Now you know why cities insist on having such poor public schools;
Because only morons would vote people in time and time again believing it's "outside forces" keeping them poor and not piss poor management on the part of inept socialist mayors and city councils.
Such a simple solution to the poorest people in America and they won't have any of it simply because they've been brainwashed to hate capitalism, free markets and independence.
Sad.
The last municipal election in my hometown annoyed me to no end. Two members of left wing parties dumped 1 and 2 million into campaigns and just drowned out everyone else. I live in a Canadian city that hasn't elected a left wing federal MP for 15 years. Why elect someone mayor who you would never vote for nationally?
ReplyDeleteOooohhh, nice chart. Thank you for posting that.
ReplyDeleteCaptain--
ReplyDeleteI'm truly not trying to be the devil's advocate, but could you put up a comparable post on the cities with the LEAST poverty, and the Republican mayors? I'd love to see the discrepancy between the two charts.
That would make it even more compelling.
Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming the candidates were either both NDP or were NDP and Green?
Based on my knowledge of the Canadian political system, I wouldn't bother voting anything other than Liberal or Conservative for MP. Locally, however, I might vote smaller party (i.e. if I normally vote Liberal I might go NDP or Green on a local ticket).
Why?
Well...there's really no point in voting Green or NDP in most Canadian ridings. Even if your candidate gets in (which itself is a long shot unless you're in a riding like West Windsor or whatever Jack Layton's riding is), there's no way the party is going to have anything more than coalition-partner power.
However, the NDP or Green mayoral candidate may just win.
I guess it comes down to why you wouldn't vote for the person nationally. For the reasons I listed above? It might make sense to vote locally for someone you'd never elect nationally. If you're voting for someone to get them political experience so they can stand for MP in your riding next election? Then no, it makes no sense.
Just my $.02...
I think this argument kind of fails the test of Hanlon's razor. Essentially, never assume conspiracy when stupidity will suffice.
ReplyDeleteIs it the administration that is the cause of bad schools, or is it the schools that are the cause of bad administrations?
Or, is it just simply the human tendency toward greed and gluttony that causes those that choose not to do any research to blame outside forces for their failures.
I can only wonder how the towns' I-CUBE averages would look.
ReplyDeleteHi Sheila,
ReplyDeleteI would like to see that too, but I didn't pull the actual research. A reader/buddy of mine out in Vegas did.
You could perhaps embark on a very cappy cap economic adventure and go pull the data yourself! The excitement, the drama, the Indiana Jones theme song in the background as you search for the least poor cities. If you find it, send it to me and I will post it.
Cpt.
I suspect that the people of those towns will argue, "Just imagine how bad it would be if we had elected a Republican Mayor!!!"
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the people of those towns will argue, "Just imagine how bad it would be if we had elected a Republican Mayor!!!"
ReplyDeleteI'm going to not be PC and say it isn't necessarily the fact that they vote in democrats over republicans, but the fact that the PEOPLE that live in those towns are, well, bad people, who make poor economic life decisions and are terrible parents.
ReplyDeleteThis sort of reminds me of Mexico...didn't they elect their head of gov't from the Institutional Revolutionary Party for like 71 years?
ReplyDeleteMAYBE they should TRY to give someone else a shot at running the city. Just MAYBE the situation will improve. (I thought the mark of human growth was learning from the past.)
It's not so much that the mayors have to be Republican, it's that cities need to get rid of political machines.
ReplyDeleteGreat graphic. For poverty to exist in mass, government must enable it.
ReplyDeletecheck it out:
http://obamaproblem.blogspot.com/
No better natural experiment exists than when you compare socio-economic statistics from liberal cities with conservative cities.
ReplyDeleteOne would think that after three or four decades of EXCLUSIVE control of certain city governments, liberals would have figured out that high taxes, welfare, rent control, minimum wage, public housing, teachers unions, gun control, lax drug enforcement, abortion, affirmative action and 'civil rights' activism HAS NOT WORKED!
Liberals fought the War on Poverty with over $7 trillion and poverty won. There's apparently still racism, homelessness, and homophobia rampant in San Francisco. Washington DC, Detroit and Oakland fight to be the murder capital of the country.
