If America is heading in the right direction, why have so many of our
major cities become cesspools of violence, drugs, theft, trash and
homelessness? Once upon a time, millions of young people from all over
America flocked to our rapidly growing metropolitan areas. Today, there
is a mass exodus out of our largest metropolitan areas due to the
absolutely deplorable conditions. If you are not yet convinced that we
are a nation in decline, spend some time wandering around our core urban
areas. The shiny new cities that previous generations of Americans
built for us are degenerating at a pace that is absolutely stunning.
Just look at what is happening to New York. A couple of decades ago, it was still in relatively good shape.
But now it is going down the tubes really fast.
A shopping mall in the Big Apple that cost a billion dollars to build just ten years ago is being permanently shut down because conditions in the city have become so intolerable…
A MAJOR city mall with dozen of stores is planning to shut up shop as America’s theft epidemic continues to batter businesses.
Retail operator Westfield announced that it intends to end its lease
and sever all operations with the Fulton Center in Lower Manhattan.
Westfield put pen to paper on a two-decade long lease in 2014.
However, as levels of theft and homelessness continue to spiral, the company have decided to forego the contract 10 years early.
Westfield has cited soaring crime and quality of life concerns as their reason for terminating the lease.
Yes, things really are that bad.
Walking away from a billion dollar project is not an easy decision,
but Westfield apparently has come to the conclusion that conditions are
not going to improve any time soon.
Just because a city was great at one time does not mean that it will always be great.
Detroit was once one of the greatest cities on the entire planet, but now it has become a cautionary tale…
Detroit was once the symbol of the mighty industrial
power of America. It was the home of the “Big Three” American car
companies that dominated car production around the world. It was
America’s success at developing a large industrial middle class.
Today one finds articles like the Guardian’s “The Death of a Great American City: why does anyone still live in Detroit?”
So what has happened to what was once one of the greatest Rust Belt
cities? The story of Detroit is a much larger tale of what has been happening in the city of Gary in Indiana – a ghost town in the making.
Other major cities should learn from what has happened to Detroit.
But instead, many of them are making the exact same mistakes.
Years of progressive policies have turned some of our most appealing cities into horror shows.
It wasn’t too long ago that the glamour of Hollywood drew in visitors
from all over the globe, but now Hollywood is absolutely packed with homeless encampments…
A large Hollywood Boulevard homeless encampment that
residents say is a hotspot for selling and buying drugs, a trash-strewn
tent city they say took the city three months to clear, has sparked
continued concern as unhoused residents are already returning to the
location.
The encampments are a persistent problem plaguing neighborhoods not just in Hollywood but across greater Los Angeles.
Conditions are similar up north in San Francisco.
I have written extensively about the hordes of addicts that wander
aimlessly through the streets. These addicts leave trash and human
excrement wherever they go, and as a result San Francisco is an
extremely filthy city today.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the city itself is “dumping raw sewage and trash directly into the Bay at a magnitude that’s almost incomprehensible”…
Sejal Choksi-Chugh, Baykeeper’s executive director, said,
“There’s no excuse for polluting the Bay with sewage and trash, and
those who pollute must be held accountable. Dumping millions of gallons
of untreated sewage into Mission Creek and the Bay is unacceptable,
avoidable, and illegal.”
Nearly all of SFPUC’s discharges flow into Mission Creek and Islais
Creek, Baykeeper found. The nonprofit’s field investigators visited
Mission Creek during sewer discharges and saw the presence of fecal
matter, plastics, syringes, and condoms in the water.
“San Francisco is dumping raw sewage and trash directly into the Bay
at a magnitude that’s almost incomprehensible,” said Baykeeper attorney
Eric Buescher.
Yuck!
I thought that progressives were supposed to be in favor of protecting the environment.
On the east coast, the city of Baltimore is facing a different sort of crisis.
After years of disastrous policies, the police shortage in the city has reached an “apocalyptic” level…
Baltimore is now facing apocalyptic levels of policing shortages.
Last week, THREE police officers patrolled a whole district of 61,000 residents.
Police are now UNABLE to respond to calls, including for child assault.
The department is now postponing police training in an attempt to solve shortages.
At one time in my life, I would visit Baltimore pretty regularly.
And I was always thankful to get out of the city safely.
Of course things are much worse now, and at this point I don’t know why anyone would still want to live there.
Pittsburgh is also experiencing a very serious shortage of police officers.
In fact, things have gotten so bad that police in the city will no longer “respond to any calls that aren’t in progress emergencies”…
Beginning Monday, Pittsburgh police won’t respond to any calls that aren’t in progress emergencies.
Chief Larry Scirotto wants to cut their call volume from approximately 200,000 calls per year down to about 50,000.
That essentially means that calls for criminal mischief, theft,
harassment and burglary alarms, just to name a few, will all be handled
by the telephone reporting unit or online reporting.
This is what a nation in decline looks like.
We have turned our backs on the values that this nation was founded
upon, and as a result we are now experiencing social decay on an epic
scale.
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.
Source: https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/new-york-detroit-los-angeles-san-francisco-and-baltimore-were-once-such-beautiful-cities/ 
