Los Angeles was meanwhile, and this was back
in 2013, squandering $2370 per citizen
household on welfare for people who are
neither U.S. citizens nor legal guests of the
United States.
If you're an immensely wealthy Google employee, California is Heaven. If you're not, it's becoming more and more like Hell.
in 2013, squandering $2370 per citizen
household on welfare for people who are
neither U.S. citizens nor legal guests of the
United States.
If you're an immensely wealthy Google employee, California is Heaven. If you're not, it's becoming more and more like Hell.
Escape from CA: Why
Workers, Taxpayers, and Businesses Should Leave
Escape from LA is a 1996
post-apocalyptic movie that features a villain who can cut off the world's
power supply. California's inability to prevent wildfires has led to a
massive power shutdown that has left
hundreds of thousands of people without power, refrigeration and, if they are
dependent on wells, running water. This, along with the state's high taxes and
cost of living, $4 or more a gallon gasoline, and the fact that its major
cities are turning into open sewers where sidewalks serve
as gender-neutral toilets, is a strong argument for workers, taxpayers, and
businesses to go elsewhere. The same goes for other big cities that are
governed almost universally by the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party.
The Big City: What is it Good For?
The answer is the same as
that in the song about war: "absolutely nothing," except possibly
for museums, theaters, and other downtown attractions. Cities were otherwise
obsolete a century ago as described accurately by Henry
Ford in My Life and Work (1922).
Emphasis is mine:
"And finally, the
overhead expense of living or doing business in the great cities is becoming so
large as to be unbearable. It places so great a tax upon life that there
is no surplus over to live on. The
politicians have found it easy to borrow money and they have borrowed to the
limit. Within the last decade the expense of running every city in the
country has tremendously increased. A good part of that expense is for interest
upon money borrowed; the money has gone either into non-productive brick,
stone, and mortar, or into necessities of city life, such as water supplies and
sewage systems at far above a reasonable cost. The cost of maintaining these
works, the cost of keeping in order great masses of people and traffic is
greater than the advantages derived from community life. The modern city has been prodigal, it is
to-day bankrupt, and to-morrow it will cease to be."
Cities evolved for
exactly two purposes, neither of which they serve today. These were (1) as
centers of commerce, and (2) defensible positions around which one could build
a wall. Long gone are the days when you had to make a trip into "the big
city" to buy what you wanted, and cities are now nothing more than dense
targets for enemy bombers and ballistic missiles.
San Francisco: A Literal "Outhouse City"
San Francisco, whose
Board of Supervisors called the National Rifle Association and its millions of
law-abiding members a domestic terrorist organization,
deserves a new city seal whose central feature is the smiling
poo emoji, and whose motto is "Gardyloo;" the warning shout required when
emptying a chamber pot into the streets of a medieval city. The city mascot is
now the hepatitis virus (all three versions, A, B, and C) noting that the
disease is transmitted by excrement and also discarded hypodermic needles,
while the equally appropriate plague-carrying rat has
already been taken by Baltimore.
San Francisco is indeed
an "outhouse city" -- I am using a family-friendly and radio-safe
version of the word Donald Trump used for certain countries -- in terms of more
than sanitation. The cost of living is more than three times than the average in
the United States. Employers who are mandated to
pay $15.59 an hour should therefore move the jobs, if possible, to a state like
Michigan or Pennsylvania and pay the minimum wage workers $7.80 an hour: a 50%
reduction in labor costs and a 50% pay increase for the workers. $7.80 buys 50%
more in most of Pennsylvania and Michigan than $15.59 buys in San Francisco.
This is by no means a
recommendation that employers pay workers as little as possible. Bosses who pay
as little as they can have no right to complain when their employees do as little
work as they can. It means the organization should similarly consider moving
$50 an hour jobs out and paying $25 an hour instead. When studio apartments rent for roughly
$3000 a month, the organization and its stakeholders might as well be throwing
$10 or even $15 an hour per worker down the nearest sewer. This means higher
prices for customers, lower profits for investors, and no benefits whatsoever
for the workers.
Los Angeles was
meanwhile, and this was back in 2013, squandering $2370 per citizen
household on welfare for people who are neither U.S. citizens nor legal guests
of the United States. The city now plans to squander $700,000 per apartment
to house homeless people. To put this in perspective, a clean working class
house can be purchased in Allentown PA for a
tenth of this money. The Quonset
hut, a practical shelter once used extensively by the Armed Forces, can be
built for $13 or less per square foot. Quonset huts can be built to
resist hurricanes and, more importantly in Los Angeles, earthquakes.
The productive citizen
households, the makers who contribute to their community's economy, should
therefore relocate and let the takers, who include the government of
California, fend for themselves. Will the last worker to leave California
please turn out the lights, unless PGE takes care of this first?
