Saving Our Cities (Part 2)

 

My previous post, Saving Our Cities, was an analysis of some of the problems plaguing American cities today. This article proposes a practical solution.

Here is a quick review of some of the concepts I covered:

  • Many of our major cities have been going straight downhill over the last half-century. Poverty, unemployment, homelessness, drug use, violent crime, filth, etc.  The telling part is that these effects are generally confined within the city’s borders.  The situation is so pervasive that nobody is even talking about it getting better.
  • A “Functioning Democracy”: Economist Amartya Sen describes a “Functioning Democracy” as any political system (democracy or otherwise) where the government is held accountable to the people. Where government officials can be replaced if the people are unhappy with them. So, while in office, government officials have an incentive to do a good job. Without a Functioning Democracy, there is an enormous incentive for bribery, corruption, fraud, waste, mismanagement, and graft.
  • “The Curley Effect”: Economists Edward Glaeser and Andrei Shleifer describe “The Curley Effect” (Boston mayor, not our favorite Stooge), where the mayor of a city can increase his chance of remaining in office with either the traditional approach of doing an excellent job, …OR… by implementing policies that drive the people who are likely to vote against him out of the city. (The Curley Effect: The Economics of Shaping the Electorate, The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Edward L. Glaeser, Andrei Shleifer (Both with Harvard and the National Bureau of Economic Research)
  • A side effect of The Curley Effect: Without competition, the party in office can get away with anything. And the selection for political office is moved from the voters to the party organization.

Putting these four mechanisms together provides a very consistent explanation for the current state of our major cities.

Now, running a city is not that difficult; there are lots of good examples all around and best practices have been collected over the years. There really is no excuse. What we are witnessing is a lack of incentives to make things better, and a ton of incentives for maladministration.

Further, expectations of competence have been lowered with this occurring in so many cities at the same time.

What Not To Do About It

Blaming Democrats will do no good. Yeah, they did it, but it’s not gonna help. People are bored hearing the parties blaming each other for everything.

Debating left/right ideologies will do no good. Too abstract.

Complaining to the management will do no good. This model tells us that there will either be no response, or they will call you racist, or they will create a program that costs $1 billion and will make the problem worse. (Example: ThriveNYC.)

Individual efforts, like cleaning up an alley, will do no good.

Leaving the city will do no good. That’s actually the goal of the Curley Effect.

Running for office will do no good. The chance of getting elected is zero, and even if you do, everything will be stacked against you.

Blame Who?

Note that the Republican Party has not been involved in any of this.

The GOP organization has clearly done a cost/benefit analysis and concluded that spending its limited resources in Democrat-run cities is unlikely to win any elections there. As such, that’s completely reasonable. (Another plus, it avoids work.)

But…   it is precisely the uninvolvement of the Republican Party that has left our cities vulnerable to the Curley Effect, to One Party Rule, to the loss of a Functioning Democracy, and to the resulting vicious cycle of despair in these cities.

These are the unintended consequences of a completely rational decision.

Thus, the only fix is for the Republican Party to step up and grow a pair.

Just funding candidates in troubled cities is not going to work. This will require a “Manhattan Project” of sorts. You have to break the current model.

How To Do It

The overall goal is to replace selected city councils with a slate of local Republicans with a MOCGA (Make Our City Great Again) agenda.

  1. Select a couple of cities to start with. Choose the ones that have the best chance of pulling this off. Small- or medium-sized cities with unused assets and documentable corruption would be best.
  2. Set up shop. Lease buildings in select neighborhoods and turn them into community centers. Hire local people to do the renovations, maintenance, clerical, catering. Clean up the area around it; make it shine. Offer a comfortable and friendly atmosphere, free bagels, and coffee. Staff the center with helpful people providing all sorts of assistance; getting city services, landlord issues, organize cleanups. Recruit and help people to work on campaigns and run for office.
  3. Run a slate of candidates with a common platform: “They did this to you, and we can fix it. Join us.”
  4. When you win, audit the hell out of everything, decimate the bureaucracy, fire the scumbags, bring in businesses, turn the city around.

The ad campaigns would be easy; just show photos of local blight.

For example, here’s Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia:

So I think this is the only way. It’s a substantial project, but it’s doesn’t need a lot of money, technology, or equipment. Far better than spending money on tv ads. And if successful, it would be an enormous win for the people in the cities, for the party, and for the nation.

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  1. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Wow.  That’s some video.  That’s what opioid abuse looks like.  I’ve worked those ER’s before.

    God bless those poor people.

