Turn Out The Lights - Largest U.S. Cities Becoming Cesspools Of Filth, Decay And Wretchedness

The Economic Collapse ^ | 05/24/2012 | Michael Snyder

[SeekAndFind]

Once upon a time, the largest U.S. cities were the envy of the entire world. Sadly, that is no longer the case. Sure, there are areas of New York City, Boston, Washington and Los Angeles that are still absolutely beautiful but for the most part our major cities are rapidly rotting and decaying. Cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Memphis, New Orleans, St. Louis and Oakland were all once places where middle class American workers thrived and raised their families. Today, all of those cities are rapidly being transformed into cesspools of filth, decay and wretchedness. Millions of good jobs have left our major cities in recent decades and poverty has absolutely exploded. Basically, you can turn out the lights because the party is over. In fact, some major U.S. cities are literally turning out the lights. In Detroit, about 40 percent of the streetlights are already broken and the city cannot afford to repair them. So Mayor Bing has come up with a plan to cut the number of operating streetlights almost in half and leave vast sections of the city totally in the dark at night. I wonder what that will do to the crime rate in the city. But don't look down on Detroit too much, because what is happening in Detroit will be happening where you live soon enough.

A recent Bloomberg article described Mayor Bing's plan to eliminate nearly half of Detroit's streetlights....

Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60 percent fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space by eliminating almost half its streetlights.

As it is, 40 percent of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city, whose finances are to be overseen by an appointed board, can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing’s plan would create an authority to borrow $160 million to upgrade and reduce the number of streetlights to 46,000. Maintenance would be contracted out, saving the city $10 million a year.

What this means is that there are going to be a lot of neighborhoods that will have the lights turned off permanently.

So which neighborhoods will those be?

According to one top Detroit official, "distressed areas" are going to be on the low end of the totem pole....

“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”

City officials know that they cannot force people to move from "distressed areas", so they are going to encourage them to leave by cutting off services.

But turning off the lights is not the only way that Detroit is trying to save money.

Recently, officials in Detroit announced that all police stations in the city will be closed to the public for 16 hours a day.

It is so sad to see what is happening to what was once such a great city.

Back in the old days, Detroit had a teeming middle class population.

Today, 53.6% of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

Back in the old days, Detroit was a shining example of what America was doing right.

Today, 47 percent of all people living in the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.

Back in the old days, middle class neighborhoods sprouted like mushrooms all over Detroit.

Today, the median price of a home in Detroit is just $6000.

Needless to say, crime is exploding in Detroit and many families live in constant fear.

Many have taken justice into their own hands. Justifiable homicide in Detroit rose by a staggering 79 percent during 2011.

But Detroit is only one example of a national trend.

For example, a recent article by Jim Quinn entitled "More Than 30 Blocks Of Grey And Decay" described the filth, decay and wretchedness in West Philadelphia. Quinn refers to the drive through this area as "the 30 Blocks of Squalor"....

The real unemployment rate exceeds 50%, murder is the number one industry, with drugs a close second.

As you drive down the 30 Blocks of Squalor you meet the ghost of Squalor future for West Chester Pike. The population along this corridor is ignorant, dependent, and represents the dregs of our society.

But this area was once home to middle class families. There were once many beautiful homes in West Philly, but most of them are now either gone or are crumbling badly. According to Quinn, the physical decay is matched by the social decay....

The once proud homes are in shambles. Bags of garbage dot the landscape. Most of the people who live here are parasites on society. Personal responsibility, work ethic, education and marriage are unknown concepts in this community. Even though more than 50% of the students in West Philly drop out of high school and the SAT scores of West Philly High students are lower than whale ****, the bankrupt school district spent $70 million to build a new high school/prison to babysit derelicts and future prison inmates. The windows do not have steel bars yet, as the architect was smart to put all windows at least eight feet above street level.

One of the great things about the article is that Quinn pointed out how the retail stores in the area reflect the things that the population of the community truly values....

