Posted on 04/08/2023 9:00:25 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I recently reviewed the results of the mayoral election in Chicago, which appear to have sounded the death knell for America’s third-largest city. The buildings will remain and the people without the means to escape will still huddle in their homes (at least those who have homes), hoping to avoid being the next statistic in a crime wave that shows no signs of abating. Commerce has slowed to a crawl and its once-famous entertainment district is now too dangerous for most to risk an evening out on the town. At the Washington Examiner, Stephen Moore takes a similarly dim view of Chicago’s prospects, but he notes that the Windy City is not alone in its downward slide. Many cities across the United States are simply becoming unlivable. And the real tragedy in all of this is that the decline was completely avoidable. But an epidemic of suicidally dangerous liberal policies has opened the gates for the barbarians that were always waiting outside.
It’s not just Chicago that has become a war zone. Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco were not so long ago the crown jewels of the West Coast. They were said to be progressive cities that worked. No more. Now, they are unlivable. San Francisco is overrun with homeless people on seemingly every downtown street corner, feces on the sidewalks, and trash everywhere.
In Portland, major businesses are pulling out in the aftermath of the takeover of the radical anarchists during COVID-19. Crime is so rampant that Walmart recently said “adios,” shutting down its last store. Rains PDX, a clothing store in Portland, shut down last November after a string of break-ins made it impossible to stay open. This printed sign pasted on the door says it all:
“Small businesses (and large) cannot sustain doing business in our city’s current state. We have no protection, or recourse, against criminal behavior that goes unpunished. Do not be fooled into thinking that insurance companies cover losses. We have sustained 15 break-ins. … We have not received any financial reimbursement since the 3rd.”
For all of recorded history, large portions of humanity have tended to cluster together in centralized strongholds, while others have lived in less populated areas where agricultural activity was more common. Having cities simply made sense. Larger numbers of people could better defend themselves from aggressors while trade and economic activity were more convenient when centralized. But city life also required an unspoken agreement that everyone would have to play by the rules and establish methods of maintaining order. More people can accomplish great works but when a significant portion of a large population turns into a mob, the destruction it can wreak is similarly exaggerated.
Sadly, that is what we are clearly observing in America today. Moore describes the “cults of economic and political quackery” that have hypnotized metropolitan residents, leading to calls to defund the police, empty the jails, and the turning of a blind eye to crime in the name of “social justice.” Those bothering to seek solutions inevitably attempt to “tax the rich” to the point where the most productive flee for safer havens.
These cults have not impacted the entire country evenly. It’s true that all communities experience drug overdoses or deaths and inflation puts pressure on all households while the dollar weakens and prices rise. But particularly when it comes to crime, America’s cities have taken a far more radical downward turn than the suburban and rural areas such as the one my wife and I are blessed to live in. The county where we live recorded only one murder in all of 2022. You would be hard-pressed to find a single day last year when nobody was killed in Baltimore or Chicago.
The current situation in America’s urban centers is not sustainable. And for some reason, nearly all of the larger cities are controlled by liberal Democrats who impose the insane policies that allow this mayhem to flourish. Even Austin, in the heart of the red state of Texas, has a municipal government that is hiring wolves to guard the henhouse. And the recent election in Chicago suggests that there is no path back from the brink for many of our formerly-great cities. You simply cannot help those who refuse to help themselves.
They need to send the museum treasures to a safer place out of the Marxist extremist terrorist revolution war zone.
Another big city mayor who will only focus on the important job of blaming whitey and capitalism for all his failures.
I am ok with darwinism making a come back.
The sooner and harder the city of Chicago collapses, the better.
The entire country is unsustainable.
ping
The Democrats want violence, crime, death by any means, abortion, suicide vaccines.
And again, evidence that life imitates art. (”Escape From New York.”)
Probably a good idea to save at least some of the best art and artifacts frok big city museums. Move them to bunkers in isolated locations before whatever it is that is going to happen to the cities happens.
This guy is very similar to the mayor of Jackson MS, a radical marxist race baiter. Look at what’s happened to Jackson, they can’t even keep the water system working now despite many millions of federal dollars sent there to fix it. He and his cronies steal it as quickly as it comes in. Chicago is in for a ride. I didn’t think they could do much worse than Lightfoot, but it looks like they have.
Chicago takes a lot of flak, but it’s not even in the top 15 in “violent crime rate”. Cities like StLouis, Memphis, Birmingham, Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, even Mobile or SpringfieldMO are all way way worse
This article acts like people are all huddling in their homes in some kind of war zone, feels like a wild exaggeration ha
“...the current situation in America’s urban centers is not sustainable.”
Municipal Darwinism.
I wanna know why all these guns are killing people.
I’ve been saying for years on FR that “Martial Law”, sooner or later, was the only answer in these democratic party controlled cities AND states e.g. LA, Chicago, NYC, Seattle, Portland, California, Oregon, Washington, Oregon and New York.
Jazz is wrong. Cities survived even great destruction because of their location. She needs to analyze the importance of location in the present day. Harbors, rivers, trade routes, raw materials,and accessibility to food stuffs were what made cities possible. That might be quite different today, although it could be very important if things go sideways.
I’ve come to the same conclusion, cities like Chicago can’t be saved and their ultimate failure should not be stopped it should be allowed until there is nothing left
You might think, as sane people do, that even the voters and the dems will come to their senses at a certain point of crisis.
They won’t. They want total destruction. Chicago’s ruin pleases them.
If I were king I would forbid these liberal jerks from leaving their self created s hole. Screw those people.
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