I’ve been visiting Los Angeles for roughly 20 years on a somewhat regular basis. In those years I have sensed a dramatic shift in the city. In the early 2000s Los Angeles felt like a city that was older and slightly dirty… but not necessarily unsafe. Don’t get me wrong, there were certainly areas of the city that were unsafe, such as Compton and East LA, but that sense of danger did not pervade the rest of the city.
As the years have passed, this feeling has subsided. Now there is a sense of danger in areas of the city that previously had felt safe. Being in the city feels dangerous. Day or night this feeling pervades and has crept from the seedier parts of the city to the nicest areas.
One is left in a consistent state of hyper-awareness of their environment while in the city. Where once you could sit at an outside cafe in Santa Monica having a late afternoon cappuccino, now such an occasion is a head-on-a-swivel occasion. Will you be accosted by a person high on drugs? Potentially violent?
Can you get out of your car on the sidewalk side without someone walking up and randomly attacking you? Maybe you should get out of the car and cross the street immediately just to avoid a possible confrontation with the unseemly character walking towards your car.
These were the types of situations that I faced on my last visit to Los Angeles in November of 2021. In areas which were previously peaceful and seemingly safe. And this wasn't late at night, this happened in broad daylight.
But is this decline in our nation's cities just my imagination? Are these experiences, which are similar to other cities I have visited, an actuality or are they imagined to fit a presupposed image of Urban America in a rapid state of decline?
Technology has, I would argue unwittingly, given us a bit of looking glass to view this decline through. Google Maps Street View.
So let us take a quick tour of Urban Decay across the USA before we discuss the sources of said decay. First stop - the aforementioned Los Angeles, California.
Los Angeles
Our first image is under an underpass in Culver City. I’ve driven through this intersection and the camp is staggering. When I passed through this specific intersection in November 2021 someone had constructed what appeared to be a two story tent. I suspect it wasn’t to code.
Veterans have this homeless encampment across the street from the Veterans Administration. What you can barely see in this image is the park behind this street. It is filled with tents as well.
San Francisco
This is the Tenderloin District in San Francisco, a city that for a long time has been considered one of the most beautiful cities in the United States, if not the most. While at one point in my life I would have desired to visit, I think that time has passed. Extremely lax drug laws and woke prosecutorial policies have deteriorated this once great city.
Portland
The Rose City has seen better days and has been gripped by a strain of uber-wokeness in recent years. How it pulls itself from this morass remains to be seen.
Seattle
Seattle is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to in the US. The city along the Puget Sound with the Cascade Mountains is, when clean and safe, stunningly beautiful. Sadly, it has been stricken by the same uber-wokeness as Portland and was the scene of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in the “Summer of Love” of 2020. Of course I say Summer of Love facetiously, but the city’s mayor at the time said it with all earnestness.
Austin
They’re keeping Austin weird alright. The quirky capitol of Texas and left-wing oasis in a sea of conservatives has had significant homeless issues in recent years.
Washington D.C.
Our nation’s capitol is also battling homeless encampments. When I visited as a child there were homeless in the city, but the prevalence has appeared to skyrocket in recent years.
Boston
And a quick final stop in Boston, Massachusetts. While this encampment is more organized than those in other areas, this was not always the scene of such homelessness.
A couple more examples are on this newly created Twitter page.
Certainly countless examples of this can be found throughout the country (when the example isn’t blurred out in street view… several tent cities were blurred out in Portland and Austin). While homelessness and drug use are not new phenomena in urban environments, they clearly are much more prevalent in recent years.
Why is this?
It’s hard to believe this is not at least tangentially related to the rise of woke ideologies gaining a foothold in our cities. Drug use is not to be stigmatized and in many cases it is decriminalized. Intervention with those having mental health issues is viewed as an incursion into their personal autonomy. Homelessness is, in some cases, a personal choice that should be respected. Petty crimes are to be ignored as prosecution of these crimes falls disproportionately on underprivileged communities.
This ideology has led to the election of mayors, district attorneys, city councils, etc. that propagate policies that inevitably result in the decay that is clearly visible in our cities. Police departments have been defunded and demoralized. Petty crime (with petty being very loosely defined) is now ignored. Illegal substances are not only decriminalized, but in some cases subsidized. Heck the Biden Administration was sending out crack pipes to drug addicts in the name of "racial equity" just a few months ago!
Ironically this decay has led to a gentle shift in the urban political environment. Ultra progressive DA’s such as Chesa Boudin in San Francisco are being voted out of office. George Gascón in LA is facing a potential recall. NYC elected a “law and order” Democrat Mayor in Eric Adams. The populations of these cities realize they have an issue, but they aren’t prepared to go to “the dark side” of conservative candidates to address their concerns.
What we are left with is half-hearted attempts to resolve these issues which end up more of a game of whack-a-mole than actual solutions. In city after city, a quick search of “[city name] homeless encampments” will bring up a number of articles. News articles will appear discussing efforts to remove these encampments alongside ultra-woke columns coming up with every excuse possible why we shouldn't be removing these encampments. The woke do not see these homeless encampments as an issue, they see them as a positive sign of the city’s inclusiveness.
As such, politicians elected by these constituencies are compelled to answer to their desires, else suffer political consequences in future elections. Until a breaking point has been reached by the unwoke constituents in our urban centers such that they elect politicians that aren’t beholden to the far left, we can expect to see this rot continue to occur. The good news is there are liberal voters that will reach a breaking point and cross the aisle to try another method of solving these issues.
In Virginia, a blueish-purple state, Glenn Youngkin was elected governor when enough liberal voters decided they were tired of their children being indoctrinated to far-left ideologies in school. Rudy Giuliana was elected mayor of NYC after crime had gotten overwhelming and his tough on crime approach was largely responsible for the resurgence of Gotham in the nineties.
Conservatives would do well to give urban voters a history lesson. Urban blight is not a necessary evil. We can, and should, have safe cities with policies that tackle the issues of drug abuse and homelessness. Offer a better way forward and the promise of not looking over your shoulder 24/7.
It doesn't have to be this way.