The Wall Street Journal didn't pull any punches but instead laid Baltimore's failure at the feet of progressives who have run the city for decades in an editorial published last week:
You’re not supposed to say this in polite company, but what went up in flames in Baltimore Monday night was not merely a senior center, small businesses and police cars. Burning down was also the blue-city model of urban governance.
Nothing excuses the violence of rampaging students or the failure of city officials to stop it before Maryland’s Governor called in the National Guard. But as order starts to return to the streets, and the usual political suspects lament the lack of economic prospects for the young men who rioted, let’s not forget who has run Baltimore and Maryland for nearly all of the last 40 years.
The men and women in charge have been Democrats, and their governing ideas are “progressive.” This model, with its reliance on government and public unions, has dominated urban America as once-vibrant cities such as Baltimore became shells of their former selves. In 1960 Baltimore was America’s sixth largest city with 940,000 people. It has since shed nearly a third of its population and today isn’t in the top 25.
The dysfunctions of the blue-city model are many, but the main failures are three: high crime, low economic growth and failing public schools that serve primarily as jobs programs for teachers and administrators rather than places of learning.
Let’s take them in order. The first and most important responsibility of any city government is to uphold law and order. When the streets are unsafe and crime is high, everything else—e.g., getting businesses to invest and create jobs—becomes next to impossible.
People also start voting with their feet. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has stated that one of her goals is to attract 10,000 families to move to Baltimore. Good luck with that after Monday night.
It’s not that we don’t know what to do. Rudy Giuliani proved that in New York City, which he helped to revive in the 1990s starting with a revolution in policing that brought crime rates to record lows. A good part of this was policing in areas that had previously been left to the hoodlums.
His reward (and that of his successor, Mike Bloomberg, who built on Mr. Giuliani’s policies) was to become a villain of the liberal grievance industry and a constant target of attack. Few blue-city mayors elsewhere have been willing to take that heat. (Yarber is first mayor in a long time who got out of way of police and let them do their jobs.).
Or take the economy. In the heyday of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the idea was that the federal government could revitalize city centers with money and central planning. You can tell how that turned out by the office buildings and housing projects that failed to attract middle-class taxpayers. Baltimore’s waterfront is a gleaming example of this kind of top-down development, with new sports stadiums that failed to attract other businesses. (KF: See this earlier post about the failure of Baltimore's crony capitalism.).
The latest figures from Maryland’s Department of Labor show state unemployment at 5.4%, against 8.4% for Baltimore. A 2011 city report on the neighborhood of Freddie Gray—the African-American whose death in police custody sparked the riots—reported an area that is 96.9% black with unemployment at 21%. When it comes to providing hope and jobs, we should have learned by now that no government program can substitute for a healthy private economy.
Then there are the public schools. Residents will put up with a great deal if they know their children have a chance at upward mobility through education. But when the schools no longer perform, the parents who can afford to move to the suburbs do so—and those left behind are stuck with failure. There are many measures of failure in Baltimore schools, but consider that on state tests 72% of eighth graders scored below proficient in math, 45% in reading and 64% in science. (Hello, JPS)
Our point is not to indict all cities or liberals. Many big-city Democrats have worked to welcome private investment and reform public education. Some of the biggest cities—New York, Boston and San Francisco—have also had inherent economic advantages like higher education and the finance and technology industries.
But Baltimore also has advantages, not least its port and one of the nation’s finest medical centers in Johns Hopkins. If it lacks the appeal of New York or San Diego, that is all the more reason for city officials to rethink their reliance on high taxes, government spending and welfare-state dependency. (KF: Sounds like UMC)
For a time in recent decades, it looked like the reform examples of New York under Messrs. Giuliani and Bloomberg and the growth of cities like Houston might lead to a broader urban revitalization. In some places it did.
But of late the progressives have been making a comeback, led by Bill de Blasio in New York and the challenge to sometime reform Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago. This week’s nightmare in Baltimore shows where this leads. It’s time for a new urban renewal, this time built on the ideas of private economic development, personal responsibility, “broken windows” policing, and education choice.
Kingfish note: Substitute the name "Baltimore" with "Jackson" and the appropriate politicians with their counterparts as well.
Sunday, May 3, 2015
WSJ: Baltimore's failure typical of "blue-city" governing
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23 comments:
This article is garbage. It singles out Baltimore for voting democrat as if there is a major city that doesn't vote democrat. The cities that are growing today: Austin, Denver, Atlanta, Houston, etc., are all democrat too. Even the article's example (NYC), is undeniably blue. So that's the explanation for why Baltimore isn't the posterchild for success while these other cities are?? Please!
Kingfish, you know your last sentence in this post is a cheap ploy to get your loyal followers to comment on Jackson voting democrat. Way to pander to the Gov Bryant fan club.
Ok, 8pm....I'm sure you're partying down at the Farish St Entertainment District right now...how's it going?
Hello there 8:00. Listen up! The only thing that differentiates Baltimore (Balmer City as the locals used to call it) from the others you listed is the fact that the others you list still have an employment base that thrives (to a degree) due to tourism and business purpose.
Nobody goes to Baltimore and it's not been a destination for decades. Your list contains the names of destination cities. And those, too, will dry up and decay and rot on the vine, in due time.
Give 'em time, Pancho, give 'em time.
