Lack Of Digital Security Makes Cities Vulnerable To Major Terror Attacks

Among other issues this is discussed in Marc Goodman's book, Future Crimes. Governments and corporations continue to encourage everybody and everything to be made internet compatible. Little to no concern exists about security. 

[From article]
Terrorists and rogue states are gaining the capability to bring a major city to a standstill with the click of a button, the Director of GCHQ has warned.
In a rare public appearance, Robert Hannigan said the risk to cities like London would increase as more physical objects, such as cars and household appliances, are connected online – the so-called “internet of things”.



Speaking at the Cheltenham Science festival, the intelligence chief warned that nation states were currently developing the kind of cyber programmes that could attack the UK, but that terrorist groups were also looking to take advantage of the technology.
“At some stage they will get the capability,” he said.
“There are certainly states and groups with the intent to do it, terrorist groups, for example, who have no threshold when it comes to the loss of life.
“We’re not quite there yet, but as the world becomes ever more connected that will become a greater risk.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/08/terrorist-groups-acquiring-the-cyber-capability-to-bring-major-c/

Terrorist groups acquiring the cyber capability to bring major cities to a standstill, warns GCHQ chief
Henry Bodkin
8 JUNE 2016 • 7:09PM

Violent Crime Increasing In Some U.S. Cities

This article does not mention that strict gun laws prevent law abiding citizens from carrying guns, which reduces violent crime. See John Lott's book, More Guns, Less Crime. 

[From article]
Violent crimes - from homicides and rapes to robberies - have been on the rise in many major U.S. cities, yet experts can't point to a single reason why and the jump isn't enough to suggest there's a trend.
Still, it is stumping law enforcement officials, who are seeking a way to combat the problem.
"It's being reported on at local levels, but in my view, it's not getting the attention at the national level it deserves," FBI Director James Comey said recently. "I don't know what the answer is, but holy cow, do we have a problem."
Americans have grown accustomed to low crime rates since a peak in the 1990s. But law enforcement started seeing a spike last year that has continued unabated. What's unusual, however, is that it's not happening everywhere. Chicago and Los Angeles are seeing homicides on the rise, but other places like Miami and Oakland are not.
Chicago, a city long associated with violent crime that plagues its poorer neighborhoods, saw six people fatally shot over the Memorial Day weekend and 56 wounded, ending a bloody month in a bloody year. May's 66 homicides - 19 more than May 2015 and 25 more than May 2014 - raised the total number for the year past the 240 mark. That's more than 50 percent higher than last year, and puts the city on a pace to easily surpass the 500 homicides it saw in 2012.
Perhaps more significant is the number of people who are being shot; well over 1,200 as of Tuesday, which far surpasses the 800 by this time last year.
[. . .]
Some say the splintering of gangs has created deadly rivalries, others say the disbanding of specialized police units has helped embolden gangs. Guns are pouring into the city - with police saying they've seized more guns this year (3,500) than any city police department in the United States - but courts also have overturned or gutted the city's once-tough gun laws.
[. . .]
"Quite frankly, trust has broken down between the community and police," new [Chicago] police superintendent Eddie Johnson said.
[. . .]
The reasons vary, Stephens said: Chicago and Los Angeles attribute much of it to gang-related violence, while others chalk it up to significant drug problems that lead to violent crime.
Some in law enforcement have speculated that a climate after the 2014 fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, has made officers reticent about taking the steps needed to stop crime, but Stephens says that tough scrutiny on policing has always been part of the job, even if it's "more visible, more strident" now.
And even with violent crime outpacing past years, it's a far cry from the more notorious early 1990s when there were about 25,000 homicides each year. "We're nowhere near that level," he said.
[. . .]
[Indianapolis, IN] Police spokesman Sgt. Kendale Adams said last year's record homicides and the continued rise in killings this year is being driven by a multitude of factors, including the proliferation of guns, disputes over drugs and fights that escalate into gunfire.
"People want a reason, right? There's got to be a reason, but when we look at the data it's disturbances, it's drugs, it's even simple disputes on Facebook. It's very lifestyle-oriented, that's what the data is telling us," he said Wednesday. "Disputes that normally would have been settled through fighting are being settled through lethal means."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_VIOLENT_CRIME_SPIKE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-06-05-15-23-50

