Given that I have been and still am a denizen of a small rural community in Alaska, I'm (still) an odd one indeed to be writing about the state of America's major cities and Democrat/leftist jurisdictions. If you've been reading my work at all, you know I grew up in a rural setting in Iowa and am now a happy rural dweller myself. I have little time for cities, despite having lived in them for four decades. I find them unpleasant; crowded, noisy, and, to be honest, they stink. I like the clean country air of the Susitna Valley, and if that means I have to put up with the occasional porcupine wandering through the property, that's fine.
So, why am I still worried about America's cities? Because our cities are the beating hearts of our nation. Much of the country's economic activity happens there. Urban areas host much of the country's industry and academia. What's more, our cities used to be the pride of the nation, but that's less the case now. Case in point: New York, where the still fairly new administration of the "democratic socialist" (commie) Mayor Zohran Mamdani is not only allowing homeless encampments to fester, but they seem to be actually encouraging them. A recent New York Post exclusive story has some alarming details.
A sprawling homeless encampment near the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan has been vexing business owners and passersby for months — but the city is effectively running a valet trash service for its rough-sleeping residents rather than clearing the eyesore.
The steadily growing shantytowns — haphazardly strewn with all manner of bicycles, electronics and garbage — have taken over sizable portions of West 45th and 46th Streets along Twelfth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, between the museum parking lot and an Amazon warehouse.
“You see how it looks? How dirty it is? How can you eat food and the next corner is smelly, dirty, nasty, crusty, disgusting?” a food cart owner at the corner of Twelfth Avenue and West 46th Street told The Post, adding that the campsite has been chipping away at his business.
Granted, this is a problem that goes back to well before Mamdani's tenure. But the current municipal administration seems utterly uninterested in doing anything to discourage the street people.
He said despite calling 911 and 311 “a million times,” the city has never dealt with the encampment itself, only sending Department of Sanitation workers out to clear the trash.
“They take the garbage only, but nobody can move anyone, even 911,” the cart owner said, noting he’s had to move further down the block just to keep afloat, which, paradoxically, places him further away from the deluge of tourists entering or exiting the museum.
That's not even lip service. That's enabling the street people, at the expense of honest residents, like that food cart owner. Why?
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Mayor Mamdani and his administration have certainly earned the devotion of the street people.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s hands-off approach, however, is earning him rave reviews from the encampment’s occupants.
“Mamdani is awesome. He, like, did a whole paradigm shift on homelessness and care,” said Markus C., who lives in an encampment on West 40th Street but visits the 46th Street shantytown roughly twice a week.
He said he loves Mamdani, and how the administration treats the Big Apple homeless community, noting it’s the first time he feels like someone cared about his plight.
“Before, when the police were doing their sweeps, the cleanups and site checks, there was a lot of pressure,” Markus, who’s been on the streets for a year and a half, said of the tactics under former Mayor Eric Adams.
There should be a lot of pressure. There should be, frankly, far more pressure than the Adams administration employed. These encampments aren't just an eyesore; they are a threat to public safety, sanitation, and represent a serious breakdown of the social order.
Look at any photo or video of Manhattan taken in, say, the early part of the 20th century, a hundred years ago. Yes, the city had problems then, just as every city does, but the streets were reasonably clean. Men wore jackets and ties; women, dresses. There were no tent cities, no open-air drug use, no prostitution. Those things happened, but at least they were indoors, where they could avoid the piercing gaze of the authorities, who didn't put up with any of that. This was a city that, from 1895 to 1897, had a fire-breathing police commissioner who cleaned up not only the streets but the then-notoriously corrupt NYPD; this was a guy by the name of Theodore Roosevelt.
So, why? Why would any major city leadership allow this kind of disintegration? Because this is what communists do. The first step to their takeover almost always involves breaking down the established order. In this case, it's not only allowing but encouraging these massive homeless enclaves, which are a threat to not only the established order, but to basic sanitation and public health; the ancient Greeks knew better than to allow this kind of behavior. When things become intolerable, and we are approaching that point in some of our larger cities, then they can claim the need to more and more and more authority to deal with the problem, until, in the end, they take over.
If the far Left gains control of the levers of power, this is what we'll see. Public disorder run rampant. The capable fleeing. The communists left in charge. And, in time, the communists claiming absolute control. And it won't stop with the cities.
