I couldn’t work this observation into my last post so I’m sticking it here. As a person I am only mildly partisan and not at all ideological. I do not ask whether a policy is orthodox, what its impact on me might be, or even if it’s Good and True. I ask “can it work?”
I do not believe that you can look at our large cities and arrive at the conclusion that what we’re doing is working.
Republicans, with unrestrained Schadenfreude, point to how long many of these cities have been Democratic strongholds without proposing alternative solutions or even being willing to mount opposing political campaigns in the face of entrenched opposition.
Here in Chicago there hasn’t been a credible Republican candidate for mayor in decades. To my eye failing to mount opposing campaigns while decrying your opponent’s failures is nihilism.
Democrats for their part have been overwhelmed by ideological blinders and self-interest. Having lost sight of their goals, they redouble their efforts.
“To my eye failing to mount opposing campaigns while decrying your opponent’s failures is nihilism.”
You have made that point a number of times, but I think it is unfair and incorrect. To run as a real Republican in Chicago would be a waste of two years of your time and a lot of your own and donors money. A complete fools errand. Barring a higher level of intolerability the momentum of Chicago voters would overwealm you. And if not, the machine would eat you.
That level of intolerability just occurred in the national election, but where is the Chicago analog to WI, PA or MI. There in Chicago the icky stuff doesn’t affect Democrats ensconced in Lincoln Park, River North, Newtown, the New East Side or the gentrifying area just west of Soldier Field. The south side Irish types are slowly moving out, and, to borrow a phrase from a movie, as long as the icky stuff is kept “with the dark people, they’re animals anyway,” there is no driver of change. Ideology and sequestration win for the Democrats. The only reason a Republican can occasionally win the governorship is that, like MI has western MI, IL has downstate. Farmers don’t see things the same way Luis Gutierrez does.
If your point is ever to be valid, IMHO, it might be in the next 5 years. As well documented here, financially the state is unfolding as a slow-mo train wreck, and in Trumpian fashion, minorities may be finally realizing they are just pawns being taken for granted by members and friends of the city counsel.
That last part isn’t nihilism, but it may just be fanciful thinking. Vote for me and it’s free beer for you is still a very powerful and seductive pitch. See Sanders, B.
If you don’t want to run, don’t complain that you aren’t being elected. Run or don’t run.
Actually, the last couple of censuses haven’t shown that. What they have shown is that blacks on the South and West side are slowly moving out.
“Vote for me and it’s free beer for you is still a very powerful and seductive pitch.”
See Trump, D. (Just a sign of incredible partisanship to not see that Trump has promised everything (but he has a good brain and is really smart), and has real plans for nothing, so pick someone who didn’t even win a primary.)
Steve
“I do not believe that you can look at our large cities and arrive at the conclusion that what we’re doing is working.”
Seattle, San Francisco, Portland and New York City would all beg to differ. I don’t know anything about Chicago, since I’ve never lived there or spent any time there.
If our large cities aren’t working, then what is?
Rural America has no jobs. Small cities are too dependent on one or two large employers, and vulnerable to their decline (see Buffalo, Rochester and Detroit (a very large small city)). Suburbs exist only because the city exists.
Republicans cannot get elected in a lot of large cities because the Republican Party has become largely a rural party. If we had a parliament rather than our two party system, we would likely have a minor urban conservative party — perhaps with Bloombergesque policies.
The state of California is a good comparison to the city of Chicago. It’s entirely controlled by the social progressive agenda — so much so that elections now involve not party choice, but who gets the most primary votes. Consequently, we are more frequently having dem running against dem in the general election, with nary a republican on the ballot. This causes the demoralization of any secondary parties from competing, as well as a constraint of more conservative voters from even participating in elections.
I think that may have been one reason why the popular vote was so lopsided for HRC on November 8th, as the two competing women for the open senate seat were both dems, causing fewer Rs to come out and vote for anyone.
A clarifying article about how one-sided the CA politics has become is this one designating California As Alt-America.
