Taft Flees California

[Armando Ramos]

Voting with Their Feet
Thomas Sowell

The latest published data from the 2010 census show how people are moving from place to place within the United States. In general, people are voting with their feet against places where the liberal, welfare-state policies favored by the intelligentsia are most deeply entrenched.

When you break it down by race and ethnicity, it is all too painfully clear what is happening. Both whites and blacks are leaving California, the poster state for the liberal, welfare-state and nanny-state philosophy.

Whites are also fleeing the big northeastern liberal, welfare states like Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as the same kinds of states in the midwest, such as Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.

Although California has long been a prime destination of Asian immigrants and the homes of their descendants, the 2010 census shows a striking increase in the Asian American population of Nevada, more so than any other state. Nevada is adjacent to California but has no income tax nor the hostile climate for business that California maintains.

The movement of the black population-- especially educated young blacks-- is the most striking of all.

In the past, the massive movements of millions of blacks out of the South in the early 20th century was one of the epic migrations of a people-- comparable in size with the millions of the Irish who fled the famine in Ireland in the 1840s or the millions of Jews who fled persecution in Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In more recent decades, blacks have been moving back to the South, however. While the overall black population of the northeastern and midwestern states has not declined in the past ten years, except in Michigan and Illinois, the net increase of the black population nationwide has increasingly been in the South. About half of the national growth of the black population took place in the South in the 1970s, two-thirds in the 1990s and three-quarters in the past 10 years.

While the mass migrations of blacks out of the South in the early 20th century was to places where there were already established black communities, such as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, much of the current movement of blacks is away from existing concentrations of black populations.

Blacks are moving to suburbs, and even to cities like Minneapolis. Overall, the racial residential segregation patterns are declining in the great majority of the largest major metropolitan areas.

Among blacks who moved, the proportions who were in their prime -- from 20 to 40 years of age-- were greater than in the black population at large, and college degrees were more common among them than in the black population at large. In short, with blacks, as with other racial or ethnic groups, those with better prospects are leaving the states that are repelling their most productive citizens in general with liberal policies.

Detroit is perhaps the most striking example of a once thriving city ruined by years of liberal social policies. Before the ghetto riot of 1967, Detroit's black population had the highest rate of home-ownership of any black urban population in the country, and their unemployment rate was just 3.4 percent.

It was not despair that fueled the riot. It was the riot which marked the beginning of the decline of Detroit to its current state of despair. Detroit's population today is only half of what it once was, and its most productive people have been the ones who fled.

Treating businesses and affluent people as prey, rather than assets, often pays off politically in the short run-- and elections are held in the short run. Killing the goose that lays the golden egg is a viable political strategy.

As whites were the first to start leaving Detroit, its then mayor Coleman Young saw this only as an exodus of people who were likely to vote against him, enhancing his re-election prospects.

But what was good for Mayor Young was disastrous for Detroit.

There is a lesson here somewhere, but it is very doubtful if either the intelligentsia or the politicians will learn it.

[Don Dresden]

Detroit is perhaps the most striking example of a once thriving city ruined by years of liberal social policies. Before the ghetto riot of 1967, Detroit's black population had the highest rate of home-ownership of any black urban population in the country, and their unemployment rate was just 3.4 percent.

It was not despair that fueled the riot. It was the riot which marked the beginning of the decline of Detroit to its current state of despair. Detroit's population today is only half of what it once was, and its most productive people have been the ones who fled.

Treating businesses and affluent people as prey, rather than assets, often pays off politically in the short run-- and elections are held in the short run. Killing the goose that lays the golden egg is a viable political strategy.

As whites were the first to start leaving Detroit, its then mayor Coleman Young saw this only as an exodus of people who were likely to vote against him, enhancing his re-election prospects.

But what was good for Mayor Young was disastrous for Detroit.

There is a lesson here somewhere, but it is very doubtful if either the intelligentsia or the politicians will learn it.

[bigfoot]

Shocking Don....positively shocking...old Tiger Stadium...the Fisher Building...Belle Isle off in the distance...brings me to tears...Kaline...Selleck...Burstyn...even Coppola...the "Purples"...legends baby.
Kaline may have come from Baltimore but he lives in Michigan and is "Mr. Tiger"...no. 6, met him when I was a half-pint of condensed milk!....the days man were mighty special...and "Sir Graves Ghastly" on Saturday afternoon, a rite of passage. The old "Thanksgiving Day Parade"
...just before we inhaled roast bird and pumpkin pie that made a man weak enough to lose all restraint..."the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"...watched em' ring the ships bell...for every man lost on that fateful November night...

