Hi there VisualPolitik fans, a short time ago, here on this channel, we published our
own rankings of some of the most dangerous cities in the world.
Deciding the list is always complicated and it forced us to choose between many candidates
that perhaps, unfairly, were left out.
What can I say!
To be fair, Mexico alone would have needed an entire video.
And north of its border there are also many cities that deserve our attention.
In the past video we mentioned St. Louis – a city we have already talked about here on
VisualPolitik – but we could also have made room in the ranking for cities like Memphis,
Detroit, Chicago or perhaps, and especially, Baltimore.
But of course, how could we dedicate just one minute to Baltimore when one of the best
TV series dedicated five full seasons to it!
Of course we are talking about The Wire.
I’m sure many of you have already seen it.
And those of you who haven't, check it out because it's worth it.
The thing is that the last episode of this series dates back to 2008.
And since then many things have happened.
So much that they’re launching an entire new production:
N1('The Wire' creator returning to Baltimore for new HBO series 'We Own This City' - NME)
As is happening in the United States as a whole, violence has skyrocketed in Baltimore.
In 2021 alone, 338 homicides were recorded.
As a comparison, in New York, there were 485.
The difference is that New York has 15 times more inhabitants than Baltimore, which has
fewer than 600,000 inhabitants.
We are talking about a city that in the 1950s numbered around one million inhabitants.
But of course, between those who die and those who leave Baltimore, the city is losing population.
Worst of all, the bad news does not end there: there are more and more abandoned houses,
more drugs on the streets and less future for its young people.
So the question is: Are we talking about the most decadent and violent city in the United
States?
What are the Baltimore authorities doing to change the situation?
More importantly, is it having any effect?
Today on VisualPolitik we are going to answer these questions, but first let's take a look
at some history.
(THE WIRE)
Are you looking to buy a house?
Well...
You're in luck.
With just $20,000 you can buy one in the heart of Baltimore.
But be careful, because your American dream could turn into a nightmare at any moment.
The 19th century brick townhouses that abound in the western part of the city are now a
desolate sight.
Many are abandoned.
They were once the dream home of thousands of European immigrants who came to Baltimore
during its rapid industrial growth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
It was a time when the largest city in the state of Maryland became one of the most prosperous
places in the United States thanks to its factories, its steel production and its port.
And so, in 1950 Baltimore was the sixth largest city in the United States.
However, a third of its inhabitants migrated as its shipping and steel industries closed.
Baltimore's crisis then worsened further in the 1970s and 1980s when heroin, cocaine and
crack cocaine began to circulate in abundance on its streets.
In this way, drug addiction spread to the poorest neighborhoods on the west side of
the city, where racial laws and clearly racist housing policies had concentrated the African-American
population, which, by the way, accounts for about two-thirds of all current inhabitants.
Baltimore's decline over the last few decades is evident.
Despite having been one of the great cities of the United States and having such valuable
assets as the prestigious Johns Hopkins University, its port commerce and such attractive areas
as Fell's Point, the truth is that the problems continue to multiply.
In the 1990s, other major US cities such as New York were successful in their fight against
crime thanks to a combination of economic prosperity, reduced alcohol consumption and
increased police pressure.
Meanwhile, Baltimore sank lower and lower.
The numbers speak for themselves.
And here they indicate that one-eighth of Baltimore's population is addicted to narcotics
and that the city has the highest rate of venereal disease in the country as well as
one of the highest homicide rates.
To make matters worse, since 1990, Baltimore has lost more than 75,000 industrial jobs
that have not been made up for by other activities.
As a result, a significant portion of its residents have been trapped in poverty.
In the most depressed neighborhoods of this city, more than half of the adults are unemployed
and half of the adolescents are regularly absent from school.
To give you an idea, a study conducted by sociologists at Johns Hopkins University concluded
that only 4% of children from the most deprived areas of Baltimore manage to finish college.
Only 4%!
These are terrible figures that represent an enormous blow to the social programs promoted
by the Democratic Party.
And that, in view of what these numbers show, have been of practically no use.
Democratic politicians have controlled Baltimore City Hall since 1967.
We are talking about 55 years of government that have gone from failure to failure in
what was once known as Charm City.
At the turn of this century, for example, many hopes were pinned on Mayor Martin O'Malley,
a young lawyer of Irish descent.
He promised to reduce inequality and clean up the streets with a "zero tolerance" policy.
He urged police to stop young people acting suspiciously and search them for weapons or
drugs.
And of course, the police completely embraced zero tolerance: they targeted those who met
two requirements: being young and black.
A profile that, as you can imagine, abounds in Baltimore.
And guess what?
It got out of hand.
In 2005 alone, Baltimore police made 100,000 arrests.
Remember that we are talking about a city of only about 600,000 people.
As this rate of arrests was completely unsustainable, O'Malley had to backtrack on his heavy-handed
approach to policing.
But the damage was already done: the plan destroyed confidence in the police throughout
much of the city.
The result was a perfect climate for gangs, violence and crime of all kinds.
So those who have had the opportunity have not hesitated.
They have run out of there.
Some 16,000 buildings are officially designated as vacant but the real number could be double
that.
Entire streets of houses are boarded up.
In the last six years alone, 5,000 houses have been demolished.
To make matters worse, the credibility of the local institutions has also been shaken.
Since 2010, two mayors have resigned after being involved in corruption scandals.
To give you an idea, in the last 12 years, Baltimore has had six different mayors and
as many political commissioners.
A real disaster, which of course, has not gone unnoticed.
Notice what the President himself said about this city in 2019.
N2(Trump attacks another African American lawmaker, and calls Baltimore a 'disgusting,
rat and rodent infested mess'.
