Chicago is welcoming the Democratic National Convention to town, with thousands of party delegates assembling to nominate Vice President Harris as their 2024 candidate for president. We should expect to hear a lot of bold language about rights and freedoms, celebrations of the diversity of the American people and the Democratic Party, and loud exhortations to continue on the path of Progress – all of which will surely receive tremendous applause.
What we are not likely to hear is much in the way of details about how to fix the nation’s problems, especially in regard to our major cities, which are suffering badly. It’s ironic that the Democrats chose Chicago as their meeting site this year, because the Windy City, perhaps more than anywhere else, exemplifies the failure of the same Progressive policies that will be exalted at the convention.
Not a holiday weekend goes by without news that dozens of Chicago residents were shot. This last Memorial Day, at least 41 people were shot, and nine killed, including 5-year-old Reign Ware. That seemed bad until Independence Day rolled around, and 109 people were hit by gunfire, and an astonishing 19 were killed. Carjacking, battery, theft, and assault have all risen dramatically in Chicago in the last few years, and the election of Brandon Johnson – who promised to attack the social “root causes” of crime rather than crime itself – has not helped. Even while crime is soaring, arrests in Chicago are way down. Johnson didn’t help public safety in his city when he canceled Chicago’s “SpotShotter” contract, which alerted police whenever guns are fired
Mayor Johnson is a former employee of, and is backed politically by, the powerful Chicago Teachers Union. He was paid by the CTU when he ran for mayor, and CTU lobbyists reportedly write official letters and memos over Johnson’s signature. But Chicago schoolchildren are failing. Less than one-third of Chicago public elementary school students are proficient in reading, and only 19% are proficient in math. These numbers have dropped over the last five years. Clearly the Chicago Teachers Union, which effectively controls the public schools, isn’t doing a great job.
Progressive policies have failed Chicago, and the experience is repeated in major cities across the nation. New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and San Francisco all, to one extent or another, have experimented with anti-policing as well as pro-teachers union policies, and the results have been the same: more crime, more public disorder, worse schools, a declining tax base, and dying cores.
What makes this decline even worse, however, is that we know how to fix it. New York City, beginning in 1994 and continuing over the next 20 years, gave the nation a roadmap for reversing municipal decay. The acclaimed documentary film “Gotham: The Fall and Rise of New York,” directed by Matthew Taylor and inspired by the work of the Manhattan Institute and its former president Larry Mone, shows how pragmatic, committed municipal leadership attacked public disorder through the intensive application of “Broken Windows” policing. Broken Windows is not, as many on the left allege, based on the principle of harsh punishment for minor offenses. Rather, it focuses on the correction of minor instances of disorder on the (correct) presumption that permitting littering, graffiti, drug use, or public urination signals a lack of concern about public safety, thus giving a thumbs-up to burglars, drug dealers, car thieves, and muggers to pursue more significant crime.
Broken Windows policing was a major success in New York City, and it drove the murder rate down 90%, sparking an urban renaissance that saw the Big Apple come roaring back as a destination for tourists, immigrants, and young people to establish roots and start families.
“Gotham” also details how the city, under Mayor Mike Bloomberg, centralized authority of the public schools under City Hall. He imposed managerial principles from industry to close failing schools and fire incompetent principals. The city also allowed charter schools – public schools run outside of the union system – to flourish. These charters, which give poor families the same choice and options that wealthier families have always had, now instruct 15% of New York’s public school students, and have a proven track record of success.
Crime and education are just two of the domains in which progressive policies have crippled American cities. Welfare policies, housing and zoning regulations, and bloated municipal payrolls are also responsible for urban decline. But the good news is that we have been here before, and we clawed our way back. The not-so-distant history of New York City, as described in “Gotham,” is a guidebook to recovery for American cities. To learn more about the film and to watch it, check out the link at gothammovie.com. Let’s hope that the nation’s leaders are willing to take a tip from New York City’s hard-won experience.
