Milwaukee's murder rate...
Milwaukee is a strange case.
What I think we may be seeing in part are the first true withdrawl pangs after our famous "W2" welfare reforms went into place, about the same time as the Clinton reforms went in effect in the mid/late 90's.
It's a workfare system, where you have to report for jobs, or training, or you get cut off. There's still AFDC etc. but the main state welfare has been completely overhauled. Wisconsin also has a heavy amount of privitization in it's poverty agencies, and many are rife with corruption. Oftentimes self-annointed leaders from the inner city have headed up these organizations, only to funnel the money to themselves, or improper pet projects. (In one famous case, a woman re-directed poverty funds allocated to her "non-profit" org, to buy thousands of cell phones and have them shipped to Nigeria… WTH? )
It may sound heartless, but even with the inneficiency and corruption, I'd rather see the tax money be scammed away to a few individuals under our current reformed welfare/workfare system than the checks "reach the street" and foster more dependancy like under the old system. It's like a mid level drug dealer snorting all the cocaine for himself. At least the drugs didn't reach the street...
Otherguy Overby, you are absolutely right about LBJ. The effects of welfare on the black community are so devestating, and how it came right on the heels of their successes in the civil rights movment, that one almost has to wonder if it was intentional. Just as you say, black areas of our cities used to be draws for both white and black enjoy music, jazz & blues etc., with a strong professional class. Before the 1960's, black america used to have a lower out of wedlock birth rate, lower divorce rate, and a higher church attendance rate than white America did.
Seeing as it took 40+ years of LBJ's "Great Society" to completely undo the legacy of the civil rights movment, and destroy the urban black community everywhere, it'll probably take just as long for reformed and cut welfare to fix it, creating self-sufficient generations again.
The other two issues with Milwaukee are that it's so segregated, and there is a very small black middle-class. Much moreso than any other compaible city.
The northwest side of town is where almost all these murders take place, and it's not spreading anywhere else. Since the violence isn't spilling over into the other parts of Milwaukee, there's lots of "talk", but the level of widespread outrage to realy do something about the murder rate never realy materializes here. Save for the smaller Hispanic/Asian "secondary core" to the south of Milwaukee's downtown, the city and surrounding burbs are very, very, very, clean and safe as compared to similar or larger cities in the Midwest.
And unlike some larger cities and urban areas like New York, Washington D.C., or Atlanta, that have a more robust middle class that works in the professional or government sectors, Milwaukee's is notably smaller. The black middle class that we do have tends to avoid the suburbs because they're so segregated it makes them uncomfortable. So they either "hide" in pockets of safety in the black inner city and go unnoticed, or they just up and leave for those cities that do have a sustainable black middle class. This widens the discrepancy between black and white Milwaukee, and depresses the community even further.
