The Detroit story .... a very valuable history lesson

Scary!  This can happen to any city.  Toronto better watch out.

Flyovercountry writing at TheBlogmocracy on Jan.9:
.....There Are Now Fifty Candles On The Great War On Poverty Birthday Cake. What Have We Achieved? 

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s, “War On Poverty.” No other city throughout our fruited plains embodies the result of the Johnson policies more than Detroit, Michigan. It was after all the chosen recipient of our government’s largess in full. Detroit you see was the official, “Model City.” Known as the Paris of the Midwest in 1964, Detroit was already the very model of urban success that Johnson and his cronies wished to show off as the fruits of their programs. Detroit was a cultural center, with a vibrant collection of museums filled with fine art, historical tidbits, scientific displays. It also had an ample supply of performing arts which included live theater, a symphony orchestra, a ballet company, and more jazz and blues clubs than a stick could have been shaken at. Detroit had every major sport represented at the professional level, as well as several colleges and universities within its borders. Every citizen enjoyed access to some of what at the time were the greatest public parks and recreational facilities in the world. Really, all Detroit needed to be shown off as the great success story for any administration’s policies at that time, was to be left alone to function exactly as it had before any such bright ideas were put into practice, or even thought up.

Here is a Promotional Video put together by Mayor Jerome Cavanagh of Detroit in 1965, paid for by some of the $400 Million gifted to that city as the first participant in Lyndon Johnson’s Model City Program. In it they brag about how centralized planning was going to take them to the future and build an even greater city, which would be even better for all of its residents.



So how did the grand centralized plan work out? I seriously doubt that anyone would consider it a success. Detroit received the largest share of the largess, and every single progressive wish list program was put into practice. Corruption of course followed, as it always does, and the..........