The Journal Sentinel's retrospective on the '67 riots and what has followed was well-done. I didn't live in Milwaukee 40 years ago, so I found the reporting valuable.
I wonder if the solution to the poverty that has persisted since then is best found in moving more jobs, housing, highway systems and Lake Michigan water to the suburbs and neighboring cities, villages and towns?
I can tell you this much - central planning doesn't solve the problem.
ReplyDeletePaying people to remain poor and unemployed didn't help either and as unions grew in strength driving up wages and benefits, manufacturing left the state - not just the city.
Milwaukee's best days are behind us because socilaism could only take the city so far before everything came apart.
If you want the city to thrive and you want to attract suburban dwellers - control crime and taxes, and by all means, break the stranglehold of the poverty pimps that hold people down and exthort those who try to create jobs.
Good luck.
We do have central planning. It's called SEWRPC: the southeastern Wisconsin regional planning commission, and it is an example of how government spends planning money to help direct government spending.
ReplyDeleteThere is a myth about the free market and individual choice driving the movement of business away from Milwaukee, when it gets an assist from highway spending, hospital relocation, annexations and other government activities.
I can't help you with your poverty pimp thinking. You are going to have to deal with those shortcomings yourself.
Despite Pittsburgh giving Lycos massive tax breaks they still moved away. Talent drives the economy and the location of business not taxes.
ReplyDeletePS Manufacturing left the country not just the city.
PSS Milwaukee's best days are ahead of us... take a look at the millions if not billions of dollars of development occuring in the near downtown.