The Modern American City
Events get driven by something. The motive power behind what happens in
policy and politics can often lie hidden like the mass of an iceberg
underneath the sea. Those who bother wondering why President Obama
refuses to compromise on anything in order to avoid the “Fiscal Cliff”
theorize two primary things. Barack Obama plays the PR angle to make Rethuglicans appear as the political subsumed class* of lackeys to the E-Vil Rich. Others assume he’s Richard Roundtree** and he’s sticking it to the man.
Both of these conjectures see only the tip of the iceberg. There are
two possible errors in assuming either explains our President’s behavior
in total. The first mistake is to assume that Barack Obama completely
drives this train. The second is to assume that he reacts totally based
on his ideological battles against Conservatism. Assuming a bond
fealty between Barack Obama and his committed core of followers causes
me to realize that President Obama (and much of the rest of the
professional left in America) has strapped himself in for a ride on the
tiger. He’s driving the bus from the movie “Speed.”
To view Barack Obama as a principled advocate of Inner-City America is
to look upon a man who is juggling chainsaws while wearing a blindfold.
He can win elections with the best of them; he can’t deliver what is
needed to the people who he works for and believes in fast enough. I
can almost empathize with man – until he takes a bite out of me. He
will have to take a bite out you, I and anyone else with a paycheck, a
bank account and a pulse. Municipal America has morphed into a fiscal
and cultural shock-trauma ward.
Walter Russell Meade offers us the latest installment of his Blue Model Blues. He asks San Bernardino is Thunderdome in California.
I would modify the plot to this Mad Max scenario a tad and suggest
that more dependents enter so that the taxpayers rapidly leave. Dr.
Meade offers his own take below.
The city filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, but its financial situation has continued to deteriorate. And now with what promises to be a heated court battle over payments to the state pension fund in the offing, further cuts are likely. Things are getting so bad that at a recent city council meeting, the city attorney advised residents to “lock their doors and load their guns” because the city could no longer afford to keep up a strong enough police force.
The police force gets cut. This is followed by the business district
moving and those who fear for the safety of their families changing
geography. This leaves a void of intellect, tax money, stability and
cultural stability that if left unfilled will ultimately lead to fiscal
and societal collapse. I tend to think Dr. Meade projects entirely too
much optimism when he describes this as merely San Bernardino’s problem.
Every township and suburb arrayed in concentric rings around the urban
core should put one hand over their wallets and the other one over
their nuts. Cities faced by existential crisis have a history of
reaching out and grabbing. Examples to be studied include Memphis, TN
and Detroit, MI.
In 2011, Memphis, TN ran up the white flag with respect to their school
district. They were sending their kids to Heartbreak Hotel and too many
of the recent graduates were doing the Jailhouse Rock. So the city of
Memphis voted to disband their school system and force Shelby County to merge with it and educate their children instead.
The residents of Shelby County had no concerns. They informed Memphis
they would jump right on it – after they finished eating a bug. Six
localities within Shelby County attempted to organize school districts
that would exclude The City of Memphis. But the courts have intervened
and forced The City of Memphis into a shot-gun wedding with Shelby. Judicial Fascism Activism follows below.
U.S. District Judge Samuel Mays ruled on Tuesday that a state law that would have allowed voters in Arlington, Bartlett, Colliersville, Germantown, Lakeland, and Millington to vote to create independent school districts violates the state constitution. The ruling came after the city of Memphis and the Shelby County Commission challenged the law.
Detroit, MI may become the next city to play the “I Quit! Card.” But Detroit intends to do so on a much larger scale.
A State Senator suggested bankrupting Detroit, dissolving its
municipal charter and making it the Problem of Wayne County, MI. With
Mayor Bing looking at putting municipal employees on unpaid furlough,
we are already seeing the real-life results of whatever bankruptcy
Detroit would suffer without an immediate life-line. The question of
“Why Detroit should be saved?” is not one that anyone in Michigan
politics seems to have the guts to ask. The weight of the poor hangs
above Wayne County like a Sword of Damocles.
This brings us back to the man who recently won reelection on the backs
of heavy and loyal urban turnout. A lot of very desperate people voted
for Barack Obama to do something. San Bernardino, Memphis and Detroit
demonstrate the lack of ability and/or will to do this for themselves.
If Barack Obama defines his mandate from the 2012 Election in terms of
helping to save these dying urban areas to stave off the oblivion of
their old and traditional neighborhoods then he has to get the money
from somewhere. That somewhere is where I live and work.
Eventually, this game will end in tears. An increasingly divided and
impoverished Amerika will refuse to easily redistribute income with no
perception of a future ROI. The cities will fail. The surrounding
townships and counties will refuse them their annual requests for
“one-time only” emergency assistance. We perhaps have a helpless and
enfeebled president who hopes this occurs no sooner than five years
hence. That would be a societal cliff – not just a fiscal one.
*-Our subsumed class of Daily Kos trolls should recognize this term from Kapital Vol. I.
**-If you didn’t get that reference go listen to some old Isley Brothers Records.
**-If you didn’t get that reference go listen to some old Isley Brothers Records.
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