The Detroit Free Press has a column today by Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor who manages to bring a left wing perspective to everything. Today, he is lamenting that in America, the wealthy are leaving the cities and America is becoming segregated by economic class. That, he says, is what drove Detroit to bankruptcy.
The strange thing is that Reich is not a fool, but he is nevertheless oblivious to reality. First of all, the concept of voting with one's feet is as American as apple pie. One of the main concepts of the federal system is that if a person is unhappy with the situation or the government where he or she lives, then that person can move to another state or locality where things are better. Indeed, the ability to move the place where one lives is a basic right of all Americans. Reich might as well have written about the evils of free speech or of freedom from unreasonable searches by the government. It makes no difference. The basic rights of Americans may occasionally be impinged upon, but they will not be erased.
Second, Reich is just wrong. Sure, Detroit is a basket case where only the poor and minority are left. That, however, is not the case across the nation. Take a look at New York City. It is an old urban area just like Detroit. The population of New York, however, is growing not evaporating like Detroit's. There are plenty of rich folks who live in New York; they have not fled. There certainly are many wealthy suburbs around New York; I live in Fairfield County, Connecticut which is filled with them. The point, however, is that there are also plenty of middle income suburbs where some wealth is mixed with middle and lower income ranges. The races are not segregated in metro New York. New York City has a mix of races that is constantly changing. Even Harlem, which used to be nearly completely black is now less than 50% African American. The suburbs also are mixed. My own town of Greenwich has a school population that is 30% minority. Now, of course, this does not mean that all areas are the same, but they are nothing like Detroit where the city of 700,000 is over 80% black.
The truth is that Detroit managed to drive out its middle income and upper income residents by following policies that eventually put it into its current fix. New York, too, was going down that road, but about thirty - five years ago, it had a financial crisis that forced the city to cut its budget dramatically. In three years during the 1970s, New York cut its municipal workforce from over 300,000 to under 200,000. I remember going to the clerk's office at the Supreme Court during those years. Instead of seven people standing behind the counter, talking to each other and drinking coffee, there were two people who were (gasp) actually working. The office did not function any better, but it also did not function any worse. Then twenty years ago, New York changed direction further. It elected Rudy Giuliani as mayor and he turned the liberal dogma on its head. Instead of lamenting crime in the streets, he started to enforce the law, all the law! Thugs who used to jump the turnstiles on the subway were apprehended and taken into custody. The police found that many of them were wanted for other crimes. These criminals were taken off the streets. Then the police began using computerized records of crime to assign extra officers to any area (rich or poor) where crime was on an upswing. This prevented the development of neighborhoods that were essentially lost to crime. After twenty years, the crime rate in New York is way down and the city has greatly benefitted.
Contrary to what Reich believes, the problems of Detroit cannot be solved by finding new taxpayers to tax. They are not the result of racism or economic segregation. The problems come from more than half a century of following policies that drove away anyone who could move away. High crime does not keep people. High taxes and poor services do not keep people. Spending more on municipal workers than the city could ever afford does not keep people. And now that there are not enough folks left to tax, it is time to blame all the liberal policies that put Detroit in this fix. We do not need myths and lies to cloud the truth.
The strange thing is that Reich is not a fool, but he is nevertheless oblivious to reality. First of all, the concept of voting with one's feet is as American as apple pie. One of the main concepts of the federal system is that if a person is unhappy with the situation or the government where he or she lives, then that person can move to another state or locality where things are better. Indeed, the ability to move the place where one lives is a basic right of all Americans. Reich might as well have written about the evils of free speech or of freedom from unreasonable searches by the government. It makes no difference. The basic rights of Americans may occasionally be impinged upon, but they will not be erased.
Second, Reich is just wrong. Sure, Detroit is a basket case where only the poor and minority are left. That, however, is not the case across the nation. Take a look at New York City. It is an old urban area just like Detroit. The population of New York, however, is growing not evaporating like Detroit's. There are plenty of rich folks who live in New York; they have not fled. There certainly are many wealthy suburbs around New York; I live in Fairfield County, Connecticut which is filled with them. The point, however, is that there are also plenty of middle income suburbs where some wealth is mixed with middle and lower income ranges. The races are not segregated in metro New York. New York City has a mix of races that is constantly changing. Even Harlem, which used to be nearly completely black is now less than 50% African American. The suburbs also are mixed. My own town of Greenwich has a school population that is 30% minority. Now, of course, this does not mean that all areas are the same, but they are nothing like Detroit where the city of 700,000 is over 80% black.
