Posted on 06/02/2020 4:26:07 AM PDT by EyesOfTX
The inevitable outcomes of this past week of rioting in the major, Democrat-controlled cities are very predictable. The abject refusal by Democrat mayors and governors to make any effort whatsoever to protect the citizens and small businesses from the excesses of Antifa- and BLM-led burning and pillaging will have consequences for those cities for decades to come.
The first two decades of the 21st century have seen a revival of the central cities in America, as the Baby Boomer flight to the suburbs has given way to a move back to downtown and mid-town areas by Gen-X, Gen-Y and Millennials wanting to avoid being trapped into a life of long commutes they watched their parents endure. Life in high-rise and mid-rise condominiums within walking distance of office and shopping centers has become the new norm for these younger generations of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses have sprung up on the ground floors of those condo buildings to serve them.
When I first lived in Houston in 1980, no one lived in the downtown area, and the thriving area called “mid-town” was a slum. You didn’t want to linger downtown past dark because it was too dangerous to be caught there. Most other large cities in America were in similar shape after all of the “white flight” to the suburbs that had taken place since the 1960s.
That all began to change in the mid-1990s, after mayors like Rudy Giuliani had taken charge of the security situations in those downtown areas and city governments and business leaders invested in invested billions in urban renewal projects designed to make those areas attractive places to live. College graduates of all races, colors and creeds, having grown up watching their parents spend 2 to 3 hours a day in stop and go traffic saw the advantages of living a few blocks from work and seized the opportunities to do so.
From Seattle to Portland to San Diego to Phoenix to Denver to Dallas to Houston to Miami to Boston, and many points in between, downtown/mid-town neighborhoods that were basically hellholes 40 years ago were turned into great cultural melting pots of our society. It was a stunning success story of 21st century America. But then came Barack Obama and Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch and the policies of hands-off policing, policies that order the police to stand down and watch helplessly during riots as the bad actors vent their rage at the expense of residents and small businesses.
The last week is simply the inevitable result of those “progressive” policies.
Thousands of young-ish New Yorkers who moved to Soho because it was a cool place to be woke up Monday morning horrified by the reality that Bill de Blasio had allowed the neighborhood they had believed to be safe and secure to be looted and burned during the night. Thousands more New Yorkers are waking up to similar realities in other Manhattan and Brooklyn neighborhoods this morning. Residents and business owners in downtown and mid-town areas of Minneapolis and Chicago and Philadelphia have seen their lives and livelihoods destroyed by city leaders who couldn’t be bothered to do anything to stop all the mayhem.
The worst thing about it is that that mayhem – the looting, the burning, the shattering of doors and windows – was largely committed by their neighbors, egged on by BLM and Antifa organizers from out of state.
If you are a young mother or father who has just seen half of the buildings surrounding your home vandalized, burned and looted by people who live just blocks away, how will you ever feel secure in that home again? If you are a small business owner who has just had your storefront windows shattered and your store looted while your city’s leaders sat safe in their mansions and did nothing, what will be your incentive for reopening? You may do it for awhile, try to get back on your feet while putting bars on your doors and windows, but how long can you last as you watch half of your customers flee back to the suburbs where they were raised by their commuting parents?
The Democrat mayors and inner-city councilmen won’t care, because the captive population left behind will only lean more strongly in their favor. Their lives of grifting in positions of political power will have been secured.
For the people left behind, life will become grim. Sadly, most of them will have no understanding of the fact that the re-created downtown/mid-town hellholes to come are the result of their own actions.
Life’s a cycle, and when you just keep mindlessly voting for Democrats, you get what you ask for.
That is all.
De Blasio lets the Democrat rioters loot the city but they better not go to the beach to swim!
.
It’ll end a lot more than that. We are allowing our country to be fundamentally changed.
Gentrification will change into more flight to the country and mountains. Then wall off the cities and seal off the anarchists and thugs.
Upstate NY never had any to enjoy.
The anarchy was just speed up the stampede of taxpayers and employers leaving the state.
Bkmk
If you haven’t already, abandon the urban socialist ratholes to the brown hordes and idiot white liberals, relocate to “flyover country,” and prepare to defend your home and family.
This country is over. Kaput.
The majority of people would rather live in a place with functional law enforcement rather than in a dystopia where mayors and governors decide to act like kings that don’t actually know how to “king.”
The riots are going to be a memorable event to most voters. I doubt that the majority of voters are going to be voting for riot enablers in November, and I don’t care how blue their district is!
Not yet. We've had this before, many times. Once (I think in 1970) there was a riot in downtown Chicago because Sly and the Family Stone didn't play at the free concert in Grant park they were scheduled at.
You got that right. They’re even doing it within states. Liberals leaving the cities and retiring in small conservative towns. You can spot them. They’re obvious.
You got that right. They’re even doing it within states. Liberals leaving the cities and retiring in small conservative towns. You can spot them. They’re obvious.
Well said. I’ve also thought quite a bit about those expensive ‘infill’ projects where condos and other expensive housing is developed in the cities - and I always wondered whether the middle-class (and above) white people moving into those areas to ‘experience the city’ understood that they were putting themselves in the hands of local leaders who DESPISED them. I guess, at the time, with relatively low crime rates, they didn’t care.
Now they pay.
Bump
Ironically these rioters scout beautiful rich lush neighborhoods in the suburbs for the rocks they need to destroy the peaceful protests and destroy cities.the Left can’t survive without the right and it is clear the Left is headed for another huge fail in November. When you destroy black businesses and neighborhoods you destroy black families and dreams.Dont Blame white people for inequality after rioters strip away dreams of black families. These are the dream crushers via Democrat mayors.Moving companies are the winners in this mess. another Pelosi fail.
The riots are just the icing on the cake. Months of lockdown with no transportation, limited food supply etc was the other part that will drive the city dwellers further out, proving yet again how smart their parents actually were.
These Democrat Riots Will End America’s Downtown RenaissanceInteresting since downtown renaissance has always been a democrat plan/dream.
But it isn't only the riots, it's also the spread of disease caused by closeness.
There won't be a downtown renaissance with the phony "social distancing"...Not many things are less social than distancing ourselves from each other.
In 1981, I was at a Young Americans for Freedom event in downtown San Diego. The neighborhood surrounding the otel was essentially a slum, with bars, liquor stores and tattoo parlors comprising most of the businesses.
In 1996, when I went to the GOP National Convention at the nearby Convention Center, this area had been transformed into the chic and upscale Gas Lamp Quarter. After the rioting and looting over the weekend, the area will probably revert to the way it was in 1981.
As someone currently stuck in a city, and with no current way to change that situation, I can’t help but feel that cities have become pretty much large, open-air prisons, and law enforcement and government is NOT in charge...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.