“This shift to outpost of modern-day progressivism has been developing for years but was markedly evident in November. As the rest of America trended to the right, electing Republicans at the congressional and local levels in impressive numbers, California has moved farther left, accounting for virtually all of the net popular vote margin for Hillary Clinton. Today the GOP is all but non-existent in the most populated parts of the state, and the legislature has a supermajority of Democrats in both houses. In many cases, including last year’s Senate race, no Republicans even got on the November ballot.”
How does a contrasting party compete with such overwhelming odds? IMO, political party options will be irrelevant and brushed aside until CA collapses under the weight of it’s massively accepted social progressive ideology creating many of it’s misguided, short term fiscal remedies.
Complicating matters in CA is the growing disparity in the socioeconomic composition of it’s residents, which is said to be akin to “a kind of feudal society divided by a rich elite and a larger poverty class, while the middle class either struggles or leaves town.” That’s probably why so many young people are leaving the state, letting the gray-haired, pony-tailed baby boomer, coastal elites behind to wallow in their own self-generated “models of fiscal instability.”
Look at their demographics, Gustopher. It’s not just Chicago. Look at Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Detroit, too. Success by virtue of careful selection of your population isn’t much of a success.
“Look at their demographics, Gustopher.”
If you are saying that whiter cities do better, New York City and San Francisco are both very diverse. Los Angeles seems to be doing well too. Miami is fine. Boston continues chugging along.
And I really don’t think that Detroit is a good example of a large city — the economy was based on a single industry, so it has small city problems at large city scale.
But, I will ask again — if our large cities aren’t doing well what areas are? Because I’m really not sure what the definition of well is here.
In San Francisco, “diversity” means Asians not blacks or Hispanics. Success through zoning. Additionally, the cities you’re pointing to as successes have the highest Gini coefficients (measure of inequality) in the country.
What areas are doing well? Subsidized ones.
What’s my definition of “doing well”? At a first order approximation, social equality. Income inequality is one factor in that but not the only one.
Jan: “Consequently, we are more frequently having dem running against dem in the general election, with nary a republican on the ballot”
I’m not a huge fan of the jungle primaries, but they do reflect the will of the people, and ensure that whoever does win the general election wins with a majority. (I would prefer party primaries, and then runoffs to require a majority)
If the Republicans cannot compete in the marketplace of ideas, why should they get a guaranteed ballot spot?
The problem isn’t that Republicans are shut out of the system and made irrelevant. The problem is that the Republicans have so little to offer that they are irrelevant.
Here in Illinois the problem is that the Republicans and Democrats have divvied the state up and agreed not to compete with each other. The Tribune columnist John Kass calls that “the Combine”.
“What areas are doing well? Subsidized ones.”
Can you give an example? An actual geographic entity.
People flock to our biggest cities — they are obviously working on at least some level, inequality or not. The upper class may be more upper than in Podunk, NY, but the middle and lower classes in our big cities are doing well enough that they don’t leave.
Every state capital. By and large they’re not big cities but they are doing well economically.
How would New York be doing without the massive subsidies that went to the big banks in 2008-2009? How would Seattle be doing without tough laws defending intellectual property? (such laws are a form of subsidy)
Objectively untrue. Check the population over time of Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. All are or used to be big cities. With the exception of Detroit and maybe Pittsburgh all had very diverse economies. All have shrunk or are shrinking.
People are moving south and west and small towns there have become or are becoming big cities.
Another subsidy: our trade policies. We have stopped subsidizing the makers of things but continue to subsidize the providers of services. Cities where they produced stuff have suffered.
Without the massive subsidies tossed at the big banks in 2008-9 (or similar large scale intervention), I don’t think anywhere would be doing well.
Most of the state capitals are basically small cities built around a single industry that is mostly immune to the business cycle. The Great Recession hit them pretty hard, as tax revenues had collapsed across the states, and state governments were laying people off to balance budgets. But, they are generally well buffered.
I will acknowledge that state capitals generally do better than the rest of the country. Washington DC does poorly because so many of the wealthier people live outside the city and commute in, so it’s tax base is hobbled — it has the jobs, but not the property taxes of the residents with the jobs.
