{"id":2008785,"date":"2023-08-22T23:16:02","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T03:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/homelessness-why-los-angeles-isnt-detroit-on-the-pacific\/"},"modified":"2023-08-22T23:18:06","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T03:18:06","slug":"homelessness-why-los-angeles-isnt-detroit-on-the-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/homelessness-why-los-angeles-isnt-detroit-on-the-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"Homelessness: LA&#8217;s Distinctiveness on the Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhomelessness-why-los-angeles-isnt-detroit-on-the-pacific%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2008785&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><blockquote>\n<h2>Commentary<\/h2>\n<p>This one left my head shaking. The mainstream media seem to be\u200d getting worse. Here\u2019s the Los Angeles Times\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/homeless-housing\/story\/2023-08-14\/homelessness-los-angeles-vs-detroit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">headline<\/a>, \u201cWhy Detroit, America\u2019s poorest city, doesn\u2019t have an L.A.-sized \u200chomeless problem.\u201d \u2064The main reason is only slightly mentioned: \u201cThe public tends to blame \u2062L.A.\u2019s high levels of homelessness \u200con poverty, drug use, crime or even Southern \u2063California\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/homeless-housing\/story\/2023-08-10\/homelessness-los-angeles-vs-jacksonville\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">warm weather<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I was born in Detroit and grew\u2063 up in the\u200b nearby suburb of Wayne. I can \u2062tell \u2064you the main \u200breason why\u2064 there\u2019s a much smaller homeless problem in Motown, a nickname for Detroit: You will freeze to\u2064 death. It\u2019s\u200d not \u200dquite as bad as during the \u201cglobal cooling\u201d of the 1970s, when it \u2063got down to 30 degrees below \u2062zero Fahrenheit and parts on my car \u2062froze. But sub-zero weather is guaranteed starting every November.<\/p>\n<p>So the\u200d homeless either die, find some \u200dsort of \u2064shelter\u2014or head \u2064to Los\u200d Angeles.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"shortcode\">\n<div class=\"border-comp-divider mb-4 mr-4 w-full max-w-[500px] border px-5 py-4 text-[16px] leading-[20px] text-[#262626] md:float-left\">\n<div class=\"mb-3 font-sans text-[16px] font-semibold uppercase leading-[19px] text-[#2F2F2F]\">Related Stories<\/div>\n<div class=\"mb-4 flex gap-2\">\n<div class=\"grow\">\n<div class=\"mb-1 line-clamp-2\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/opinion\/the-post-lockdown-rise-of-homeless-america-5466672\">The Post-Lockdown Rise \u2064of Homeless America<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"text-comp-caption text-[14px] leading-[18px]\">8\/15\/2023<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"shrink-0 basis-[120px]\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/opinion\/the-post-lockdown-rise-of-homeless-america-5466672\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mb-4 flex gap-2\">\n<div class=\"grow\">\n<div class=\"mb-1 line-clamp-2\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/los-angeles-consider-halting-funding-for-homeless-agency-due-to-inaccessible-data-5444878\">Los Angeles Considers Halting Funding\u200b for Homeless Agency Due to Inaccessible\u2064 Data<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"text-comp-caption text-[14px] leading-[18px]\">8\/4\/2023<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"shrink-0 basis-[120px]\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/los-angeles-consider-halting-funding-for-homeless-agency-due-to-inaccessible-data-5444878\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>More Housing<\/h2>\n<p>The L.A. Times article\u2064 also\u2062 mentions the \u200csecond reason (but \u200dnot \u201cmostly\u201d): \u201cLike many of those places, Detroit\u200b doesn\u2019t have L.A. levels of \u2063street homelessness mostly\u2063 because \u200dit\u200b has more available housing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDetroit\u2019s flawed and\u200b somewhat accidental solution, \u2062a city rich\u200b in \u200ccheap housing and abandoned \u2063buildings, \u200bis hardly ideal. People\u2062 like McFarland are often stuck in neighborhoods where they feel unsafe. Many of the homes people live in are falling apart, run by\u2064 slumlords. But their availability points toward the \u200bmost basic \u2063approach\u2062 to getting\u2062 people off the\u2063 streets: finding more\u200d places to\u2062 live.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That also misrepresents what happened. It wasn\u2019t \u201caccidental.\u201d The city was wrecked on purpose \u2062through bad policies similar \u200dto those wrecking Los Angeles and California \u2062today. The major difference is California has an intrinsic value as a\u2064 coastal city in the state\u2019s balmy Mediterranean climate. Detroit does not. It does have beautiful lakes \u2062and beaches. But in the \u2062winter, they\u2019re good\u200b only for\u2063 ice fishing.