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HOW’S THAT WELCOME WAGON PROGRAM COMING ALONG? How New York Stopped Fearing the Urban Doom Loop and Learned to Love It. “Covid sends the high-wage workers back to their suburban homes, which kills the restaurant and retail and entertainment industries of the city, which is the entire point of even living in or near a city in the first place, and as those businesses die, people realize there is no reason remaining to be in the city, and begin a mass emigration away that kills the cities. The Democrats’ embrace of violence, crime, and chaos as acceptable substitutes for restaurants, shopping, and entertainment obviously isn’t helping. Covid took away all the advantages for living in the city, and then the Summer of St. George unleashed all the disadvantages of living in the city, with a vengeance.”

HOW’S THAT WELCOME WAGON PROGRAM COMING ALONG? The Real ‘Great Replacement’ Theory: “More than half of American cities registered a loss of population over the last year. People flocked to suburbs and exurbs and headed west to the Sun Belt, according to the U.S. Census. The increase in population in those places comes at the expense of big cities, who lost population during the same period of time. This is the real ‘Great Replacement’ theory. Big cities are not ‘replacing’ their lost populations because the people are moving to smaller cities and towns with less crime, less taxes, and less left-wing folderol. Perhaps more interestingly, fewer immigrants are moving in to pick up the slack”

HOW’S THAT WELCOME WAGON PROGRAM COMING ALONG?

Manhattan led US in population loss during year of pandemic.

—The New York Post, yesterday.

L.A.’s population dropped by 176,000 in 1st full year of pandemic, 2nd largest drop nationwide.

—L.A.’s ABC-7 yesterday.

There’s another issue that’s very likely playing a factor. As the Wall Street Journal noted in June of 2020: Liberal Cities, Radical Mayhem: Democratic mayors and governors seem unable to stop the destruction of their own cities.

The “broken-windows” school of policing says that you can help maintain public order by taking care of even small examples of disorder—such as fixing broken windows. Liberals scorned that policy in the last decade as somehow racist. Well, in recent days we’ve learned that America’s left does have a broken-windows policy: Let rioters break enough windows and loot enough stores and maybe their righteous anger will be satisfied.

That’s certainly how it looked when the June sun rose Tuesday over the broken glass, looted storefronts, burnt-out cars, and vandalized buildings in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Madison and other American cities. Public officials let rioters exploiting the memory of George Floyd run wild in the streets. Even after nearly a week of violence, these and other liberal Democratic cities let lawless radicals harass and plunder almost at will.

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This isn’t merely about damage to property. It’s about destroying the order required for city life. Non-criminals are afraid to go into these cities to make a living. The police pull back from active policing, which creates more opportunity for criminals, especially in poor and minority neighborhoods. Businesses that are finally starting to emerge from government lockdowns have new costs to absorb and more reasons for customers not to return.

What all these cities have in common is that they are led by Democrats who seem to have bought into the belief that the police are a bigger problem than rampant disorder. They are either cowed by their party’s left, or they agree that America is systemically racist and rioting is a justified expression of anger against it. They offer pro forma disapproval of law breakers but refuse to act to stop them.

CTRL-F “Riot” brings up zero results from both articles, curiously enough.

Related: From AP yesterday: LA police: Wearing expensive jewelry could make you a target.

HOW’S THAT WELCOME WAGON PROGRAM COMING ALONG? The American Dream is on Life Support in the Bay Area:

This is not a “f**k SF” post. This is a lament of what has been lost, and a wistfulness for what could have been.

A year ago I was smirking at the people moving out of the Bay Area. I thought these were fairweather citizens, silly for moving to political train-wrecks like Texas or Florida.

Twelve months on, my wife and I find ourselves packing our life into boxes. Not to run towards a place where we feel greater love, but just to leave. The pendulum has swung hard in the last twelve months.

I didn’t think this change in my mindset would happen, or so quickly. I wanted to share the journey, in part because I’ve been in both camps at various points, and I hope those on most parts of the spectrum will consider this a reasonable, balanced perspective.

In summary — there have been many wonderful things about the Bay Area environment and local tech ecosystem. Some of those things persist. But enough challenges in quality of life have emerged and accelerated in recent years that the benefits are very clearly far outweighed by mounting frustrations.

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Tech” (and what a broad brush that is) is constantly accused of being the problem. Google and Facebook buses are stoned. Zuckerberg was asked to lend his name to a hospital in an effort to encourage other philanthropy… only to have the BOS censure him for it years later because they suddenly felt they didn’t like a tech billionaire’s name on a building. Gifted programs in STEM fields are being eliminated in schools. One of the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation (imperfect though he may be) being told “F**k you, Elon Musk” by an elected official.

Privilege and success, instead of something to merely be mindful of and thoughtful about, has become something to be ashamed of. Those who had the gall to build successful companies are vilified for “exploiting the region” and “not paying enough in taxes” despite living in the highest income tax regime in the entire country. Anyone who hails from a tech background is instantly painted as an enemy of the people, even if all they care about is fixing problems.

Exit quote: “The Bay Area has bled the golden goose dry.”

Which echoes a line from Kevin Williamson’s book on Detroit: its fall to ruin was a case of the parasite having outgrown the host.”

Speaking of the Bay Area and tech: The entire Bay Area has become a large declining tech company

UPDATE: Christina Pushaw sets straight a man who’s fleeing crime-ridden California for Florida despite the ‘worse politics.’

(Updated and bumped.)

WELCOME WAGON: I’ve been blogging, and blogging, and blogging about how someone should do this, and eventually decided I was going to have to take a more active hand. So I’ve been talking with the folks at FEE, the Foundation for Economic Education, whose excellent stuff I link regularly. Then result is the Fresh Start States initiative, which seeks to educate transplants from blue to red states not to vote for the policies that ruined their old homes. I’ve donated to this initiative myself and hope some of you will.

(Bumped.)

HOW’S THAT “WELCOME WAGON” PROGRAM COMING ALONG? Californians are fueling Austin’s housing frenzy: ‘We’ve never seen migration like this.’

I hope they know what they’re in for: In addition to the feral hogs and the “neanderthal” order by Gov. Abbott to stop enforcing mask orders, ‘Douche’ father-of-seven sales exec who moved his family from California to Texas then BACK again is blasted for complaining about Austin’s ‘rude locals, bland culture, oppressive heat and Yelp’s bad food choices’ in scathing Op-Ed. “Alder described Texas with its lower income taxes as a ‘conservative dystopia’ and said he felt cramped – even though his house was twice the size.”