How Property Taxes and the 'Curley Effect' Are Killing Baltimore

Wall Street Journal ^ | 8/27/2011 | STEVE H. HANKE AND STEPHEN J.K. WALTERS

[mathprof]

As affluent residents leave town, the political playing field tips further and further in favor of pro-tax Democrats.

This coming Labor Day weekend, traffic in downtown Baltimore will move at more than 100 miles per hour—or not at all: The city's main streets will be closed so that IndyCar racers can compete in the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix. Much more than prize money is at stake.

Nine days later, on Sept. 13, voters will pick a mayor, and incumbent Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is betting that the auto race will draw thousands of free-spending tourists and stimulate the local economy, thereby demonstrating her vision and competence. In fact, it will be an economic dud, a money-loser even for its promoters, and a logistical nightmare for residents.

The race exemplifies the city's development strategy: Subsidize big downtown projects with other people's money—in this case, over $6 million in federal stimulus funds for the two-mile race course—and proclaim an urban renaissance.

Away from the waterfront, this strategy's failure is apparent. The city has lost 30,000 residents and 53,000 jobs since 2000, marking the sixth consecutive decade of population and employment exodus. About 47,000 abandoned houses crumble while residents suffer a homicide rate higher than any large city except Detroit. The poverty rate is 50% above the national average.

Much of this decline is a result of the city's exorbitant property-tax rates, which are twice as high as any other jurisdiction in Maryland and Washington, D.C. The encouraging news is that all four major mayoral candidates are promising property-tax relief.

[Bigg Red]

The Rats have destroyed what was once a great city. I grew up in Baltimore County, the county that surrounds Baltimore. The downtown area is loaded with potential, and there would be a huge influx of yuppies if Baltimore was not also loaded with drug addicts and gangbangers.

Most parts of B’more are not safe to walk in. I know people who seriously considered buying rehabbed properties in the city only to be scared off by the crime. I have read stories of people buying and rehabbing property only to be robbed repeatedly.

For some reason, the leadership is unwilling to stop the crime.

[MattinNJ]

Thx for link

[rfp1234]

[hinckley buzzard]

Been there a few years back. The Inner Harbor was a fine development, done right, with beds and restaurants close at hand. But when I went to ride the light rail to the airport I was surprised to find that you had to push a button on the side of the railcar to open the locked door! I'd never seen that in any other city.

[Menehune56]

Thanks for the information, it was actually a lot more interesting than I at first thought it would be. BTW I found a version of the article outside the WSJ's paywall:

http://baltileaks.org/wsj-how-property-taxes-and-the-curley-effect-are-killing-baltimore/

[truthguy]

Every intelligent (and some not so intelligent) person knows why Baltimore is a dump. It’s the same reason most of the major inner cities are dumps. It’s the same reason Philadelphia, New York, DC, Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, Oakland, Los Angeles and most of the other major US cities are dumps. Sure in everyone of these cities there are some decent areas, but for the most part these are dirty and dangerous places. Everyone knows it. But we all cannot say it due to political correctness.

[sinanju]

Fascinating article about the “Culey Effect” but monstrous in it’s implications. But it makes brutal sense. Democrats by nature want to keep politics tribal and to keep their own supporters impoverished and dependent on them.

I’d go further and say that just about every black democrat mayor is a Curley-ite to one degree or another but on a national scale the idea is to keep all the races balkanized and impoverished.

The Cloward-Piven strategy can be said to be related. Of course that strategy (and I’d say Obama is a follower of it) is to cause complete, total, abject socioeconomic collapse in the Marxian faith that a beautiful socialist utopia will arise, phoenixlike from the ashes. The suffering this will bring about concerns them not at all.

[Calvin Locke]

I few years ago, I heard a piece, might have been on Radio Canada, about drug violence. Baltimore is fairly unique in that the drug gangs are pretty independent, that is, no monopoly or oligopoly running things.

In essence, a "free market", but differences and disputes are settled with guns.

Lots of illegal aliens from the Caribbean, too, contributing to the mayhem.

And the Caribbean nations don't want their citizens back after being indoctrinated in the gang lifestyle, either.

[Mr. Peabody]

Baltimore is a horror story. One of the worst urban areas I’ve seen.

I visited Edgar Allan Poe’s house and graveyard when I was there on business. A ghetto has grown around it.

Good crabs though.

[RKBA Democrat]

The Curley effect is also exacerbated by Maryland’s incredibly stupid laws on concealed carry.

[RKBA Democrat]

“But we all cannot say it due to political correctness.”

What is the “it” that you’re referring to? The racial mix of the city or the leftist governance?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Soon to be the Detroit of the eastern US!

Maryland “Freak State” PING!

[the OlLine Rebel]

Baltimore take a back seat to no Detroit!!!

[the OlLine Rebel]

Much moreso by the fascist/communist rules against anyone who actually tries to support HIMSELF, rather than suck off a government teat.

[DB]

Except its a lot harder to move out of his jurisdiction...

[Hiddigeigei]

Memory
G. K. Chesterton

If I ever go back to Baltimore,
The city of Maryland,
I shall miss again as I missed before
A thousand things of the world in store,
The story standing in every door
That beckons with every hand.

I shall not know where the bonds were riven
And a hundred faiths set free,
Where a wandering cavalier had given
Her hundredth name to the Queen of Heaven,
And made oblation of feuds forgiven
To Our Lady of Liberty.

I shall not travel the tracks of fame
Where the war was not to the strong;
When Lee the last of the heroes came
With the Men of the South and a flag like flame,
And called the land by its lovely name
In the unforgotten song.

If ever I cross the sea and stray
To the city of Maryland,
I will sit on a stone and watch or pray
For a stranger’s child that was there one day:
And the child will never come back to play,
And no-one will understand.

“The tyrant’s heel is on thy shore”