Jun 5, 3:23 PM EDT
US CITIES SEE UNEXPLAINED RISE IN VIOLENT CRIMES THIS YEAR
BY LISA MARIE PANE AND DON BABWIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

* * *

Spike: Los Angeles (pictured) has also seen a spike in crime, with killings up 27.5 per cent in the first two months of the year and violent offenses in general up by 12.6 per cent.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3626152/US-cities-unexplained-rise-violent-crimes-year.html

Murder, rape and other violent crimes have soared this year in major US cities
Chicago has already had almost half the murders in 2016 that it had in 2015
And LA has seen spikes too: murders were up by 27.5% in Jan and Feb
But Oakland and Miami are experiencing a drop in violent crimes
A study of 50 US cities and seven Canadian cities says crime is up overall
Experts are struggling to agree on the reasons
Some are blaming increasing numbers of guns and drugs
Others say cops are scared to act in case they're put on YouTube
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 09:21 EST, 5 June 2016 | UPDATED: 16:58 EST, 5 June 2016

Updated: White House Sticking It To Whitey

Posted April 17, 2016 8:13 PM ET; Lat updated May 8, 2016 9:55 PM ET



Updated May 8, 20-16 9:55 PM ET
[From article]

Hillary’s rumored running mate, Housing Secretary Julian Castro, is cooking up a scheme to reallocate funding for Section 8 housing to punish suburbs for being too white and too wealthy.
The scheme involves super-sizing vouchers to help urban poor afford higher rents in pricey areas, such as Westchester County, while assigning them government real-estate agents called “mobility counselors” to secure housing in the exurbs.
Castro plans to launch the Section 8 reboot this fall, even though a similar program tested a few years ago in Dallas has been blamed for shifting violent crime to affluent neighborhoods.
It’s all part of a grand scheme to forcibly desegregate inner cities and integrate the outer suburbs.
Anticipating NIMBY resistance, Castro last month threatened to sue suburban landlords for discrimination if they refuse even Section 8 tenants with criminal records. And last year, he implemented a powerful new regulation — “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” — that pressures all suburban counties taking federal grant money to change local zoning laws to build more low-income housing (landlords of such properties are required to accept Section 8 vouchers).
[. . .]

In expensive ZIP codes, Castro’s plan — which requires no congressional approval — would more than double the standard subsidy, while also covering utilities. At the same time, he intends to reduce subsidies for those who choose to stay in housing in poor urban areas, such as Brooklyn. So Section 8 tenants won’t just be pulled to the suburbs, they’ll be pushed there.
“We want to use our housing-choice vouchers to ensure that we don’t have a concentration of poverty and the aggregation of racial minorities in one part of town, the poor part of town,” the HUD chief said recently, adding that he’s trying to undo the “result of discriminatory policies and practices in the past, and sometimes even now.”
[. . .]
President Bill Clinton started a similar program in 1994 called “Moving to Opportunity Initiative,” which moved thousands of mostly African-American families from government projects to higher quality homes in safer and less racially segregated neighborhoods in several counties across the country.
The 15-year experiment bombed.
A 2011 study sponsored by HUD found that adults using more generous Section 8 vouchers did not get better jobs or get off welfare. In fact, more went on food stamps. And their children did not do better in their new schools.
Worse, crime simply followed them to their safer neighborhoods, ruining the quality of life for existing residents.
“Males…were arrested more often than those in the control group, primarily for property crimes,” the study found.
Dubuque, Iowa, for example, received an influx of voucher holders from projects in Chicago — and it’s had a problem with crime ever since. A recent study linked Dubuque’s crime wave directly to Section 8 housing.
Of course, even when reality mugs leftists, they never scrap their social theories. They just double down.
The problem, they rationalized, was that the relocation wasn’t aggressive enough. They concluded they could get the desired results if they placed urban poor in even more affluent areas.
HUD recently tested this new theory in Dallas with disastrous results.
[. . .]


United States Department of Housing and Urban Development used Dallas as a test — and the city is now experiencing much more violence.