[Winston Smith]

Shocking Don....positively shocking...old Tiger Stadium...the Fisher Building...Belle Isle off in the distance...brings me to tears...Kaline...Selleck...Burstyn...even Coppola...the "Purples"...legends baby.
Kaline may have come from Baltimore but he lives in Michigan and is "Mr. Tiger"...no. 6, met him when I was a half-pint of condensed milk!....the days man were mighty special...

Cash, Kaline, Colavito...the Detroit Autorama....Motown Records....Alex Karras and Night Train Lane!



Even for those of us who didn't grow up in the Motor City, those really were special days.

[bigfoot]

Karras...beautiful snapshot Winston...definitely deserves the HOF in Canton...long overdue! Cobo Hall, saw Dave Bing and Bob Lanier, in Piston red,white and blue, and later the "bad boys", led by "Zeke Thomas" and of course MICHIGAN at the BIG HOUSE, with Bo Schembechler, prowling the sideline. An autumn afternoon in Ann Arbor watching Wolverine football was/is indescribably "right". Just like going to old Tiger Stadium, to watch Lolich pitch the second half of a double-header against the Orioles. Beautiful times...Detroit was a spectacular city of passion, heart and style...sad...so sad and frustrating...

[Ben Johnson]

Detroit is the classic example of what you get when tax the ambitious and pay people to sit on their asses.

It's the fault of guilty white liberals who lack such respect for ethnic minorities that they treat them like children. The urban ethnic needs a kick in the ass and to be told to get a job. They do not need to be paid to sit on their asses and make babies.

[ham]

The urban ethnic needs a kick in the ass and to be told to get a job. They do not need to be paid to sit on their asses and make babies.

hmm...
Where have I heard that line before?

[Armando Ramos]

I'm hearing Kurt Russell's phone ringing....

Bloomberg: Make Immigrants Live in Detroit; If They 'Survive 7 Years,' Make Them Citizens
By Melanie Hunter
August 20, 2012

(CNSNews.com) - Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York said last week that the federal government should assign immigrants to live in cities such as Detroit and "if they survive seven years" make them citizens.

"All the federal government's got to do is say, 'We're gonna welcome here in this country--first come, first served--families, if they're willing to come here under the following terms,'" Bloomberg said in Boston on Aug. 14. "We're going to assign you a city--let's say Detroit--you got to agree to not be arrested and not take any federal, state or city money, and you've got to live there for seven years, and if you survive seven years, we'll make you and your family full citizens."

Bloomberg was speaking along with News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch at a forum sponsored by the New England Council.

Bloomberg predicted if the federal government assigned immigrants to cities such as Detroit they would buy and fix up "houses that are derelict," improve the local schools, create businesses and stimulate the local economy.

"Since they value education, they'd make a big fuss and demand the schools get better," Bloomberg said. "Immigrants have a very low crime rate, so that you certainly don't have to worry about that. They'd create businesses. If they had to drive to California every morning for three jobs and drive back at night, they'd do it, anything."

Bloomberg said this immigration-reform strategy would create jobs for people who are now unemployed.

"And you would get people to come here, and they would fill those cities with a vibrancy, and the people who are unemployed in those cities would all of a sudden have companies they can go to work for," said Bloomberg. "They'd get the jobs helping fix up the houses. They'd be in the schools. They'd be driving the buses. They'd be starting businesses of their own, because they'd see how other people can do it."

[Ben Johnson]

Strange but maybe Bloomberg has a point. At one times cities changed with each generation. The Irish moved out and the Jews moved in, the Jews moved out and the Italians move in, the Italians moved out and the blacks moved in. The blacks have been slow to move along and nobody is moving in. As each group gained wealth and moved on the cities we renewed. Mind you there is Dearbornistan and a lot of people aren't happy about it. No assimilation going on there.

[bigfoot]

When I was a kid living in the motor city, I used to go to the liquor store with my dad for 25cent comic books and "rold gold" stick pretzels. Pete, the owner of "Grand Prix liquor" was a wonderful Arab gentleman, who used to give me and my siblings free pretzels...he was the "genuine article...and he valued becoming an American citizen. Pete was Palestinian and I think he may have been a Catholic. Detroit has a lot of Arabs...in fact miss Michigan is Lebanese Rima Fakih from 2010. Google this siren...she is beyond gorgeous...she could tempt the devil himself. Goddess is putting it mildly...