Detroit found to be most liberal U.S. city
Aug. 11, 2005
Detroit is the most liberal U.S.city while Provo, Utah, is the most conservative, a study of voting patterns indicates.
The list was compiled by the Bay Area Center for Voting Research in California through an examination of voting in 237 U.S.cities with populations of more than 100,000.
Have you ever been to Detroit? Most of the city looks like it belongs in the third world. There are pockets that shine, I’ll admit. The area around Comerica Park, where the Detroit Tigers call home, is really nice. You get two blocks away and you start looking for the tanks and APCs.
Woodward Avenue, Detroit’s “main drag” starts at the Detroit River and heads northwesterly though the middle of Grand Circus Park, the next to Comerica Park and on up to Eight Mile Road. You remember Eminem’s movie Eight Mile? Eight Mile Road is Detroit’s northern boundary. It used to be one of the grandest avenues in the country. Now, it’s possibly one of the worst.
I drove the length of Woodward Avenue just last year from the river to Pontiac. The stretch from Comerica Park and Eight Mile Road is a mostly bleak stretch that would make me real nervous to drive after dark. Liquor stores, boarded up store fronts, drunks and prostitutes dominate to the point that they block out the lesser blighted areas.
A succession of liberal mayors has contributed to what is called “white flight” but in reality, it was anyone who could afford to move out. Detroit used to be America’s fourth largest city when I was growing up; shadowed only by the likes of New York, LA, and Chicago. The population peaked at just fewer than two million. Now, it’s about half that at about 920,000. It has dropped out of the top ten and sits at number eleven.
Coleman Young’s 20 year reign of corruption capped events set in motion by the riots of 1967. Dennis Archer came after Young and tried to clean up some of the mess. Archer was all but run out of town. Kwame M. Kilpatrick, the current mayor, is a mayor in the mold of Coleman Young and is again bleeding the city dry but the residents seem to like him better than Mr. Archer.
Detroit’s budget is bloated by a personnel budget full of people with spoils appointments. The police are ill-trained and under equipped. The city is bleeding red and is in real danger of facing bankruptcy. As usual, the first agencies to face the cuts are the fire department and the police. The mayor and the council will not even consider cutting their bloated staffs. Detroiters are already taxed to their eyeballs. They have the highest property tax in the state. They have the highest municipal income tax in the state.
Here in Tacoma, we are facing many of the same problems. Our budget is bleeding. They’ve raised taxes and fees but the red ink still flows. We have been under liberal rule for decades. There is no one suggesting we cut any services except police and fire.
I was on the neighborhood council. We had no real power except advisory and our funding came from the city. I thought I could make a difference. You can’t touch social services. If you speak up about cutting those things, you are quickly shouted down. You can’t touch the entrenched bureaucracy. The only people at risk of losing their jobs are the ones we need the most.
This study came out of Berkeley, not a Republican think tank. This is liberalism telling you that Detroit is the most liberal city in the country. It is followed by Gary, Berkeley, D.C., and Oakland. Is anyone ready to move to any of those places? Not me! Liberals try and pass off all kinds of reasons why most Americans didn’t vote for them. The claim fraud, they blame religion, the blame lies, whatever. What they can’t see is the examples they are giving us. That speaks louder than their words.
VW
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