I don't really look out for race, but there was also the racial dimension to this -- the office workers in suits or getting to offices were white or south asian indians or chinese, while the hard-working workers in restaurants were white or latino and the workers in fast food places were black. The poor were all black and the people loitering around doing nothing were predominantly black (with a few whites, but no Latinos or Asians that I could see).
The homeless were all black.
The Democrats have ruined this country for black people, destroyed the chances of black people for rising -- I just take a look at pictures or videos of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr or watch Selma and see cultured, erudite, educated, well-dressed black men and women -- and I look at the african-americans of today and think that the Rev would be appalled as well -- what a shame.
go to So Cal. you can live and work for months and never see another White person. I am not exaggerating. I fled. I am 1000% happier now
The white middle class is disappearing... along with it the bastion of American democracy.
We’re regressing to medieval Europe where a wealthy few ruled over masses of desperately poor people clinging to the margins.
Americans have no hope their children will be able to inherit the American Dream.
The country increasingly does have a Third World vibe to it. Not that its elites care.
It's not race, it's a self-identified "society" - and I blame socialism and Democrat cynicism for this (you see the same among whites in Labour areas in the UK)
Welfare, that's half the story. But the other half is this: In the 1970s a black kid (or any kid) could graduate high school, then go get an entry job at the local mill or factory. Those companies are now all overseas. The Democrats and the Republicans share responsibility for letting that happen.
Ms. Delaney can’t put a name on this place, or just made up “Depresso”?
Hi Cronos, long time
I thought at first he was talking about Honolulu. Most of the island has turned into a third-world country. Homeless everywhere, roads falling apart, it takes people 3-4 hours a day just to get to work and back home in terms of commute time, it’s desperately depressing in much of the island.
In Tempe, there are commonly beggars at major intersections and highway on/off-ramps. Quite a variety of people.
Obama came to America and CHANGED it by taking away our HOPE
jobs defenses borders allies morals and much of our peoples’ faith.
And nobody (Judicial branch, Congress, the supposed Fourth Estate “free press”, anyone else) stopped him.
He’s still doing it to us.
305 days, 8 hours, 12 minutes and 7 seconds to go....
Please pray for America.
You’re looking at a whole subculture of people who simply don’t fit here, and never belonged here.
“The Democrats have ruined this country for black people, destroyed the chances of black people for rising...”
Blacks ruined everything for themselves. Are they too stupid to see the results of their actions? People are responsible for themselves.
>>If I were a US citizen, in November I would vote for the most caring candidate <<
Therein lies the problem. ALL candidates for ALL offices SAY they care. Yet, when given the chance, they do NOTHING. Or worse, steal all the money that should have gone into care.
This didn’t happen overnight. The big cities have all been ruled by Democrats for decades. They care about the people. Yet, mayor after mayor of these big cities is marched off to jail for corruption. Steal a little here, Steal a little there and pretty soon all the care money is gone. And you have Detroit, Camden, Philadelphia, etc.
Yet, these poor, uncared for people keep voting for the next person who cares.
Hmmmm, inequality and hypocrisy. I'm not talking about the Americans.
On my morning walk – instead of the vista of palm trees, beaches, gelato shops and yachts I was expecting, the footpaths stopped abruptly, or crumbled, the roads buckled, people were searching for food in bins, buildings were vacant with the paint and signs peeling and there was rubbish everywhere.I can deal with a grim high street – after all I lived in London for years - but having to step over people sleeping in the parks, bedded down between the branches of a banyan tree, American flags affixed to their carts, signs saying they were returned servicemen, was distressing.
I think he is writing about some place in Miami.
If I were in the Klan, I would vote democrat, just as the Klan has done throughout its history. Today democrats have done in 50 years what the old Klan could never do through violence. It's sad.
The fact that the writer doesn’t identify the location tells me they simply made the story up.
There is poverty, here are a couple things to keep in mind:
Every study of the homeless shows they are addicts or insane. The laws allowing municipalities to commit people have been largely taken away. That means when the homeless guy refuses shelter, he stays on the street.
The welfare state encourages people to not attempt to find work. Recipients would rather hang out all day. Charities can be more judicious in who they help but there isn’t as much room for charity when the gov shoves them out (e.g. forcing restaurant standards on soup kitchens).
Locales are a reflection of the character of it's inhabitants.
It's all going according to plan.
I just returned from a two month trip to the southwest, primarily the California, Arizona and New Mexico deserts. I spent some of the time close to the border. During the trip I stayed in small towns and larger cities (Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles).
For several decades in my business career I spent considerable time in third world countries primarily Central America, the Dominican Republic as well as China as it was beginning to develop. The poor areas of the American southwest (rural areas, towns, and cities), on my recent trip, reminded me of the areas in which the common people, and middle class people of Central America and the DR live.
