5 ms·

this is so naive. wealth has no borders and they are in every municipality in the us.

CryptoPunk 7y ago
Sounds like you're inventing anti-Republican conspiracy theories to explain the failure of states and cities that have been totally dominated by the Democratic Party for 50 years. In doing so you're preventing the Democratic Party from being held accountable, so that they may be pressured to fix the serious problems that exist with their ideology and political structure, which ensures that more people are drawn to the Republican party, simply as the less unpalatable one of the two. The people who are going to agree with your tenuous explanations for the failure of Democratic-run cities were always going to vote Democrat anyway. It's those people who are on the fence who are not in your political bubble who you are going to push away by turning the Democratic party into one that does not accept criticism and does not operate in the realm of evidence and reality.
- digitaltrees 7y ago
  Cities can’t overcome national policy that is directed at broadly destroying social safety net programs, disenfranchising large percentages of the population, driving income and asset concentration, eliminating collective bargaining and facilitating automation and international supply chains all of which rob local communities of the resources and opportunities necessary to rebound. A mayor has no chance of fixing the city when the tax base is decimated because of these national policies. For example, consider the housing and mortgage policies over the last 50 years where redlining literally systematically destroyed the real estate and tax base of the very cities you cite as examples of the democratic parties failure to effectively manage city services. When no one can get a mortgage to buy property in a city, prices drop, which means the tax base erodes, which means social services are reduced, which means property values drop further; very nasty negative cycle. Then add a national highway bill that gives preference to suburbs and exurbs and you should clearly see that the cause is not local party mismanagement but broad national policies.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Sure, cities can’t make up for federal labor laws. But they should be able to run basic municipal services, like schools, transit, etc., that in other countries are overwhelmingly paid for by municipal and local governments. Median household income in Baltimore is about double that of Spain or Italy. Median household of African American households in Baltimore, though much less than that of white households in the city, is still about as much as Spain or Italy. There is an ample tax base there to support good municipal services if the government was capable of doing so efficiently.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      (I should clarify—I’m not trying to diminish the magnitude of the problem that black households have half the income of white households in Baltimore. That’s a separate issue from whether Baltimore’s tax base is sufficient to support decent public services—somehow, Spain and Italy make due with less.)
    - digitaltrees 7y ago
      Economics usually work in ratios not absolute dollars. Comparing services in Spain and Baltimore can only go so far as the cost of those service have drastically different inputs and those inputs may comprise very different ratios making the unit economics worse in what otherwise appears to be a wealthier area.
  - CryptoPunk 7y ago
    >>Cities can’t overcome national policy that is directed at broadly destroying social safety net programs, 1. Some of these cities spend huge amounts of money per capita on public services. You need to actually look at the statistics and not just make assumptions that fit your preconceived ideological narrative. 2. Social welfare spending as a percentage of GDP has massively grown since the 1950s, which totally contradicts this idea that the social safety net has been dismantled. Before 1967 there wasn't even a Medicare in the US. 3. The most dysfunctional major cities in the US have been strongholds of the Democratic Party for decades. If the problems in Democrat-run cities are attributable to federal policy then Republican-run City should be doing just as poorly but they're not. For all these reasons, I repeat my charge you're inventing conspiracy theories to blame Republicans instead of accepting facts that condemn the Democratic Party
rayiner 7y ago
The wealthy in all those cities are overwhelmingly Democrats.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Well, this is a very vague and ambiguous statement, and doesn't have a citation. By "wealthy", you could mean billionaires, you could mean people making a couple million a year, or you could mean people making $300K a year. I believe the latter are a large part of what make large cities wealthy and underpin the tax base, and I'm not so sure they are mostly Democrats.
leetcrew 7y ago
dunno about the rest of the cities, but I tried to find some data on wealthy republicans in baltimore. only about 8% of all the people in baltimore are registered republicans. pew forum doesn't even break down republicans by income, presumably because there are so few. [0] it's true that wealthy people dominate politics in pretty much every municipality in the US, but at least in baltimore the shot callers are likely all dems. [0] https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/metro-area/baltimore-metro-area/party-affiliation/#income-distribution-trend https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/metro-are...
ijiiijji1 7y ago
Gore Vidal said the Property party has two wings, D and R.

