What We're Seeing is Irreversible in America's Major Cities, Part II

By Rich Kozlovich

On May 31st, I posted this piece, What We're Seeing is Irreversible in America's Major Cities, noting how these leftist/racist Mayors are turning America's major cities into crime ridden sewers.  

Cleveland, a town I've loved for most of my life, is an example.  Recently nine people were shot on W. 6th Street.  About 30 years ago or so Cleveland restaurateurs started turning W6th into a "go to" area for fine food, and started turning it into a nightclub street, as they also did with E. 4th Street, and downtown was hopping.   

Things were really looking up for Downtown Cleveland, which has the second largest theatre district in the nation.  Then things changed and I noticed the nightclubs started drawing what can only be called an unsavory crowd, and businesses started failing.   I retired and didn't observe what must have been a downward spiral for Downtown Cleveland with these insane covid restrictions imposed by Governor DeWine, but it must have been devastating.  

A few days ago a man, with a long criminal record, decided to shoot nine people in that area, and at this point there doesn't seem to be a motive other than he just wanted to kill people. 

Then there was my take on Chicago saying, "We all know Lori Lightfoot as mayor of Chicago is gone (All due to racism, homophobia, and misogyny and her incompetence had nothing to do with it) and her replacement is even nuttier.  Will he fix Chicago's downward spiral?   Well, it turns out crime is so out of control in Chicago someone was murdered right across the street from his home, and 53 people were shot and 11 murdered over the holiday weekend.  So, I guess the answer to my question is, "no"'.   Well, clearly the answer really is no since crime is out of control in Chicago.

San Francisco is doomed, and it will never recover, as Paul Bois notes in this July 16th article, Tech CEO: Downtown San Francisco ‘Never Going Back’ to Pre-Pandemic State:  Death Spiral: Urges Mayor to Hire More Police.  "Downtown San Francisco will not be going back to its pre-pandemic state."

What we're seeing in San Francisco is a magnificent city being turned into a sewer.  The pandemic "launched a revolution of stay-at-home work, forcing major metropolitan areas like downtown San Francisco to become havens for vacant office buildings."  But crime so massive stores were taking such high losses large retailers like "Uniqlo, Nordstrom Rack and Anthropologie have left, toiletries like shampoo and toothpaste are locked up at pharmacies, and places like Gucci get hit by armed robbers in broad daylight."  Then there are the drug addicted lunatics and homeless people defecating and urinating all over the place. 

But here's the understated long term reason why America's major cities are doomed.   

"Last month, the owner of Westfield San Francisco Centre, a fixture for more than 20 years, said, “it was handing the mall back to its lender, citing declining sales and foot traffic. The owner of two towering hotels, including a Hilton, did the same."

Companies can't afford to be in cites where these race baiting Mayors and administrations refuse to deal properly with criminals, refusing to charge them for the crimes they've committed, and refusing to jail them, claiming that's what's needed to overcome white supremacy. 

They've also discovered they can function better, and cheaper, by not being in the big cities, paying those huge rents and high parking costs, but especially being able to avoid the unsavory people walking everywhere begging for money, and threatening they and their employees.

All over the nation these skyscraper office buildings are losing tenants, which means more and more owners of these buildings are incapable of paying the mortgages.  What do they do?  They default on the loans and the banks are stuck with large properties they can't sell for what they're owed, and I'm betting there's a huge number of them can't be sold at all.  End result?  These properties will deteriorate, and America's downtown commercial areas will turn into massive slums; banks are going to go belly up; and the national economy will suffer.  But these cities will never come back to what they were.   

What have we done to ourselves? We're facing a massive failure of culture because we've abandoned the foundational Judaic/Christian principles and values that keep a society stable, and no government program can fix that.  That must be changed at the family level, and the left is doing all it can to destroy the very concept of family. 

At some point society will have to embrace this principle as stated by Col. John Boyd. 

"One day you will come to a fork in the road. And you're going to have to make a decision about what direction you want to go..........To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?"