Photo: Getty Images
Now Dallas has one of the highest murder rates in the nation, and recently had to call in state troopers to help police control it. For the first time, violent crime has shifted to the tony bedroom communities north of the city. Three suburbs that have seen the most Section 8 transfers — Frisco, Plano and McKinney — have suffered unprecedented spikes in rapes, assaults and break-ins, including home invasions.
Although HUD’s “demonstration project” may have improved the lives of some who moved, it’s ended up harming the lives of many of their new neighbors. And now Castro wants to roll it out nationwide. Soon he will give Section 8 recipients money to afford rent wherever they choose — and if they don’t want to move, he’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.
Ironically, Hillary’s own hometown of Chappaqua is fighting Section 8 housing because of links to drugs and crime and other problems.
This is a big policy shift that will have broad implications, affecting everything from crime to property values; and it could even impact the presidential election, especially if Castro joins Hillary on the Democratic ticket.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/08/obamas-last-act-is-to-force-suburbs-to-be-less-white-and-less-wealthy/

Obama’s last act is to force suburbs to be less white and less wealthy
By Paul Sperry
New York Post
May 8, 2016 | 7:30am

* * *

Posted April 17, 2016 8:134 PM ET
[From article]
Is the Obama administration, or at least some officials in it, hostile toward whites? This is certainly an awkward, publicly unspeakable question -- and answering it is exceptionally difficult. Not easy to discern the motives of countless Washington bureaucrats.
Nevertheless, recent events outside of Baltimore, MD suggest that enmity toward whites does afflict some Obama administrators and our proof, though short of the smoking gun standard, is probably as good as it gets.
In a nutshell, thanks to Washington’s money and political pressure, thousands of poor blacks will now be re-located from Baltimore’s slums to upgraded housing in the surrounding, nearly all-white suburbs.
Baltimore County will spend $30 million over the next decade to help private developers build 1000 homes for low-income African American families in affluent suburbs.

[. . .]

To ensure that these new residences are family friendly, 500 units must contain three or more bedrooms. Housing access will be encouraged by requiring landlords to consider all sources of income -- including public welfare -- in assessing tenant creditworthiness. Participants will also receive help with moving expenses and security deposits. And to facilitate integration into new (white) neighborhoods, extensive counseling (called “Mobility Counseling Programs”) will teach newcomers about housekeeping and property maintenance, good neighbor skills, financial management and budgeting.
Government sponsored re-location of poor black city residents into affluent white suburbs is hardly new and rests on a theory positing the malleability of human behavior: pathological behaviors are environmentally determined and so just improve environments and “bad” behavior will vanish. Specifically, moving underclass African Americans to pleasant white, affluent towns will see a notable reduction of crime, illegitimacy, drug and alcohol addiction, welfare dependency, domestic violence and other tribulations currently plaguing black inner-city neighborhoods. In addition, the transformation will succeed absent any prior psychological changes of new arrivals. In effect, an industrious law-abiding African American who autonomously flees to the suburbs to live a better life is identical to his Baltimore neighbor motivated solely by the promise of a more spacious, cheap apartment.


Baltimore, MD

It is also assumed that pathologies will be mitigated by inter-racial, inter-class contact. For example, lower class black youngsters will improve academically if they encounter more studious white classmates. And osmosis will flow only one way -- white youngster will not gravitate toward crime when socializing with black inner city refugees.
It is hard to think of a more incorrect theory of human behavior. Tellingly, when such enterprises are discussed in official reports, the stress overwhelmingly is on the benefits to the recipients and advice on how to overcome (white) public resistance. The unspeakable harsh truth is that these newly relocated inner-city residents will bring their pathologies with them and after a few years the areas surrounding the freshly built homes and Section 8 apartments will resemble dilapidated crime-ridden Baltimore.
If the transformative power of a better physical setting were correct, how do you explain massive white resistance to such enterprises? Are the millions of whites who over countless decades fled the influx of underclass blacks hallucinating or being fooled by racial demagogues? If such population movement worked as advertised, why must Washington impose it by court decrees, fines for non-compliance and other cram-down measures? How can advocates of this alleged panacea explain why busing thousands of academically troubled poor black students to top-flight “white” schools has failed? Is leafy small town America the magic cure for drug addiction and illegitimacy? Recall Ferguson, MO: put troubled black residents of St. Louis into a nice white suburb, and you create a new St. Louis slum.
Now for the near-smoking gun proofs that this enterprise smells of contempt for whites. First, all this draconian coercion is outside federal law regulating discrimination in housing. Legal penalties for housing discrimination have nothing to do with coerced integration and to obscure the non-legal gun-to-the-head power, the consent of whites is officially deemed “voluntary.” 

