Failed Urban Jurisdictions

We have the term, 'failed nation state,' to cover countries like Haiti, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, etc.  Nations which lack functioning national institutions or capcity to execute the bare fundamentals such as policing, functioning courts of justice, border security, dissipation of resident commitment to the nation, absence of critical infrastructure, effective public health, etc. 

Here in the US, I wonder whether we ought to be thinking about 'failed urban jurisdictions?'  Detroit and East St. Louis would be poster children for the notion, along with Trenton, Cherry Hill, New Jersey and others.

New Orleans has been on the brink for a couple of decades.

Failed urban jurisdictions as a concept seems to be creeping up the ladder of our formerly respectable cities.  Baltimore probably belongs on the list.  Portland seems to be headed in that direction.  San Francisco, with more time, seems, based on current policies, to be headed onto that list.  

And we can't forget about one of our largest cities which is routinely in the headlines due to failed governance and failed policies.  From Chicago’s pursuit of ‘criminal justice reform’ an utter failure: Windy City homicides top nation for 11th year in a row with crime still rising.  by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Rising crime is the number one crisis facing Chicago today. More specifically, the city’s propensity for murder. Chicago was the nation’s extreme outlier for homicides in 2022, with 697 deaths. More people were murdered here than anywhere else. 

What’s worse, Chicago has out-paced the entire nation in murders for 11 years in a row. It’s become an embedded, chronic wound for the city.

That’s not a surprising result given the failed policies of Chicago’s leadership in recent years, from a dramatic drop in arrests to ever-fewer prosecutions to reduced sentencing. The pursuit of “equity” and “social justice,” instead of actual justice, has only increased the protection of criminals, crushed police morale and increased the violence inflicted on ordinary Chicagoans.

That’s just one of the facts contained in Wirepoints’ latest Special Report: Chicago, New Orleans were the nation’s murder capitals in 2022: A Wirepoints survey of America’s 75 largest cities.

Read the whole thing for the astonishing numbers.