Escape from New York
The movie of this title depicts Manhattan as a maximum
security prison, and maybe Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio will need to make it
into one to prevent the workers, taxpayers, and employers from leaving once
they wake up to the fact that the entire city is, like LA and SF, a
pay-more-get-less waste of money. Here, for example, is a good question for
users of legal services. Do some New York City lawyers charge $1000 an hour
because they are outstanding lawyers, or because the median price of a
1-bedroom apartment in Manhattan is $710,000? You, the
individual or business client, are paying not only for the attorney's skills
but also to carry New York City's bloated cost of living, sky-high city and
state taxes, and whatever inflated rent the
law firm must pay for office space. The result is that you pay a lot more than
you should, and the attorney receives less real compensation than he or she
should. Shoppers in downtown New York are similarly carrying the retailer's
sky-high rent and New York City taxes.
Henry Ford added of
prestigious office buildings, "We will not put up elaborate buildings as
monuments to our success. The interest on the investment and the cost of their
upkeep only serve to add uselessly to the cost of what is produced…" A New
York City (or SF, or LA) address doesn't tell me you're a high-quality,
top-of-the-line business; it tells me you are squandering my money as a
customer along with your investors' return on investment and your employees'
wages. When investors, workers, and customers wake up to this fact, the big
cities that are managed almost exclusively by the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party
will lose their disproportionate influence on the nation's politics.
Report:
Gary, Indiana, Named Most ‘Miserable’ U.S. City
MIRA OBERMAN/AFP/Getty Images
6 Oct 20196
2:11
The city of
Gary, Indiana, was ranked the most “miserable” place to live on a list of the
50 most miserable cities in America, according to a report from Business
Insider.
Business Insider ranked Gary,
Indiana— just outside of Chicago— as the most miserable city followed by Port
Arthur, Texas, and Detroit, Michigan.
The publication said it relied on U.S. Census data— specifically
statistics on crime, population changes, drug addiction, job opportunities,
household incomes, abandoned homes, and how likely a city would face problems
with natural disasters.
The outlet said that what all “miserable” U.S. cities had in
common were “few opportunities, devastation from natural disasters, high
crime and addiction rates, and often many abandoned houses.”
For example, Gary has one of the
highest crime rates in America. Statistics show that the odds of becoming
a victim of violent or property crime is one out of 25 in Gary, according to
crime rate tracker Neighborhood Scout.
The city was also known for
selling a handful of homes for $1 back in January to reverse the decades of
blight that had plagued the city.
Many cities in California and New Jersey were the states that
made up the remainder of the list, with ten in California and nine in New
Jersey.
The ten California cities made a strong showing on the list:
Bell Gardens (14); Compton (41); El Monte (22); Hemet (44);
Huntington Park (10); Lancaster (50); Lynwood (21); Montebello (40); Palmdale;
and San Bernardino (42).
The nine New Jersey states also made a significant showing on
the list:
Camden (8); Newark (5); New Brunswick (11); Passaic (4);
Paterson (19); Plainfield (30); Trenton (17); Union City (15); and West New
York (29).
The 50
most miserable cities in America
·
The
most miserable city in the US is Gary, Indiana.
·
·
The
state with the most miserable cities is California with 10.
·
·
New
Jersey is close behind with nine, and Florida comes in third with six.
·
These
cities have things in common — few opportunities, devastation from natural
disasters, high crime and addiction rates, and often many abandoned houses.
Not the worst, just the most
miserable.
We've identified the 50 most
miserable cities in the US, using census data from 1,000 cities across the
country, taking into consideration population change (because if people are
leaving it's usually for a good reason), the percentage of people working,
median household incomes, the percentage of people without healthcare, median
commute times, and the number of people living in poverty.
Often, these cities have been
devastated by natural disasters. They've had to deal with blight, and with high
crime rates. Economies have struggled after industry has collapsed. These
cities also tend to have high rates of addiction.
The state with the most miserable
cities was California, with 10 in the top 50. New Jersey was second with nine,
and Florida had six.
Here are the 50 most miserable cities in the US, based on US census data.
Here are the 50 most miserable cities in the US, based on US census data.
50. Lancaster, California
Wikimedia
Lancaster, a desert town, has
almost 160,000 people, 51% of whom work, and 23% of whom live in poverty. It's
had crime problems, both with meth addiction and neo-Nazis. But Mayor R. Rex Parris is doing what he can to kickstart
the city, including looking to China for investment.
49. St Louis, Missouri
Colter
Peterson / St Louis Post-Dispatch / TNS / Getty
St. Louis has almost 303,000
people, but it lost 5% between 2010 and 2018. Sixty-five percent of people work
and one quarter are living in poverty.
The city has had struggled with
crime and gun violence. In 2015, killings rose 33% from the year
before to 159 deaths. The city has
relatively relaxed gun laws, including allowing people to carry loaded guns in
cars without permits. Then-Mayor Francis Slay said crime was the No. 1 priority for
the city.
48. Pasadena, Texas
Chris
Graythen / Getty
Pasadena has 153,000 people, 65%
of whom are working, and one-fifth live in poverty. While the median income is
$50,207, nearly 29% of people don't have health insurance.
Mostly working-class, the city is based near petrochemical plants, and is
known for its race issues. It used to be home to the Texas headquarters of the Ku Klux
Klan. Now, it's divided. In the north it's primarily made up of Latino people
and to the south it's mostly white people.
