“In order to fix places like Baltimore, we will need to take strong measures. Which, in some cases, involves the strength to do a lot less than we are currently doing.”
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I’m generally not for creating new government programs. But, in Baltimore’s case maybe an exception would be in order. I’m thinking creating something akin to the Great Depression CCC Program should be considered. The population of Baltimore at its peak was about 1M during the 50’s. It’s now about half that at 0.5M. The decline is reflected in the massive number of empty houses, stores, factory’s. And, garbage is piled on the sidewalks and streets to the extent they’re impassable. Then, there’s chronic, systemic, multigenerational unemployment. Much of these unemployed don’t know how to work, have the self discipline, how to interact with coworkers in a collaborative manner. There’s plenty of work to be done in Baltimore. Why not use the unemployed labor pool to remove garbage and discarded junk and to tear down all these vacant structures and create new open spaces that could be used for new structures, parks, even agriculture? This is where a modern reincarnation of the CCC could be in order. Maybe use veterans, retired NCO’s, etc, to supervise? Anyway, just a thought...
The second part contradicts the first.