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Democratic tax-and-spend policies have destroyed so many cities that the term "Curley effect" was invented to explain how it worked. Boston's Mayor Curley perfected the process of buying votes with taxpayers' money. Since there are always more tenants than landlords, giving away goodies in exchange for votes built long-lasting political machines. Our government taxes A to buy the votes of B, C, and D.
As taxes went up, productive people left town. As people who voted against tax increases moved away, it became easier to raise taxes. The higher taxes went, the more professionals fled the city even though newspapers accused them of "white flight" and implied racist motives for their departure.
Over the decades, municipal costs went up, pension obligations exploded, and quality of city life declined. The situation in Detroit became so bad that even black professionals gave up and left.
Eventually, there's nobody left except the very richest who can afford their own services and avoid the punitive taxes through their connections, the featherbedded public-sector workers, and the non-taxpaying underclass who contribute nothing but expect to be provided for all the same - not a viable economy or even a survivable political entity. Detroit is so non-viable that Michigan state government officials have seriously proposed dissolving it entirely.
Baltimore hasn't suffered quite as badly as Detroit, but it, too, shows the damage done by Democratic policies. In 1950, Baltimore's median income was 7% above the national average; in 2011, after 48 years of Democrat misrule, it's 22% below.
Enough people who seek to support themselves have left the city that it now has acres and acres of vacant land. The Baltimore Sun was overjoyed to report that a company called Strength to Love Farms is clearing 75 contiguous vacant lots to create a 1.5-acre farm.
There are about 200 potential farming sites of an acre or more in Baltimore. Each half-acre employs about six people. If all the potential farm sites were occupied, about 1,200 jobs would be created.
This is an environmentalist's dream, of course. 75 lots which used to be occupied by polluting people have been turned into a farm which will feel locad residents. What could be better for the planet?
Think about this for a moment. In 2007, the EPA said there were over 285,000,000 people in the United States. About 960,000 are farmers. Less than a million people grew enough food for 285 million.
In 1935, the number of farms in the United States peaked at 6.8 million as the population edged over 127 million, less than half of what our population is now. Increased demand for food has been met with large, productive pieces of farm equipment, improved crop varieties, oil-based commercial fertilizers, and chemical pesticides.
There were 27.5 acres per farm worker in 1890 and 740 acres per worker in 1990. Americans grow so much food that lots of people eat too much and we have to pay farmers not to grow as much as they could.
Modern farms are so highly mechanized that one farmer manages 740 acres. These new urban farms are too small for high-capacity machines and employ 12 people per acre instead of one person managing 740 acres.
Urban farms need more than 8,000 times as much labor as modern mechanized farms. The farmers of 1890 managed more than 27 acres per farm worker. Urban farms need more than 300 times as much labor as the farms of 1890!
1,200 jobs sounds good, but muscle-powered stoop labor offers pretty nasty jobs. Are the down-and-outers of Baltimore willing to work in muscle-powered farming instead of sitting on their couches watching Oprah while awaiting the next welfare check? Is small-scale farming profitable enough that urban farms can afford to pay for health care?
It's a sad fact that Baltimore can no longer support at least 200 acres of what used to be a highly productive city. Lots have been abandoned, become vacant jungles, and the resulting wilderness is being cleared for use as farms, as happened in Rome in the Middle Ages.
Cities grew because they were more productive places for people to gather than villages and farming towns had been. Cities offered much better economic opportunities than farming communities could. Low-income farmers flocked from the rural south to the booming northern factories. The businesses were so profitable that they could pay much better wages than farms could afford.
Democratic policies have destroyed the cities' productivity. Many cities are reverting to wilderness because they've lost their reason for existence as a city. This process is so common that the term "urban farming" has come into vogue to describe it.
The "save the planet" folks keep telling us this is a wonderful change because the resulting produce doesn't have to be transported as far. This isn't progress, however; it's admitting that the economic drivers of our civilization don't operate any more. Low-tech urban farming makes less efficient use of labor than horse-drawn agriculture of the 1890's. It won't pay much better than flipping fries at minimum wage, but that's OK because urban farming helps Save the Planet.
Is this what's in store for the rest of the country under Democratic policies?