The Chestnut Plaza truly represents what is important to this community. This Squalor Center, as opposed to Power Center, includes a video porn store, cash checking/payday loan outlet, smoke shop, donut shop, Laundromat, and liquor store. No need for a wedding ring store or resume writing service.

Sadly, there are communities like this all over the country. As I wrote about recently, the entire state of California is slowly being transformed into one gigantic cesspool.

Yes, there are still a few areas where the wealthy play that are absolutely beautiful. If you stay in the wealthy enclaves you might never even know that the rest of the state is badly decaying.

There are really good reasons why millions of people are moving out of California. For example, a reader named Peter left the following comment on one of my recent articles....

I am a native Californian ( Im 61) and have lived here all but two years of my life. I can tell you absolutely that this state is not what it was 30 years ago. Cities like San Francisco have gone from being world-class tourist attractions to national disgraces. Los Angeles is a third-world city. San Diego is bankrupt. Even Silicon Valley, despite the recent improvements, is no way what it was in the 90′s. The retail trade is all but dead in this state. Even high-end malls like Rodeo Drive and Ocean Ave in Carmel are full of vacancies.

Throughout the state, good businesses are shutting down and hard working families are selling their homes. The void that is being created is being filled by crime and gangs. The following is a comment that a reader named Roberta left on that same article....

Yep we lived in Oroville CA back in 2007 and it was just starting to get bad then. Montgomery Wards closed, then McMahan’s furniture closed and NOW McDonalds is closing this July along with a grand slam of well known businesses are all folding and pulling out of Oroville or folding lock-stock-n-barrell. It’s turning into a gang town with wide spread rampant drug use. I feel sorry for family and friends that are still their clinging onto the hope that thnigs “will” get better. But I don’t think so.

Perhaps things are still quite good where you live.

Perhaps you think that you will be immune from all this.

Sadly, the truth is that this is just the beginning.

The U.S. economy is actually performing much better than it should be thanks to the trillions of borrowed dollars that Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress have been spending into the economy.

When our debt-fueled prosperity ends, a lot more cities are going to end up looking just like Detroit.

America cannot prosper without middle class jobs, and those kinds of jobs are rapidly disappearing.

Just this week HP announced that it is going to lay off 27,000 workers.

We are losing middle class jobs at a time when we desperately need more of them.

Last year, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor's degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.

Yet our politicians continue to pursue the same foolish policies over and over.

So things are going to continue to get worse and America is going to continue to descend into squalor.

You better get ready.

[9YearLurker]

That’s the case for many second and third-tier former mill towns across the country.

[Ken H]

An American city with an African-American population under 5% is what? A suburb? A big town? If you have a city of large enough size, all other things being equal it will have a large Black population and it will have big city problems.

San Diego, El Paso and San Jose are three examples off the top of my head where that is simply not true. There have been many examples given of smaller cities that have a black majority and are crime-ridden - Pine Bluff AR and Helena-West Helena for example. East St. Louis and Gary are two more. Go to city-data.com and check it out. It has crime and demographic data for nearly every city and town in the US.

The cities with the smallest Black populations are Provo UT and Brownsville TX. Both have had corruption problems in recent years, if the newspapers aren't lying. Lowell MA manages to have fewer than 5,000 Blacks (under 5% of the population). Still, it doesn't have a reputation as the nicest place to live (sorry, if anybody out there does live there).

In 2010, Provo had 2 murders, Brownsvile (93% Hispanic) had 7 murders, and Lowell had just 1. The murder rates per 100,000 were 1.7, 3.9 and 1.0 respectively. They are safe cities.

[Melas]

None taken. You’re correct, the military is...well...uniform. Military towns however are quite diverse. The uniformity of the military does not extend to dependents by any means.

[Jim Noble]

All these Cities have had D mayors and councils for as long as I can remember

Portland, ME and Portland, OR have hard core Dem governments, and have for years. And if you cross the river to Windsor, ON, you have a government run by out-and-out socialists, who have done worse to GM than Detroit ever did. Likewise, Vancouver, BC, Montreal, PQ, and Halifax, NS are run by socialists and yet are most pleasant and agreeable places, with safe streets and abundant public services.

