[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: A War Against the Cities

[lindahassler at sbcglobal.net]

The article below from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by lindahassler at sbcglobal.net.


>From a NYTimes columnist who's on his toes; he usually writes favorably about Kerry.

Linda Hassler

lindahassler at sbcglobal.net


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A War Against the Cities

July 30, 2004
 By BOB HERBERT 



 

Amid all the muscle-flexing in Boston this week ("my
homeland security platform is bigger than yours"), it was
impossible to hear more than the merest hint or offhand
whisper about the demoralizing decline in the fortunes of
America's cities over the past few years. 

Paralyzed by a war in Iraq that we don't know how to end or
win, we're in danger of forgetting completely about the
struggling cities here at home. 

Bill Clinton mentioned the 300,000 poor children being cut
out of after-school programs and the increases in gang
violence across the country. And he gave cheering delegates
a devastating riff on the impending lapse of the ban on
assault weapons and White House plans to scrap federal
funds for tens of thousands of police officers: 

"Our policy," he said, "was to put more police on the
street and to take assault weapons off the street - and it
gave you eight years of declining crime and eight years of
declining violence. Their policy is the reverse. They're
taking police off the streets while they put assault
weapons back on the street." 

But those brief comments were the exception. A clearer
sense of the rot that's starting to reestablish itself in
America's cities was offered in an article out of Cleveland
by The Times's Fox Butterfield on Tuesday. "Many cities
with budget shortfalls," he wrote, "are cutting their
police forces and closing innovative law enforcement units
that helped reduce crime in the 1990's, police chiefs and
city officials say." 

Cleveland has laid off 15 percent of its cops - 250
officers. Pittsburgh has lost a quarter of its officers,
and Saginaw, Mich., a third. The Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department has waved goodbye to 1,200 deputies,
closed several jails and released some inmates early. In
Houston, police officers are taking up the duties of 190
jail guards who were let go. 

This is nuts. We know that low levels of crime and violence
are essential if cities are to thrive. Tremendous progress
- in some places, like New York, almost miraculous progress
- has been made in reducing crime since the crack-crazed,
gun-blazing days of the late 80's and early 90's. To even
begin rewinding the clock to that time of madness would in
itself be an act of madness. 

Yet that's what we're doing. 

Mayor Martin O'Malley of
Baltimore, who co-chairs the Task Force on Homeland
Security for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, told me in an
interview that budgetary horror stories are coming in from
police officials all over the country. There are many
reasons, he said, including the recession and the weak
recovery that followed, the antiterror obligations that
have fallen to the police since Sept. 11, and "the
cascading effect" of enormous federal tax cuts at a time
when the nation is at war. Local taxes have gone up
sharply, and services have had to be cut back even as
federal taxes have decreased. 

"This is all compounded," Mayor O'Malley said, "by the fact
that there is just less money coming in from Washington"
for traditional crime-fighting efforts. 

Local police, fire and other agencies have also been
affected by the call-up of thousands of military reservists
and members of the National Guard. In addition to losing
their services, most cities pay the difference between the
municipal salaries of these men and women and the
substantially lower pay they receive from the military. 

In an address to the Democratic convention Wednesday night,
Mayor O'Malley echoed many other municipal officials when
he said police and fire departments are not even getting
sufficient help from the federal government to maintain
their antiterror efforts. The first responders, he said,
cannot continue to finance their homeland security
responsibilities "with increased property taxes and fire
hall bingos." 

The crime-fighting difficulties and underfunded homeland
security responsibilities are part of a parade of very
serious problems that have descended on cities in recent
years. Tax cuts for the wealthy and the administration's
hard-right ideology have removed much of the social safety
net that we managed to weave over the past several decades,
leaving us with a swelling population of vulnerable men,
women and children. This has had a disproportionate impact
on cities, and the outlook, both short- and long-term, is
bleak at best. 

These are important issues that could be wrestled with if
cities were on anybody's agenda. 

But they're not. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/30/opinion/30herbert2.html?ex=1092207778&ei=1&en=06d5d4d37b8e4ae2


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