Posted on 03/30/2017 6:23:33 AM PDT by Kaslin
Having lived in three of the nation’s most dangerous cities – Detroit, Baltimore and a short stint in Chicago – I’ve seen the remains of some once-great American metropolises. Outside of pockets (the north side of Chicago, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the small, surging sections of downtown Detroit among them), their better days were behind them by the time I came along. But I could see the shells of what once was.
Still, seeing the aftermath and living through the decline are two entirely different experiences. Until a time machine is invented, I never will fully know more than the second-hand stories echoing from the shells of these lost cities.
Hope springs eternal, though much slower as time passes. I’ve seen some rebirths in the midst of decline. But with each new story of a horrific crime or crazed city government initiative, a root is ripped from the future.
As I said, I’ve only seen these cities after they had passed their prime. My time wandering the hull of Michigan Central Station in Detroit in the middle of the night with friends never will replace the firsthand knowledge of living the spectrum from its glory days till now.
That’s why I was both saddened and grateful for an email I got this week from a listener to my radio show. The decline in my lifetime is nothing compared to what a man named Sandon Cohen has lived through in Baltimore.
Mr. Cohen has lived his whole life in Baltimore, as did his parents. But he can’t anymore; he just can’t.
It’s not so much that he changed. His city did. The attitudes, the economy, the government now all make his hometown unrecognizable from the way it was for most of his life.
The Baltimore City Council recently passed a resolution reaffirming its status as a “welcoming” city, which is code for being a sanctuary city. The new mayor mercifully vetoed an attempt to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour in spite of the struggling city economy and devastating unemployment rate. It’s suicide through politics.
Cohen has seen it all, lived it all. And he can’t be a part of it anymore.
When I read his email I quickly responded to ask if I could reprint it here, saying the testimony of someone who lived something always will be more powerful than someone else reciting statistics and second-hand stories. He graciously agreed.
The following three paragraphs were written by Cohen, a life-long Baltimore resident, but they could’ve been written about any major city under decades-long progressive Democrat control.
I have always resided in Baltimore City. So did my parents. My grandparents also lived in the city for most or all of their lives. I worked downtown for nearly thirty years. After my parents died six years ago, I moved back into the house which they had acquired in 1959, shortly before I was born, in the Arlington or Glen area of the city. While I would have preferred to live in this beloved home for so long as my health permits, I can no longer avoid the conclusion that my wellbeing requires that I move away. The causes are frequently topics of your programs.On the afternoon of January 12, in broad daylight, three young men attempted to carjack me in front of my house. They struck me, knocked me down, and managed to take my car keys. They seemed shocked when I resisted and denounced them and fled without my vehicle when my screams attracted the attention of a neighbor. The police who responded were sympathetic and professional but ultimately of little assistance. They admitted to being overwhelmed due to the increasing levels of crime and the decreasing size of the police force. Due to this occurrence and the reports of many similar incidents throughout the city, I have since felt fear every time I have had to leave the house or travel in or near the city and spend as much time as possible indoors.
Your station reported a few days ago – to my horror – that Mr. Young, the president of the City Council, has proposed that funds be taken from the police department to reduce the deficit in the school budget. I have heard no proposals from the members of the Council that would result in the hiring of additional police or otherwise deal realistically with the level of crime and other problems that have beset the city. Instead, they spout collectivist ideology that experience has long discredited, placing burdens such as an unjust minimum wage upon such producers of goods, services, and employment as remain in the city, while inviting unskilled workers from overseas to compete with those who were born in the city to compete for the shrinking number of jobs that will remain available to them. How can “progress,” however defined, be achieved in an environment where no one is safe from crime and in which more people will be driven to crime by the lack of opportunities for entry level workers and by the contemptible philosophy of certain members of the Council that those who find themselves in need are somehow the victims of those who do not? Where do the members of the Council expect to obtain funds necessary to provide public education and other legitimate government services for those who remain after law abiding taxpayers such as me leave, as hundreds of thousands have left over the last fifty years?
Someday, hopefully, residents of these cities will wake from the coma induced by grand, undelivered promises and realize new politicians implementing the same failed policies is not “change,” nor a “new direction.” It undoubtedly will be too late for some, but it doesn’t have to be too late for them all.
The one useful thing about these conglomerations of liberals is that it’ll be easy to cut off power/water/food when the civil war comes, and we can just wait on the periphery.
I’m guessing that St. Louis will soon be on that list.???
Soon, has come and gone for most all the actual city..and suburbs on North to the airport, pretty well shot and dying...
Cities killed by Democrats:
Baltimore
DC
Memphis
Detroit
Birmingham
Chicago
Cleveland
Portland
Hartford
New Haven
Springfield Ma
Copy and add...
The industrial heart of the U.S. would have declined anyway. Once steel declined as a dominant material for manufacturing, cities like Detroit and Cleveland were no longer located in the places where they needed to be to thrive in the next generation of manufacturing in the U.S.
