The inner-cities in every major US city are just like NO - potential powder kegs with third-world conditions. This is not new - what is new is the lack of civil control that allows that element to run amok. It would have been the same here where I am in Atlanta. The responsible people got out of Dodge and left the helpless with the thugs.
Response: Or perhaps the "element" lacks self control?
You've got that right; I'm here in Atlanta with you. It would be the same here or in any other major metropolitan city with a great deal of underclass in its environs. I suspect that the Atlanta city leadership would prove themselves to be equally incompetent.
Many who stayed were HOPING for exactly this type of situation. It is a criminal's paradise; little law enforcement and no armed citizens to stop them.
I shudder to think on what would happen if something like this hit Philly. The Badlands would EXPLODE.
"what is new is the lack of civil control that allows that element to run amok"
This is not new either. Come to Oakland, Calfornia. Home of street gangs and political corruption.
Precisely right. We lived in the inner-city in Atlanta for 25 years, and I know that chaos very like what we're seeing now was always a possibility. The weak and vulnerable lived in fear--behind bolted doors whenever possible--and the fear was directed not just at strangers but at their own relatives and neighbors. What was missing were what the rest of us understand as "families"--married daddies and mommies who could raise children responsibly and instill self-control in them. Without that family structure, other sorts of community organizations and civic structures were either missing or existing only as empty shells.