What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
The always-fascinating Walter Russell Mead, writing on the website of The American Interest, notes that the city of Detroit is now only a few weeks away from bankruptcy. How low has Detroit sunk? Very:
Unemployment in the city of Detroit is estimated at about 20 percent; two thirds of the city’s children live in poverty. The two largest employers in the city: the dysfunctional public school system and the crippled city government. Decades of incompetence and corruption by elected officials in tandem with the decline of the once flourishing American automobile industry and (entirely understandable) flight by the better educated and the better off have thoroughly blighted what was once one of America’s most flourishing cities.
All this raises an obvious--and important--question. Not that you'll ever hear it:
Leftie intellectuals spend a lot of time analyzing the “false consciousness” that keeps American workers voting for Republicans who (in the view of the intellectuals) support anti-worker policies. We don’t hear nearly as much from these incisive social thinkers about the false urban consciousness that keeps voters supporting policies and politicians that have ruined the cities, but there you are.
Many of the policies that are dearest to the hearts of powerful Democratic politicians are responsible for wrecking the lives of many of their most loyal supporters, but the loyal supporters turn out year after year.
Democratic policies...and wrecked lives.
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May '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
When Coleman Young passed away a reporter asked L. Brooks Patterson, the Republican executive of Oakland County just north of Detroit, "What would be a fitting tribute to the late mayor? Said Patterson, "They should rename 8 Mile Road (the city's northern limit) Coleman Young Boulevard because no one worked harder to divide the city from its suburbs and drive business out of Detroit."
Engaging in the politics of racial revenge and redistribution started a great city on an unstoppable slide. Follow that up with the corruption of Kwame (18 months to 5 years) Kilpatrick and you have disaster.
Dennis Archer served as mayor in between. A decent man who wouldn't kowtow to Young's political machine he was a black man who couldn't win a majority of the black vote and had to fend off a recall effort. He had enough and declined to run again.
Edited on March 11, 2012 at 8:11pmSep '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
I hope the GOP can find a way to hang this disaster around the necks of the Democrats, where it belongs. But EJHill's comment highlights the potential risks--whatever the GOP says, the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) will cry "Racism!" So the GOP needs to do this in a way that defuses that perennial.
May '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Peter Robinson
Democratic policies...and wrecked lives. · · 29 minutes ago
More specifically, 50 years of uninterrupted Democrat policies:
Wikipedia: List of Mayors of Detroit
May '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Also note that the population of Detroit is in free fall.
Detroit's population in 1950: 1,849,568
Detroit's population in 2010: 713,777
Wikipedia: Detroit
Aug '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Are you kidding? Governor Snyder (Rep.) is totally gonna get all the blame, no matter what the state government does.
(I correct myself: Former governor John Engler (Rep.) will surely also get some blame.)
Edited on March 11, 2012 at 6:55pmAug '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Don Tillman
Peter Robinson
Democratic policies...and wrecked lives. · · 29 minutes ago
More specifically, 50 years of uninterrupted Democrat policies:
Wikipedia: List of Mayors of Detroit · 18 minutes ago
Mayors? Pfft!
We all know that it's (Republican) governors who are responsible for Detroit's situation. How can the (Democratic) mayors possibly get anything done under the yoke of power-mad (Republican) governors?
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Don Tillman: Also note that the population of Detroit is in free fall.
Detroit's population in 1950: 1,849,568
Detroit's population in 2010: 713,777
Wikipedia: Detroit · 15 minutes ago
Just astonishing. Is there another top-15 or -20 city in the entire nation that, while the population of the United States more than doubled, saw its own population more than halved?
Edited on March 11, 2012 at 6:59pmMay '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Peter Robinson
Don Tillman: Also note that the population of Detroit is in free fall.
Detroit's population in 1950: 1,849,568
Detroit's population in 2010: 713,777
Wikipedia: Detroit · 15 minutes ago
Just astonishing. Is there another top-15 or -20 city in the entire nation that, while the population of the United States more than doubled, saw its own population more than halved? · 4 minutes ago
Edited 3 minutes ago
St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo
Some historic data.
Edited on March 11, 2012 at 7:21pmApr '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
But, Peter. The worse they are off the better Democratic plans for more welfare and support seem. It is a positive feed back system, sustained by the guilt of affluent yuppies and suburbanites who consent to funding generous welfare and pretending like there is no problem.
Look at the recent Detroit is back line of Chevy and GM commercials. These people live in denial.
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Sad, outrageous...and true.
Apr '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Peter Robinson
Don Tillman: Also note that the population of Detroit is in free fall.