Sounds like you're inventing anti-Republican conspiracy theories to explain the failure of states and cities that have been totally dominated by the Democratic Party for 50 years. In doing so you're preventing the Democratic Party from being held accountable, so that they may be pressured to fix the serious problems that exist with their ideology and political structure, which ensures that more people are drawn to the Republican party, simply as the less unpalatable one of the two. The people who are going to agree with your tenuous explanations for the failure of Democratic-run cities were always going to vote Democrat anyway. It's those people who are on the fence who are not in your political bubble who you are going to push away by turning the Democratic party into one that does not accept criticism and does not operate in the realm of evidence and reality.

digitaltrees 7y ago
Cities can’t overcome national policy that is directed at broadly destroying social safety net programs, disenfranchising large percentages of the population, driving income and asset concentration, eliminating collective bargaining and facilitating automation and international supply chains all of which rob local communities of the resources and opportunities necessary to rebound. A mayor has no chance of fixing the city when the tax base is decimated because of these national policies. For example, consider the housing and mortgage policies over the last 50 years where redlining literally systematically destroyed the real estate and tax base of the very cities you cite as examples of the democratic parties failure to effectively manage city services. When no one can get a mortgage to buy property in a city, prices drop, which means the tax base erodes, which means social services are reduced, which means property values drop further; very nasty negative cycle. Then add a national highway bill that gives preference to suburbs and exurbs and you should clearly see that the cause is not local party mismanagement but broad national policies.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Sure, cities can’t make up for federal labor laws. But they should be able to run basic municipal services, like schools, transit, etc., that in other countries are overwhelmingly paid for by municipal and local governments. Median household income in Baltimore is about double that of Spain or Italy. Median household of African American households in Baltimore, though much less than that of white households in the city, is still about as much as Spain or Italy. There is an ample tax base there to support good municipal services if the government was capable of doing so efficiently.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    (I should clarify—I’m not trying to diminish the magnitude of the problem that black households have half the income of white households in Baltimore. That’s a separate issue from whether Baltimore’s tax base is sufficient to support decent public services—somehow, Spain and Italy make due with less.)
  - digitaltrees 7y ago
    Economics usually work in ratios not absolute dollars. Comparing services in Spain and Baltimore can only go so far as the cost of those service have drastically different inputs and those inputs may comprise very different ratios making the unit economics worse in what otherwise appears to be a wealthier area.
- CryptoPunk 7y ago
  >>Cities can’t overcome national policy that is directed at broadly destroying social safety net programs, 1. Some of these cities spend huge amounts of money per capita on public services. You need to actually look at the statistics and not just make assumptions that fit your preconceived ideological narrative. 2. Social welfare spending as a percentage of GDP has massively grown since the 1950s, which totally contradicts this idea that the social safety net has been dismantled. Before 1967 there wasn't even a Medicare in the US. 3. The most dysfunctional major cities in the US have been strongholds of the Democratic Party for decades. If the problems in Democrat-run cities are attributable to federal policy then Republican-run City should be doing just as poorly but they're not. For all these reasons, I repeat my charge you're inventing conspiracy theories to blame Republicans instead of accepting facts that condemn the Democratic Party

rayiner 7y ago

The wealthy in all those cities are overwhelmingly Democrats.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
perl4ever 7y ago
Well, this is a very vague and ambiguous statement, and doesn't have a citation. By "wealthy", you could mean billionaires, you could mean people making a couple million a year, or you could mean people making $300K a year. I believe the latter are a large part of what make large cities wealthy and underpin the tax base, and I'm not so sure they are mostly Democrats.

leetcrew 7y ago

dunno about the rest of the cities, but I tried to find some data on wealthy republicans in baltimore. only about 8% of all the people in baltimore are registered republicans. pew forum doesn't even break down republicans by income, presumably because there are so few. [0] it's true that wealthy people dominate politics in pretty much every municipality in the US, but at least in baltimore the shot callers are likely all dems. [0] https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/metro-area/baltimore-metro-area/party-affiliation/#income-distribution-trend https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/metro-are...

ijiiijji1 7y ago

Gore Vidal said the Property party has two wings, D and R.