Fixing Urban Decay

I ran across an interesting and excellent web series on reason.tv entitled REASON SAVES CLEVELAND WITH DREW CAREY.  The sub title is "How to Fix 'The Mistake On The Lake' and Other Once-Great American Cities."  As anyone who knows anything about Drew Carey knows, he's from Cleveland.  This series looks at the problems of a city that was once the sixth largest city in the country and considered one of the best places to live to a blighted, failing "mistake on the lake."  They also look at best practices of other cities that could be used to help revitalize Cleveland.  The video below introduces the series.






Cleveland officials seem to have succumbed to the same malady common to so many government bureaucrats- insanity...continuing to do the same things over and over and expecting different results.  I think it was Rush Limbaugh that said, "Liberals never think they do anything wrong...they just think they haven't been able to do enough of it yet."  This certainly seems to be true of the people running Cleveland.

This series points out problems that exist in many declining urban centers such as Cleveland...like Pittsburgh, Detroit and others...and common sense ways to revitalize these areas.  The failures of their past policies are on display in their current failures.  Many of these policies are the same kinds of central planning initiatives that the Federal government has adopted over the years...and they too are failing.  Cities are a microcosm of economics and government.  A lot can be learned from their successes and failures.  Enjoy.