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For the past decade, America’s urban centres have been increasingly run by ‘progressive’ activists. Yet today, as US cities reel from collapsed economies, rising crime and pervasive corruption, there’s something of a revolt brewing, the success of which may well determine the role and trajectory of our great urban centres.
Crime has arguably been the biggest concern. Always a part of the urban story, crime is increasingly random. The worst gangsters of the 1930s generally left ‘civilians’ alone. Today’s crime, by contrast, reflects what one Chicago resident describes as ‘sociopathic idiocy’. The US’s greatest and richest urban centres have all seen large rises in crime. For example, there were 468 murders in New York City in 2020, up from 319 in 2019 – an unprecedented 47 per cent increase.
Equally troubling is that some of these cities have also become centres for homelessness, open drug markets and incubators of all sorts of diseases. Los Angeles city workers have been infected with typhus – which has begun to resurge in California – and some now demand elaborate protective gear when asked to hose down the putrid streets. There are already increased cases of leprosy in Los Angeles. Some have suggested that, thanks to the resurgence of rats, the return of bubonic plague may be imminent. During the pandemic, dense cities had considerably higher Covid rates than more suburban, exurban and rural areas.
Obey
Article URL : https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/06/05/americas-great-cities-are-gripped-by-decline-and-disorder/