I wonder how this is not big news/political issue over there.
I've recently saw a documentary on Seattle and all those addicts in the streets. Now reading this just fit the picture. How could this come so far? This sounds like some 3rd world dystopia stuff. Is there some national effort to fix those conditions? I mean this is the USA. You can't take this as normal.
.. but it is "normal"? It's been like that for years. America just doesn't fix "local" problems, even if they're on a huge scale. That's how Puerto Rico managed to be without electricity for three months. This is what you get when you have a party that believes government is inherently bad: you get a failed state.
You say this as if a government with the capacity would save the day? The government already has the capacity to solve problems but this is the best that it can achieve. This is it. It's not being held back because it only had a trillion dollar budget to work with.
It chooses not to. It chose to waste the trillion dollars in Iraq; it chooses not to rationally investigate its options and invest in those most likely to have good outcomes.
As to why it chooses to do that, it looks like the crime in Chicago isn't an issue that affects marginal voters. Or that crime is endemic all the way up in Illinois; four of the last eight governors have been jailed for corruption, and that appears to be a cross-party problem.
Help my ignorance here, but why is the first response seem to go federally? Corruption seems to be a huge issue for Chicago, and the city is mostly run by one side for a while so why can’t they get anything done?
Hardly the first response, since it's been a mess for years, but it follows naturally from your second sentence: it's clear that the problem has festered for a long time and the local system is incapable of fixing it. If the corruption can't be attacked from the inside, perhaps outsiders will be able to break it?
It took Federal prosecution to get Al Capone, after all.
Don't be fooled by SV having all the shiniest, coolest companies. Overall US infrastructure is tending very close to what all those scifi dystopias show us: just absolute chaos[0] for all but the richest people, who get their own privatized infrastructure and are thus isolated from these problems.
[0]: exaggerating for effect, but it's hard to describe it otherwise when comparing to any other developed nation.
Many - if not most - of the residents of inner city slum areas were raised by single mothers who had them very young without the means to support them. They turned to drugs and gangs. They never graduated high school. In short, they never had a chance.
There is not much the government can do to fix this. One of the few things government could do to help - increased police presence and general law enforcement - has been rejected by inner city politicians. Police often find themselves at odds with the political leadership of major American cities. It's a shame, but that's politics.
Ultimately it's a cultural issue that the people themselves need to figure out. If they stopped having kids so young and women weren't forced to raise their children alone, things could improve.
> Ultimately it's a cultural issue that the people themselves need to figure out. If they stopped having kids so young and women weren't forced to raise their children alone, things could improve.
I’m still amazed when the privileged few sit on HN and espouse views like this. There’s an obvious answer and it’s probably the only reason you’re here - education. You’ve likely had access to decent or great education throughout your life. Your government could easily change its priorities and fund education, healthcare and social programs to correct these problems, but they don’t. Also, when you say it’s a ‘cultural’ issue, your suggesting it’s inherent to the people it affects, and given that they are largely black and ethnic people, it has a whiff of racism.
The government already funds education in inner cities. It has nothing to do with education funding. It has to do with personal priorities. What social programs do you propose?
Also has nothing to do with race. There are different cultural issues that afflict every community across America and the world.
Victim blaming a failure of society as "cultural" is disgusting. How do you expect people to solve structural issues themselves? Even more without any kind of support if they take a wrong path in their lives?
It sounds like there is no empathy in your speech, as in if someone took a wrong turn then they deserve to suffer for not having lived a perfect life with perfect choices.
A decent society would look at these problems and fix them in multiple levels: better education and support for teens to not get pregnant, opportunities for those with kids so young to be able to change their lives so they don't perpetuate a cycle of misery.
This is a failure of American society, its values and your comment just make it clear what is wrong in the public mind and discourse about these issues, these people are also people, unfortunately growing up in much worse conditions than you probably have and this, in the US, will completely impact the rest of their lives.
So please, think about the bigger picture here, use some empathy and stop perpetuating this idiotic "individual responsibility" discourse.
"Many - if not most - of the residents of inner city slum areas were raised by single mothers who had them very young without the means to support them. They turned to drugs and gangs. They never graduated high school. In short, they never had a chance.
There is not much the government can do to fix this. "
Here are some things the government could do to help fix this.
1. Stop locking up black men at a rate higher then white men and higher than any other country locks up its citizens.
2. Provide free or subsidized daycare and pre-k like most rich modern countries do.
3. Build trust with minority communities by listening to them and supporting them, not using policies like stop and frisk which alienates them.
4. Provide free/subsidized health and family planning services instead of doing tings like trying to defund planned parenthood.
5. Stop being so fucking racist.
>Many - if not most - of the residents of inner city slum areas were raised by single mothers who had them very young without the means to support them. They turned to drugs and gangs. They never graduated high school. In short, they never had a chance.
Do you have some actual peer reviewed studies on poverty that argue this or is your view into this issue based entirely on David Brooks columns?
Reagan began the process of "deinstitutionalization" which involved shutting down mental institutions and throwing their wards on the street. In theory, they were supposed to be sent to homes and provided publicly funded caregivers to help them be more independent or whatever. But they never actually bothered to hire the caregivers and, in fact, cut the budgets for all public health and mental health services dramatically.
Consequently, you've got a bunch of people with undiagnosed (or diagnosed) mental illnesses running around untreated. There is no public health system so they can't afford the treatment or medications even if they know they need them. There are no facilities in place to protect those who might be a danger to themselves or others. And even the homeless shelters are so full up with addicts and, sometimes violent or dangerous, headcases that otherwise healthy or stable homeless people are scared to go there, putting them at risk since they're actively avoiding the places that might have resources and support to help them get on their feet.
But people earning more than $250k a year pay like, 2% less in taxes so I guess it evens out or something.
People, including drug addicts and mentally ill (which largely comprise the homeless population), have a fundamental right to living on the streets in squalor.