<\/p>\n<p>Detroit flourished until recently because of \u200dits \u200bcentrality to \u2062natural resources, such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uptravel.com\/things-to-do\/arts-history-and-culture\/timber-iron-ore-copper-mines\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">iron ore and copper mines<\/a> of the Upper Peninsula, which were easily carried on large ships to the city\u2019s factories; to the other Rust \u200dBelt towns of the Midwest; and to the \u2064large pool of\u200c labor, much of it skilled, \u2063such as my parents\u200c and \u200bgrandparents, three of the latter immigrants.<\/p>\n<p>I was born there in 1955 and \u2062remember driving\u200b to my grandparents\u2019\u200b home on the East Side of Detroit through 1974, when the last one, Grandpa Seiler, died. Through the early 1960s, it was a beautiful city, called the Paris \u2064of the West. Just about anybody, of any race, creed, or \u200dcolor, could earn \u200ba good living in the\u2062 auto industry. But by the \u200dmid-1970s, the city was in the \u2062midst of being destroyed, although the\u2062 suburbs \u2063still prospered.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what happened.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left:0;margin-right:0;max-width:1200px\">\n<figure style=\"width:640px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>The Detroit skyline on Oct. 23, 2019. (Jeff Kowalsky\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<h2>&#8216;Rich Men North\u200b of \u200bRichmond&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>The current <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hit\u2063 song<\/a> by country crooner Oliver Anthony,\u200d \u201cRich Men North \u200dof Richmond,\u201d talks about how the wealthy politicians, lobbyists, and government functionaries in the Washington, D.C. beltway north \u200cof Richmond, Va., are controlling\u2062 our lives and robbing our \u2063livelihoods. \u2064Here\u2019s the list of\u2063 the 10 most wealthy counties\u200b in America, \u2064 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/healthiest-communities\/slideshows\/richest-counties-in-america?onepage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according<\/a> to U.S. \u2064News, by median household income in 2022:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Loudoun County, Virginia &#8211; $156,821<\/li>\n<li>Falls Church, Virginia \u2063- $155,071<\/li>\n<li>Santa Clara County, California &#8211; $140,258<\/li>\n<li>San\u200d Mateo \u2063County, California &#8211; $136,837<\/li>\n<li>Fairfax County, Virginia &#8211; $133,974<\/li>\n<li>Marin\u2062 County, California\u2064 &#8211; \u200b$131,008<\/li>\n<li>Howard County, Maryland &#8211; $129,549<\/li>\n<li>Arlington County, Virginia \u2062- $128,145<\/li>\n<li>Douglas County, Colorado &#8211; $127,433<\/li>\n<li>Nassau County, \u200dNew York &#8211; \u200c$126,576<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Notice the top \u2062two, \u2063and five\u200c of the\u200b top 10, are Virginia or Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.\u2014the Rich Parasites North of Richmond. That\u2019s where your tax dollars go. Three other counties are, as you would \u2063expect, in California\u2019s Bay Area, where the global tech industry is\u2063 located. \u2062Another is Douglas County, Colo. A relative of mine used to live there. It\u2019s \u200b\u201chorse country,\u201d where the state\u2019s \u2063rich frolic. Nassau \u2062County in New \u2064York \u200cis just east of New York City, still the world\u2019s financial \u200bcapital.<\/p>\n<p>Now, contrast that with the two counties in Michigan \u2063just\u2064 north of Detroit, where the auto industry\u2019s executives\u2064 and top engineers \u200clive, from U.S. Census data for 2021:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Oakland\u200c County -\u200d $86,275<\/li>\n<li>Macomb\u200d County\u200b &#8211; \u200c$67,828<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Oakland\u2019s median\u2063 family income is just \u200c55 percent of Loudon County\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>Macomb\u2019s is even less, 43 percent of Loudon\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>Contrast that list with the data for 1969, from a\u2063 U.S. Census study. (The data in the study are adjusted for 1989 dollars.)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Loudon County &#8211; $6,268<\/li>\n<li>Falls Church &#8211; $12,585<\/li>\n<li>Santa Clara County &#8211; $11,534<\/li>\n<li>San \u2062Mateo County &#8211; $12,063<\/li>\n<li>Fairfax County &#8211; $14,854<\/li>\n<li>Marin County &#8211; $6,724<\/li>\n<li>Howard County\u200c &#8211; $12,904<\/li>\n<li>Arlington County &#8211; $11,486<\/li>\n<li>Douglas\u2062 County &#8211; $10,209<\/li>\n<li>Nassau County &#8211; $13,859<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Again,\u200d look \u200bat Detroit\u2019s two suburbs for auto industry engineers \u2062and executives. We\u2019ll also add Wayne County,\u200d which includes Detroit\u2063 and my hometown city of\u200b Wayne, where most of the\u200d factories were\u2064 located, along with their line workers. Those 1969 