47. Macon-Bibb County, Georgia
Grant
Blankenship / Macon Telegraph / MCT / Getty
Macon-Bibb County has 153,000
people, but it lost 1.7% of its population between 2010 and 2018. Fifty-six
percent are working, and 26% live in poverty.
One of Macon-Bibb County's
biggest problems is blight. Across the city there are about 3,700 unoccupied buildings, including dilapidated homes and overgrown yards.
46. Danville, Virginia
Michael
Williamson / The Washington Post / Getty
Danville has 40,000 people, but
its population fell by 5.5% between 2010 and 2018. Fifty-five percent of people
are working and 21% live in poverty.
It used to be one of the richest cities in the Piedmont
area. But it's struggled since its
tobacco and textile mills shut down. However, the city is fighting for a
comeback. It's set up solar farms, and its downtown is in the midst of a rehabilitation to turn abandoned warehouses into mixed-use developments.
45. Shreveport, Louisiana
Deputy
Josh Cagle / Bossier Sheriff's Office / Handout / Reuters
Shreveport has about 189,000
people, and lost nearly 6% of its population between 2010 and 2018. Fifty-eight
percent of people work, and 26% are living in poverty.
In 2015, it struggled with floods from the Red River. Its murder rate also doubled from
2015 to 2016, up to 42 murders, and the city
also had an increase in other crimes, like rape, robbery, and aggravated
assault.
44. Hemet, California
Gina
Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / Getty
Hemet has a population of 85,000
people and between 2010 and 2018, it grew by 8.5%. However, it's struggled since
the 2008 recession. Twenty-three percent of people live in poverty, and crime
rates are high. In 2016, 623 cars were stolen, 170 robberies were reported, and
police logged 398 aggravated assaults — the most this century.
43. Mansfield, Ohio
Eric
Thayer / Reuters
Mansfield has 46,000 residents,
but lost 2.7% between 2010 and 2018. Forty-eight percent of people are working,
and 24% are living in poverty.
It used to have lots of
industrial work, with people making things like steel, machinery, and stoves,
but that dried up in the 1970s and 1980s. More recently, in 2010, a GM factory closed its doors, leading to more job losses. It's also had a surge in crime,
and between 2012 and 2017, violent crimes rose by 37%.
42. San Bernardino, California
AP
Photo/Reed Saxon
Of San Bernardino's 216,000
residents, 57% are employed, and 30% live in poverty.
It's 60 miles east of Los
Angeles, and has an interesting history. It's where McDonalds began, as well as the Hells Angels
motorcycle gang. Along with a tough recession, it had a steel plant and an Air
Force base close down, meaning even fewer jobs.
41. Compton, California
Mario
Anzuoni / Reuters
Compton has 96,000 people, 40% of
whom aren't working, and 23% live in poverty.
The city struggles with poverty
and unemployment. But it's no longer as dangerous as the way it was portrayed
in the film "Straight Outta Compton."
In 1991 there were 87 murders, and in 2014, it was down to 17.
40. Montebello, California
Frederick
J. Brown / AFP / Getty
Of Montebello's 62,632 people,
60% are working, and 14% live in poverty. The average commute time is 33
minutes, and 19% of people don't have health insurance.
A big issue is affordable
housing. A home-ownership counselor told
the New York Times in 2019
that prospects for first-time buyers weren't good, and that opportunities to
live there weren't growing.
39. Harlingen, Texas
Wikimedia
Harlingen has 65,000 residents;
56% are working, and 30% live in poverty.
It's a hot city, with little
rainfall, although recently, it's been
dealing with flooding. It's also one of three cities where 2,000 immigrants were released in
2019, putting pressure on the city to
help them.
38. Reading, Pennsylvania
Michael
Williamson / The Washington Post / Getty
Reading has 88,495 residents,
where almost 62% of people are working, and 36% live in poverty. In 2011, The
New York Times said it was the poorest city in the US.
Its economy struggled after
factories closed down or downsized, laying people off. An estimated 44% of households are on food
stamps, among the most in the country.
37. Hallandale Beach, Florida
Wikimedia
Hallandale Beach has about 40,000
people, 60% of whom are working; 20% live in poverty. More than 29% of people
are without health insurance.
Halfway between Miami beach and
Fort Lauderdale, it's been called a "once scruffy beach town," by the Wall Street Journal. It also has plenty of strip clubs and has been nicknamed
"Hound-ale Beach."
36. Palmdale, California
Anne
Cusack / Los Angeles Times / Getty
Palmdale has 156,667 people — 59%
are in the workforce, and 19% live in poverty.
It also has a median commute time
of 42.7 minutes, which is the highest on the list. It was at one point called
"the foreclosure capital of
California."
35. Anderson, Indiana
Wikimedia
Anderson has 55,000 residents,
but lost 2% between 2010 and 2018. Fifty-six percent of people are employed,
and one-quarter live in poverty.
Formerly a thriving GM city with
24 factories, things deteriorated when the carmaker closed factories and 23,000 people lost their jobs. It's also been a city that has been dealing with blight. In
2015, the city was given $2.8 million
to tear down 100 abandoned homes, and
there were hundreds more that could have qualified.
