Congress can’t agree on the day of the week or which is better chocolate or vanilla ice cream.
They compete for air time and headlines over such the most dry issues around. But one thing is for certain, that the American City is crumbling and no one has an answer as to how to save it.
Not just any American City. The smaller ones. It takes no great brain power to run the biggies. If Marty Walsh or Bill DeBlasio don’t show up for work, their cities don’t suddenly roll up the red carpet.
But no one has any great ideas as to how to bring back the smaller American Cities. Ones that don’t have a casino and don’t want one.
People would like to move back to them. They, according to the experts like them because they are walkable and a lot of them have what they need. But a long time ago people moved out because they did not feel safe and they were scared of what might happen to them if they moved out of their houses to go to work or do anything else.
So here is what needs to happen. It's pretty simple really.
Mayors need to mass together and form their own march on Washington. You want to call it the Million Mayors March go for it.
Mayors need to act now because their lifelines are dependent on it.
People don’t feel safe in most of their cities. They are scared to leave their house. So make them feel safe. Double the size of each police department in the country. Then President Bill Clinton had the right idea. He just didn’t want to pay the freight. A cop in a cruiser in every neighborhood? Just like the old days.
Then knock down everything in a city that is not viable. The rundown building. The property that hasn’t been touched like in decades. Knock down their crumbling walls in order to build it up.
If you demolish the blighted, then not only won’t it be there but it will make way for something bigger and better over time.
Then lower taxes. Encourage business. Make something that people want and will call their own. Make it attractive for someone to build in what was once blighted.
Make it walkable and safe and affordable and we can call it a win.
Yep. Then someone is going to say ---”How do we afford that? You can’t afford not to do it. Otherwise your cities will be for the poor and under appreciated….the hopeless and ...the dreamless will be there but no one else.
Put cops, lots of cops on the street….knock down walls and blight and then build up cities with businesses and people who will keep them viable.
It will take guts. But in the alternative what you have is nothing to hang your hat on, except a lot of big buildings with a lot of government in them.