The Tragedy of Baltimore: Inside the crackup of an American city.

New York Times ^ | March 12, 2019 | Alec MacGillis

[reaganaut1]

...

In Baltimore, you can tell a lot about the politics of the person you’re talking with by the word he or she uses to describe the events of April 27, 2015. Some people, and most media outlets, call them the “riots”; some the “unrest.” Guy was among those who always referred to them as the “uprising,” a word that connoted something justifiable and positive: the first step, however tumultuous, toward a freer and fairer city. Policing in Baltimore, Guy and many other residents believed, was broken, with officers serving as an occupying army in enemy territory — harassing African-American residents without cause, breeding distrust and hostility.

In 2016, the United States Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division concurred, releasing a report accusing the city’s Police Department of racial discrimination and excessive force. The city agreed to a “consent decree” with the federal government, a set of policing reforms that would be enforced by a federal judge. When an independent monitoring team was selected to oversee the decree, Guy was hired as its community liaison. This was where she wanted to be: at the forefront of the effort to make her city a better place.

But in the years that followed, Baltimore, by most standards, became a worse place. In 2017, it recorded 342 murders — its highest per-capita rate ever, more than double Chicago’s, far higher than any other city of 500,000 or more residents and, astonishingly, a larger absolute number of killings than in New York, a city 14 times as populous. Other elected officials, from the governor to the mayor to the state’s attorney, struggled to respond to the rise in disorder, leaving residents with the unsettling feeling that there was no one in charge.

[yesthatjallen]

Baltimore tried urban renewal in 1953

The Baltimore Plan, 1953 (Youtube 20 min video)

Elijah Cummings Baltimore Riots (Youtube)

[bravo whiskey]

G&W near the airport. best crab cakes. We stop by most of the time when flying in to visit family. Box Hill I Fallston is pretty good too. None are better than mine using my mom’s recipe.

[Alberta's Child]

I'll post two images that illustrate the decline in urban industrial centers perfectly:

The top image is an old RCA manufacturing plant that was built before 1910 in New Jersey.

The bottom image is the new/expanded Toyota plant in Alabama.

By the 1920s, most of the industrial buildings in the U.S. that were more than 10-15 years old were obsolete. They were not rendered obsolete by outsourcing, or "free trade," or anything of that sort. They became obsolete because the introduction of the assembly line made a massive, single-story building the ideal manufacturing facility -- while the old multi-story model you see in the top image had no purpose in a modern, mass-production business.

Is it even physically possible to fit a building like the Toyota plant in any large U.S. city?

[Responsibility2nd]

Baltimore’s problem is not enough socialism.

Not enough toilet paper either. For during the "uprising", we saw dozens of images of teens leaving burning CVS's with what?

Yes, that's right. Toilet paper.

[Desron13]

"Honestly, non-Leftist people might be enticed to care out of compassion if nothing else, but not while being blamed in a variety of ways for being the CAUSE of the problems of Leftist crap-hole cities."

Now you're just being RACIST. It's your white privilege that's keeping the "community" down and don't you ever forget it! If it weren't for you white folks oppressing the Fellas down in the Hood we would have a flipping unicorn infested Utopia in Baltimore.

[central_va]

OMG. The amount of industry that has been off shored is staggering. You are a real treat. Nancy Pelosi got nothing on your dementia.

We make make 1% of the TV's in the USA, the rest are imported. That is just one example. You are stupid, a liar or both.

WHY CAN'T YOU ACCEPT THE REPUBLICANS, FREE TRAITORS™ AND GLOBALISTS ON THE RIGHT DESTROYED THE USA's INDUSTRIAL BASE ON PURPOSE TO MAKE INCREASED PROFITS? JUST ADMIT IT.

After you admit the truth then we can have an honest discussion about whether OVERALL that was better for the USA and or the world. But traitors can never be honest. Worm tongues all.