34. Fort Pierce, Florida
Michael
S. Williamson / The Washington Post / Getty
Fort Pierce has 46,000 people,
and grew by almost 10% between 2010 and 2018. Just over half of people there
are employed, and almost 36% of people in poverty.
This city used to have an economy based around citrus
farming, but struggled with diseases and
the effects of trade deals. It also has to replenish the sand on its beaches every few years, because of ocean erosion.
33. North Miami Beach, Florida
Wikimedia
North Miami Beach has almost
46,000 people; 65% are working, and just under 20% are living in poverty. But
32% of residents don't have healthcare, and the average commute time is 31
minutes.
Another issue for living in this
area could be the tumultuous politics — two recent mayors have faced
criminal charges for their spending.
32. Jackson, Mississippi
Jonathon
Bachman / Reuters
Jackson has almost 165,000
residents, but between 2010 and 2018 it lost more than 5% of its population.
Sixty-two percent of the population is working, and almost 29% live in poverty.
In February, the city threatened to cut off
water for 20,000 people,
because $45 million worth of bills hadn't been paid. Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, elected in
2017, said his goal was to make the city the "most radical" on
Earth, by taking on issues like
poverty in new ways.
31. Saginaw, Michigan
Wikimedia
Saginaw has 48,000 people, and
between 2010 and 2018 it lost 6% of its population. Fifty-five percent of
people are working and nearly 34% are living in poverty.
Like many other cities on this
list, it used to have a lot of manufacturing jobs — at one point around 25,000 with
General Motors. But they didn't last.
Some locals reportedly refer to
the city as "sag-nasty" because of its issues with crime. In May 2019, violent crime had fallen in the city, with 16 shootings to date, compared to 30 at
that point in 2018.
30. Plainfield, New Jersey
Wikimedia
Plainfield has 50,693 people, 70%
of whom are working, and one-fifth of whom live in poverty. Nearly one-third
are without health insurance, and the median commute time is 31 minutes.
It used to be a violent city — in
1990 there were 719 violent crimes, but since then things have improved, although in 2016 there
were 12 murders.
29. West New York, New Jersey
Eduardo
Munoz / Reuters
West New York has nearly 53,000
people, and it grew by 6.6% between 2010 and 2018. Almost 70% are working, and
22% are living in poverty.
Cleanliness and parking are meant to be two of the biggest issues for its new
mayor. The median commute time is 37 minutes.
28. Miami Gardens, Florida
Joe
Skipper / Reuters
Miami Gardens has 113,000 people
— 60% are working, while about 22% live in poverty.
In 2014, it was called the "stop and frisk capital of
America," after an investigation
showed nearly 57,000 people had been frisked since 2008.
Another issue in the area is the
cost of water. Because it comes from a plant owned by the City of North Miami
Beach, the cost of living is a little bit higher. In March, the city was suing
to fight the extra 25% surcharge.
27. Cleveland, Ohio
Benjamin
Lowy / Getty
Cleveland, sometimes called the
"mistake by the lake", has 384,000 people. Its population fell 3% between 2010
and 2018. Nearly 59% of the population is working, and 35% live in poverty. An
August 2019 report found that half of those living in poverty
are working.
The city has struggled for years
since losing the bulk of its manufacturing industry. In 2010, Forbes said it was the most
miserable city in the US. It
also had a bad year for gun violence in 2015, with 85 gun homicides.
26. Youngstown, Ohio
Brian
Snyder / Reuters
Youngstown has about 65,000
people, and lost 3% of its population between 2010 and 2018. Just over half of
its population is working and nearly 37% of people live in poverty.
It used to have a population of
170,000, and was the third biggest steel producer in
the United States, until the
factory began downsizing from 1977 onward. It was also recorded as having some
of the worst air pollution in Ohio in 2017.
25. North Miami, Florida
Carlo
Allegri / Reuters
North Miami has about 63,000
people, 65% of whom are working, while 23% in poverty.
One of the big issues it faces is
flooding, even when it doesn't rain. Sometimes, all that's necessary for flooding is a full
moon. It is also facing problems
around septic tanks (the city has 2,780) that soon might not be able to operate
properly, because of rising sea levels. This could result in wastewater ending up in yards and
other places it's not meant to be.
24. Huntington, West Virginia
Lexi
Browning / Reuters
Huntington has 46,000 people, and
it lost 6.4% of its population between 2010 and 2018. Just over half are
working, and about a third live in poverty.
Formerly a thriving coal mining
town with 90,000 people in 1950, it has since fallen on harder times. In 2008, the city was
described as the unhealthiest in America. The severe opioid crisis has led Huntington to be named America's overdose capital. But overdoses have fallen since 2017.
23. Hammond, Indiana
Scott
Olson / Getty
Hammond has about 76,000 people,
and its population fell by 6.2% between 2010 and 2018, Sixty-one
percent of people are in the labor force, and 22% live in poverty.
A 2014 study found the city was
one of the most industrial in the state, and as a result had problems with air and water
pollution. Lead contamination has been a particular concern for residents.
22. El Monte, California
Wikimedia
El Monte has 115,000 residents;
58% of its population is working, and 22% live in poverty. The average commute
time is a half hour.