I saw everything from shacks to old broken down mobile homes at the very lowest level, not to mention the homeless underneath highway underpasses and in alleys. Moving up the food chain were old deteriorating RV and mobile home parks where primarily elderly people are surviving on Social Security and small pensions. Most of these mobile home and RV parks had names including the word “resort”. Most looked as though they were built in the 1960’s, 1970’s and into the 1980’s and were once very nice communities for middle class retirees to escape the cold winters of the north. Today they look tired and run down. Many of the mobile homes have iron bars and the traditional 1970’s vintage tract housing communities surrounding them are also deteriorating due to inability of the poor and elderly residents to maintain them. Some homes are boarded up and surrounded by weeds, others have iron bars on the windows just like most of the lower and middle class homes in third world countries.
Even in tract housing areas where the middle class has not been displaced by the poor, there are signs of deterioration. Peeling paint, weeds in the yard, junk cars in the driveway, and iron bars on the windows and doors are all signs of the middle class struggling to stay afloat economically and not having enough discretionary income to provide proper maintenance on homes and vehicles. In some of these communities I saw stucco walls around the homes with iron spikes on top and iron gates at the front. These walled homes are very common in third world Latin America for the middle class people who can afford to construct them. In the strip shopping centers serving these struggling and aging American middle class neighborhoods there are many vacant storefronts. In these strip shopping centers the large storefront once occupied by a chain grocery store is now leased to a low end closeout store or Goodwill store. All of these centers have iron bars or rollup security doors which are put in place overnight for security. Most commercial establishments had high fences with barbed wire or razor wire at the top.
Recognize that bars, walls, and barbed wire are not only a sign of crime, they are a sign of a community where the police are too few, ineffective, and often corrupt. Well policed, low crime, areas do not require bars and walled security. Bars, walls, barbed wire are clear signs that he culture does not respect the rule of law and property owners must provide their own protection as the government is too weak or too corrupt to administer the law.
While the signs of lawlessness and absence of societal breakdown were once virtually invisible in this country, on my recent trip I could drive for miles through once prosperous areas that now look like most third world countries. These areas are inhabited by recent third world immigrants as well as retirees who have outlived their savings or whose savings have been ravished by inflation, stock market crashes, and an era of zero interest rates. I also saw many working class people in these areas (store shelf stockers and cashiers, electricans, mechanics, construction workers, car salesmen, owners of small shops). These people could once own their own homes, live in a decent neighborhood, and sustain a comfortable middle class lifestyle. Today they live on the edge, only an illness or layoff away from economic devastation. The people in these neighborhoods look tired and worried.
In the outer suburbs of the cities there is new tract housing in walled, gated communities where the upper middle class lives. Here the strip centers are freshly painted and lack the bars and other signs of criminal behavior except for the police cars passing through the parking lots frequently. The shopping centers have well stocked upscale boutiques, trendy restaurants, and high end grocery stores selling organic foods, beautiful produce, fresh baked breads and very expensive meats. The parking lots are filled with Land Rovers, Mercedes, BMW’s, and large SUV’s. The affluent in these enclaves appear to be fit, well fed, and generally happy. Most are probably oblivious to the deteriorating neighborhoods and crime a few miles away or if they are aware at all think about it in the abstract as a problem for the government and charities to deal with.
We are evolving into the type of two class society that is the norm in most of the rest of the world. The elites are retreating into protected bubbles while the rest of society descends into a world of economic deprivation, lawlessness, ignorance, and misery. Not unlike feudal times where the lord lived in luxury and safety inside the secure wall of th castle while the serfs struggled to scratch out an existence while being preyed upon by criminals, raiding armies, and wild animals.
The poor I saw were white, Hispanic, Native American, and black. Not many Asians. What amazed me on this trip were the expressions on people’s faces. In addition to fatigue I saw too many with sadness and despair etched in the lines of their faces. The era of hope and change seems to have suppressed the cheerful optimism that once characterized the middle and lower middle classes in the post WWII period. The people I saw were worn down from the struggle, not energized by opportunity.
A defeated people will not drive innovation or create the small businesses needed to nurture and sustain a dynamic economy. The innovations that drive economic growth have historically come from visionaries outside the compounds of the wealthy and comfortable upper classes. As the middle class has lost its optimism, enthusiasm and access to capital, we have seen a decline in the number of new business startups. For several years new business startups have run below the rate of replacing small firms going out of business. This is an ominous sign for the nation’s long term economic prosperity, and its ability to compete in the global world economy.
Twenty years from now I will likely not be alive. Based on current trends I suspect most American towns and cities will look like the average towns and cities of Latin America, Africa, rural India, and any place today where economic conditions are poor, people are essentially illiterate and without hope, and the institutions of society (government, religion, education) do not support individual initiative.
This is what Free Trade leads too. A de industrialized America deeply in debt with no hope.
The Democrats have ruined this country for black people