re: Gentrification, good or bad... Thoughts?

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That turned out well.

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Because the greedy wealthy are also spoiled brats, at times. You won't let us control local government and engage in a de facto exploitative gentrification of Detroit, then we'll pull out the economic infrastructure, ruining your economy.

I could solve this issue easily. You want to do business in our city? Then you need to do business with the entire city, not just a select elite area.

OR

Subsidize business opportunities in the less affluent areas.

More like the greedy municipal government taxed the businesses and workers until they went out of business or moved away. What does that leave behind? People who live off the government. Many municipalities do it to themselves. That's why Detroit is struggling while many of its suburbs are thriving. To justify high taxes, people must get their "money's worth" in government services. If they don't feel they're getting a good deal, they'll move their business elsewhere, just like someone who doesn't like one grocery store's prices may decide to instead shop at another.

In Detroit, the taxes kept increasing, but the services were getting worse. Garbage cleanup was getting infrequent, parks were poorly maintained, schools were deplorable, streetlights out, roads filled with potholes, ect. Where was all of the money going? To pay for lavish benefits for public employees rather than maintain infrastructure. When companies realized that the city wasn't going to change no matter how much money they paid in taxes, they left.

Cities decline into free-fall when private industry and professional workers lose faith in that city's ability to give an effective return on their tax dollars. When a city gives a good service, people happily support it even if it's expensive. Just look at BR with BREC and the library system. They provide excellent service, so people reward them by renewing their millages.

The schools are shite and show no sign of change despite record high budgets, so people refuse to give them any more money until they see improvements.

FYI you would really like Rand Paul's plan for investing in poor neighborhoods. He wanted to implement a pilot "free market zone" in Detroit where small businesses in impoverished areas could set up with reduced regulatory burden. The idea was to spur innovation and growth from within. Unfortunately, not enough people voted for him, so he's put of the presidential race now, but i'm sure some day he'll be back.

Your post was an interesting read.

I do disagree with your analysis of Detroit.

The decline in services was caused by tax erosion due to white flight, not the other way around.

Why did the white people flee?

I think I know the answer. Was it because they were afraid of all the nuclear family, middle class blacks moving into their neighborhoods?

I hate to break it to you, but the erosion started long before the white flight, but the white flight did hasten it.

What causes white flight?

Why do people live where they live?

The biggest expenses for families are education, healthcare, and housing, yet there is free public education for all and people often live over an hour away from their jobs, why? The answer is in the question.

Public schools don't suck because the whites left. The whites left because the schools sucked. The super rich can afford to send their kids to private schools, so they don't care where they live, but the middle class has to live in a good school district so their kids can have a decent free education.

Why do inner city schools suck? It's the entitlement mindset. In the 1930s, truency laws were put in place mandating that children attend school to keep them from competing with adults for jobs as child labor was beig outlawed. Truency is a double edged sword in that it forces those who have no desire to go to school in with those who do, but why don't they want to go to school?

Why do kids want to do well in school? Typically it is so they can get a good job or get into college. Why go to college? So they can get a good job? Why get a good job? So they can afford a home and support a family.

The great society program of 1964 through a wrench in this cycle by providing a means of support for those who don't want to work. See, many inner city neighborhoods as well as poor enclaves of appalachia are home to generational dependancy. Mom didn't work, so daughter never saw the point of work. If you don't need to work, you don't need school. If you don't need school, then you're not going to care about school no matter how well it's funded. The amount of effort needed to achieve a marginally better life than living off of entitlements is so disproportionate to doing nothing that people are more comfortable entitled. It's just comfortable enough to trap people there. Working hard may eventually get one out, but it will be a long time before they start to surpass those doing nothing.

White flight was a response to this culture being forced into their schools by judicial decree, because this demographic which has no need for education and doesn't value it, actively sabatages the educational outcomes of their fellow students. It is only rational that parents would desire to get their kids out of such an environment even if it meant moving an hour or farther away from work.

If someone's against improvement and investment back into the community than I really DGAF what they think and hope they leave the area. Who doesn't like improvement?

Thank you. It's always refreshing to converse with someone who keeps an open mind. I soend a lot of time around increadibly closed-minded people who simply stomp their feet and call you a racist, bigot, or cuck if you disagree.

I'd be willing to talk with you on issues such as this any time