Turn Out The Lights - Largest U.S. Cities Becoming Cesspools Of Filth, Decay And Wretchedness

The Economic Collapse ^ | 05/24/2012 | Michael Snyder

[SeekAndFind]

Once upon a time, the largest U.S. cities were the envy of the entire world. Sadly, that is no longer the case. Sure, there are areas of New York City, Boston, Washington and Los Angeles that are still absolutely beautiful but for the most part our major cities are rapidly rotting and decaying. Cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Memphis, New Orleans, St. Louis and Oakland were all once places where middle class American workers thrived and raised their families. Today, all of those cities are rapidly being transformed into cesspools of filth, decay and wretchedness. Millions of good jobs have left our major cities in recent decades and poverty has absolutely exploded. Basically, you can turn out the lights because the party is over. In fact, some major U.S. cities are literally turning out the lights. In Detroit, about 40 percent of the streetlights are already broken and the city cannot afford to repair them. So Mayor Bing has come up with a plan to cut the number of operating streetlights almost in half and leave vast sections of the city totally in the dark at night. I wonder what that will do to the crime rate in the city. But don't look down on Detroit too much, because what is happening in Detroit will be happening where you live soon enough.

A recent Bloomberg article described Mayor Bing's plan to eliminate nearly half of Detroit's streetlights....

Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60 percent fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space by eliminating almost half its streetlights.

As it is, 40 percent of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city, whose finances are to be overseen by an appointed board, can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing’s plan would create an authority to borrow $160 million to upgrade and reduce the number of streetlights to 46,000. Maintenance would be contracted out, saving the city $10 million a year.

What this means is that there are going to be a lot of neighborhoods that will have the lights turned off permanently.

So which neighborhoods will those be?

According to one top Detroit official, "distressed areas" are going to be on the low end of the totem pole....

“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”

City officials know that they cannot force people to move from "distressed areas", so they are going to encourage them to leave by cutting off services.

But turning off the lights is not the only way that Detroit is trying to save money.

Recently, officials in Detroit announced that all police stations in the city will be closed to the public for 16 hours a day.

It is so sad to see what is happening to what was once such a great city.

Back in the old days, Detroit had a teeming middle class population.

Today, 53.6% of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

Back in the old days, Detroit was a shining example of what America was doing right.

Today, 47 percent of all people living in the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.

Back in the old days, middle class neighborhoods sprouted like mushrooms all over Detroit.

Today, the median price of a home in Detroit is just $6000.

Needless to say, crime is exploding in Detroit and many families live in constant fear.

Many have taken justice into their own hands. Justifiable homicide in Detroit rose by a staggering 79 percent during 2011.

But Detroit is only one example of a national trend.

For example, a recent article by Jim Quinn entitled "More Than 30 Blocks Of Grey And Decay" described the filth, decay and wretchedness in West Philadelphia. Quinn refers to the drive through this area as "the 30 Blocks of Squalor"....

The real unemployment rate exceeds 50%, murder is the number one industry, with drugs a close second.

As you drive down the 30 Blocks of Squalor you meet the ghost of Squalor future for West Chester Pike. The population along this corridor is ignorant, dependent, and represents the dregs of our society.

But this area was once home to middle class families. There were once many beautiful homes in West Philly, but most of them are now either gone or are crumbling badly. According to Quinn, the physical decay is matched by the social decay....

The once proud homes are in shambles. Bags of garbage dot the landscape. Most of the people who live here are parasites on society. Personal responsibility, work ethic, education and marriage are unknown concepts in this community. Even though more than 50% of the students in West Philly drop out of high school and the SAT scores of West Philly High students are lower than whale ****, the bankrupt school district spent $70 million to build a new high school/prison to babysit derelicts and future prison inmates. The windows do not have steel bars yet, as the architect was smart to put all windows at least eight feet above street level.

One of the great things about the article is that Quinn pointed out how the retail stores in the area reflect the things that the population of the community truly values....

The Chestnut Plaza truly represents what is important to this community. This Squalor Center, as opposed to Power Center, includes a video porn store, cash checking/payday loan outlet, smoke shop, donut shop, Laundromat, and liquor store. No need for a wedding ring store or resume writing service.

Sadly, there are communities like this all over the country. As I wrote about recently, the entire state of California is slowly being transformed into one gigantic cesspool.