How many more decades until liberals hang their heads in defeat? How many more people must die?
Captain--
ReplyDeleteI read your response, and I am aghast! let me get this straight: you want me to actually WORK? I thought everybody was supposed to WORK FOR ME. Isn't that what people who make more than 250 k are for? To help me so that I don't have to do any heavy lifting?
Nevertheless, you make a convincing case, so I'll bite. I am a homeschool mom, so I'll just tell my teens it's a "research project for school". That's right--I'll download work on the minions! This is America, after all.
But in all seriousness, since I am to compile these numbers myself, let me make a few preliminary thoughts.
First, it's my impression that local governments skew left. In general, the lower down you go, the more liberal you get. So it may actually be hard to find good cities to contrast to these, since I'll bet that most municipalities are already Democrat. So trying to find the least poor cities and correlating them with political affiliation may not work that well.
So a better thought experiment might be this: what happens to a Democratic city when a Republican takes over? Do things get better?
The classic example there is Giuliani's New York City, which Bloomberg seems intent to ruin. But Giuliani turned that place around.
So what I shall ask my minions to do is to find if there are other such examples of cities where a Republican mayor took over and poverty, welfare and crime rates dropped. Can't be too hard, can it?
Democrats tend to get elected more in the two extremes of income - the low end for their pity and the high end out of guilt. Most of the wealthy live in areas nearly devoid of minorities: diversity at a distance.
ReplyDeleteI think looking at the communities with the lowest poverty rates is uninformative. If the issue is leadership and efficacy of policies, the true test is trial by crisis. Anyone can run a small, wealthy, suburban city well. It's hard to fail.
But since someone asked, according to the 2006 American Community Survey, the cities with the lowest poverty rates are:
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/007419.html
Weston, FL: 64% Democrat. 85% white, 5% black.
Frisco, TX: 71% Republican. 83% white, 6% black.
Livonia, MI: 69% Democrat. Republican mayor, split state Senate and House. 95% white, 1% black.
Redondo Beach, CA: 63% Democrats. Republican mayor, represented in the state and Congress largely by Democrats. 77% white, 10% asian, 3% black.
Naperville, IL: 54% Republican. Mayor is unaffiliated. 80% white, 4% black.
Arlington Heights, IL: 71% Democrat. 89% white. 1% black.
It should be pretty obvious that race, and not political party control, is the greatest determinant of poverty rates. Poverty is a disease and changing the mayor's party for one term or two won't solve much, particularly if the city council opposes him.
Like I said, since Democrats have had exclusive control over San Francisco, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Oakland, Baltimore, etc., if their policies worked those places would be socialist utopias by now.
I got the race and political composition data from Sperling's Best Places. The rest is from Wiki and Googled sites.
Interesting city stats:
http://www.city-data.com/toplists.html
Notice how they rank the most "diverse" cities by the lowest percentage of non-hispanic whites. It reminds me of one of my student's statistics project which measured "diversity" as % Black so that universities like Howard and Grambling were the "most diverse." It's incredible the way some people think...or attempt doing so.
.
ReplyDeleteThe Left is insane, most registered Democrats are just brainwashed to think the Left is their answer.
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absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
never mock Democrats
it's just their religion
you RIGHT-WING INFIDEL
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe hates
the principles of FREEDOM
fascism comes from the Right
that is a lie of the Left
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
never mock the Left
it's just their religion
YOU RIGHT-WING WACKO
.
USpace
.
All real freedom starts with freedom of speech. Without freedom of speech there can be no real freedom.
.
Philosophy of Liberty Cartoon
.
Visit: HaltTerrorism.com
.
:)
.
USpace, that is some seriously disjointed craziness. I hope you've got a prescription for whatever it is you're mixing.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteLOL! Thank you Ryan, but it's a natural high.
:)
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
throw good money after bad
feed failing social programs
keep the poor people poor
.
here's an absurd thought -
our Supreme Gods are
placing BIG bets on man
on whether humans on Earth
will submit to tyranny...
.