    One problem, as I see it, is that those people don’t have brown paper bags with a bottle of Mad Dog in it.  No – they’re hooked on heroin & fentanyl.  

    In my experience, alcohol rehab sometimes works.  It’s difficult, and the success rate is not good, but it works sometimes.  But opioid rehab simply doesn’t work.  That’s a one way road.  Almost no one comes back.  Those people are broken, and they can’t be fixed.  I’m convinced that opioids permanently change how your brain works. 

    God bless them.  But the odds of them beating their oppressor (opioids) are vanishingly small, even if they were highly motivated.  Which they’re not.  Many of them started out with underlying severe psychiatric disease, which does not respond well to heroin.  So now they’re screwed.  Absolutely tragic.

    Booze is bad.  But it’s nowhere near this bad.

    I’ve worked in places like that.  I know those people.  And I have no idea how one would even start to fix that.

    God bless those poor people.

    • #1
  2. Doctor Robert Member
    Doctor Robert
    @DoctorRobert

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):
    But opioid rehab simply doesn’t work.  That’s a one way road.  Almost no one comes back.  Those people are broken, and they can’t be fixed.  I’m convinced that opioids permanently change how your brain works. 

    My wife does opioid and other rehab for a living.   Truer words were never written, Doc. That’s why methadone and suboxone programs are the only ones with any decent success rates; you gotta keep teh opioids coming.

    • #2
  3. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Wow.  That’s some video.  That’s what opioid abuse looks like.  I’ve worked those ER’s before.

    God bless those poor people.

    That particular video has almost 8 million views.  And the author has uploaded at least 500 similar ones.

    This is a lot of people dying in, in this case, Philadelphia.

    • #3
  4. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    Thank you for your time in writing this and your heart.

    • #4
  5. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):
    But opioid rehab simply doesn’t work. That’s a one way road. Almost no one comes back. Those people are broken, and they can’t be fixed. I’m convinced that opioids permanently change how your brain works.

    My wife does opioid and other rehab for a living. Truer words were never written, Doc. That’s why methadone and suboxone programs are the only ones with any decent success rates; you gotta keep teh opioids coming.

    Exactly. 

    Once somebody completes alcohol rehab, the idea is to make sure that person never tastes alcohol again.  Don’t start back down that road.  It’s very difficult, but some people succeed in rebuilding their lives and staying dry for years.  Many fail.  But many succeed.

    But opiate addicts must be treated very differently.  We keep giving them opiates.  You can’t just stop the opiates.  They just cannot do that.  You’ve got to keep them on opiates long term – they can’t just stop.

    And the discipline needed to follow a program of controlled opiate use is rare.  Very tough.  But you’re right – that’s the only way that has any chance at all.

    But getting the people in that video to somehow stand up, walk to a treatment center, and find the courage and the inner drive to succeed in a program like that – man, that’s ambitious.  And there are lots and lots and lots and lots of these people out there.

    God bless them.  I see those streets, and I just don’t know how exactly we can even begin to fix what we see there…

    • #5
  6. Buckpasser Member
    Buckpasser
    @Buckpasser

    Since the dems who run the big cities WANT this squaler to continue we’ll have to endure more of these wonderful street scences for the forseeable future.

    • #6
  7. Ben Sears Member
    Ben Sears
    @BenMSYS

    I remember watching a George Will speech in the early 90s where he said that for the first time in the history of civilization, cities are important, not as centers of intellectual and economic dynamism, but as problems. I’m paraphrasing and wish I had the actual quote, but it’s been a while. It struck me. I wish I could at least say that nothing has changed, but it has demonstrably for the worse. 

    Thanks for the post.

    • #7
  8. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    • #8
  9. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    We should genetically engineer people to not be addicts.

    • #9
  10. navyjag Coolidge
    navyjag
    @navyjag

    Excellent post nam. And Dr. B’s response re: cures is right on. San Francisco only turned this bad in about the last 20 years. Recall Willie Brown moving the homeless folks away from City hall and things were stable for a few years before Newsome became Mayor. Good idea about how to turn things around but it overlooks the one group of grifters that would oppose any “community” buildings they don’t endorse. The homeless “non-profits” are reaping in tens of millions to cook up “affordable housing” options that are both unaffordable (cost of construction) and unwanted.  They will never give up that river of taxpayer dollars. 

    • #10
  11. DonG (CAGW is a Scam) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Scam)
    @DonG

    namlliT noD: Set up shop. Lease buildings in select neighborhoods and turn them into community centers. Hire local people to do the renovations, maintenance, clerical, catering. Clean up the area around it; make it shine. Offer a comfortable and friendly atmosphere, free bagels and coffee. Staff the center with helpful people providing all sorts of assistance; getting city services, landlord issues, organize cleanups.