[. . .]
Second, prudence would suggest a modicum of cost/benefit analysis of this enterprise, and this scrutiny is totally absent [. . .] Only the supposed benefits for blacks inform calculations, [. . .] Nor is there any mention of how the new arrivals will find employment in suburban areas with limited public transportation.
Total silence surrounds the inevitable costs for whites: loss of home equity, increased school violence, more crime, and the shredded social cohesion associated with imposed racial diversity and, in the long run, the costs of moving elsewhere. Indeed, HUD is already anticipating white flight and is trying to impose rules that would forbid real estate agents from openly discussing the negative consequences forthcoming racial shift.
Of the utmost importance for this near smoking gun evidence, these benefits provided to blacks need not come at the expense of whites. The same millions could have been spent in the city of Baltimore building nice homes for blacks adjacent to their old residences and if suburban whites were guilty of racial discrimination, just fine them versus (non-legally) imposing unwanted integration. Moreover, inner-city construction could have utilized nearby unemployed African American Baltimore residents who would, as an extra dividend, gain some job training (the model is Habitat for Humanity). Everything would be win/win politics. But, this sensible win-win solution fails to harm whites and so it is politically off limits.

Beyond these immediate problems inflicted on whites will be, in all likelihood, the political costs of changing these once relatively racially homogeneous suburbs. Ferguson, MO is the future: more communal racial strife, yet more whites will flee, civil rights groups demanding more “inclusionary” policies, and, eventually, Department of Justice intervention to remedy alleged race-related injustices [. . .]
One can only wonder why officials cannot foresee this racial-train-wreck-in-the-making. This is punitive policy-making that can only reflect the presence of deeply rooted racial animosities. Helping poor African Americans find decent housing is just the polite cover story. At least some government officials in the Obama administration want to punish suburban whites and given that Uncle Sam will foot the bills, inflicting this damage is irresistible.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/obama_administration_sticking_it_to_whitey_.html

April 8, 2016
Obama Administration Sticking it to Whitey
By Robert Weissberg

Pat Buchanan: Brief Lesson On Free Trade, Trade Deficit With China, Loss of US Jobs, Dying Cities

[From article]
Last year, China ran up the largest trade surplus in history, at our expense, $365 billion. We exported $116 billion in goods to China. China exported $482 billion worth of goods to us.
Using Census Bureau statistics, Terry Jeffrey of CNSNEWS.com documents how Beijing has, over decades, looted and carted off the greatest manufacturing base the world had ever seen.
In 1985, China’s trade surplus with us was a paltry $6 million. By 1992, when some of us were being denounced as “protectionists” for raising the issue, the U.S. trade deficit with China had crossed the $10 billion mark.
In 2002, it crossed the $100 billion mark. In 2005, the $200 billion mark. In each of the last four years, Communist China has run an annual trade surplus at the expense of the United States in excess of $300 billion.
[. . .]



Those trade deficits also explain the rise of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
Yet, with the exception of Trump, none of the GOP candidates seems willing to debate, defend or denounce the policies that eviscerated America — and empowered the People’s Republic.
Workers, however, know what our politicians refuse to discuss.
They are being sold out for the benefit of corporate elites who pay off those politicians with the big cash contributions that keep the parties flush.
[. . .]
Free trade is not a zero-sum game. The losers are the workers whose jobs, factories and futures are shipped abroad, and the dead and dying towns left behind when the manufacturing plants shut down.
America is on a path of national decline because, while we have been looking out for what is best for the “global economy,” our rivals have been looking out for what is best for their own nations.
[. . .]
Between the Civil War and World War I, under Republicans, the U.S. became the world’s greatest industrial power and a wholly self-sufficient nation. How? We taxed foreign goods entering the United States, but did not tax the profits of U.S. companies or the incomes of U.S. workers.
The difference between economic patriots and globalists who inhabit corporate-funded think tanks and public policy institutes is that the latter think of what is best for their corporate benefactors and the global economy. The former put America and Americans first.
[. . .]