The city, which is located near
two freeways and close to Los Angeles, had a lot of revenue coming in from car
dealerships, but struggled during the recession, when three dealerships closed, and the city's tax revenue
fell. It's continued to have issues with finances, and the city is now divided
over the future of marijuana production — one large facility in particular.
21. Lynwood, California
Lawrence
K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / Getty
Lynwood has 70,500 residents —
60% work and 23% are impoverished. It was once called "the best place to
live best." But things didn't stay that way.
The construction of Interstate
105, which cut right through the city, caused many to leave their homes, and 1,000 homes and
businesses to be knocked down. More recently, officials have struggled to manage the city's finances, resulting in losses that could have been used to help the
city.
20. Huntsville, Texas
Richard
Carson / Reuters
Huntsville has 41,500 residents;
39% of its people are working, and almost 35% live in poverty. However, the low
employment is in part because those living in prisons are counted in the city's
population.
The Department of Criminal
Justice is the city's biggest employer, providing nearly 7,000 jobs. Since 1999, Texas' executions have been done
exclusively out of Huntsville.
19. Paterson, New Jersey
Eric
Thayer / Reuters
Paterson has 145,000 residents,
57.5% of its population is working, and 29% live in poverty.
It used to produce silk in
the 19th century, but it's since struggled. In a cruel twist of fate, the Great Falls, which was used
to power factories, ended up flooding the city after Hurricane Irene in 2011.
Between 2009 and 2016, the city's tax revenue fell by
38%. It's also had problems with blight — at one point it had 1,250 abandoned homes, but that dropped
to 770 in 2016.
18. Albany, Georgia
Tami
Chappell / Reuters
Nicknamed "the good life
city," Albany has 75,000 people, although its population fell by almost 3%
between 2010 and 2018. Nearly 58% of the population is working, and a third
live in poverty.
Along with poverty and crime, it
also has been dealing with severe damage and
ruined crops from a severe tornado and
Hurricane Irma in the last few years.
17. Trenton, New Jersey
Eduardo
Munoz / Reuters
Trenton has a population of
84,000. Almost 60% of people are working, and 27% are living in poverty.
It used to be an industrial city
with a catchphrase, "Trenton makes, the world takes," but has since fallen on harder times. Its violent crime
isn't increasing, but neighborhood gangs have been known to fight each other,
and gun violence is a problem.
16. Cicero, Illinois
Scott
Olson / Getty
Cicero has 81,500 residents, but
that fell by 3% between 2010 and 2018. Two-thirds of people are working and
just under 20% live in poverty. The median commute time is 31 minutes.
It's known for being Al Capone's "private
playground" back in the
1920s, and since then, the city has fought the nickname and crime. In 1999, the
city even voted to make gang members leave within 60 days, or face a daily $500 fine.
15. Union City, New Jersey
Eduardo
Munoz / Reuters
Union City has 68,500 residents,
almost 70% are working, while 23% live in poverty. The average commute time is
33 minutes long.
The city is known by some as
"Havana on the Hudson," due to 80% of its residents identifying as
Hispanic, many of whom fled from Cuba. It's only 1.28 square miles, making it
one of the most densely populated areas in
the US.
14. Bell Gardens, California
Allen
J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times / Getty
Bell Gardens has 42,300
residents; 63% of people working, and almost 30% are living in poverty.
According to a city official in
1991, the problem with the city was too
many people. The city has had to depend on a
casino for much of its tax revenue — in 2002, it provided more than
half.
13. Hialeah, Florida
C. M.
Guerrero / Miami Herald / TNS / Getty
Hialeah has 239,000 residents —
56% of whom are working, while almost 26% live in poverty. Nearly 31% don't
have health insurance.
With a primarily Hispanic
population, it's one of the least diverse cities in the country. It's also been rated as the worst city in the US for having
an active lifestyle.
12. Brownsville, Texas
Sergio
Flores / AFP / Getty
Brownsville has 183,000
residents, 56% of people are working, and more than 31% of people are living in
poverty. More than 35% don't have health insurance.
The city is on the Mexican
border, and often has unauthorized immigrants passing through, making it one of the most patrolled places
in the country. According
to locals, three different types of
helicopter fly overhead. Concern
around immigration has also made it difficult for some
residents to sell their properties.
11. New Brunswick, New Jersey
Wikimedia
New Brunswick has 56,000
residents, 54% of people are working, and 35% are living in poverty. It has had
problems with crime – In 2017, the city's assaults with guns
rose 64%.
10. Huntington Park, California
Allen
J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times / Getty
Huntington Park, the 10th most
miserable city in the US, has 58,000 residents, 63% of people are working, and
28% of people live in poverty. The median commute time is 31 minutes.
It has a checkered history with waste
management. A former waste disposal
facility situated in the community is being cleaned up, but work was suspended
after residents complained about dust
and the smell.
9. Warren, Ohio
Alan
Freed / Reuters
Warren has 38,000 residents, and
its population fell by 7.7% between 2010 and 2018. About half of people are
working, and two-thirds live in poverty.