    That sounds very, very expensive.

    Maybe the problem is that the idea of cities is dead.  With telecommuting, cities might be on a long and unstoppable downward spiral.  Existing cities are just playgrounds for commies and piggy banks for graft.  Is there any well-run big city in America?   Or, are there just cities that are too small for the commies and grafters?

    • #11
  12. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    navyjag (View Comment):

    Excellent post nam. And Dr. B’s response re: cures is right on. San Francisco only turned this bad in about the last 20 years. Recall Willie Brown moving the homeless folks away from City hall and things were stable for a few years before Newsome became Mayor. Good idea about how to turn things around but it overlooks the one group of grifters that would oppose any “community” buildings they don’t endorse. The homeless “non-profits” are reaping in tens of millions to cook up “affordable housing” options that are both unaffordable (cost of construction) and unwanted. They will never give up that river of taxpayer dollars.

    And the Dimocrat pols, too.  That’s why my response to

    namlliT noD: Blaming Democrats will do no good. Yeah, they did it, but it’s not gonna help.  People are bored hearing the parties blaming each other for everything.

    was going to be something like not only did they “did” it, but they didn’t stop doing it.  Trying to fix the cities at this point would be opposed by the Dims and their donors etc, with gusto.  Seems like a waste of valuable time, effort, and money to me.  It might be most effective to show working alternatives instead.

    • #12
  13. Fritz Coolidge
    Fritz
    @Fritz

    The cycle of ever higher public funding going to so-called non profits who supply so-called services to the so-called homeless is what perpetuates the problem. In my county, there was a pricey 10-year plan to “end homelessness” that ran out in 2016 without making a dent in the problem.

    Funding is higher than ever from the county and cities, while the numbers of mentally ill and drugged out people living in the street have only grown.

    In the wake of the 10-year plan failure, the city and county created another bureaucracy called the Regional Homeless Authority, whose budget for 2022 was $162 Million, all but a federal $29 Million coming from local taxes.

    And now there’s a proposal to seek voter approval to issue bonds above the state’s borrowing limit so they can drop another $11.5 Billion on the problem in the next several budget cycles. Insane, because it is mental illness and drugs that are at the root of the problem, not a lack of dwellings, but it’s all very lucrative if you work in the Homeless Industrial Complex.

    • #13
  14. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):
    But opioid rehab simply doesn’t work. That’s a one way road. Almost no one comes back. Those people are broken, and they can’t be fixed. I’m convinced that opioids permanently change how your brain works.

    My wife does opioid and other rehab for a living. Truer words were never written, Doc. That’s why methadone and suboxone programs are the only ones with any decent success rates; you gotta keep teh opioids coming.

    This is an important issue that really deserves its own post.  I was only using it as an example of a city failure, like the way Detroit is used for post apocalypse porn by French photographers:

    As my knowledge in medicine and addiction is roughly zero, I can only ask what would be the best possible thing that could be done to help these people?  I can’t believe “let’m die like this” is the only option.  But again, maybe another post.

    • #14
  15. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    DonG (CAGW is a Scam) (View Comment):

    namlliT noD: Set up shop. Lease buildings in select neighborhoods and turn them into community centers. Hire local people to do the renovations, maintenance, clerical, catering. Clean up the area around it; make it shine. Offer a comfortable and friendly atmosphere, free bagels and coffee. Staff the center with helpful people providing all sorts of assistance; getting city services, landlord issues, organize cleanups.

    That sounds very, very expensive.

    Nah, no more that any other election expenses.  (Which are enormous right now.)

    Maybe the problem is that the idea of cities is dead. With telecommuting, cities might be on a long and unstoppable downward spiral. Existing cities are just playgrounds for commies and piggy banks for graft. Is there any well-run big city in America? Or, are there just cities that are too small for the commies and grafters?

    I understand that San Diego, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City are all run pretty well.

    See my previous article Well, This Is Fascinating for a list of the fastest growing cities (and fastest failing cities) in the country.

     

    • #15
  16. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    namlliT noD (View Comment):

    DonG (CAGW is a Scam) (View Comment):

    namlliT noD: Set up shop. Lease buildings in select neighborhoods and turn them into community centers. Hire local people to do the renovations, maintenance, clerical, catering. Clean up the area around it; make it shine. Offer a comfortable and friendly atmosphere, free bagels and coffee. Staff the center with helpful people providing all sorts of assistance; getting city services, landlord issues, organize cleanups.

    That sounds very, very expensive.

