Free Republic

Every major city in America which is a center of poverty is run by Democrats and has been under Democratic party control for a very long time. If those communities want to reverse their fortunes it’s time to stop voting for Democrats.

European Union ministers meeting in the Dutch capital have endorsed a “Pact of Amsterdam” aimed at improving living conditions in towns and cities throughout the 28-nation bloc. With 70 percent of the EU’s 500 million people living in urban areas, the deal signed Monday gives cities more influence in EU legislation and easier access to funds for urban projects. The Dutch government says key themes include integrating migrants into urban populations, improving air quality and tackling poverty. …

>High home prices are pushing three groups of people out of big, expensive cities: low-income workers, people in rural-based industries, and millennials. Trulia data scientist Mark Uh examined how the affordability crisis is pricing out various income groups.Using data from the 2014 five-year US Census American Community Survey, Uh looked into migration patterns away from the biggest — and often most expensive — cities.He wrote in a post Thursday, "Millennials accounted for the largest share of out migration [by age group] at 51.1%, and they also had the highest move-away rate relative to expectation at +105.6%."Although Millennials moved out at...

While you couldn’t tell it from most of the headlines over the past 18 months, there’s actually some good news on the law enforcement front. Violent crime rates continued to drop over the past two years on a national per capita basis, including the murder rate. The motto of if it bleeds, it leads likely keeps the focus of many news media consumers on some regularly occurring violence, but overall we’re still experiencing record low levels of the worst violence in the modern era, as was described this past winter by the Washington Post. In 1993, there were seven...

Unless you're tracking expenses carefully, it can be hard to tell whether your city's cost of living or your own spending habits are the cause of your financial troubles. Using the 50-30-20 budgeting rule, for example — in which 50 percent of income covers necessities, 30 percent is for discretionary items and 20 percent is saved — you can quickly determine whether your income is sufficient to cover expenses for living in your city. If it isn't, you might have to cut costs or maybe even move. GoBankingRates conducted a cost-of-living comparison of the 75 most populous U.S. cities, surveying...

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is calling for infrastructure projects he says can help revitalize urban areas and close gaps in economic inequality. The new Department of Transportation (DOT) push will place a greater emphasis on projects that connect people who live in low-income and minority neighborhoods to “areas of opportunity” and prioritize projects that encourage investment in underserved communities. It's part of a fight against the tendency for highway projects to be routed through low-income and minority neighborhoods. Foxx on Wednesday said that, after the interstate highway system began, bulldozing urban areas to build roads that bypassed the communities they...

Brazil has been in crisis for some time now. The country’s economy shrunk -3.8% last year, and its President, Dilma Rousseff, is holding on for dear life. Once chairman of Petrobras, the state-run oil giant currently engulfed in a colossal political scandal, she is now being threatened with impeachment just 15 months into her second four-year yerm. Her approval remains at an all-time low of just 11%. The currency has halved in value since 2011, and the country’s credit has been downgraded to junk status. However, as VisualCapitalist's Jeff Desjardins explains, it’s not only the economic and political spheres that...

DENVER — When the aerospace company Sierra Nevada Corporation moved into the Colorado Technology Center about eight years ago, employees on their lunch break could stroll by the alpaca farm next door. Now the animals are gone, and the land is cleared and ready for the new development surging along the Denver-to-Boulder corridor. At campaign rallies throughout the South and Midwest, economic frustration and sluggish wage growth are dominant themes. States like Alaska and Oklahoma, faced with low oil prices, are grappling with bankruptcies and layoffs. And overall growth in the United States economy remains disappointing. But this thriving industrial...

Call it Pennsylvania’s highway robbery. A pot of money from a huge increase in fuel taxes and motorist fees under a 2013 law designed to shore up Pennsylvania’s highways and bridges is not so huge anymore, as a growing amount is getting diverted to the Pennsylvania State Police. Now, alarmed transportation planners, construction firms and engineers are looking at 12-year Department of Transportation projections that show a fattening state police budget consuming more dollars for construction projects. Lawmakers are taking notice, too.

It is widely known that in the past 6 months there has been a loud debate about helicopter money, i.e., giving out ordinary people (bypassing the banks) money directly printed by the Fed. What is less known is that when it comes to the most despicable underbelly of American society, cash to the tune of $1000 per month is already being "helicoptered" to some of the most brazen criminals living in the US today with one simple condition: "don't kill people." * * * Take the case of Lonnie Holmes, 21, who lives in Richmond, a working-class suburb north of...

