Forbes has published its first list of "miserable cities." Like all such magazine lists, it's fairly arbitrary, somewhat silly and, in the case of Forbes, informed by its ideology. Thus, "high" tax rates help make a place "miserable." The deferred infrastructure, education, healthcare, environmental and social costs of such low-tax sprawlbergs as Las Vegas and Phoenix are not included.
If those places are so great for business, why do "miserable cities" like New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia remain capitals of commerce, culture and talent? I'm waiting for Wall Street, rather than some bottom-feeder related to the housing industry, to move to Phoenix.
No matter. There are some things to be learned in the misery list.
Detroit at the top of the list is a reminder of our abandonment of cities, especially in the Rust Belt. Detroit is perhaps the worst example of a city plagued by crime, misgovernment, bad schools, flight of its middle- and upper-classes and dependence on three badly run car companies. In most cases it wasn't "high taxes" that added to the problems, much less caused them, but the cratering of the tax base.
It's ironic, or apt, that the Motor City got the worst consequences of the automobile age first, as transit was destroyed in favor of personal transportations devices. Whites and better-off blacks fled in their cars to once-new suburbs. Now, of course, suburbia is facing many of the same problems, and suburbia and exurbia are the epicenter of a housing disaster that will be epochial. And wrapped in the mental vapor-lock of "tax cuts above all," they lack the means to help themselves, especially once new residents stop moving there.
In addition to sprawl, these cities were hurt by assorted liberal fads in the '40s, '50s and '60s, especially urban renewal and inattention to school excellence in the name of tolerance. Unfortunately the rise of so-called conservatism made things worse, with endless tax cuts starving government services, a gamed economy that hurt the urban middle-class, a fetish against public transportation and appeals to racism and exclusion.
In any event, a visitor from another country might ask what kind of people we are to have abandoned beautiful cities to decay and decline.
There are lessons for any city. Chief among them are the need for economic diversification, the ability to constantly reinvent themselves, an outward-looking , innovative attitude and avoiding the development of a large underclass, cut off from the mainstream. A sense of common purpose, strong local institutions and civic stewardship are critical.
Every city that ignores these issues risks being miserable, and not even hot weather will compensate for the disaster to follow.
Comments