Scott McKay: Tucker Carlson, Buckhead, and Why Our Cities Fail | The American Spectator:
"Let’s introduce you to a term you should be familiar with if you want to fully understand urban Democrat governance and its effects on the population of a city. That term is Weaponized Governmental Failure. ...
Look, what makes a place livable is not the presence of lots of rich people. Rich people put themselves behind high walls, and rich people do what they can to keep the riffraff out. Having lots of rich people makes an area exclusive, not livable.
What makes a place livable is the presence of lots of middle-class people. Middle-class people are the ones most plugged into a community. They’re the volunteers, they’re the tax base, they’re the shopkeepers, the professionals, the volunteer coaches, and the churchgoers. A thriving community has lots of middle-class folks mowing their lawns on Saturday mornings, participating in bowling leagues, opening businesses and buying clothes, TVs, and furniture.
But the problem with middle-class people is that, while they bring a good deal of money in taxes, they also want lots of things for that money.
They want schools that teach the basics well, and they aren’t happy when the schools start indoctrinating kids into exotic sexualities and foreign theories on race relations, for example.
They want streets not full of potholes. They want public safety. They want trash picked up in a timely manner and litter cleared from roadsides. They want flood protection, sound drainage, potable drinking water.
In short, they want what they’re paying for with property and sales taxes. To keep them happy means giving them value for those tax dollars.
That doesn’t leave a lot of room for the pigs to feed at the trough. When the potholes in the streets have to be filled, it’s harder to steal the pothole budget.
And a city full of middle-class people will quite often turn out incompetent demagogue politicians like Keisha Bottoms, even in favor of a Republican. That, simply, will not do.
Somewhere along the line, the urban Democrat machine politicians realized that running cities badly enough would chase off the middle class and leave them with a thin crust of wealthy people over a large mass of the poor.
And a city thus populated would never elect Republicans, or even reform-minded Democrats. Accountability would disappear.
The rich know better than to kick up much of a fuss about bad government. They don’t need to. Most of what they need they pay for out of pocket, like private security in their neighborhoods and private schools for their children. What they can’t get through the private sector they know they can have simply by paying for it under the table. That’s why even conservatives, those who are left in urban America, pay “protection money” to the Keisha Bottomses, Lori Lightfoots, and LaToya Cantrells of the world by way of campaign donations and other filthy lucre; those monies are a foot in the door that more personal items, like getting the pothole filled at the end of the street, can be covered when needed.
And the poor? The poor can be bought off cheaply with crumbs from the table. They don’t expect much and are given even less than that.
So the schools are a disaster — because if they aren’t, the poor might become middle-class, and that won’t do at all. And the roads are a mess. And the criminals rule the streets with the tacit approval of the politicians. After all, a long time ago, urban Democrats realized there are more votes throwing in with the street criminals and the lowest common denominator than the law-abiding in those terrible neighborhoods; the law-abiding, after all, want nothing more than to get out and move up.
They’re ruling over a ruin, but they rule.".......
For now.
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