numbers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Oakland County \u200b- $13,033, \u200dsecond \u2062only \u200bto Fairfax County\u200c near D.C. and Nassau County in New York<\/li>\n<li>Macomb County &#8211; $12,569, \u2062also close\u2062 to the others\u200d on the list<\/li>\n<li>Wayne County &#8211; $10,098, quite high for \u200ba working-class county; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/homelessness-why-los-angeles-isnt-detroit-on-the-pacific\/\" title=\"Homelessness: LA's Distinctiveness on the Pacific\">auto\u200c workers \u2063made great money<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And\u2064 look at \u2062Loudon \u2063County \u200dfor 1969: \u200bincome about half that of Oakland and Macomb. It was just a rural county back then, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Loudoun_County,_Virginia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">population<\/a> 37,150, compared to 420,959 today.<\/p>\n<p>What happened is President Johnson\u2019s Great Society giveaway \u200bprograms of the\u2063 1960s, which were supposed to reduce poverty and instead shifted trillions of\u200c dollars from\u200b the\u2063 productive areas of the economy, such \u2063as\u200d Detroit and its\u2064 suburbs, to Washington, D.C. and its suburbs. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/reparations-for-black-america-already-happened-black-scholar-tells-don-lemon\/\" title=\"\u2018Reparations For Black America Already Happened,\u2019 Black Scholar Tells Don Lemon\">anti-poverty programs<\/a> themselves instead\u200d brought massive poverty as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-tale-of-two-depressions-the-forgotten-and-the-great\/\" title=\"A Tale of Two Depressions: The Forgotten and The Great\">federal government metastasized<\/a> first inside the D.C. Beltway,\u200d then around \u200dit.<\/p>\n<p>Multiply these comparisons across the \u200bcountry, including California, and \u200byou\u2062 can see why so\u2062 many problems originate \u200dfrom \u2064the money made \u200din\u200d real industries\u2014autos, steel, computers, construction\u2014being taxed away and sent to the paper-pushers, taxers, and\u200c over-regulators in Washington and \u2062its environs.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left:0;margin-right:0;max-width:1200px\">\n<figure style=\"width:640px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>The U.S. Capitol building is seen at sunrise in Washington on July 31, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu\/The Epoch Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<h2>High \u200bState\u2064 Taxes<\/h2>\n<p>Let\u2019s\u2064 go further. After all, Texas, Tennessee, and Florida are doing better than Michigan and California. Well, those states don\u2019t \u200bhave a state income\u2064 tax. California\u2019s, of course, is\u2062 13.3 percent at the top level.<\/p>\n<p>Michigan lacked an income tax during its Paris of the West heyday. Then one was imposed by Gov. George Romney, Mitt\u2019s father, to pay for his \u2062state version of LBJ\u2019s \u200cGreat\u200b Society in the run-up to his failed 1968 \u2064run for president. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/briandomitrovic\/2022\/10\/11\/michigans-romney-was-brainwashed-by-the-income-tax\/?sh=6725527c4add\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Reported<\/a> Brian Domitrovic in Forbes, \u201cIn 1967, \u2064Michigan instituted its income tax. The rate \u2063is\u200b now 4.25 percent. Municipalities \u2063can tack\u2063 on a wage tax. Detroit\u2019s is 2.4 percent. People in the major\u2063 places therefore pay about\u2062 7 percent. \u2062Prior to \u200d1967, there were\u200c no such taxes in the\u200b state.\u202f\u202fJust like Tennessee today\u2014no income \u2064tax.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince that \u2064year, Michigan has lost nearly 40 percent of its share of national population and nearly 50 percent \u200bof its share of national income. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a myth that manufacturing in the \u200bUnited States declined in the\u200d 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s.\u200d The permanent slouching of \u2063manufacturing came with the Barack Obama presidency. Manufacturing did great over the first forty years of the Michigan income tax. \u2064It did great in ni<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The media&#8217;s decline is evident in the Los Angeles Times&#8217;s headline: &#8220;Why Detroit lacks L.A.&#8217;s homeless crisis.&#8221; However, they barely touch on the key reason: public perception attributes L.A.&#8217;s homelessness to poverty, drugs, and crime. This leaves me baffled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1801,"featured_media":2008786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2008785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1801"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2008785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2008786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2008785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2008785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2008785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}