: http://www.freep.com/story/news/2017/09/25/database-2016-fbi-crime-statistics-u-s-city/701445001/) Of course I am cherry picking here, but it is to make a point. Notice that the majority of the high crime/high poverty cities use to be industrial hubs where the big money was in building things, but times have changed. Manufacturing is no longer where the top jobs are. so all the old industrial cities like Detroit and St Louis are dying. The industrial revolution is over, welcome to the information age. The big money in now in the Internet, so the cities with a large technological base like San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, and Seattle are thriving. Los Angeles was a big industrial town, but it also has a fairly strong tech base. See this has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with basic capitalism.
Yeah, because under Obama all those liberal cesspits were so much better. Oh wait, actually none of them did...
I had to vote IDK, I Don't Kare. The real question in my mind is WHY should the Federal government do anything about it? It's nothing more than a correction process in progress as a result of how residents allowed/demanded their government be run. Nothings too big to fail, and if it's rebuilt maybe the people who remain and rebuild it will have learned a lesson and not repeat the same mistakes again. But history seems to show us that all governments become progressively worse over time, so about all we can do is try and extend the time between collapses.
LOL, the blue states and cities are the donor states to the red flyover welfare states and lead in education and high technology , industry and culture. It is the flyover yokel dwelling states that are dying off as are their demographic
Which States Are Givers and Which Are Takers? https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...tates-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/
The blue states with dense populations tend to be collectivists with high welfare populations that depend on society. At the top of the rung, you have the elitists with higher degrees of education/indoctrination that embraces Marxist leaning philosophy. Thank God for the electoral college. The founding fathers were quite wise because they knew what it was like to be ruled by a self described "elite" class.
It seems that Detroit has been governed by the Democrats since January 1962. How could it possibly fail?