It's had a slow economy for a
while, but things weren't helped when General Motors announced in 2018 it would stop
work in a plant nearby,
meaning people had to leave the city to find work. Along with Youngstown,
Warren has the second highest rate of people
struggling to find enough food in
the country.
8. Camden, New Jersey
Spencer
Platt / Getty
Camden has 74,000 residents, and
its population fell by 4% between 2010 and 2018. Nearly 57% of people are in
the work force, and 37% live in poverty. The average household income is
$26,105 — the lowest on this list.
It used to be a manufacturing
city, but that fell to pieces between the 1950s and 1970s. It's had a high crime rate and been known as one of the most
dangerous cities in the country, but it is improving. In 2017, there were 22
murders, which was the lowest number since 1987, thanks in part to new police procedures.
7. Flint, Michigan
Rebecca
Cook / Reuters
Flint has 96,000 residents, and
it's fallen by 6% between 2010 and 2018. Just over half of people are working,
and 41% of people are living in poverty — the highest on this list.
The city has struggled with a
decline in manufacturing. By 1990, General Motors had
downsized in the area,
leaving many without jobs.
Flint is perhaps best-known for
the water crisis it's been facing
since 2014, where residents were being
poisoned with lead. On top of that, it's got 20,000 abandoned properties to deal with, a consistently high murder rate, and an
opioid problem.
6. Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Wikimedia.
Pine Bluff has 42,000 residents,
and between 2010 and 2018, it lost nearly 14% of its population — the biggest
loss on this list. Fifty-two percent of people are working, and 30% are living
in poverty.
People have been leaving due to
the state losing almost 3,000 manufacturing
jobs between 2016 and 2017. In
2019, things deteriorated further when the Arkansas River flooded the city.
5. Newark, New Jersey
Kathy
Willens/AP Photo
Newark has 282,000 residents, 62%
are working, and 28% are living in poverty. The median commute time is over 35
minutes long.
Like Flint, it's had problems with lead poisoning its water supply. The city has also struggled with race relations, which bubbled up in violent riots
in 1967, and has it's fair share of
violent crimes, particularly in 2013.
4. Passaic, New Jersey
Mark
Makela / Getty
Passaic has 70,000 residents —
58% of people working, and a third are living in poverty.
3. Detroit, Michigan
Joshua
Lott / Reuters
Detroit has 672,000 people, and
between 2010 and 2018, it lost nearly 6%. While 54% of people are working, 38%
live in poverty. The median household income is $27,838.
The city already lost many of its
residents between 1950 and 1980, when 600,000 people left after the manufacturing industry collapsed. With 43,000 abandoned homes, it's been struggling with blight, and is considered one of
the most dangerous cities in the
United States.
2. Port Arthur, Texas
Michael
S. Williamson / The Washington Post / Getty
Port Arthur, a city surrounded by
oil refineries, has 55,000 residents. Fifty-three percent are working and 30%
are living in poverty.
The city was hit by hurricanes in
2005, 2008, and 2017. Harvey, the latest, caused $1.3 billion in damage. Officials fear that if people keep leaving, Port Arthur will
fall below 50,000 people and make it ineligible for federal
grants.
1. Gary, Indiana
Eric
Thayer / Reuters
Gary has 75,000 residents, but
lost 6% between 2010 and 2018. Just over half of the population works, and 36%
live in poverty. The most miserable city in the US was once a manufacturing
mecca, but those days are over.
A drug enforcement agent who grew
up in the area told The Guardian in 2017: "We used to be the murder
capital of the US, but there is hardly anybody left to kill. We used to be the
drug capital of the US, but for that you need money, and there aren't jobs or
things to steal here."
When the jobs dried up, most
white people left, and now 84% of people living in Gary are
African American. The city is
experimenting with number of plans to try and revitalize the area, including selling abandoned homes for $1.
“MORE THAN 10 MILLION” ILLEGALS IN
CALIFORNIA ALONE
Xavier Becerra breaks the news, files suit against Trump administration
public-charge rule.
August 19, 2019
More
than 22 million people are illegally present in the United States, according to
a recent study by scholars at MIT and
Yale.
Pew Research pegged the figure at 11 million, and for years it stood as the
official count for media and government. It now emerges that 11 million is more
like the number illegally present in California alone.
“California
is home to over 10 million immigrants,” reads a chart displayed by California
attorney general Xavier Becerra and governor Gavin Newsom as they announced a lawsuit against the Trump
administration’s public-charge rule. “Immigrants,” is California code for
“illegals,” a term the state’s ruling class has banned. As Rachel Bovard notes
at American Greatness, even a legal immigrant’s ability “to stay
off the welfare system must be taken into account when considering
qualifications for a green card.”
California
heaps welfare benefits on those illegally present, including nearly $100 million for health
care in
the recent budget. Many of those 10 million illegals came to California
specifically to get those taxpayer-funded benefits. It disturbs Becerra and
Newsom that this disqualifies the recipients from any future legal status, but
there’s more to it. As attorney Madison Gesiotto
explains in The Hill, voting must also be taken into
account.