Yes, there are still a few areas where the wealthy play that are absolutely beautiful. If you stay in the wealthy enclaves you might never even know that the rest of the state is badly decaying.

There are really good reasons why millions of people are moving out of California. For example, a reader named Peter left the following comment on one of my recent articles....

I am a native Californian ( Im 61) and have lived here all but two years of my life. I can tell you absolutely that this state is not what it was 30 years ago. Cities like San Francisco have gone from being world-class tourist attractions to national disgraces. Los Angeles is a third-world city. San Diego is bankrupt. Even Silicon Valley, despite the recent improvements, is no way what it was in the 90′s. The retail trade is all but dead in this state. Even high-end malls like Rodeo Drive and Ocean Ave in Carmel are full of vacancies.

Throughout the state, good businesses are shutting down and hard working families are selling their homes. The void that is being created is being filled by crime and gangs. The following is a comment that a reader named Roberta left on that same article....

Yep we lived in Oroville CA back in 2007 and it was just starting to get bad then. Montgomery Wards closed, then McMahan’s furniture closed and NOW McDonalds is closing this July along with a grand slam of well known businesses are all folding and pulling out of Oroville or folding lock-stock-n-barrell. It’s turning into a gang town with wide spread rampant drug use. I feel sorry for family and friends that are still their clinging onto the hope that thnigs “will” get better. But I don’t think so.

Perhaps things are still quite good where you live.

Perhaps you think that you will be immune from all this.

Sadly, the truth is that this is just the beginning.

The U.S. economy is actually performing much better than it should be thanks to the trillions of borrowed dollars that Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress have been spending into the economy.

When our debt-fueled prosperity ends, a lot more cities are going to end up looking just like Detroit.

America cannot prosper without middle class jobs, and those kinds of jobs are rapidly disappearing.

Just this week HP announced that it is going to lay off 27,000 workers.

We are losing middle class jobs at a time when we desperately need more of them.

Last year, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor's degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.

Yet our politicians continue to pursue the same foolish policies over and over.

So things are going to continue to get worse and America is going to continue to descend into squalor.

You better get ready.

[familyop]

"Turn Out The Lights"

That's a good idea. ;-)

[Lancey Howard]

Same with Pennsylvania. Like Carville once said, "Pennsylvania is Philadelphia at one end, Pittsburgh at the other, and Alabama in between." What he meant, of course, is that the tax EATERS ("Democrats") are concentrated in the big parasite nests (plus areas where the Democrats completely control the local propaganda outlets and the voters are, more or less, morons), while the tax PAYERS ("Republicans") are spread out everywhere else. Hence, you get a county-by-county electoral map that looks like this:

[Jimmy Valentine]

Tommy D'Allessandro (brother to Nancy D. Pelosi) was an old line machine politician.

Wm Donald Schaefer was a Democrat, but a first class mayor who loved the City.

Burns was a non-entity

Schmoke put the whole City well on the road to perdition. And it got worse with each succeding mayor.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Sacramento is not really big but I saw massive changes.

From 1970 when I was 10 years old, to present, I have seen Sacramento go from a sprawling open cow town, to complete fill and congestion.

In the 198s and 1990s, middle class whites abandoned the city of Sacramento for outlying suburbs Rocklin, Roseville, Loomis, Lincoln, Davis, Folsom, Fair Oaks, and El Dorado Hills. They forfeited the city to an influx of former residents of the East Bay Area, Oakland, Alameda, San Leandro, Hayward, Richmond, and El Cerrito.

Now much of Sacramento proper is coming to be as rough, rundown, ugly and crime ridden as those East Bay Area communities are. You can see it coming. The whites with money (hell, anybody with money — whites, asians, blacks, Indians, Middle Eastern, Hispanics, ANYBODY) are all moving to the outlying suburbs, conceding the ever-more decaying city.

It is really sad to see a city disintegrate like Sacramento is doing. I spent most of my life there and it was never a beautiful or nice city, but it was generally clean and neat and safe liveable. You could raise your kids in peace and quite.

Good luck with that in the future if you don’t live in Rocklin or El Dorado Hills or other solidly middle class enclave.

Really really sad. Disgusting really.

