Posted on 02/25/2010 5:57:14 PM PST by re_tail20
Back before he was president, Ronald Reagan used to joke that the Johnson administration had declared war on poverty and that "poverty won." Indeed, the American landscape is riddled with examples of how the liberal welfare state has continually failed to achieve the improvements in living standards and quality of life its political sponsors promised it would bring.
In certain places, the overreach of the welfare state and the way it has suppressed entrepreneurial initiative has led to the near collapse of governing institutions, the latest example being the long-oppressed city of Detroit, where Mayor Dave Bing has announced a plan to "shrink" the city.
According to the Detroit News, Bing plans to relocate residents from distressed and desolate parts of the city into areas that can support viable neighborhoods. "If we don't do it, you know this whole city is going to go down. I'm hopeful people will understand that," Bing said, adding, "If they stay where they are, I absolutely cannot give them all the services they require."
"You can't support every neighborhood," Bing told radio station WJR's Frank Beckmann. "You can't support every community across this city. Those communities that are stable, we can't allow them to go down the tubes. That's not a good business decision from my vantage point."
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
Life After People.
Escape From Detroit.
Bing is no Kwamee.
Sounds to me like he’s doing what needs to be done. He’s a true democrat but he appears to be a businessman first. Firing slacker union bus drivers, refusing to deduct union dues from city employee paychecks...
So the mayor intends to cut off utilities and city services to underpopulated swathes of the city and provide incentives to move people into concentrated areas?
Hmmm, so the abandoned areas will be declared no-go and surrounded by containment walls?
And populated by post-apocalyptic hoodlums wearing leather chaps and mowhawks?
Dave Bing bio. He’s not the standard NBA thug of the modern era.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Bing
When it was done to people in other countries, we called it ETHNIC CLEANSING...but I guess not here.
I don’t think this fairly can be called surrender any more then pruning a decayed branch surrenders the tree. Every city goes through cycles of growth and decay. Gentrification has salvaged neighborhoods in soms cities, but conditions don’t now encourage this in Detroit.
Cutting down the blight may be the smartest thing this city can do, creating opportunities for the next growth cycle when and as conditions permit.
The city can’t afford the upkeep on services in populated neighborhoods, let alone unpopulated ones. The only other choice is running to uncle taxpayer for a bailout.
I wish both parties in Washington DC would learn a lesson from this. Instead of coming up with a scam to artificially prop a failing system up, he’s cutting out the cancer.
Its a crappy thing to do if you happen to be forced from your home like this but there aren’t a whole lot of options. Unless a private company comes in and takes over those services at an enormous cost that the few residents can never afford, I just don’t see a good way out.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting. I have high regard for Dave Bing the man. Dave Bing the mayor has the toughest assignment of all the mayors in America. His decisions are going to be interesting. Pesonally, I think Detroit is doomed mainly because the affluent suburbs around it are witnessing the very hardest times in their histories. What support those citizens gave Detroit will be diminished tremendously.
I hope for the best for the citizens of Detroit because having Dave Bing as mayor is very positive development.
Music to read this post by...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2TNYyXdZjI
It was a partnership minority owned business. Bing, I believe owned 51% of Detroit Heading Co.
Very nice, down to earth type guy. He had some excellent people handling the day to day. We had a lend lease going back and forth with machine repair departments between several companies. The answer to big 3 demands of minority content was solved in part by guys like Bing.
Not a policy I agreed with at the time (me at the time being a Democrat), or a policy I would ever agree to.
I think Bing is the real deal; successful businessman, believer in a town and it's people, willing to take the bullets and do what has to be done.
Say what you want about all democrats. Every so often you do want one to succeed.
Detroit shrinkage
I bet 2 million still turn out to vote for John Conyers.
I consider myself very fortunate to know a good number of Detroiters, wealthy, wise, and willing to offer money or good councilling. Don’t write Detroit off.
The Discovery channel has that show about the Detroit brothers custom cycle builders. They bring in guys from around Detroit to build bizarre machines.
It just shows that there is still a lot of knowledge lurking in Detroit
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