According to a new study released by online loan marketplace LendingTree, more young people are pursuing home ownership. "The under-35 crowd had been, for some years, hesitant to enter the housing market, but we're seeing that start to shift," said Doug Lebda, CEO of LendingTree, in a press release. "The data all points to the fact that millennials are increasingly eager to own rather than rent, and even the incredibly high real estate prices in some markets don't necessarily deter them." Case in point: Boston, one of the priciest cities to buy a home, topped LendingTree's ranking, which was created...

Listen to the stump speech of any 2016 presidential hopeful and you’ll hear right away about how hard it is for today’s middle class. A report issued last year by the Pew Charitable Trust’s Stateline found that the middle class shrank in all 50 states between 2000 and 2013, and median income, adjusted for inflation, was lower at the end of 2013 in the vast majority of states than in 2000. However, the ability to live comfortably on a middle class income varies greatly based on where you live. A new report by California’s Chapman University crunched the numbers to...

John Culberson Rep (R) 7th District Texas was instrumental is preventing the ban on green tip .223 ammo. Now he is aiming to defund Sanctuary Cities. He was interviewed on the Buck Sexton Radio Show. You can download the audio clip.Here is the Buck Sexton audio clip named "Foul Play in Iowa? 2/3/16. Listen to the clip at 29 minutes to 38 minutes. Good Hunting... from Varmint Alsrc=http://www.varmintal.com/coyotel.gif>

While Caracas - the capital of socialist utopia Venezuela where gun control is extreme - remains the number one most violent city in the world, there are two new entrants from the USA into the World's Top 20 least desirable places to walk the streets - St. Louis (15th most violent city in the world) and Baltimore (19th). America, land of the free to indiscrimanently kill other people?As Statista's Nial McCarthy details, out of the world's 50 most violent cities, 41 are in Latin America including 21 in Brazil. The Mexico Citizens Council for Public Security releases its findings...

European capital cities step up security amid warnings of terror attack planned for between Christmas and New Year Capital cities across Europe could be the target of a terror attack before the New Year, Austrian police has warned after receiving a tip off from a 'friendly' intelligence service. Security measures have since been stepped up around the continent, although no cities were named as targets. Tensions have remained high in Europe since 130 were killed in the Paris attacks. And with refugees and migrants flooding into Europe in record numbers, some fear that extremists could be sneaking in undetected among...

A new analysis by WalletHub has compared and classified 1,268 of America's small cities in the U.S. to find the ones where residents don’t have to give up much by avoiding the "bright lights" and the soaring rent. Its data set include a total of 22 metrics, ranging from housing costs to school-system quality to the number of restaurants per capita. Why live in a small city? Inevitably, life in a small city demands some tradeoffs such as shorter business hours, a heavier reliance on cars and fewer dating opportunities.  It does bring benefits - tighter communities, less competition,...

HAVE YOU CALLED YOUR SENATORS DEMANDING A "YES" VOTE ON S.2146? If it is your misfortune to live in a BLUE STATE, call anyway. You may tie up the line while one of the brain dead morons that put YOUR clown in the office is trying to call, preventing him/her/it (pick a pronoun!) from voicing his/her/its OPPOSITION to S.2146! 888-995-2086 or 202-224-3121

French fascism is alive and well, and its current headquarters (as I write this) are not in the offices of the Front National but, appropriately enough, in the ugliest building in the world in the most beautiful capital city in the world, the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It is here that has been held the completely uncritical exhibition to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Le Corbusier, the fascist architect, under the title Le Corbusier, Mesures de l’homme.

Good news for job seekers: Employers are now the most optimistic they've been about hiring since 2007. Employment services firm ManpowerGroup asked more than 11,000 employers in the 100 largest US metropolitan areas about their hiring plans for the three-month period ending in December and found that employers in all 50 states plan to increase their payrolls during the fourth quarter of 2015. Of the surveyed employers, 21% expect to increase their payrolls and 6% say they’ll decrease their staffing levels. This yields a net increase of 15% that plan to hire — or 18% when seasonally adjusted, which is...

Buying a home is only getting more expensive.Mortgage website HSH.com has updated its estimate of how much annual income a household would need to buy a home in major metro areas in the US, according to second-quarter 2015 data.Prices have increased across the board.The site looked at median home prices from the National Association of Realtors, along with interest rates for common 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages and property taxes, and insurance costs, to figure out how much money it would take to pay a median-priced home's mortgage, taxes, and insurance in each city — and how much you would have to...