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Originally Posted by moorhosj
This is a fair thought. I am sympathetic to the idea we may need to spend more today to make up for spending so much less in the past (i.e. lead pipes in our poorest neighborhoods). I think your point rests on the assumption that they have actually spent the "usual amount" today and in the past.
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Lead water tests are not indicative of the number of lead pipes, but the condition. In fact, the entire city is saturated with lead water lines partly because our nasty labor union infestation mandated we continue using lead water lines well into the 80's for more than a decade after lead was banned nationally in paint. Yet another thing you can thank the soviets running this city for.
And no, government disinvestment is not what caused these areas to decline. Private disinvestment is. Ironically that's what the gentrification debate today is about, "Investments? We don't need no stinking investments!"
The final blow to a lot of these areas (Bronzeville, Washington Park, Garfield Park, Lawndale) was the race riots of the civil rights era where basically the police suppressed protests in white areas and then let them run amok in Black areas where they turned to riots and decided to burn their own business districts to the ground. That basically did in what was a blossoming Black merchant class and left these areas as shells of their former selves.
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Originally Posted by Stockerzzz
Preckiwinkle and four others just promised the following free items:
- Youths and seniors can ride the CTA for free
- Free City College tuition for all
- Spending $25m to reopen mental health clinics
Chicago Tribune
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Yeah, give the "youths" free CTA access so it's more convenient for them to make it down to Chicago and State where they can flash mob and beat up tourists...
Toni is awful, I'd rather have another Daley...
Quote:
Originally Posted by moorhosj
You aren't wrong on this, at all. However, just saying that it needs to happen is not a solution. If that is the proposed fix, how do you get there? Those are the ideas we need.
People in these communities (and lots of researchers) would tell you that the War on Drugs, de-industrialization and dis-investment are the drivers of that low number. And that brings us back to square one.
It's also important to acknowledge that this wasn't the case in the 60s. Something happened to these communities that changed the family dynamic.
"According to the Census Bureau from 1960 and 2013, African –American children who lived in single-parent homes more than doubled from 22% to 55%. The same research showed that white children from single-parent homes tripled from 7% to 22%."
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There is a theory that the massive program of state welfare targeted particularly at single mothers of African American descent during I believe LBJ (The Great Society?) caused this. In other words, after the handouts started to be based on familial status and not need, the incentive to maintain a nuclear family disappeared. In fact, the more kids you have the more you receive. The Democratic Party, regardless of how we arrived at this situation, has more or less re-enslaved the African American population (and poor in general) of this country as an absolutely beholden voter block that literally cannot stop voting Democrat or risk losing their entire support structure.
Just look at Crook County and Illinois, the same voters have elected Democrat after Democrate despite literally no change in their lot in life. No improvement, for decades. In fact, Berrios, Madigan, the Daleys, et. al. have done nothing, but patronize the African American (and poor population at large). Despite messages of equality and "we are for the poor", all we get is more of the same. In fact, Illinois makes sport of fucking over the poor, just look at the tax racket Berrios and Madigan and Burke have set up. They literally pat the poor on the back with one hand and twist the knife in their kidneys with the other. The fact is that the Democrats long ago stopped actually wanting to help their voters when they realized they had a captive audience who essentially has no hope but to vote for them.
At the end of the day US criminal policy has also had a lot to do with this. Too bad we have a racist in office who hates Black people and would never correct an issue like criminal sentencing reform... Oh wait....