Are you sure that you are looking at the right variable?

[Ken H]

Interesting device, but instead of trying to corner me into making your point for you, why not just state it out loud yourself?

I have said it out loud. You can look at the demographics of just about every city in the US and determine whether or not it's a crime-ridden city. I've put out challenges and even provided a website with all the data, but so far no one has provided an exception.

[Windflier]

I have said it out loud.

Not to me, you haven't. You don't think I've been following your every post on this subject, do you?

You can look at the demographics of just about every city in the US and determine whether or not it's a crime-ridden city.

Why don't you just spit out your point, and be done with it? Say what's on your mind, or quit.

[Ken H]

Not to me, you haven't. You don't think I've been following your every post on this subject, do you?

If you're going to make a claim about what I've said or have not said on a thread, then yes, I expect you to have read my posts.

Why don't you just spit out your point, and be done with it? Say what's on your mind, or quit.

You don't give the orders around here, but to address your post... I did spit it out. How many times do I have to say it? See my response in post #110 to a question that was asked upthread, then refute my claims.

[Trailerpark Badass]

The uniformity of the military does not extend to dependents by any means.

From listening to my nephews and nieces (both my B-I-L and my S-I-L were each career AF, and each of their families spent all of that time living in AF towns), I'm not sure about "any means."

They've all told me that, especially in school, any sort of expressed racial animosity was quickly corrected, and could bring repercussions to the parent.

They all said there was a forced artificial racial harmony that doesn't exist outside.

But the point is, as you say, "diversity" of BEHAVIOR isn't tolerated so much.

[entropy12]

The reason lot of our large cities are rotting is that the liberals and bleeding hearts have created a large “dependent” class, who are happy to feed at the tax payer’s expense. They do not work hard to acquire marketable skills. Or start a small business and work 16 hours a day like many immigrants do.

Just a few days back I played golf with a person I had never seen before, and he is happy and content to collect his unemployment checks of $550 per week and play lot of golf until the benefit runs out. But at least he had worked for many years before getting laid off. Many people living in the decaying cities have never held a productive job.

[entropy12]

I know what you are hinting at is that the reason our large cities are decaying is due to large black populations.]

Well, I have visited every port in the Caribbean during my 2 dozen or so cruises and most are populated by majority black people. Nowhere did I see anything resembling Detroit. I saw black people dressed in clean clothes, black kids walking to schools in clean uniforms, stores manned by well mannered and hard working black clerks, restaurants run by blacks, and generally houses that looked well cared for.

So my guess is the reason our cities are decaying is we have created a large dependent class and we pay them enough welfare to destroy any incentive to get your azz out to a job or acquire some skills.

[Sequoyah101]

As a force, you are right, it is hard to overcome.

Do you really think people are waking up? I think they may be but I also think they have also been brainwashed to the point of irrational fears about losing the dole.

I always tell my troops that when you are in doubt about what is the right thing to do pick the hardest choice you face. Most people haven’t the character to do the harder right that hurts them the most in the short term.

[Ken H]

Actually for me, I’d be on my guard EVEN if the group of teens were white. There really is not telling...

However if the question were modified to — would you be relieved if you knew that group came out of a church Bible study as opposed to a night club, I would say ‘yes’.

Fair enough. If we could go back to post #110 which seems to have ruffled some feathers.

My reason for asking about the 'footsteps' (as well as public schools and neighborhoods) is that it supports my answer in post #110, which was in response to your original question.

No one here is going to send their kids to a public school in Camden NJ, or settle their family in a neighborhood in Detroit, or walk alone in East St. Louis. It is not over the top, IMO, to point out the elephant in the room, i.e. the demographics.

[FreedomPoster]

I hear you, and can’t disagree. Hopefully we can use the example of Europe imploding financially to help people “get it” and choose to tough it out.

