Given that I remain a denizen of a small rural community in Alaska, I'm as ever an odd one indeed to be writing about the state of America's urban areas and Democrat/leftist jurisdictions. If you've been reading my work for the last few years, you know I grew up in a rural setting in Iowa and am now, having gone back to my rural roots, a content 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 bear in our raspberry bushes, 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: Los Angeles, California, where the notorious Skid Row, an area whose name is a synonym for urban decay, is once more the focus of attention. Skid Row today is a hotbed of homeless enclaves, of animal abuse, of open-air drug sales and use, even of prostitution and human trafficking.
Recently, California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton toured the area, and he had some sharp comments about the decay of this part of what was once one of the world's great cities.
Surrounded by sprawling homeless encampments, drug use and trash-strewn sidewalks in the heart of Los Angeles' Skid Row, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton blasted California's homelessness crisis as a "political scandal," accusing Democratic leaders of spending billions in taxpayer dollars while allowing the streets to deteriorate.
"'The homelessness crisis,' as if it's some kind of natural disaster that can't be helped," Hilton told Fox News Digital, referring to how politicians and others describe the conditions as he surveyed the sprawling encampments.
"No, it is not a crisis. It's actually a scandal. It's a political scandal because the people in charge, they've caused this with their policies."
It's a scandal because the city allows it. The homeless encampments are there because the city allows them. The prostitution, the drug sales and use, the cruel neglect of animals, all are there because the current municipal government allows it, and given the Los Angelenos' options in the ongoing mayoral election, we can only expect current policies to get worse, not better. Unless, that is, Steve Hilton is the next governor; he has a plan.
Hilton argued that addressing homelessness begins with enforcing existing laws and removing encampments from California's streets.
"My plan is very simple. How we get clean streets in California. Number one, enforce the law, get people off the streets," he said.
"Letting people live like this, and not just the people who live like this, but all the people who aren't living like this who have to experience this every single day. The collapse of civilized life in their city," Hilton said. "It's the opposite, it's cruel."
Enforcing the law. Imagine that. That's generally a good answer, and in the case of Skid Row, it would seem to have the advantage of not having been tried, at least not in recent history.
There are a few hopeful signs, including a recent crackdown on drug sales by federal agents and the Los Angeles Police Department that netted a whopping 23 alleged dealers.
Police and federal agents conducted a series of drug enforcement raids Thursday in and around the Skid Row section of downtown Los Angeles and elsewhere in Southern California, arresting 23 of 28 suspects accused of trafficking drugs and preying on vulnerable residents, federal prosecutors said.
The suspects were charged in federal criminal complaints with distributing drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, in an area where authorities allege dealers preyed on unhoused residents and other vulnerable people.
The arrests were part of a Homeland Security Task Force operation involving the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Los Angeles Police Department and other federal and local agencies.
That's what we call a "good start." But it's a near-certainty that there are many more out there. That's one of the many reasons people are fleeing the once-Golden State in general and Los Angeles in particular.
Here's the thing: The only way this problem is resolved is if the leadership, at the city and the state level, changes. And because this problem has been allowed to fester for so long, it may require more than a law enforcement solution. Would a newly-installed Governor Hilton be willing to send the California National Guard into Skid Row? To order them to clear away the homeless encampments, to detain the residents therein? What's then to be done with these people, at least, the ones who refuse any offer of treatment?
In any case, the solution begins with law enforcement, but it's liable to take more than that now. The afflictions of Los Angeles' Skid Row and other, similarly blighted areas, aren't just a crime problem. They are a public health and sanitation problem. The city is slipping into Third World status, and it will take immediate and, likely, drastic action to fix it.
Los Angelenos' 2026 mayoral election presents only bad choices, namely, the leftist incumbent, the incompetent Karen Bass and even farther left "democratic socialist" Nithya Raman. The city is caught between the incompetent Scylla and the communist Charybdis, and while a Governor Hilton may be able to override them in some respects, a long-term fix will require a long-term change in California's culture, and sadly, that just plain doesn't seem very likely.