    Nah, no more that any other election expenses. (Which are enormous right now.)

    Maybe the problem is that the idea of cities is dead. With telecommuting, cities might be on a long and unstoppable downward spiral. Existing cities are just playgrounds for commies and piggy banks for graft. Is there any well-run big city in America? Or, are there just cities that are too small for the commies and grafters?

    I understand that San Diego, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City are all run pretty well.

    See my previous article Well, This Is Fascinating for a list of the fastest growing cities (and fastest failing cities) in the country.

     

    One reason that places like Phoenix might be doing better, is they keep expanding out.  Not just trying to cram more people into the same land, which seems to be the case in many locations.

    • #16
  17. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    Fritz (View Comment):

    The cycle of ever higher public funding going to so-called non profits who supply so-called services to the so-called homeless is what perpetuates the problem. In my county, there was a pricey 10-year plan to “end homelessness” that ran out in 2016 without making a dent in the problem.

    Funding is higher than ever from the county and cities, while the numbers of mentally ill and drugged out people living in the street have only grown.

    In the wake of the 10-year plan failure, the city and county created another bureaucracy called the Regional Homeless Authority, whose budget for 2022 was $162 Million, all but a federal $29 Million coming from local taxes.

    And now there’s a proposal to seek voter approval to issue bonds above the state’s borrowing limit so they can drop another $11.5 Billion on the problem in the next several budget cycles. Insane, because it is mental illness and drugs that are at the root of the problem, not a lack of dwellings, but it’s all very lucrative if you work in the Homeless Industrial Complex.

    Those monies which do often get siphoned off to low cost rental properties ahve a built in advantage for the individuals running “non-profits” that bring the programs to fruition.

    The advantage of these programs as touted to the public is that now there is rental housing available for a time period for lower-incomed people.

    Inside today’s megatropolises, the “low incomed” people can be making as much as 50K a year.

    At the end of the agreed period, be it 10 or 15 or even 30 years, the buildings can return to the outright ownership of the non-profit that handled the funds and saw to the property being designed built, rented out and maintained.

    Then the “owners” of that non-profit, who often of course are the Director and those on the Board of Directors, now only have to evict the tenants and sell the properties. For a nice tidy sum that the 10 to 30 years of being rented out while inflation clips along at 7% will have them rejoicing.

     

    • #17
  18. navyjag Coolidge
    navyjag
    @navyjag

    Fritz (View Comment):

    The cycle of ever higher public funding going to so-called non profits who supply so-called services to the so-called homeless is what perpetuates the problem. In my county, there was a pricey 10-year plan to “end homelessness” that ran out in 2016 without making a dent in the problem.

    Funding is higher than ever from the county and cities, while the numbers of mentally ill and drugged out people living in the street have only grown.

    In the wake of the 10-year plan failure, the city and county created another bureaucracy called the Regional Homeless Authority, whose budget for 2022 was $162 Million, all but a federal $29 Million coming from local taxes.

    And now there’s a proposal to seek voter approval to issue bonds above the state’s borrowing limit so they can drop another $11.5 Billion on the problem in the next several budget cycles. Insane, because it is mental illness and drugs that are at the root of the problem, not a lack of dwellings, but it’s all very lucrative if you work in the Homeless Industrial Complex.

    Homeless Industrial Complex.  Love it. Son an accountant in SF and goes nuts every time he sees the HIC budget and how much of our taxes are wasted.  

    • #18
  19. Juliana Member
    Juliana
    @Juliana

    I think what shocks me the most about the video is the age of the people. Most look to be in their 20’s and 30’s and are willing to live in filth. What a horrible addiction.

    • #19
  20. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    navyjag (View Comment):

    Fritz (View Comment):

    The cycle of ever higher public funding going to so-called non profits who supply so-called services to the so-called homeless is what perpetuates the problem. In my county, there was a pricey 10-year plan to “end homelessness” that ran out in 2016 without making a dent in the problem.

    Funding is higher than ever from the county and cities, while the numbers of mentally ill and drugged out people living in the street have only grown.

    In the wake of the 10-year plan failure, the city and county created another bureaucracy called the Regional Homeless Authority, whose budget for 2022 was $162 Million, all but a federal $29 Million coming from local taxes.

    And now there’s a proposal to seek voter approval to issue bonds above the state’s borrowing limit so they can drop another $11.5 Billion on the problem in the next several budget cycles. Insane, because it is mental illness and drugs that are at the root of the problem, not a lack of dwellings, but it’s all very lucrative if you work in the Homeless Industrial Complex.

