Posted on 10/09/2022 12:19:16 PM PDT by george76
Businesses are moving out of cities and neighborhoods with rising crime rates. By abandoning these high-risk locations, these businesses take with them any job opportunities they provide to poorer residents.
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Americans are more worried about crime than they have been in decades. A recent poll found that 8 in every 10 Americans say they worry about crime either “a great deal” (53%) or “a fair amount” (27%).
This fear is driving businesses large and small out of cities and neighborhoods with rising crime rates. By abandoning these high-risk locations, these businesses take with them any job opportunities they provide to poorer residents.
Local and state governments must focus on reducing violent crime, not just as necessary to protect human life but also because doing so is a prerequisite to real economic opportunity in poor communities.
Increased concern about crime has followed a sharp increase in violent crime, especially homicides over the last six years. In 2021, 12 major cities saw their deadliest year on record. Chicago had its deadliest year in a quarter century.
In recent comments to the Economic Club of Chicago, McDonald’s President and CEO Chris Kempczinski noted that out-of-control violent crime, homelessness and drug overdoses in Chicago were negatively impacting both McDonalds’ restaurant locations and corporate recruitment to the city. He’s committed to staying in Chicago, but other companies across the country are already closing down retail locations in areas experiencing surges in crime.
Opinion.
Starbucks announced it would close 16 locations in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., over safety concerns. Walgreens is closing five stores in San Francisco due to rampant crime. Small businesses from Seattle to Minnesota are citing crime as the reason they’re closing their doors.
While large businesses may not be the most sympathetic victims of the nation’s dramatic increase in violent crime, the people this crime hurts the most continue to be those from the most socially isolated and economically disadvantaged communities.
Studies have repeatedly found that increases in violent crime reduce economic mobility and hamper private sector job growth. One study found that changes in the rates of violent crime substantially impacted the economic mobility of children raised in low-income families. As crime went up during childhood and adolescence, their level of economic mobility went down.
Another study found that increases in violent crime cause existing businesses to downsize and discourage new businesses from entering the marketplace. No amount of economic incentives the government can provide will entice businesses to open in dangerous areas with low-recruitment potential. As a result, increasing crime will reduce the economic opportunities for lower-income residents.
Thankfully, while the problem of violent crime is large, it is not insurmountable. But reversing these trends will require understanding how we got here and what works to reduce crime.
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Gangs continued to operate unabated during government-ordered lockdowns, and given the retaliatory nature of so much street violence, increased violent crime often begets increased violent crime.
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serious and violent crime, is concentrated among a very small number of gang members in any given city. Typically, about 0.6% of a city’s population is involved with these kinds of groups, while they’re responsible for 50% of a city’s homicides. It also tends to concentrate around certain areas; about 3% to 5% of specific addresses are responsible for about 50% of a city’s crime.
This means a city — even one plagued by gang violence like Chicago — can substantially reduce crime by focusing law enforcement, corrections and social service resources on a relatively small number of people. Strategies that do so have substantially reduced homicides from Boston, Massachusetts, to Stockton, California.
Failure to do so will only make our poorest neighborhoods poorer. Large and wealthy corporations like Citadel can leave for greener and safer pastures with relative ease. But failure of local and state officials to rein in violent crime will leave those with no means to leave with fewer opportunities to improve their lives.
My recommendation would be to rein in and arrest the politicians first. But that’s just me.
Democrats are incapable of self-governance.
Once Trump is back in office he needs to take over the major crime-infested cities. Prosecute the kleptocracies that control them.
The United States may not become Venezuela as a whole, but our major cities will …
“For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have born the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs and, while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.”
-PDJT
“Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. These are just and reasonable demands of righteous people and a righteous public, but for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists.
“Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation, an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.”
-PDJT
Not because it puts the "civil" in civilization.
-PJ
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is paying the price for going ‘woke’.. Schultz ushered in a policy allowing anyone to come off the street and use Starbucks’ bathrooms, without having to pay like their customers. The move backfired when junkies started using the facilities to shoot up.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4080529/posts
Crime obviously hurts everyone, but it hurts the poor most of all. If you care about people you have to make locking up criminals a serious priority.
But Democrats admire criminals. There is no other explanation.
> Democrats are incapable of self-governance. <
Yep. And part of the problem is that they are utterly incapable of a course-correction. Once they are on an ideological path, they will continue on that path regardless of any evidence or data.
It’s always full speed ahead ... right off the cliff.
But “economic opportunity” has been provided with special attention given to minority disadvantages.
It used to be and still is true in the Third World that if you grandfather and father had a trade or occupation then you did for the rest of your life with no chance to advance. A man worked with wagon wheels or building with stone and so did you.
America has been, up to recently, “the Land of Opportunity.”
For ALL people. No castes as true even today in India. No permanent peasant class in China and Russia. China’s is partly based on their racism against lower valued Chinese and all foreigners.
34 trillion dollars of special program spending for African Americans since the late 1964 Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson passed both houses. War on Poverty. entitlements including housing and welfare payments. Set asides for business for blacks only. Scholarships and financial awards for blacks only.
Dennis Archer in Detroit became Mayor. He had a business that went bankrupt despite special aid and set aside contracts for years. A runner up who was not black said “My company that my friends and I developed all on our own was much better qualified for the big contract but they specially reserved it and gave it to Dennis Archer. Even with other minority loans and rule advantages his company still failed. Still became mayor years later.
Defund the police.
Release anyone arrested.
Supply drugs to addicts.
Promote homelessness.
Invite more illegal aliens.
Prohibit self-defense.
Ignore violence committed by selected races and genders.
Others (like me) think the understand the connection well and that they are in partnership with the criminals.
Next we'll hear from the usual suspects about food deserts. That's like the neighborhood cats complaining there are no more birds.
“Others (like me) think the understand the connection well and that they are in partnership with the criminals.”
Agree. I almost cringe when people on our side call keep calling them stupid or idiots. They are not stupid. They are very good at what they are doing.
Good Lord, what drivel. We’ve been hearing this crap forever and a day.
“But reversing these trends will require understanding how we got here and what works to reduce crime.”
Yes, let’s look at the root causes - poverty, cycle of violence, blah blah blah.
I know! Let’s try defunding the police and reimagining policing. That’s sure to work.
I’ll never understand the Democrat love affair with criminals. It is utterly bizarre.
Two of the giants of world history in the last century understood them all too well:
In 2020 democrats allowed massive crime in their districts. They allowed blm/antifa to burn, rape, destroy, assault, steal and kill, and gave them moral and material support.
Any functioning business should have seen what was happening and gotten the blazes out of there.
democrats have continued to allow criminals to steal from legitimate businesses.
democrats have refused to prosecute shoplifting in their areas.
democrats have no intention of righting the wrongs they created.
They and they alone are to blame.
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