Indeed, what great nation did free trade ever build?
As father of a united Germany, Chancellor Bismarck said, when he decided to build Germany on the American and not the British model, “I see that those countries which possess protection are prospering, and that those countries which possess free trade are decaying.”

http://buchanan.org/blog/trump-is-right-on-trade-124822

Trump Is Right on Trade
Friday - February 19, 2016 at 4:24 am
Patrick J. Buchanan

Most Violent American Cities, Have Majority Black Population

[From article]

I expect this post to inspire many charges of “racism” from the grievance mongers, but facts are facts – and facts cannot be flung aside via racial rhetoric.
Anyway. Earlier this week, Business Insider published a report that cataloged the world’s 50 most violent cities. While most of the cities are located in Central/South America and Africa, four of them happen to be located here in the good ol’ USA: St.Louis, Baltimore, New Orleans and Detroit.
I hate to be the guy to point this out, but every single one of those cities contains a black-majority population.
Cue the United States Census Bureau:

Dominant demographic in St. Louis: Black @ 46.9% (source)

Dominant demographic in Baltimore: Black @ 63.3% (source)

Dominant demographic in New Orleans: Black @ 60.2% (source)

Dominant demographic in Detroit: Black @ 82.7% (source)

Here’s my question, though – does this mean anything? Does this signify some sort of trend? More importantly, thus this suggest that perhaps there is merit to the thinking that racial profiling exists for a legitimate reason?
I refuse to delve too deep into this myself because it’s a bit too much for me. But I do encourage the rest of you all to discuss it in the comments.

http://downtrend.com/vsaxena/most-violent-cities-black-majority-populations/

Most Violent US Cities All Contain Black-Majority Populations

I expect this post to inspire many charges of “racism” from the grievance mongers, but facts are facts – and facts cannot be flung aside via racial rhetoric.
Anyway. Earlier this week, Business Insider published a report that cataloged the world’s 50 most violent cities. While most of the cities are located in Central/South America and Africa, four of them happen to be located here in the good ol’ USA: St.Louis, Baltimore, New Orleans and Detroit.
I hate to be the guy to point this out, but every single one of those cities contains a black-majority population.
Cue the United States Census Bureau:

Dominant demographic in St. Louis: Black @ 46.9% (source)

Dominant demographic in Baltimore: Black @ 63.3% (source)

Dominant demographic in New Orleans: Black @ 60.2% (source)

Dominant demographic in Detroit: Black @ 82.7% (source)

Here’s my question, though – does this mean anything? Does this signify some sort of trend? More importantly, thus this suggest that perhaps there is merit to the thinking that racial profiling exists for a legitimate reason?
I refuse to delve too deep into this myself because it’s a bit too much for me. But I do encourage the rest of you all to discuss it in the comments.
NOVEMBER 15, 2014
V. SAXENA

Best Places To Live In USA, Two Surveys

Two different surveys with two different results. In one Newton MA is the best city to live in; in the other it is McKinney, Texas. What I think is it doesn't matter where you live but who you live with and who you work with. That makes all the difference. 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/09/17/24-7-wall-st-50-best-cities-to-live/15736533/

America’s 50 Best Cities to Live
By Robert Serenbetz, Alexander Kent, Ashley C. Allen, Alexander E.M. Hess and Thomas C. Frohlich September 17, 2014 12:02 am EDT

* * *

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/09/17/24-7-wall-st-50-best-cities-to-live/15736533/

America's 50 best cities to live in
Alexander Kent, Ashley C. Allen, Alexander E. M. Hess, Robert Serenbetz, Thomas Frohlich, 24/7 Wall St. 12:55 a.m. EDT September 18, 2014

* * *

http://time.com/money/collection/best-places-to-live/

Ackerman + Gruber
MONEY’s Best Places to Live in America
We rank the 50 best small cities in the country, looking for great jobs, strong economies, affordable homes, excellent schools, and much more.

