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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's not just the slum lords.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/baltimore-public-housing-workers-demanded-sex-repairs-lawsuit-alleges-n492161

The entire system is corrupt from top to bottom. There are some good people, trying to do good things. And they're surrounded by people doing whatever they can to get whatever they can.[/quote]

This. The corruption is massive. What exactly has happened to all of the gazillions of cash Baltimore got???[/quote]

Which gazillions would that be?[/quote]

The city (and its residents)  gets a couple billion in aid each year.  The vast majority is related to housing subsidies.  In terms of direct payments to city hall, the number is on the order of hundred of millions.

Other billions are SS/Medicare, billions to JHU etc,  the same stuff that people calculate when saying red states are a net drain.[/quote]
How much cash goes to the people of Baltimore City, is the question.[/quote]

There were news reports on it after the riots. Very little of the money actually makes it to the people of Baltimore City. This is the problem with a lot of government (and private) investment. It goes into overhead. There's been a not insignificant amount of money intended for Sandtown-Winchester over the past decade+, and nothing changes. Not because no money is allocated, but because once the "helping" organizations consume the money, very little is left for actually doing things.

This is not unique to Baltimore. Baltimore does, however, have a level of corruption that seems higher than other places I have lived. It's possible that's because other places I have lived have hid it better. Or it's possible Baltimore's been dealing with its problems for so long, it seems normal to take what you can, when you can, because how else are you going to possibly come out ahead?[/quote]

Like Detroit, Baltimore proactively recruited poor African Americans from the south as cheap labor in factories as the immigrants who previously provided labor prospered, moved out to the burbs, and started their own businesses. Then the factories closed, and cities like Baltimore were left with a disproportionate number of poorly educated, unemployed AAs. Add drugs, criminalization and family dysfunction to the mix, and you get generational poverty. And let's not forget structural racism.

I love Baltimore. My mom was born and raised in the city. Her parents were born and raised there. Her 4 grandparents landed in Baltimore as older teens/young adults when they came over from Eastern Europe. And I lived there while in law school. But the city has big problems that won't be magically solved with a great mayor or more money. Complex societal issues like generational poverty and the related problems require multifaceted interventions. And even then, you can't legislate a solution to family dysfunction and bad family planning---even if you have excellent schools, affordable housing and a living wage (Baltimore doesn't have that unicorn trifecta BTW). Once you've abandoned the people and allowed a new subcultural norm to take hold, it's not easy to correct it. [/quote]

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