Anywhere other than state capitals that are doing well? If not, that’s a pretty bleak view of America.
I’m not saying the bleakness is an entirely wrong view. I’ve been looking at maps of the state expenditures per dollar of tax revenue for Washington state, and the most subsidized areas are still desolate wastelands. Other states generally follow suit, and we we see this at the federal level too, with a lot of taxes coming from a few states with a few big cities.
I would say, however, that if our big cities aren’t doing well, the rest of America is doing much, much worse.
And, on the subject of cities that are not NYC with a lot of blacks doing worse, I don’t think that is the problem of large cities per say — America is pretty screwed up with race. Emptying out the poor black areas of cities and distributing the population to rural areas or suburbs wouldn’t have better outcomes.
My view is probably summed up with this sentence:
“America is pretty screwed up with race.”
Our immigration policies have aggravated the situation. IMO there was a moment when we might have come to terms with our racial problems. Instead, we brought in new workers.
Texas. And since I’ve been to Texas and pretty much consider it a hellhole that’s saying something.
In Texas government does not appear to have become a self-sucking lollipop. Yet.
“How would Seattle be doing without tough laws defending intellectual property? (such laws are a form of subsidy)”
We have tough laws defending intellectual property in our rural areas too. They just don’t generate intellectual property. No structural reason they can’t.
Seattle also has Boeing, which employs a lot of people and makes things. And then a variety of lefty-crunchy “industries” such as hand-crafted Steampunk costumes. We make things.
But your general argument has shifted from “Big Cities Are Failing”, which I disagree with, to “We Need A Vigorous Government To Support The Economy Everywhere”, which I do agree with. A modest redistribution of wealth smooths over a lot of problems, and creates a playing field where more people can succeed.
(Unless you oppose subsidies and just want everywhere to do badly…)
The subsidies to aerospace are huge, defying description.
Everywhere or nowhere. We should stop picking winners and losers. BTW, by and large redistribution just distributes within the top 10% of income earners. Without greater reforms than just raising the top marginal rates I see no reason that will change.
Each party has its own trickle-down economics. The Republicans believe that if you cut taxes for the richest, eventually it will create greater prosperity for those farther down on the ladder. The Democrats believe that if you raise the taxes of the richest, take the money and pay more to professionals, the services provided by the professionals will make those lower on the ladder better off.
Also, you might want to look at some pictures of Silicon Valley in the 1950s. It was a rural area. All of that development was built on intellectual property law.
“Our immigration policies have aggravated the situation. IMO there was a moment when we might have come to terms with our racial problems. Instead, we brought in new workers.”
Except, as a rule of thumb, the new workers are doing better than the blacks in America.
We absorbed the Irish and the Italians, and even began thinking of them as white. Asians are the “good minority” that works hard and integrates into our society (and they’re so good at math!). There were rough patches, but they are now just part of America. I have little doubt that we can absorb immigrants from Latin America too, and even Muslims.
But, blacks are another issue entirely.
Slavery was our original sin, and one we haven’t gotten past. (Or there is something genetically wrong with our black people, which I don’t believe, but include out of completeness)
Republicans, the mainstream, haven’t “proposed alternative solutions” because there is no need to while you’re enacting white flight.
Of course sooner or later you run out of space to flee.
“The Democrats believe that if you raise the taxes of the richest, take the money and pay more to professionals, the services provided by the professionals will make those lower on the ladder better off.”
Or use that tax money to provide subsidies for health insurance, day care and properly funded schools. Raise social security benefits. Build some big exciting infrastructure projects, and lots of small boring ones too. Maybe keep the crazy people and the disabled off the streets, or at least keep them from freezing to death.
And then use a little left over to try to jump start clean energy, so we aren’t dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and don’t destroy the planet.
Yes, there are professionals involved who will get paid and then spend that on fancy meals and maybe they will tip well, but a lot of the liberal agenda is to directly help those at the bottom.
You’re just saying the same thing I did in a different way.
Want to help the poor? Give them money. Give them jobs. Stop giving money to other people to help the poor. Let the poor decide what will help them.