[wardaddy]

Well, I have visited every port in the Caribbean during my 2 dozen or so cruises and most are populated by majority black people

You went to cruise ships ports that are as a rule exceptional..which is why cruise lines go there.....I can assure you that while St Johns and Philipsburg and Georgetown are pretty cute and fairly safe that Kingston, Port Au Prince and to a degree Port of Spain(east) and so forth are not...even Nassau Crime wave here

there is however less dependence class in the West Indies because it has never been instituted like here and there wasn't the money

when I was in the Caribbean frequently from 79-92 I found crime to be worse in Jamaica, Trinidad, Dom Rep, Haiti, USVI...only in town, Cartagena and Barranquilla, Belize City...but not dangerous, Curacao a bit...Aruba none...Antigua a bit too...and Bridgetown was not so great.

Jamaica could be pretty hard in Kingston or St Catherine or Clarendon parishes

This was a long ago but extensive...the more rural the safer and friendlier

I understand cruise ships are now very big business with their own local momentum..like gambling..and probably do contribute so much to their pit stops along the way

Tropical Africa has a worse failure rate than the Caribbean I would say ...but not like Haiti. It's pretty rough. Some here will claim Botswana is all peachy but it's still unsafe compared to here. I worked in Sierra Leone...you had to be there.

Black culture is in failure mode worldwide and aside from a few individual exceptions the future looks bleak and culture wise they are worse off than when we "oppressed" them.

folks denying these glaring truths isn't going to ever help improve things...excusing them and creating dependence only worsens it

frankly I don't think all peoples are equal anyhow and withing groups some rise and some don't and some groups are laden with risers and others not so much

all the world's groups of peoples are on different timelines civilisation wise..we cannot make it all the same overnight but it seems to me we are only making it worse

the whatever bigotry of white paternalism has been replaced by white doubt and submission and acquiescence...is that better?

doesn't look so to me and it cripples us in issues far beyond just black crime and illegitimacy

I have one question though...why do people always have conversation which desire to thwart discussion of black issues by whites but at the same time harp about how what whites do or think about blacks is key to how blacks progress or regress?

Are we saying blacks sink or swim depending on how whites treat them? It seems that way and that is a big chunk of the problem.

During segregation...I was there at the end....black culture functioned good comparatively and didn't need whites to angst over them...is there something to learn there?

Take the segregation, leave the self determination....course folks worldwide self segregate largely...can't change that though our media and entertainment culture have sure tried

note the tone of your post entropy...blacks are failing because we voted for governments that ruined them...like they are pets with no self determination...it's all because of govt policy

yet whites like myself are expected to prevail in spite of govt influence like that foisted on businessmen by Obama...why the difference of perspective?

excusing blacks or denying apparent truths like Detroit or Memphis or NOLA or today's Chicago killingshere yet again does not work

I do agree though that back in my day I detected little black on white hostility in the Caribbean...it reared it's head a bit...never in Haiti though even when I was around violence...I felt it most in Kingston and on Johnny Cay in San Andres Colombia oddly....a place local blacks would have had scant experience with American whites

[entropy12]

Thank you for the long and thoughtful post. However we may be mixing two different issues, crime and urban decay.

Crime exists everywhere to some degree. But most urban areas worldwide are getting better in terms of decay, not worse. That is in stark contrast with certain bigger cities in US which are getting worse.

Even in the Caribbean cities are not showing manifestation of urban decay. The American blacks are a unique phenomenon. May be it has something to do with mentality formed by slavery. When slaves got paid nothing for work, human tendency would be to do as little as possible. When I arrived in this country in the early 60’s discrimination against blacks was ubiquitous. I worked in Chicago, and it was the most segregated city in country. My colleagues would sell their house in a hurry when first black family moved in the neighborhood. As more whites fled, property values dived . Having never witnessed such phenomena in the country where I grew up, it was a mystery to me why people would abandon well constructed houses and flee in fear. I am guessing that caused sub-prime people to move in who had no money to keep up the homes and that was beginning of urban decay.