◼ Along the street where Freddie Gray was arrested, abandoned houses are gashed with gaping holes. The roof on an old red-brick building is collapsed. A storm drain is clogged with concrete. - Washington Post via ◼ 98.9 FM The Answer
It’s another failure of half-baked liberal policy. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into projects to try to rehabilitate inner city neighborhoods like Baltimore’s. But as the Washington Post reported, government bureaucracy stifled innovation and jobs never materialized.
...The effort to revive Sandtown was massive. More than 1,000 homes were eventually renovated or built. Schools were bolstered. Education and health services were launched.
But there were many obstacles along the way, according to Enterprise’s report. Some residents complained that the vision was too grand to execute. Others involved said the city’s bureaucracy stifled innovation.
The most significant problem, according to community organizers and the Enterprise report, was that new businesses and jobs never materialized. And as Baltimore’s decent-paying manufacturing jobs vanished — a problem shared by Detroit, Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities — there were fewer and fewer opportunities for Sandtown residents to find meaningful work.
In the absence of jobs, the drug trade flourished.