Naive, I’m afraid. In fact that was the exact word applied to my wife and I. We ran (still do) a small project in Minneapolis that subsidizes comfort animals for indigent handicapped people. We took a very hands-off approach, which failed miserably as people made one stupid decision after another. (No, a young border collie is not the right dog for an efficiency apartment with a sedentary owner in a wheelchair.) So we had a clever girl we know analyze the program and it was pretty clear that the problem was our hands-off, ‘send ’em a check’ approach. Now we provide vouchers rather than cash, and oversight.
I’m not making an argument for more social workers, but it is naive to assume that poor people have any more sense than anyone else. In fact they are typically poorly-educated, not overly bright, and under far more intense daily pressure than wealthier people weighed against far less of a conception of the future. You’ll just end up helping the state lottery, the liquor stores and your local meth cooker. And don’t forget, these same people may have kids who are helpless to protect themselves from the adult’s poor decisions. So we still end up having to intervene to protect the kids, and we’re right back at square one.
It might be naive but maybe not as naive as you think. A few years back a French (I think) economist received the Nobel memorial prize in economics for his work demonstrating that giving people money was more effective in reducing poverty than providing services.
The problem with providing services in isolation from effectiveness is that you pay for the services rather than their effectiveness. That means you get services rather than effectiveness. We’ve been doing that for 50 years.
Gustopher made a good point that constantly gets ignored. Conservatives rant about how cities are dysfunctional because they are run by Democrats. How about rural America, run by the GOP? I think you can make a very good case that it is worse off in many ways than our cities.
Steve
I don’t know how to quantify this stuff. I think there’s little doubt that malpractice has aggravated the underlying problems of St. Louis, Detroit, and Chicago. How much? Chicago’s public pension problems are completely problems of mismanagement. Nobody forced the City Council or Chicago Board of Education to defer payments into the pension funds.
Other problems are more complicated including both factors within and beyond political control.
I live in Illinois and in Chicago. I’m more concerned about our problems than those in rural Illinois counties and much more than I’m concerned about the problems of rural Kansas. I leave counting coups to others.
I should point out that Indianapolis seems to be doing pretty well. I don’t know enough about Indiana or Indianapolis to tell you what’s working there.
Rural communities are not “worse off” necessarily by governance, but mainly by the lack of funding which is sidetracked to more densely populated metropolitan areas.
And, rural areas attract those who seek more individualism and less goverment bureaucracy – hence these are more the traits of conservatives than social progressives who want bigger safety nets managed by larger centralized governments.
Interesting thread, but back to the original point. Would you, Dave, invest $1,000,000, $100,000, $10,000 of your own money in a Republican running for Mayor of Chicago even if you found their positions to be the same as yours right down the line?
Follow on question. Are you in the habit of shoveling your cash into the fire pit?
Word may not have reached you, Steve. But in this country the new President does not take office until the 20th of January.
No but I also wouldn’t complain because a Democrat was elected. I have never voted for Emanuel; I didn’t vote for Richie Daley. I voted for candidates who weren’t elected.
The question remains what is to be done in Chicago, in Illinois? Nearly two years ago Illinois’s voters voted to end business as usual in the state. They didn’t get what they wanted which I think vitiates the “you get the government you deserve” argument which I think is ahistorical nonsense, ignoring path dependency.
At this point I see no solution other than bankruptcy which will require an act of the legislature and an act of Congress, respectively.
Over and above bankruptcy as a solution, is people rising up in masses to address making changes. I think that happened during the American Revolution, and has occurred throughout our history via smaller events created by dissent. The Tea Party and anti Wall Street movements, and the recent unexpected election of Trump are only a few examples.
“Rural communities are not “worse off†necessarily by governance, but mainly by the lack of funding which is sidetracked to more densely populated metropolitan areas.”
Nope. In general cities pay more in taxes than they receive from states. So, rural areas tend to have more poverty, they aren’t working, and early deaths are more common in rural areas. You can make a very good case that rural areas are more dysfunctional than urban.
Steve
Drew- I know this will be news to you, but POTUS-elect is already running his mouth (twitter).
Steve