Update: Another article from Thomas Lifson: As civil order crumbles in Chicago, criminal fashions change.
“Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin’ town…” goes the lyric. What does “toddlin” mean? Here’s as good a guess as you’re going to find.
Here’s a better word: tottering.
tot·ter
ˈtädər/Submit
verb
gerund or present participle: tottering
move in a feeble or unsteady way.
synonyms: teeter, dodder, walk unsteadily, stagger, wobble, stumble, shuffle, shamble, toddle;
synonyms: shake, sway, tremble, quiver, teeter, shudder, rock, quake; judder
be insecure or about to fail.
Yesterday, American Thinker’s Thomas Lifson posted two articles about the city of my birth — here are the titles and openings:
How Chicago is morphing into Detroit in one easy lesson
My heart is breaking for Chicago, and for all Americans, as one of our greatest cities crumbles before our (and the world’s) eyes. I don’t see any way out of the vicious circle of political corruption, irrevocable pensions obligations overwhelming tax revenue, vanishing public services, and a decline in civil order leading toward a third world level of crime.
As a result, the city consumes itself, strangling business and entrepreneurship, and killing off precious assets. Now, comes a story that captures it all in one heart-rending example. Sam Cholke of DNAChicago writes:
BRONZEVILLE — Chicago’s top-rated bed and breakfast is selling its historic mansion home and leaving Bronzeville because it’s too hard to persuade people to stay in the neighborhood.
Owner Mell Monroe is closing Welcome Inn Manor, 4563 S. Michigan Ave., Trip Advisor’s top-rated bed and breakfast in Chicago, and putting the historic mansion up for sale for $794,000.
“I’m not happy about the situation, but I have to do what I have to do,” Monroe said.
Read more: American Thinker
* * * * *
Chicago’s ‘Potemkin village’ efforts to change
If you care about the future of America, pay attention to what is happening in Chicago. Civil order, the confidence that one can go about daily life without human predators attacking at the first opportunity, is slipping away, as police find themselves unable to interdict gang activities, and in effect let them shoot each other, along with the occasional innocent bystander, often a young child. The anarchy zone is spreading out of the gang strongholds and into neighborhoods formerly regarded as safe.
Then there is the fiscal black hole represented by pension obligations that have grown to the point where they leave little tax revenue for actual services by actual city employees who have not yet retired. Taxes have skyrocketed, and will only go up – multiplying – if those obligations are to be honored.
These factors are well known to our readership, if not a top-of-mind concern of mainstream media. They are forcing businesses and residents out of Chicago, as the city shrinks in population and economic activity.
People with a large financial and personal stake in the city want things to change. But, it would seem that they are unwilling to confront the political dimensions.
Read more: American Thinker
Image credit: www.truthinaccounting.org.