The truth is that Detroit managed to drive out its middle income and upper income residents by following policies that eventually put it into its current fix. New York, too, was going down that road, but about thirty - five years ago, it had a financial crisis that forced the city to cut its budget dramatically. In three years during the 1970s, New York cut its municipal workforce from over 300,000 to under 200,000. I remember going to the clerk's office at the Supreme Court during those years. Instead of seven people standing behind the counter, talking to each other and drinking coffee, there were two people who were (gasp) actually working. The office did not function any better, but it also did not function any worse. Then twenty years ago, New York changed direction further. It elected Rudy Giuliani as mayor and he turned the liberal dogma on its head. Instead of lamenting crime in the streets, he started to enforce the law, all the law! Thugs who used to jump the turnstiles on the subway were apprehended and taken into custody. The police found that many of them were wanted for other crimes. These criminals were taken off the streets. Then the police began using computerized records of crime to assign extra officers to any area (rich or poor) where crime was on an upswing. This prevented the development of neighborhoods that were essentially lost to crime. After twenty years, the crime rate in New York is way down and the city has greatly benefitted.
Contrary to what Reich believes, the problems of Detroit cannot be solved by finding new taxpayers to tax. They are not the result of racism or economic segregation. The problems come from more than half a century of following policies that drove away anyone who could move away. High crime does not keep people. High taxes and poor services do not keep people. Spending more on municipal workers than the city could ever afford does not keep people. And now that there are not enough folks left to tax, it is time to blame all the liberal policies that put Detroit in this fix. We do not need myths and lies to cloud the truth.
4 comments:
Following the Pareto principle, I would also guess that 20% of Detroit, the white minority, are probably paying 80% of the taxes.
For Don Giles:
What you are saying is wrong. In 2010, according to the census bureau the population of Detroit was 7.8% white. That figure has fallen in the two plus years since the census. Detroit is an essentially all minority city and it is those minority folks who pay the individual taxes.
Just caught up with your reply. I agree that I don't have enough information to make that rash claim. But it is virtually a certainty that a relatively small number of taxpayers have the biggest burden. For instance, the 2012 CAFR & Assessor Report says that although the tax valuation of the ten largest taxpayers is less than in 2007, it was still 19% of the total. Since apparently 47% of the taxpayers do not pay their taxes, I would guess the % amount actually paid is much larger than 19%. Of course, these are not individual taxpayers but relatively large businesses. It would be interesting to know the breakdown of the businesses and individuals actually paying 80% of
taxes.
Perhaps my edginess about the sources of Detroit's problems are exacerbated by my own experience. Recently I read a report on the
25 most dangerous neighborhoods in America. You can google that. The #1 most dangerous is in Detroit,at the intersection of Livernois and West Chicago. If you viewed the map of that intersection you will see the Ruthruff school. I was born in the house at 9521 Prairie Avenue, a few short blocks away, and walked to this school from K to 6th grade. I cannot describe how painful it is to realize what has happened. It is a credit to Detroit that this school is still standing. The same cannot be said for the intermediate school (Tappan) or the high school (Mackenzie) that I attended. They were magnificent schools with such things as Olympic size indoor swimming pools and elevated indoor running tracks, huge gyms, plus extensive specialized education facilities. The school enrollment was not wealthy, not really poor, but the epitome of the working middle class. Like me, many became the first of their family to graduate from college.
My grandfather started working full-time in the English coal mines as a young child, as a result was illiterate, and escaped by joining the Scots Guards and fighting in the Boer War. He later farmed 100 acres in Ontario until he was in his 70's, with a one-horse plow. His early life in the coal mines and British military was no less segregated, demeaning and brutal than the life of black people in this country at the same time. Much of this I only found out long after he was dead, because he never complained. In other words, he did not continue to blame his circumstances on the British class system, mine owners or the British army. He just did the very best he could, including raising my father, who eventually emigrated to Detroit and worked himself up from a foundry laborer to a foundry superintendent. So in the span of three generations we could move from illiterate near-slavery to successful college graduate. During my life, never was I told that any shortcomings in our situation were the fault of somebody else. The message was we were very fortunate to live in America and it was up to us to get as far as we could. I really feel that a significant element in the recent history of Detroit is the loss of this viewpoint.
Finally, one dimension of the Detroit problem, which is known but not really appreciated, is the actual dimensions of the city. It is 139 square miles. What is not often noted is that Detroit was developed primarily as many square miles of single-family houses on small lots, not apartments or even multi-family dwellings. The infrastructure to support this type of development is enormous. I don't know how it can be accomplished, but I believe there has to be a reconfiguration of the city into a relatively small number of reasonably sized satellite communities which can be expanded but are somewhat self-sufficient. This will cause some disruption and inconvenience but such a drastic alteration may be one of the few things a private/government alliance could accomplish.
Thanks for your time.
Don Giles
For Don Giles:
Thanks for a great comment. Your family history is compelling. Thanks for sharing it.
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