“Voting
as an illegal alien in federal elections is a crime punishable by fine,
imprisonment, deportation, or inadmissibility.” According to a State Department
investigation, false-documented illegals have been voting in federal, state and
local elections for decades. In 1996, illegals cast 784
votes against Republican Robert Dornan in a congressional race Democrat
Loretta Sanchez won by only 984 votes.
If
Newsom and Becerra are certain that more than 10 million people illegally
reside in the state, they doubtless know how many voted in 2016. Trouble is,
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla refused to release any voter
information to a federal voter-fraud probe.
Back
in 2015, Padilla told the Los Angeles Times, “At the latest, for
the 2018 election cycle, I expect millions of new voters on the rolls in the
state of California,” with “new voters” code for ineligible voters. True to
form, by March, 2018, more than one million
“undocumented” immigrants received driver’s licenses from the state
Department of Motor Vehicles, which automatically registered them to vote under
the “Motor Voter” program.
Padilla
is now claiming that only six “California
residents” were erroneously added to voter rolls for 2018, that it was
all due to DMV errors, and that none was guilty of “fraudulently voting or
attempting to vote.” To paraphrase John Goodman in The Big Lebowski,
this is what happens when the governor’s own department of finance, not the
official state auditor, investigates the DMV.
In
reality, California officials know full well how many non-citizens voted in
2016 and 2018. With more than 10 million illegals in the state, the ballpark
figure of one million illegal voters is probably low. In California, illegals
are the Democrats’ electoral college, and the Democrats reward them with
welfare benefits and protection from deportation through sanctuary laws. This
raises another issue.
Illegals’
use of welfare benefits and practice of voting in federal elections
disqualifies them from legal residency and citizenship. This makes for a
permanent group of more than 10 million foreign nationals in California alone.
In these conditions, Congress should start pushing back.
Public
officials who apportion taxpayer-funded benefits for foreign nationals should
be required to register as agents of the governments of those foreign
nationals. The primary candidates would be the governments of Mexico, Honduras,
Guatemala and El Salvador, which Gavin Newsom
visited before he had even toured his own state.
State
and federal governments should also bill the foreign governments for welfare,
medical, education and incarceration costs. Some of this could be
alleviated by a tax on remissions, such as the 33.4 billion Mexicans abroad
sent back last year. That amount is impossible without massive inputs from
U.S. taxpayers. Legitimate citizens and legal immigrants have no obligation to
relieve foreign governments of responsibility for their own citizens.
Meanwhile,
as Rachel Bovard also notes, the Trump administration’s new rule only updates a
1996 law proclaiming “inadmissible” those aliens likely to become a public
charge. The law was supported by Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden and
other leading Democrats. The Trump administration measure gives more definition
to what constitutes a welfare benefit, food stamps, Medicaid, public housing
assistance and such. Those benefits are all for legitimate citizens and legal
immigrants but Bovard cites Census data showing that 63 percent of non-citizens
use the welfare system.
Those
who thought there were only 11 million illegals nationwide were mistaken.
Thanks to Jerry Brown crony Gavin Newsom, and Xavier Becerra, once on Hillary
Clinton’s short list as a running mate, Americans now understand that “more
than 10 million” illegally reside in California alone, and that might
understate the figure.
The
MIT-Yale estimate ranges as high as 29.1 million nationwide, more than the
population of Australia, with
25,088,636 and a veritable occupation. To all but the willfully blind,
politicians have abandoned the rule of law, and made false-documented illegals
a protected, privileged class.
This
is how a nation loses its sovereignty.
Democrats turning California into
a third-world hellhole: Going without electricity edition
Democrats are turning California into a third-world hellhole
without electricity, water, and freedom.
Due to Democrats' love
for trees, at least 800,000 Californians will be without power for several
days. Instead of properly managing California forests to reduce the
chances of big fires, Democrats are saying Californians have to go without
lights, refrigerators, and air-conditioning. Democrats could also
avoid this by not making the power company financially liable for all forest
fire damages, but since PG&E is a company, not an illegal alien, the
Democrats couldn't care less about doing what's best for California.
While they try to blame
climate change and the infrastructure, the reality is that neither of those has
caused any significant changes in the last ten years — but now, suddenly, due
to Democrat policies, Californians have to start living in the 18th century.
The Democrats who run
California also refuse to build more water storage capacity even though the
state's population has dramatically increased, ensuring that water has to be
rationed during droughts.
Democrats are turning
California into a third-world country economically. The income
inequality between the über-rich Silicon Valley workers and the rest of
Californians is huge, just like in third-world countries, while the elites live
in luxury and the rest live in squalor.
Democrats are doing a
great job manufacturing poverty and homelessness even as they fail to instill
hope in Californians.
California has four times more homeless per
capita and three times more poor per capita than the rest of
America. Half the homeless in America are in California, even though
California has only 12% of the U.S. population. Also, blacks are six
times more prevalent in the San
Francisco homeless population than they are in California in general.
The homeless explosion
has brought the return of third-world diseases like typhus to California — not
to mention streets littered with human feces.
Democrats are trying to
keep people from having cars, just like the people of the Third
World. After all, a car gives people the freedom to move, and
freedom is a bad thing in the minds of Democrats since it limits the power the
government has over citizens.
