It's easy, living out here in the Alaska woods, to feel a little disconnected from American urban life. To be honest, most of us out here prefer it that way. Because of that, I may seem an odd one to be writing about the state of America's urban areas. As you all know, if you've been reading my work, I had a mostly rural youth, and while I lived and worked in urban areas for many years, now I'm back where I belong, in a house out in the woods. Oh, we have our issues out here in the boonies as well; every place does. But all in all, most of us stick together, look out for one another, and get by pretty well.
So why am I concerned about America's cities? Simple. Throughout America's history, the cities have been vital parts of the American culture, the American way of life, and of American prosperity. For many years, America's great cities were the world's great cities: San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, just to name a few. But these cities are now falling apart; under decades of Democrat rule, under decades of incompetent leadership, they have fallen far and fast, to the point where they may be beyond the point of no return.
Root cause analysis reveals one telling thing: All of our major cities are run by Democrats, and have been for decades.
Songs were written about our cities in their heyday: “New York, New York — It’s a Wonderful Town,” “Chicago, Chicago!” and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Today, you could leave your wallet and car there too.
Our cities have become the face of the Democratic Party, akin to the creature in “Alien” on a bad hair day.
Even though they are manifest failures, cities determine the politics of many states.
Without the five boroughs and a few upstate counties, New York state would be solidly red. Absent Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, California still would be the type of state that twice elected Ronald Reagan governor.
These cities are out of control. Crime is a major indicator, and we should note that in an aberration of the normal political state of affairs, New York City had two Republican mayors, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg; during their terms, New York was cleaner, safer, and more prosperous. And yet the New York voters gave Gracie Mansion to the incompetent Bill de Blasio, who promptly returned the Big Apple to its previous "Escape from New York" state.
Crime statistics speak eloquently:
Crime is the most visible sign of urban decay. The District’s homicide rate is five times higher than Mexico City’s. In 2024, there were 1,026 assaults with a dangerous weapon in our nation’s capital. That’s after officials cooked the books to make the crime rate seem lower.
Nationally, shoplifting was up 54% in 2021. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed store owners for not keeping high-end merchandise locked up, which is like blaming rape victims for being vulnerable.
Some mayors belong in a perp walk. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson blames youth crime on “a sense of hopelessness.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass fiddled around in Ghana while L.A. burned.
High-profile crimes, sometimes involving the theft of millions of dollars worth of cash or goods, are committed with impunity; some recent examples include the robbery of a jewelry store in Seattle, where thieves took an estimated $2 million in diamonds, watches, and other valuables, and the robbery of a Brinks truck in the Philadelphia area, in which armed robbers seized at least $700,000 in cash. Big-city Democrats can't deny these things; they are right there on video. They can't hand-wave them away. They happened. And crimes like this are happening in all of our daily cities.
Read More: The Downfall of America's Cities: Denver, a Mile-High Mess
The Downfall of America's Cities: The Nation's Capital City, a Crime-Ridden Pesthole
Then there's the other major problem: The huge, festering homeless encampments that our big city mayors and city councils seem utterly unable to deal with.
For big cities, the standard solution to any problem is to throw tons of money at it.
On an average night in 2024, there were 771,450 homeless in the United States. San Francisco spends $1 billion annually on its homeless population, which has grown 32% since 2010.
With homelessness comes crime, addiction, disease and mental illness. Two-thirds of the homeless are addicts or alcoholics. City streets have been turned into toilets. San Francisco posts maps to help pedestrians navigate piles of human feces.
Even Anchorage, under the auspices of Democrat Mayor Suzanne LaFrance, has these encampments, which here in the Great Land bring the added adventures of sub-zero temperatures and the fact that these sprawling Bidenvilles are essentially a buffet table for bears.
Look also at the mayors of these cities. It's baffling, but the voters in places like Chicago seem to have a penchant for doubling down on stupid; that city reacted to the manifest failures of Mayor Lori Lightfoot by electing an even more besotted incompetent, Brandon Johnson. Oh, the left touted Mayor Lightfoot as the first openly gay mayor of Chicago, but recommending a political candidate based on that "historic first" is pretty much the definition of lunacy. And now, New York may well be about to elect an actual communist as mayor, a guy who was born to a wealthy family, who lived a life of privilege, and who (as is so often the case, it seems) is an actual communist. He's promising a laundry list of free Schiff he can't deliver, but that doesn't mean he won't be elected.
And there you have it. Our cities are decaying. They were once the pride of the greatest nation on Earth. Now they are festering eyesores, laden with criminals and the homeless. The leaders blame victims for the crime and issue poop maps to advise tourists of the areas where the homeless are using the sidewalks as a toilet. As long as these cities keep electing "progressive" Democrats, none of this will change.