    Homeless Industrial Complex. Love it. Son an accountant in SF and goes nuts every time he sees the HIC budget and how much of our taxes are wasted.

    You probably can’t stop them from spending it, but at least you can stop providing any of the money they waste.

     

    • #20
  21. Red Herring Coolidge
    Red Herring
    @EHerring

    You can’t create a utopia and there is an ugly side of humans. 

    • #21
  22. Locke On Member
    Locke On
    @LockeOn

    Fritz (View Comment):
    Funding is higher than ever from the county and cities, while the numbers of mentally ill and drugged out people living in the street have only grown.

    You get more of what you subsidize.

    • #22
  23. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Red Herring (View Comment):

    You can’t create a utopia and there is an ugly side of humans.

    Sci-fi afficionados should know that for sure.  “Monsters from the Id!”

    • #23
  24. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Red Herring (View Comment):

    You can’t create a utopia and there is an ugly side of humans.

    Sci-fi afficionados should know that for sure. “Monsters from the Id!”

    I really use that term, a little disguised, a lot.

    • #24
  25. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    You should link this and the previous post at one of Michelle Tandler’s twitter posts.

     

     

     

    • #25
  26. thelonious Member
    thelonious
    @thelonious

    Fritz (View Comment):

    The cycle of ever higher public funding going to so-called non profits who supply so-called services to the so-called homeless is what perpetuates the problem. In my county, there was a pricey 10-year plan to “end homelessness” that ran out in 2016 without making a dent in the problem.

    Funding is higher than ever from the county and cities, while the numbers of mentally ill and drugged out people living in the street have only grown.

    In the wake of the 10-year plan failure, the city and county created another bureaucracy called the Regional Homeless Authority, whose budget for 2022 was $162 Million, all but a federal $29 Million coming from local taxes.

    And now there’s a proposal to seek voter approval to issue bonds above the state’s borrowing limit so they can drop another $11.5 Billion on the problem in the next several budget cycles. Insane, because it is mental illness and drugs that are at the root of the problem, not a lack of dwellings, but it’s all very lucrative if you work in the Homeless Industrial Complex.

    And they’ll always need more funding. It’s never their incompetance and unwillingness to fix the problem. It’s our lack of genorosity.

    • #26
  27. GlennAmurgis Coolidge
    GlennAmurgis
    @GlennAmurgis

    I moved to Detroit in the early 80s. I experiences what the left did to that city.   (It looks like Beruit during the uprising). -For some time  I lived just north of the famous 8 mile.  

    They won’t be happy until all of the major cities are working like Detroit. 

    LA, SF, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis are morphing into “New Detroit”.

     

    • #27
  28. DonG (CAGW is a Scam) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Scam)
    @DonG

    GlennAmurgis (View Comment):

    They won’t be happy until all of the major cities are working like Detroit. 

    LA, SF, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis are morphing into “New Detroit”.

    I don’t see any of those cities loosing 2/3rds of their population, but then again I didn’t foresee New York City being turned into a prison island and the president being rescued by Robert “Snake” Plissken.   Gradually, then suddenly.

    • #28
  29. Retail Lawyer Member
    Retail Lawyer
    @RetailLawyer

    Great post!  San Francisco, at least, is way too ideological to accept any input from anybody who could conceivably be labelled as Republican.  I fear any Community Center identified as conservative would be sabotaged and its workers and clients would be harassed, doxed, etc.  I saw a customer thrown out of a store by a latina clerk because the customer was wearing a shirt that said “California Republic”, with the flag of that entity.  The clerk thought the customer was a Republican.  I suppose the schools don’t teach California history anymore.

    The Curley effect is a killer.  I moved out of San Francisco almost a year ago.

    • #29
  30. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    Retail Lawyer (View Comment):

    Great post! San Francisco, at least, is way too ideological to accept any input from anybody who could conceivably be labelled as Republican. I fear any Community Center identified as conservative would be sabotaged and its workers and clients would be harassed, doxed, etc. I saw a customer thrown out of a store by a latina clerk because the customer was wearing a shirt that said “California Republic”, with the flag of that entity. The clerk thought the customer was a Republican. I suppose the schools don’t teach California history anymore.

    The Curley effect is a killer. I moved out of San Francisco almost a year ago.

    Indeed, San Francisco would be a terrible candidate.  For a lot of reasons.

    Oh, and I’ll point out that nearby San Jose is an example of well run city.  Population growth has been huge, and it’s now significantly larger than San Francisco.

    I was thinking of a city more like St. Louis, Cleveland, Rochester, that sort of thing.  But I have no expertise there.

    • #30
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