[vette6387]

“Let’s look at the Mayors of Baltimore:

Thomas L. J. D’Alesandro III 1967 1971 Democrat

The last Republican Mayor elected in Baltimore was in 1963.”

“Mayor” D’Alesandro is Nancy Pelosi’s Father! When you folks who deride Calfornia’s current state take to the airwaves, just remember where the $hit that caused all our problems came from.”

[vette6387]

I don’t know about Rodeo Drive, but I was down on Ocean Ave. here in Carmel last night for dinner out, and I can tell you that the town of Carmel-by-the-Sea is far from dead despite the loony Leftists who run the government. The problem here is that most of the property is owned by absentees like me. We don’t get to vote even though we are the majority. The cadre who run the place are in the main, 60’s hippies who bought here when it was cheap and stayed. Impending deaths will change the politics here eventually.

[hattend]

I won’t go near Oakland after twilight.

I have friends who invite me to Oakland A’s games but I’ll only go to early ones.

I will never go to a Raidah’s game...ever!

[hattend]

Is D’Alesandro the turd Pelosi’s dad?

[hattend]

We had a bum urinate on the bench we were sitting on at the Wharf. He wanted the bench to sleep on and started cussing us out.

We have a picture of the incident somewhere.

San Francisco is a sewer. I’ll only go there if somebody else buys me Giants tickets.

[hattend]

AK= Alaska
AR is Arkansas

You had me wondering there for a minute

[Ken H]

oops. You’re right.

[wardaddy]

it is absolutely hilarious that so many freepers are so daft as to think that these cities have declined simply because dems run them

and stupid

plenty of cities that run very well despite being run by democrats and for one reason

they lack what has destroyed the other cities

Dems don’t help but they can’t destroy cities without other components

Memphis prospered well enough under Dems many years ago when it was majority white

my hometown...same thing

and so forth

[wardaddy]

black culture already had issues...same ones as today...just less

but more than whites by a long shot even pre LBJ

1962 black illegitimacy was 20 percent or so...a quarter what it is not but pretty high for back then

for whites less than ONE PERCENT...imagine that ...less than n one in a hundred white children were born out of wedlock

and pre Roe as well...and pre pill more or less

astounding

black culture has had problems since Reconstruction but LBJ and the Dems and cooperating GOP...and there were plenty of them btw contrary to the canards tossed about here...made it much much worse

they also harmed poorer whites too but no one focuses on that

before LBJ there was much less distinction party wise ...both were fairly liberal in spending

Dixiecrats were obviously more socially conservative as were the Buckley-Goldwater-Reagan GOP who all opposed King and the 1960s racial redress stuff which made the wonderful world we now inhabit possible

[Ken H]

it is absolutely hilarious that so many freepers are so daft as to think that these cities have declined simply because dems run them

and stupid

plenty of cities that run very well despite being run by democrats and for one reason

they lack what has destroyed the other cities

Agreed.

[MikeSteelBe]

“... how much further will we allow it to go?”

I do not know.

It may take another Lexington/Concord to start the process, and another Nuremburg to punish the tyrants.

Franklin’s original motto of the US was:

“Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.”

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Memphis prospered well enough under Dems many years ago when it was majority white

So your conclusion is the RACIAL MAKEUP and CULTURE of the population is the most important factor that influences the thriving or decaying of a city?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Is D’Alesandro the turd Pelosi’s dad?

Yes sir he is.

[OldPossum]

I too, am pessimistic and am convinced that we will balkanize. This may be be for the best though. Liberal and Conservative ideologies are incompatible, and I for one, do not wish to live with those who fervently believe that socialist-marxism is our future.

I, too, have grown weary of the constant barrage of liberal ideology from our media. It has grown worse than tiresome and cannot continue.

[OldPossum]

I suppose that you are more optimistic by nature than I. But do you think that the “opposing cultures” aren’t going to out-populate us? I do. Look at the announcement today that whites are now a minority in Texas.

Besides, the dominate cultural population in the United States doesn’t seem to be political aware that they have a problem, much less interested in solving it. They’d rather watch TV.

And as for friend with 15 children...Ye gads! That strikes me as ridiculous. One would have to have the temperament of a commanding general to look over such a brood. All things in moderation, you know.

Really, sir, it’s over. Les jeux sont faits, to quote Jean-Paul Sartre. The die is cast

[wardaddy]

Yes i do.....all else being relative