The absolute real problem is the Federal government has given out entitlements over the decades to women to have babies. This has been happening since LBJ was elected. Now all these welfare kids are growing up in a nation that cannot remotely support them in the job market. So, the fault is not in the police but the politics.
"one of the nation’s finest medical centers in Johns Hopkins. .....(KF: Sounds like UMC)"
KF - your comment is a little vague - surely you realize UMMC has nothing in common with Johns Hopkins.
PS When I lived in Houston I realized that the city's phenomenal growth was because the city annexed every surrounding suburb with a total of about 500,000 people.
and 8:00 - I could explain it for you, but I couldn't understand it for you.
Guess you missed this part:
Our point is not to indict all cities or liberals. Many big-city Democrats have worked to welcome private investment and reform public education. Some of the biggest cities—New York, Boston and San Francisco—have also had inherent economic advantages like higher education and the finance and technology industries.
The point is policies that result in crony capitlism, poor public schools, high crime rates, higher taxes, more spending, and higher unemployment will result in urban decay and destruction. Period. Pointing that out is garbage, however.
So are we allowed to discuss the roaming mobs of black people attacking random innocent white people (see Seattle and charleston also) or has it not yet become enough of an epidemic for Whitey to discuss?
The mayor of Ferguson, MO was the chair of the Missouri Young Republicans.
Why beat around the bush instead of just placing the blame where it really is? Crime became so overwhelming in the cities that most of the white people and educated black people moved out and left the cities with a majority of uneducated thugs, who run in feral packs (gangs). A group of racist black opportunists who are better educated than these thugs manage to take political control in order to enrich themselves with money pumped in by the federal government and the whole infrastructure collapses.Jackson is well on it's way to becoming another Detroit.It is NOT a black/white issue, it is a criminal issue.
Kingfish, the premise of this article is clearly "hey America, don't be liberal or you will turn out like Baltimore." That is unchanged by the article's half-recognition that San Francisco and NYC vote blue - a fact so apparent, even the writer of that article had to acknowledge it.
Here's a challenge: name me one thriving city (actual city, not a suburb) that doesn't vote liberal, and I will name you three that do. This article treats Baltimore's politics (which mirrors that of other cities) as a distinguishing factor. It's academically dishonest to say the least.
While we are at it, Mississippi has been a conservative state almost since it's inception. Yes, I know that it used to label itself democrat, but if you really think this State was liberal in 1950, I fear for your sanity. How has Mississippi's politics worked out for it since 1880? Do you think someone could just as fairly do an article on how that turns out?
That dumb state attorney simply tried to stop violence, we hear the people, that crap won't stand in court. You have experts and judges on tv saying the same thing about it will be impossible to get a conviction. At best a civil suit. These officers will get off and she will still be standing there with egg on her face. Go POLICE. Keep up the good work. Thank you Gov Bryant for taking charge of Mississippi and making this one of the best states in the South
Meanwhile MS is still one of the fattest, poorest, and dumbest states. Yeah . . . Go Gov. Bryant.
One of the few places where people can be doing bad and be proud of it.
MS unemployment rate was 4th in March, only behind DC, Nevada, and Puerto Rico. Go Gov. Bryant. (blame Obama)
Ok so we are a poor state but u don't see liberals running it. Haha!!! Mississippi Deep South handles business. Come try to burn our city down.
6:40 AM nailed it. The black Mafia controls the major cities, secretly sends protesters to fan racial flames, and is hell bent on destroying this country they all hate so much. I have a better idea, repatriate Africa, I will give you all my taxes next year to fund getting rid of you.
Maybe cops shouldn't kill people for no good reason?
Maybe criminals should stop breaking the law. Freddie Gray was nothing but a Heroin dealing thug that was a menace to the Community. I hope one of these black mobs targets me.
3:11pm: So anyone who breaks the law should be executed?
3:11, I guess illegal arrests don't exist or anything. Also, there is no such thing as police harassment. For such conservatives, y'all sure love big government power when it comes to select issues.
I like your logic, 3:11pm. If anyone breaks the law, they should have their spinal column severed and die. What a great country this would be if that happened! I hope a black mob targets, you, too.
This line of argumentation doesn't seem to well thought out. Did this come from the WSJ Opinion pages? Did it have a by-line?
3:31, no. My logic is if a person is arrested for dealing heroin, they should be locked up for a long time. Not back out on the streets in short order like Freddie Gray was.
With the judicial system so screwed up, the best thing we can hope for is for the criminals to be so hopped up on their own product that they commit suicide. Baltimore got lucky by Freddie Gray killing himself (as the medical examiner and all evidence suggests). Baltimore is certainly a better place without that thug.
Daniel Patrick Monynihan, a liberals liberal (and an honest one when he was wrong) wrote two seminal papers/reports. The first he wrote as the Assistant Secretary of Labor. It was titled the The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. That was 1965 and the out of wedlock birthrate was 25%. You can read the report on the DOL webstite:
http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/webid-meynihan.htm
The second he authored as the Demoocrat Senator from New York in 1993. Some may remember the fire storm it caused at the time: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/formans/DefiningDeviancy.htm
The problems are the same he described, just worse. The US ship of PC cannot be turned at this point. We have hit the iceberg and we are sinking. Just a question of when the whirlpool starts.
Senator Moynihan will be credited with being a prophet, but little good prophecy does - no one ever listens - that is why prophets are so famous!
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