[Alberta's Child]

And speaking of auto manufacturing plants, here's a list of a whole bunch of them that were built in the U.S. after 1980 -- when this country was allegedly seeing a steep decline in manufacturing:

Honda -- Marysville, OH (1982)
Nissan -- Smyrna, TN (1983)
Toyota -- Georgetown, KY (1986)
Mazda -- Flat Rock, MI (1987)
Mitsubishi/Chrysler -- Normal, IL (1988)
BMW -- Greer, SC (1992)
Mercedes-Benz -- Vance, AL (1993)
Honda -- Lincoln, AL (1999)
Nissan -- Canton, MS (2000)
Hyundai -- Montgomery, AL (2002)
Toyota -- San Antonio, TX (2003)
Kia -- West Point, GA (2006)
Toyota -- Blue Springs, MS (2007)
Volkswagen -- Chattanooga, TN (2011)

Notice two things these plants have in common: (1) they are almost all foreign-owned, and (2) they aren't located in old U.S. industrial cities.

There's one foreign-owned plant I left off this list:

Volkswagen -- Westmoreland, PA (1978)

This one was left off the list because it was a complete disaster, and was only open for less than ten years. Volkswagen learned a tough lesson about opening a plant in a state with a dominant labor union presence.

[Savage Beast]

San Francisco?

Los Angeles?

Washington?

Philadelphia?

St. Louis?

New Orleans?

The entire United States of America?

America descends into a dark age, similar to the thousand years night predicted at the end of Alas Babylon!, but due to suicidal decadence rather than nuclear war. The result is the same.

Healthy America can still save itself, even if decadent America is determined to commit suicide. President Trump has staked everything on his belief that we can succeed.

Pray for the survival of all that's sacred in the United States.

Pray for President Trump.

Pray for the Trump Revolution.

Pray for America.

[litehaus]

AMEN !

[central_va]

Wow, you are focusing on autos ENTIRE SECTORS HAVE BEEN OFFSHORED: TV, consumer electronics, tires(not quit all but most), phones, PC's, most appliances I could go on and on.

But if you want to talk car production this pretty much sums it up.

Car Production in the United States decreased to 2.61 Million Units in January from 3 Million Units in December of 2018. Car Production in the United States averaged 5.97 Million Units from 1967 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 9.92 Million Units in April of 1978 and a record low of 1.29 Million Units in January of 2009.

[HotHunt]

Bernie Sanders was a bum until his mid 40s when he got elected mayor of some liberal town in Vermont.

He's been on the public dole ever since.

Exactly the intellect we need to run the country. /s/

[Reily]

Actually I think he was 53 when he was elected - his first job! Prior to that on welfare and supported at various times by 3 different women.

[Albion Wilde]

Balmer ping

[glennaro]

... or, worse, they flee what they have created and infect healthy cities (true to their self-description: “progressive” ... as in cancer is a “progressive” disease).

[Alberta's Child]

Most of those sectors -- especially in electronics -- were "offshored" before they had much of a presence here in the U.S.

Car Production in the United States decreased to 2.61 Million Units in January from 3 Million Units in December of 2018. Car Production in the United States averaged 5.97 Million Units from 1967 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 9.92 Million Units in April of 1978 and a record low of 1.29 Million Units in January of 2009.

Is U.S. car production down because we've lost our manufacturing capacity, or is it down because we already own a sh!t-load of cars -- and most people have no reason to buy new ones?

I'm in the market for a new company vehicle right now. I've been in the market for the last four years now. At the prices I'd be paying -- and I only buy U.S.-made trucks -- I simply cannot justify the expense when my current vehicle is still running fine. Is that a bad thing?

[Albion Wilde]

I moved to Maryland in November 2019... My first day I was driving to work and heard a news story that the Baltimore Mayor had been convicted of stealing gift cards

Did you mean 2009?

[sleepwalker]

Most of the plants you listed are in right to work states.

The Westmoreland plant had union issues from the start (close to Pittsburgh...). VW never learns as they were inviting the UAW into their plant in Chattanooga. I am not sure of the current status of the VW plant.

Also, I think Toyota built a large plant in Princeton, Indiana.

[central_va]

The fact is if Baltimore was still a vibrant steel, ship and car producer it would not be the 3rd world hell hole it’s become. You can’t blame that on Democrats.

[rlmorel]

Damn white privilege...

[HotHunt]

My bad. I got the age of his first job wrong. Even worse than I thought.

But being a "bum" for most of his adult life was correct.

Thanks for catching that mistake.