Economic Blight

The virus of poverty has taken over the city.

Rotting buildings. Pipes that don’t work. Rats with their own Tinder service. Socialist zombies. That’s economic blight.

The main causes include: local residents and businesses saying “adios,” the high cost of keeping old buildings from collapsing, and long-term declines in income (like in 1958 when Detroit was the nation’s Silicon Valley and every MBA wanted to work there, but then the city focused all of its resources on the bottom third of society, rather than the top; it embraced unions, it stopped competing, foreign competition came in...and it died).

When Mr. Murphy’s 19th century pub is too expensive to repair, he leaves and moves to a newer, cheaper area, causing the building to look even worse over time. Eventually, a local gang covers it with graffiti: “We said tax the rich-–you did–-they left–-now all this (blight) is ours.”