CNN)
The worst part is that the Democratic politicians had nothing to counter him with.
Baltimore has become the closest thing to a drug supermarket.
And if things at the start of the 21st century were already bad, since 2015 they have gotten
even worse.
Listen up.
T2(WE OWN THIS CITY)
You all know who George Floyd is.
But you should know that before George Floyd, there was Freddie Gray and so many others
who have been victims of what we might call racial violence at the hands of some police
officers in the United States.
The point is that in 2015, Freddie Gray, 25, who had been arrested for carrying a knife,
died while in Baltimore police custody as a result of injuries he sustained to his spine
while being transported in a police van.
It was apparently standard practice for Baltimore Police to handcuff arrestees, not protect
them with seat belts, and drive roughly so that they were as close to a ball in a trunk
as possible, bumping up against each other all over the place.
The fact is that mass protests and riots spread throughout the city.
It was something like a point of no return.
As a result of this event, riots increased by 50%.
And now news stories like this are not uncommon:
N3(Baltimore tops 300 homicides for 7th consecutive year - Newsbreak)
Now, hold on a minute.
Baltimore is a city where every once in a while a black man is killed by the police.
But mostly it is a city where virtually every day a young black man is killed by another
young black man.
Incidentally, many, including a federal government investigation, blame the police themselves.
N4(Racial bias pervasive among Baltimore police, DOJ says - CNN)
How is a police force going to ensure security if no one trusts it?
If the majority of the inhabitants of a city see it as a hostile institution and refuse
to collaborate with it?
This is a problem.
Incidents of police brutality make it much more unlikely that residents of black neighborhoods
will go to the police to report crimes and cooperate with investigations.
And the same distrust extends to judicial bodies, which logically are closely related
to the police itself.
And that's not all.
To top it off, some members of the police force dedicated years to extorting money from
innocent people and robbing drug traffickers to take their business.
Let's just say they thought they were the lords of the city.
N5('Some Measure of Justice' Baltimore City Pays $525K To Victim Who Says Corrupt GTTF
Cops Wrongly Sent Him To Prison, Part of $14 Million In Settlements - Daily Advent)
In the end, the economic crisis, job losses, narcotics and political corruption fueled
the disaster.
But, wait a moment, because there is still more.
Today, violence is fueled by an enemy that goes beyond Baltimore's borders.
We are talking about fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid that has largely replaced
heroin.
It's crazy.
In 2021 alone, more than 100,000 – one hundred thousand people!
died in the United States from overdoses.
The situation is so dire that in his last State of the Union address, President Biden
himself made this a national priority.
The fact is, in 2007 opioid overdoses claimed the lives of 256 Baltimore residents, mostly
from heroin.
By 2018, that number had more than tripled to 814 deaths from fentanyl.
Baltimore has the highest opioid death rate of any US city.
And now it has a plan to reduce it.
Whether the plan is any good is another matter.
Listen up.
T3(DRUG AND TAX ADDICTS)
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, of the Democratic Party, wants to address this overdose boom
by opening safe injection sites.
These are places where people go to consume narcotics.
There they are under the supervision of medical personnel who can intervene quickly in case
of overdose to prevent death.
Imagine how bad things must be for these plans to be put on the table.
It's not an original idea.
But it is an idea that recently ran into opposition from the Trump Administration, which struck
down a similar proposal by the city of Philadelphia in federal court.
The laws currently in force at the federal level in the United States state that open
public places for drug use are not allowed.
But now all that could change with Biden.
N6(Justice Dept.
signals it may allow safe injection sites - AP)
Members of the Democratic Party who defend these sites argue that trying to save the
lives of these people comes before any other consideration.
Good intentions are not in question.
But is it really in the best interest of addicts to open a place where they can go to get into
anything or almost anything?
A difficult question, and a controversial one to say the least.
And it doesn't look like it can particularly help improve things in Baltimore.
Speaking of the future.
Take a look at this news item.
N7(Study finds average earning Baltimore family pays 14.1% of their annual income towards
taxes - Baltimore Jewish Life)
This means that in Baltimore, they pay 50% more in local taxes than in the average large
US city.
This city has a tax regime with a very aggressive progressivity.
And overall the city ranks fourth among large US cities with the highest tax burden.
Kind of like the golden dream of many Berni Sanders-wing Democrats.
This high tax burden has an explanation.
As you have seen, the city has been losing population since 1950.
So what have the Democratic Party politicians who have run Baltimore since 1967 done?
Nothing less than raise taxes to try to maintain city revenues in the face of taxpayer flight.
So, in addition to a generalized problem of violence, narcotics and lack of job opportunities,
we also have the highest taxes in the country.
And the question is, who in their right mind is going to want to move to Baltimore?
What business could thrive in such circumstances?
Of course, high taxes drive out more professionals and reduce household income, making it difficult
for businesses to grow.
This reduces the supply of jobs and aggravates the problems with violence and narcotics.
It is something like a destructive spiral.
And yes, I am sure some of you are thinking, but [host], we have to support public services!
Well, you know what?
Take a look.
Some research indicates that 77% of high school students in Baltimore have elementary school
reading ability and comprehension.
A total disaster.
The question is: Who the hell is going to want to move to Baltimore?
VisualPolitik viewers, this city needs to hit the reset button and start practically
from scratch.
It wouldn't hurt to copy the economic policies of states like Texas or Florida along the
way.
If things don't change, this once great city will end up as rubble.
If one thing is clear, it is that the Democratic plan in Baltimore has not worked at all.
But having said that, it's your turn: What solution would you propose to fix the problems
of this city?
Leave us your comments below and let's get a debate started.
Now if you found this video interesting don't forget to like and subscribe to VisualPolitik.
All the best and see you next time.