How would you solve inner city problems?

[JC Callender]

I think the answer is a renewed War on Poverty. Back in the 60's and 70's, we made a real effort to reduce poverty... not just welfare programs, but also job training and community and regional development, and it made some serious reductions in the poverty rate. The poverty rate in 1979 was almost half of what it was in 1959, despite the fact that the overall economy was nowhere near as strong - this was a direct result of investing in people and the places where they lived. The problem now is that we still spend the same amount of money relative to GDP as we did in the 70's, but now it pretty much just goes into welfare. That's not solving the problem. We need to start taking a more pro-active approach again.

To give you a feel of what I'm talking about, here's a chart I did up a few years ago:

View attachment 67238369

The black line shows the overall poverty rate (shown on the right vertical axis). The shaded areas show Federal spending on anti-poverty programs as a percentage of GDP (shown on the left vertical axis) - red is traditional welfare spending, green is spending on community & regional development, blue is spending on job training programs and yellow is spending on social services. Add them all together, and you'll see what we're spending on anti-poverty programs is just as much as we've ever spent, only today all of that spending is absorbed by welfare. We're just throwing money at the problem. If we want to start making things better, then we need to start putting back into the blue and green areas again and get people working on rebuilding their lives and their neighborhoods.

Detroit was a part of the "Model Cities" program in the War on Poverty. Would you still consider it to be a success?

 

[FreeWits]

I think the answer is a renewed War on Poverty. Back in the 60's and 70's, we made a real effort to reduce poverty... not just welfare programs, but also job training and community and regional development, and it made some serious reductions in the poverty rate. The poverty rate in 1979 was almost half of what it was in 1959, despite the fact that the overall economy was nowhere near as strong - this was a direct result of investing in people and the places where they lived. The problem now is that we still spend the same amount of money relative to GDP as we did in the 70's, but now it pretty much just goes into welfare. That's not solving the problem. We need to start taking a more pro-active approach again.

To give you a feel of what I'm talking about, here's a chart I did up a few years ago:

View attachment 67238369

The black line shows the overall poverty rate (shown on the right vertical axis). The shaded areas show Federal spending on anti-poverty programs as a percentage of GDP (shown on the left vertical axis) - red is traditional welfare spending, green is spending on community & regional development, blue is spending on job training programs and yellow is spending on social services. Add them all together, and you'll see what we're spending on anti-poverty programs is just as much as we've ever spent, only today all of that spending is absorbed by welfare. We're just throwing money at the problem. If we want to start making things better, then we need to start putting back into the blue and green areas again and get people working on rebuilding their lives and their neighborhoods.

Welfare is meant to keep people alive, not really solve the issue.

 

[Cordelier]

Detroit was a part of the "Model Cities" program in the War on Poverty. Would you still consider it to be a success?

Well, Detroit has always had it's issues. It's never been perfect. But it did get a lot of investment downtown in the 60's. I do know it was in better shape back then than it is today. From my viewpoint, it could do with some substantial investment... don't you think? Use public money to get things rolling again and you'll find it'll pick up momentum to attract private capital.

 

[Cordelier]

Welfare is meant to keep people alive, not really solve the issue.

Agreed...but what I'm saying is that it shouldn't be confused with a solution. All the welfare spending in the world isn't going to reduce poverty - when we reduced the pro-active programs to increase welfare starting in the 80's, I don't think we did many favors for it's recipients.

 

[JC Callender]

Well, Detroit has always had it's issues. It's never been perfect. But it did get a lot of investment downtown in the 60's. I do know it was in better shape back then than it is today. From my viewpoint, it could do with some substantial investment... don't you think? Use public money to get things rolling again and you'll find it'll pick up momentum to attract private capital.

Detroit used to be known as the "Paris of the Midwest" and was one of the wealthiest and most attractive big cities in the country. It was beautiful in the 1950's. The just filed for bankruptcy a few years back. The comparison between then and now is night and day. The War on Poverty has failed.

 

[Cordelier]

Detroit used to be known as the "Paris of the Midwest" and was one of the wealthiest and most attractive big cities in the country. It was beautiful in the 1950's. The just filed for bankruptcy a few years back. The comparison between then and now is night and day. The War on Poverty has failed.

To be fair, the War on Poverty hasn't really been fought since Reagan came into office. Since that point, as my chart shows, we've just been throwing money at the problem.

Secondly, Detroit in the 1950's was a product of the booming auto industry and intense competition... the 1960's saw the beginnings of cheap auto imports, coupled with rising material costs and reduced domestic competition. It was exactly the time it should have been diversifying it's industrial base. I think that was the crux of Mayor Cavanagh's program in the 60's.

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

Increase the police presence on foot and generally require they be local.

Change welfare to workfare. Government run jobs that would involve cleaning providing daycare to other people on workfare. Allow people to have a job without losing government benefits from the start but have a graduated claw back on income. Increase the public transportation so that access to jobs is possible.

Stop and Frisk should be illegal

 

[Kal'Stang]

Sounds good, but do you think it's realistic? People will be screaming "RACISM" in the planning stages, since the majority of those in most inner cities are minorities. I live outside of Detroit and have seen it happen too many times. We have a small island called Belle Isle with a bridge that connects it to Detroit. The state took over and cleaned it up since Detroit let it fall into disrepair and started running plates of cars that went over the bridge and what do you know...they found one felon after another. Of course it was considered racism (inner city politics). I think we have to work on defeating identity politics first and start to get competition in city governments instead of just Democrats for the most part. Then maybe follow Rudy's example in NYC and start with the small stuff like trash pick up and working utilities to get people feeling hopeful again and build on that. Not that this would be easy either, but for a place like Detroit, maybe a little more realistic.

Depends on how ya started. Start out with the white gangs first and work my way through. Oh I'm sure the racism claims would still be said as people will see what they want to see. And Identity Politics is not honest. But it would take out a lot of the bite.

 

[Linc]

Depends on how ya started. Start out with the white gangs first and work my way through. Oh I'm sure the racism claims would still be said as people will see what they want to see. And Identity Politics is not honest. But it would take out a lot of the bite.

I’d start with ALL the gangs in a bad area of cities, normally the southeast sides, and the suburbs, where gangs here have a truce and have divided the turf of our entire state.

Legally Usurp the 4th amendment of Libertarians and apply Targeted Martial Law, One square mile or block at a time; watch these rat bastards flee and put them to work in the country on the Land;

Canada John, jcj from our Politico Days, told me a few years ago how targeted martial law worked in his Toronto.

I’ll torch Big Pharma ********ing Killers when it’s not so late; Church comes early for Linc; we’re now going through an uptick in suicides because of opioid abuse, now dangerous batches of synthetic fentanyl;

So much more; All crime and gangs spawn from vices, especially those illegal; wonderful how ‘legal’ opioids lead to illegal opioids, including for Veterans; but yeah, not at you, but let’s ignore the ultra conservative American Legion strongly pushing a deaf admin for Medical Marijuana PRODUCTS for PTSD Veterans