By John Ubaldi
Contributor, In Homeland Security
This past month has been a particularly violent period for Chicago, where 72 people were shot and 13 were killed during one weekend. Many citizens and community leaders have expressed outrage at the carnage and want immediate action. One local Democratic lawmaker passionately asked President Trump to step in and end the horrific violence that has beset the nation’s third largest city.
Since Rahm Emanuel became mayor, Chicago has seen almost 4,000 people killed, mainly in the poorest neighborhoods. After the latest round of violence, the mayor called on citizens in those neighborhoods: “If you know who did this, be a neighbor, speak up. Neighbors come together. The city will be with you shoulder to shoulder.” Emanuel said, “Don’t think for a moment people don’t know who in the neighborhood was responsible.”
Senator Duckworth Cites Lack of Economic Justice, Investment
Even U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, (D-IL), spoke out about the despicable amount of violence that has become an everyday occurrence in America’s third largest city. She commented on the disinvestment in the various neighborhoods, which many believe leads to the rampant violence.
“There’s no one answer to gun violence, it starts with economic justice,” Duckworth said. “We have young people who don’t see a future beyond high school . . . they become vulnerable to a culture where their hopes and ambitions are frustrated and they end up on the streets where waving a gun around is a norm of behavior and that it’s ok to settle fights with gunfire.”
The Failure of Governance in American Cities
What’s happening in Chicago is systematic of what is happening in other areas of urban America. But very little has been said about the utter failure of basic governance in some of America’s largest cities. Far too often, the focus has been how law enforcement should better police these urban areas, but that is only one aspect of the problem. It can’t be the sole solution for ending violence in these neighborhoods.
After a single gunman shot and killed five police officers in 2016, former Dallas Police Chief David Brown said, “Everyone is asking the police to do too much, to address problems law enforcement was never meant to solve.”
Chicago is typical of American cities; many of them are fiscally insolvent. Currently, the city is almost $48 billion in debt, with only $7.1 billion in assets to pay it down. The debt includes $35.8 billion in unfunded pension promises and $71.5 million in unfunded retiree health care benefits. While Chicago has promised these benefits, little money has been set aside to fund them.
One-Party Rule Has Ruined America’s Cities
Another problem is income inequality, often cited as the root cause of what plagues urban America. However, very little has been reported on the decades of mismanagement in some of America’s largest cities. Decades of one-party rule have left millions without any hope of change.
Many of these cities have deep-rooted systemic corruption reminiscent of New York City’s Tammany Hall, when political bosses ran America’s major urban center in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Chicago, for instance, hasn’t had a change in political party leadership since 1931. In fact, there is no mechanism or procedure to recall the mayor, as we learned during the controversial release of a police shooting video in 2015. That video allegedly was suppressed by the mayor just before the city went to the polls to vote for his re-election.
Chicago isn’t the only major city with one-party rule. One has only to look at Philadelphia, St. Louis, Detroit, San Francisco, Seattle, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Newark, Akron and the list goes on. Many of these cities are billions in debt and have severely underfunded health care systems and pension liabilities that will further inhibit investments in their most troubled neighborhoods.
Schools in American Cities Are in Decline
Many of the challenges of mismanagement are felt most severely in local schools. With this solid one-party rule in place, Sen. Duckworth’s remarks exemplify why disinvestment has devastated these community services, none more so than the public education systems of urban America, which primarily affect minority children.
The Los Angeles Unified School District is a good example. LAUSD is facing an $11 billion debt. Its only recourse is for additional revenue from the city and perhaps from the state. However, even if more funding were provided, the school district is still underserving its minority children. They are at the mercy of a state that refuses to provide accountability on how school revenue is spent.
The Cleveland Metropolitan School District has been under the direct supervision of the mayor since voters determined that the school board was ineffective. The Philadelphia School District recently reverted to a school board system after 17 years of control by the state and governor.
The situation in Baltimore is another sad commentary on the plight of urban schools. The city spends almost $1.4 billion annually on public school education for its 82,000 students, which equates to $16,000 per student. However, despite this outlay, the city’s schools have some of the lowest educational proficiency scores in the country.
There is a plague across urban America, but by focusing on only public education aspect, the real problem is overlooked — the need for a comprehensive reform effort that helps solve all of the troubling elements including the management of metropolitan cites.
Without an effective focus on city administration, what’s happening in Chicago, Baltimore and in other urban centers will continue to be the norm and not the exception.
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