Iraqi Terrorists Seize Major Cities, Turkish Consul General, Banks, Weapons, Behead Captives

[From article]
The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Isis) has become the richest terror group ever after looting 500 billion Iraqi dinars - the equivalent of $429m (£256m) - from Mosul's central bank, according to the regional governor.
Nineveh governor Atheel al-Nujaifi confirmed Kurdish televison reports that Isis militants had stolen millions from numerous banks across Mosul. A large quantity of gold bullion is also believed to have been stolen.
[. . .]
The militants freed up to 1,000 inmates from Mosul's central prison, according to senior police officials. They are also in control of Mosul airport and local television stations.
[. . .]
They also seized considerable amounts of US-supplied military hardware. Photos have already emerged of Isis parading captured Humvees in neighbouring Syria where they are also waging war against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mosul-seized-jihadis-loot-429m-citys-central-bank-make-isis-worlds-richest-terror-force-1452190

Mosul Seized: Jihadis Loot $429m from City's Central Bank to Make Isis World's Richest Terror Force

By Jack Moore
June 11, 2014 11:12 BST

* * *

[From article]
Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has been speaking about the kidnap of 80 Turks in Iraq.
Right now we're engaged in calm crisis management, considering our citizens' security.
This should not be misunderstood. Any harm to our citizens and staff would be met with the harshest retaliation.
He spoke in New York but has cancelled meetings at the UN to return to Turkey.
[. . .]
Officials said earlier that 15 security personnel in Kirkuk province were executed by ISIS forces.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10892299/Iraq-crisis-al-Qaeda-forces-seize-Mosul-and-Tikrit-live.html

Iraq crisis: al-Qaeda forces seize Mosul and Tikrit - live
US and UK speak of deep concern as al-Qaeda take swathes of northern Iraq, sparking a mass exodus of civilians - follow latest developments
By Raf Sanchez, Harriet Alexander and Barney Henderson
7:46PM BST 11 Jun 2014

Cities Arming Against Armegeddon

[From article]
But as President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America’s “long season of war,” the former tools of combat — M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more — are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice.
During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html?_r=0

War Gear Flows to Police Departments
By MATT APUZZO

JUNE 8, 2014

Organic Farming In Dense Urban Areas

[From article]
Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut has designed a futuristic self-sustaining, twin-towered high- rise complex that would bring organic farming right to the heart of the New York City.
The 132-floor urban farm has been aptly named “Dragonfly” for its unique glass-and-steel wings that stretch into the sky, according to AFP. Designed to be built on Roosevelt Island --a narrow strip of land in New York City's East River-- the complex would provide urban farming space with enough room to raise cattle and poultry and 28 different types of crops.

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/01/27/farming-in-sky-futuristic-highrise-farms-may-be-coming-to-your-city/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

The Dragonfly: A high rise farm of the future
Published January 27, 2014

FoxNews.com

Foreign Countries Warn About Dangerous U.S. Cities

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/14/16-american-cities-foreign-governments-warn-their-citizens-about//?print=1

16 American cities foreign governments warn their citizens about
By Reid Wilson
Updated: November 14, 2013 at 4:34 pm

World Upside Down

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williamns080613.php3#.UgYWL900jDo

Jewish World Review
August 7, 2013/ 1 Elul, 5773
Would They Be Proud?
By Walter Williams

Top Ten US Poverty Cities




City, State, % of People Below the Poverty Level

1. Detroit, MI 32.5%

2. Buffalo, NY 29.9%

3. Cincinnati, OH 27.8%

4. Cleveland, OH 27.0%

5. Miami, FL 26.9%

6. St. Louis, MO 26.8%

7. El Paso, TX 26.4%

8. Milwaukee, WI 26.2%

9. Philadelphia, PA 25.1%

10. Newark, NJ 24.2%


U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, August 2007

What do the top ten cities (over 250,000) with the highest poverty rate all have in common?

Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961;

Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn't elected one since 1954;

Cincinnati, OH (3rd) [. . .] since 1984;

Cleveland, OH (4th) [...] since 1989;

Miami, FL (5th) has never had a Republican mayor;

St. Louis, MO (6th) [....] since 1949;

El Paso, TX (7th) has never had a Republican mayor;

Milwaukee, WI (8th) [...] since 1908;

Philadelphia, PA (9th) [...] since 1952;

Newark, NJ (10th) [...] since 1907.

Einstein once said, 'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over
and over again and expecting different results.

It is the poor who habitually elect Democrats---yet they are still POOR

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the age payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by
doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."