Detroit's population in 1950: 1,849,568
Detroit's population in 2010: 713,777
Wikipedia: Detroit · 15 minutes ago
Just astonishing. Is there another top-15 or -20 city in the entire nation that, while the population of the nation more than doubled, saw its own population more than halved? · 2 minutes ago
Cleveland. In 1950, America's 7th biggest city, at 914,808. 2010: America's 45th, at 396,815.
St. Louis. In 1950, America's 8th biggest city, at 856,796. 2010: America's 58th, at 319,294.
Baltimore, 150's #6, fell by a mere third, while D.C. (#9, only in the top 10 in 1820 and 1950-1970) fell by a quarter. I knew about Cleveland, but appreciate your inspiration to look this up, as I had not known how severe St. Louis' decline had been. Brutal. Tulsa is bigger now. On the downside, my wife's recent obsession with the ridiculous claim that I am a nerd intensified about 5 minutes ago.
Apr '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
ctlaw
Peter Robinson
Don Tillman: Also note that the population of Detroit is in free fall.
Detroit's population in 1950: 1,849,568
Detroit's population in 2010: 713,777
Wikipedia: Detroit · 15 minutes ago
Just astonishing. Is there another top-15 or -20 city in the entire nation that, while the population of the United States more than doubled, saw its own population more than halved? · 4 minutes ago
Edited 3 minutes ago
St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo
Some historic data. · 20 minutes ago
Edited 5 minutes ago
Beaten to it by 20 minutes! Fortunately, while apparently my wife's view of my being (in her view) a nerd is highly negative, her response to the discovery that I am a loser nerd is sympathetic. ;-)
May '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
James Of England
Cleveland. In 1950, America's 7th biggest city, at 914,808. 2010: America's 45th, at 396,815.
St. Louis. In 1950, America's 8th biggest city, at 856,796. 2010: America's 58th, at 319,294.
Baltimore, 150's #6, fell by a mere third, while D.C. (#9, only in the top 10 in 1820 and 1950-1970) fell by a quarter. I knew about Cleveland, but appreciate your inspiration to look this up, as I had not known how severe St. Louis' decline had been. Brutal. Tulsa is bigger now. On the downside, my wife's recent obsession with the ridiculous claim that I am a nerd intensified about 5 minutes ago. · 1 minute ago
For eight of the top ten cities in the 1950 census, that was their peak population.
May '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Exactly. But to be more precise, some of the blame needs to be laid at the feet of William Milliken, the nominally Republican (Endorsed John Kerry in 2004) Governor of Michigan who poured millions of dollars of state aid into Detroit, essentially rewarding Young for his racial politics. Young destroyed the city's tax base but Milliken took the tax dollars out of the suburbs and handed the money back to him. Had Young been forced to deal with the mess he made the day of reckoning would have come sooner.
Too often Republican politicians become enablers. They think that they are going to be praised for their bipartisanship. But behind the scenes the Democrats and Union Thugs (where Young rose from power to begin with) laugh at them for their abject stupidity.
Bill Milliken thought he was "saving" Detroit. He only added to the misery.
May '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
This is the reason why I am a conservative.
Aug '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Is there a pattern to this? Have the cities that have fallen so catastrophically simply been industrial cities -- or have they been cities governed by democratic and social welfare policies?
Aug '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
I was born into a racially mixed Detroit neighborhood well within Four Mile Road. The government of Detroit, like the government of Chicago, was probably always corrupt. But corruption, in and of itself, seldom kills a city. Like any parasite it tends to stop short of killing the host.
Detroit was killed by genuinely good intentions, by the disastrously failed policies of the War on Poverty, and by the catastrophic impact of the 1967 riots. By 1967, violence and punitive taxation had driven the bourgeois classes, of all races, from the city.
George Romney was governor while much of this was happening. I have no doubt that he too was well intentioned.
May '11
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
cbc:
George Romney was governor while much of this was happening. I have no doubt that he too was well intentioned. · 1 minute ago
Presumably, he was brainwashed.
May '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions. But that's how Democrats sell all of their disastrous policies, isn't it?
Oct '10
Re: What's that Matter with Kansas? Wrong Question. What's the Matter with Detroit?
Meade's closing lines; "Obviously the problem is that we haven’t spent enough on enough tenured teachers, haven’t written enough new regulations and established enough new bureaus to enforce them, haven’t published enough white papers by enough credentialed planners, haven’t extracted enough taxes and provided enough services. If we could just tax the suburbs and exurbs more heavily and spend more of the money in the cities, all would be well."
Last year the administration rewarded the biggest losers with a cut of the federal largess, borrowed, of course, to keep the pond scum growing. Doubtless, this will continue.
Once upon a time, local property taxes supported government schools. Good communities had good schools. Parents who worked hard could see their children receive the rewards of their efforts. Now all of the money is pooled, and we all get crappy schools.
Never forget; "socialism is the equal sharing of misery."