The editors of The Wall Street Journal wrote The Blue-City Model

excerpts:

 In the heyday of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the idea was that the federal government could revitalize city centers with money and central planning. You can tell how that turned out by the office buildings and housing projects that failed to attract middle-class taxpayers. Baltimore’s waterfront is a gleaming example of this kind of top-down development, with new sports stadiums that failed to attract other businesses.

The latest figures from Maryland’s Department of Labor show state unemployment at 5.4%, against 8.4% for Baltimore. A 2011 city report on the neighborhood of Freddie Gray—the African-American whose death in police custody sparked the riots—reported an area that is 96.9% black with unemployment at 21%. When it comes to providing hope and jobs, we should have learned by now that no government program can substitute for a healthy private economy.

HKO

I takes more than a healthy private economy.  It takes a culture that respects the ingredients that lead to the production of wealth.  These riots not only destroy existing capital in their community; they destroy any incentive for new capital to come.  Who in their right mind would deploy assets into Baltimore or Ferguson?

print