Abraham Lincoln .................. and Mr. Obama, you are no Abe Lincoln

Cities Are the Answer

Cities Are the Answer

The Cambridge City Manager sees cities as collections of energy users.
(Douglas Foy and Robert Healy, "Cities are the answer," Boston Globe, April 4,
2007) It explains his destructive policies toward trees and wildlife. He favors
technology over nature. He minimized green public open spaces.
This essay indicates the Manager's anti-human policies. He digitizes people
dehumanizing them into a collective. He runs Cambridge like a for profit
business.
Vulnerable persons suffer under Healy, who shows little concern for their
quiet desperate struggle to enjoy life. The focus here is on an academic elite
exercise studying city life. All Robert Moses without any Jane Jacobs.

Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM

Cities are the answer
By Douglas Foy and Robert Healy
Boston Globe
April 4, 2007

MANY OF the world's most difficult environmental challenges can be addressed and
solved by cities. This may come as a surprise to those who think of
environmental issues largely in the context of wild places and open spaces.
Cities, often congested, dense, and enormous consumers of resources, would not
be the place one might first turn for environmental solutions. But in fact,
cities are inherently
the "greenest" of all places. They are much more efficient in their use of
energy, water, and land than suburbs. They provide transportation services in a
remarkably equitable and democratic fashion. They may be the best of all places
for seniors to grow old. Development in cities helps to save natural areas and
open space by relieving growth pressures on the countryside. And cities will,
without question,
be the pivotal players in fashioning solutions to the growing problem of climate
change.

New York City, for example, turns out to be the most energy efficient place in
America. Yes, it houses 8.2 million citizens, and uses an enormous amount of
energy to do so. Its electrical load, more than 12,000 megawatts, is as large as
all of Massachusetts. Yet because the buildings are dense and thus more
efficiently heated and cooled, and because 85 percent of all trips in Manhattan
are on foot, bike, or transit, New York City uses dramatically less energy to
serve each of its citizens than does a state like Massachusetts. Indeed, it uses
less energy, on a per capita basis, than any other state in America. When one
considers that another 750,000 commuters also enter New York every day to work,
and use large amounts of energy in their daily business there but don't even
count in the per capita energy calculation, the city's efficiency performance is
even more remarkable.

Carbon dioxide, the dominant greenhouse gas and the primary cause of global
climate change, comes largely from the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal,
oil, gasoline, and natural gas. Nearly half of all the energy those fuels
produce is
used in buildings -- heating, cooling, and lighting our homes, factories, and
offices. Another third of all the energy is used for transportation, primarily
fueling automobiles, trucks, and transit fleets.
In order to address the challenge of climate change, it is imperative that we
make both buildings and transportation vastly more energy efficient. And cities
are the place to start. In a way, cities are the Saudi Arabia of energy
efficiency, vast mines of potential energy savings that dwarf most of the supply
options our country possesses.

It is with that efficiency goal in mind that the city of Cambridge and the
Kendall Foundation have developed for Cambridge the most aggressive energy
efficiency program ever deployed in a city in the United States. The outlines of
the program were announced on March 29. It will involve the investment of nearly
$100 million, largely raised from private capital sources, in buildings of all
types throughout the city. We will invest in energy efficiency measures in
homes, condos,
apartments, offices, hotels, institutions, hospitals, factories, and schools. We
will measure and verify the savings, and document the carbon dioxide reductions
and other environmental gains. And all of this will be done with the energy
savings paying for the cost of the program, without the need for any government
subsidies.

By mining Cambridge's efficiency opportunities, the city will become more
competitive, save money for its citizens and its businesses, add hundreds of
quality jobs, help build an efficiency industry that can be the pride of
Massachusetts, produce a model that can be replicated in cities all over the
state and the nation, and add its weight to a solution for global climate
change.

The old paradigm of the pollution-filled city as a blight on the landscape, and
the leafy-green suburbs with pristine lawns as the ideal, is outdated and does
not lead us to a future of energy independence, clean air, and a stable climate.
Cities are the best hope to realize our need for a bright, sustainable, and
promising future.

Douglas Foy, former secretary of the Office of Commonwealth Development, is
president of DIF Enterprises. Robert Healy is city manager of Cambridge.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/04/04/
cities_are_the_answer/