“Urban Doom Loop”

Parts of America are already in a free fall.  Office buildings that sold for $250 million 15 years ago are selling for $4 million.  Covid lock downs sent people home to work and millions never came back.  Crime and lawlessness come to the impoverished cities while many Leftist city councils continue to defund the police.  People with half a brain and half a dollar end up leaving the city.  This population drain makes things worse and the city finds itself with fewer tax payers, fewer restaurant eaters, fewer people spending money in the city.  That city is now in the “urban doom loop”.  And lots of US cities will be joining St Louis in this loop.  I’m gonna guess the cities run by Leftists will be the first to get there.

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Very few people want to live or work in downtown St. Louis these days, because it has become “a very dangerous place”…

The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday published a story on the “real estate nightmare” and detailed stories of boarded-up properties and occasional raids by police and firefighters searching for squatters and missing people.

“It’s a very dangerous place,” St. Louis Fire Department Chief Dennis Jenkerson told the paper.

As things continue to get worse, more people want to leave.

At this point, just about everyone acknowledges that St. Louis is trapped in an “urban doom loop”…

The cycle is often called the “urban doom loop,” which the Atlantic describes as the cycle of people moving away from city as things get worse, then things getting worse because more people moved away.

Business Insider’s Eliza Relman described the doom loop afflicting Midwestern cities: “Commercial property taxes make up a large chunk of many city budgets, so as office vacancies rise, the decreased revenue could force leaders to curtail municipal services or make cuts to key programs. Declining services and quality of life in turn pushes residents out, leading to a self-reinforcing exodus. Without serious changes, these midsize cities in the middle of the country could be quietly sliding into oblivion.”

Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would still want to be in St. Louis.

Violence is a constant threat, and it has experienced the largest decline in foot traffic of any major U.S. city…

Locals said they are often depressed and scared by the sight of empty shops and restaurants, according to the WSJ. Sidewalks are left barren as fewer people choose to commute into the downtown area, and recently installed signs urge visitors to “park in well-lit areas.”

According to the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, the business district of St. Louis experienced the greatest drop in foot traffic of 66 major U.S. cities between the start of the pandemic in 2020 and the summer of 2023.

Sadly, this is the road that almost all of our major cities are now going down.

New York was once one of the finest cities on the entire planet, but now the streets are littered with open air markets that are selling stolen goods, drugs and sex services…

Roosevelt Avenue near 91st Street is littered daily with migrant vendors hawking goods they ripped off from shopkeepers just steps away, while prostitutes proposition passersby at all hours — and frustrated merchants and residents say they’re helpless to do anything about it.

“It’s relentless,” said Milton Reyes, who manages Mi Farmacia pharmacy on the avenue. “You should see it on Saturdays. It’s so heavy, you can’t even step onto the sidewalk. There are a lot of doctors’ offices right around here and my customers don’t even want to get dropped off.

What a nightmare.

 https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/u-s-cities-fall-into-a-doom-loop-as-the-cre-crisis-absolutely-explodes/#google_vignette