Recently, Gavin Newsom,
the Democrat governor, transferred millions of dollars that the voters had been
ensured would go to improve the state's failing road infrastructure to a fund
designed to convince Californians to give up their cars.
Democrats are also
working to make cars unaffordable for any but the richest Californians.
Californians pay $1.53 more for a gallon for
gasoline than the rest of America. That's $21 more for a tank of
gasoline. Facebook employees won't notice it, but the poor in California
who can't afford to live near their jobs are paying through the teeth.
Like all third-world
tyrants, Democrats are doing everything they can to eliminate democracy in
California.
The jungle primary, where
the top two candidates in the primaries go against each other, has resulted in
many races where two Democrats are running against each other, giving voters
who don't agree with the Democrats' failed policies no one to vote for.
California is doing
nothing to ensure that people who shouldn't vote don't
vote. Instead, the people running the state are doing everything
possible to let illegal aliens vote. When illegal aliens go pick up
their driver's licenses, they're automatically enrolled to vote unless they say
they're not citizens.
California is also trying
to end democracy by keeping the Republican presidential candidate off the
ballot. Democrats passed an unconstitutional law to keep any
candidate who didn't release his tax returns off the ballot solely to keep
Californians from voting for Trump.
Finally, the Democrats
are going after freedom of the press. An undercover journalist
revealed that Planned Parenthood was selling aborted baby
parts. Instead of investigating that illegal practice, Democrat
Kamala Harris decided to put the journalist on trial.
Democrats keep telling us
California is the future if they get elected. That means that
poverty, homelessness, the end of democracy, and a press that reports only what
Democrats want heard are what Democrats are promising us.
If you're an immensely
wealthy Google employee, California is Heaven. If you're not, it's
becoming more and more like Hell.
You can read more of Tom's rants at his blog, Conversations
about the obvious, and feel free to follow him on Twitter.
“The high cost of housing (71%) is the
most common reason given by voters for wanting to leave California,” polling
director Mark DiCamillo said. “However, high taxes (58%) and the state’s
political culture (46%) are also prominently mentioned, particularly by
Republicans and conservatives.”
Walters: California Paradox:
Economy–and poverty–hit record highs
California’s median income rose to among the nation’s
highest in 2018, but it ranked 50th in housing
By
happenstance, events in the final week of September perfectly framed what one
might call the California Paradox — a thriving, world-class economy with
stubbornly high levels of poverty and a widening divide between the haves and
have-nots.
The
week began with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s keynote address to a United
Nations-sponsored forum on the environment and economic growth, in which he
crowed about California’s economic achievements.
“It’s
an interesting fact, while this country is running $1 trillion-a-year deficits,
California is running historic budget surpluses,” Newsom told the international
audience. “It’s an interesting fact that California has enjoyed the lowest
unemployment rate in its history, more consecutive months of net job creation
than at any time in its history, and significantly outperforming the United
States of America in GDP growth over a five-year period — not despite our
environmental strategies, but because of our environmental strategies.
“As
we change the way we produce and consume energy, it is spawning new companies,
new energy, new growth. We lead in venture capital and green tech. Five to one
— five to one, the number of clean energy jobs in the state of California
versus fossil fuel jobs.”
But
a few days later, the Census Bureau released new state-by-state
data on income and poverty, underscoring once again that California is one
of the leaders in both categories.
While
California’s median personal income rose by 2.3% in 2018 to $75,277, one of the
nation’s highest levels, it was one of only five states in which the “Gini
index,” which measures income inequality, increased.
“New
census figures released today show rising income inequality across the state
and millions of California residents who are struggling to get by on extremely
low incomes, while higher-income households experienced more income growth,”
the California Budget & Policy Center said in its analysis of the
Census Bureau data.
The
organization noted that “from 2006 to 2018, the median household income in
California increased by 6.4%, after adjusting for inflation, but the average
real income for the lowest quintile of households (those in the bottom 20%)
actually decreased by 5.3% while the inflation-adjusted average
income for the top 5% of households increased by 18.6%, or nearly three times
as much as the increase in the median income.”
That
analysis is in line with another recent measure of wellbeing by an organization
called the “Social Progress Imperative.” It merges dozens of economic and other
factors to generate a “social progress index” for nations and their
subdivisions, including states — and California doesn’t fare well.
It
ranks 33rd among states and not surprisingly, its housing crisis is a
major reason why. The index places it at 49th in the category of “basic
human needs,” which includes a 50th place in “shelter.”
Finally,
a few days after Newsom bragged about California’s economic achievements to the
elite economic gathering in New York, UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental
Studies released its latest poll, revealing that half of the state’s
voters have considered leaving the state.
“The
high cost of housing (71%) is the most common reason given by voters for
wanting to leave California,” polling director Mark DiCamillo said. “However,
high taxes (58%) and the state’s political culture (46%) are also prominently
mentioned, particularly by Republicans and conservatives.”
Moreover,
just 50 percent of those surveyed agree that California is now the best place
to live.
There
you have it, the California Paradox.
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