The death of personal responsibility, the excuse of victimhood to rob and pillage, and the corruption of politicians who use their offices to grant favors are some of the causes of the fall of cities and the collapse of countries. Morality is the foundation of an enduring democracy, a fact the Founders emphasized but that is rarely mentioned today. The result of this failure is chaos.
Heck, I was born on a street named “Steel”.
By 1967, the year horrible race riots broke out we had already “fled” as part of the “great white flight” to the Northwest suburbs. Detroit never regained consciousness after 1967 even though they propped up a marketing agenda called the “Renaissance” center and tried to attract scared people back to the inner city. It never really worked and then the blind, short term thinking Auto industry execs were blindsided by the Japanese in a sort of reverse Hiroshima.
Detroit at that time was led (should I say robbed?) by a Mayor named “Coleman (marbles in his mouth) Young. He pushed agendas that eventually gutted the city and led to it's absolute decay.
The only thing that reminds us today of that dead city are the Detroit Lions. All other sport teams have given some kind of positive spin on the city's demise and have had winning teams, but the consistent (since 1958) Lions have annually not gone to the Superbowl but to the proverbial Toilet Bowl.
Sad but someday the Ford family death grip on the team might be released to other owners and that may help revitalize a small corner of the once great and mighty Detroit industry.
Let me say that populist democrats, normally black, have caused these cities to die. Their schools were run by politicians who sold teacher slots for patronage. And they allowed police to sit in the stations and not patrol in any real force. The reality is that the black community does not like police until they get old and middle class. Gary, DC, New Orleans all fit this mold as well.
But Chicago was saved by Daleys. The Daleys seemed to keep Chicago out of the same problems that killed most of the big Midwest cities. Its true that crime in two large black neighborhoods has become routine. And the unions skim huge amounts for pensions and employees that don’t work.
But the Daleys importantly kept business in the city. They saved the downtown. They increased business and maintained neighborhoods that rich and upper middle class residents enjoy. And they created magnet schools that keep young families with smart kids in the city.
Richie Daley is the first to say that city unions are the cause of many of the cities largest problems. Or they are the barrier between the city and the solutions to these problems. For instance, when the city wants to add more police. The union fights to keep those police out of the harmful neighborhoods. And they keep cops on the payroll that do not leave the station. The teachers union fights to stop schools from increasing school hours. And they fight to keep bad teachers in their jobs.
Other cities increased the taxes on the rich and businesses, causing both to leave in droves. In some cities like Detroit they have also limited or killed trains that allow employees from the entire metropolis to commute to downtown. Chicago has a great train and bus system that allows employees from any place within the metro area to be in downtown Chicago cheaply and quickly.
Who knows how Chicago will handle its debt. That might kill the city. And who knows when the black community will finally decide to do something about the crime. But crime seems to stay in certain neighborhoods that other people just avoid. Which allows Chicago, especially on the north side to be one of the most livable cities in the country.
This is why Conservatives, and now recently Liberals, are becoming "Preppers"
Situational Awareness is a learned skill, but it needs to be acted upon, not just a thought
This guy is about my age. I have seen similar things closer to DC.
“Perhaps the simplest solution is to restrict the right to vote to taxpayers (as our founding fathers did when they allowed only property owners to vote)”
They would just dumb down “property” to “wide screen tv” or “hundred-dollar sneakers” and then everything would be back to business as usual.
That's a rare and valuable piece right there.
The problem in Pittsburgh had always been that the work force was heavily unionized, and the unions were always pushing heavy propaganda and telling people to vote for Democrats.
Soon “they’re for DA WORKIN’ MAN!” became such a mantra drilled into their heads that nobody even bothered to think anymore before heading to the voting booth.
Nonetheless, those Democrats still did their best to maintain a small “c” conservative social order, and to keep the business climate halfway viable.
Not so for today’s crowd. They are much more aggressive Leftists, pushing gay/environmental agendas that can’t do anything tangible to improve life in the city.
Right, or you’ll get someone who partitions a city lot into postage stamp sized pieces so you legally own land
Steel didn’t “decline” It was unbolted and sent to Asia. Globalist hacks need to please stop defending Free (Rape) Trade.
Demographics must never be mentioned.
How well would Baltimore be doing if all the factories, the dock yards and steel mills hadn’t been shipped off only to be replaced by bars,aquariums and inner harbor boutique shops?
How about the rest of us pump billions into them as life support?
So who did you and your parents vote for in local elections for all those years Mr. Cohen?
America has a sin problem and a love for sin.
We can try to pin it on Democrats, but they wouldn’t have been enabled had Americans not been in love for their sin that also produced elections of said Democrats (and Republicans) who winked and nodded at it.
We’re living in the time of God’s patience and a storm that has been brewing for decades is about to sweep the land.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.