The once great Chicago, the old second city (to New York), rich with culture, pride, and excellence is crippled in a shadow of its old glory. As humans, we love our teams, not just sports but our communities, our heritage, and our legacy. These roots run deep in Chicago, but like most large cities in America, there is a cancer that spreads under the guise of empathy. The cancer of politics, the cancer of corruption, the cancer of government. Chicago is one of the worst offenders when it comes to failed policies. We witness increasing crime rates, poverty, and a downward spiral that seems to be addressed only by and further deepening of the cancer. The outlook is bleak, but it doesn't have to be. There are a handful of steps that in the course of one generation would rebirth Chicago from the shambled shell that currently exists to a pinnacle for all of America to adore and aspire to.
First we need to outline the problems or in some cases the symptoms we see in Chicago. Chicago is largely divided into areas nobody should want to go and areas that are less affected due to the influx of financial investment. The areas in disrepair are rampant with gangs, drugs, prostitution, poor education, theft. Half of these problems feed into each other while simultaneously keeping police and new investment from feeling safe to embark on the steps to solve the issue.
1. Military arrests or kills the leaders of the gang world.
The first step is to decapitate the head of the snake. Chicago PD knows who the heads are, they are often untouchable, they are clean, but they also the source behind countless murders (direct and indirect) stealing the innocence of children to be soldiers in an endless war. War exists in our homeland whether we like it or not, and it takes a military response to eradicate the leaders of these factions. This should only need to happen once because the following steps will cripple the existing tools to allow any such factions to prosper ever again.
2. Legalize all drugs to flood the market.
America has tried and lost the war on drugs. Just like the war on prohibition, all it does is build wealth for crime. Chicago frequents the top of city murder lists, but these numbers pale in comparison to the deaths from overdose. While legalization might appear to lead to more usage, it would also lead to safer usage and curve the fentanyl epidemic that is destroying America from the inside out. There are other ways to curve the use of drugs, and funding gang violence has been proven to be the wrong approach.
3. Incentivize mental health clinics to move into or remain in the damaged communities.
As someone who is mostly libertarian, there are not many areas that I can value a government intervention. However, mental health is one area that seems most likely to fall through the cracks and have detrimental impact on society as a whole. These are the individuals that might not have the same access to friends, family, or church to help them build themselves up. These people are the homeless, the dejected, the suicides, and the hopeless. This doesn't have to be their future. Empowering these individuals through the appropriate mental health functions (which coincidentally might include some of the newly legalized drugs) would provide opportunities to both heal and grow Chicago in a way that has for decades been ignored.
All existing and new development for these functions would pay zero taxes for any operations in the areas previously overrun by poverty and gangs. In addition, services would be fully paid for to any individual without insurance. This would be the first step in a series of steps to correct the problem at the source.
4. Incentivize families to remain families.
The biggest blunder that goes unacknowledged by most politicians is the incentives for single mothers. This is the double edged sword of government intervention at it's finest. While assistance for a single mother is a very attractive concept, it creates and environment where the father is removed from the parenting role which has shown to drastically damage the outcomes of children. To break the cycle, we need to bring families back and financially incentivize a family unit. This would require random (specific) drug tests as well as employment verification. Without these stipulations the intended incentives would only pay for further degeneracy through unemployment and drug use. We need to build a future to show those hurt the most what temperance can do to improve your life.
5 Incentivize education from the household first.
Education is not fixed at the schools. This has been shown time and time again that financial investment in school is not correlated with improvement. Where it starts is changing the culture of the home. Therefore, the incentive must lie with the parents. If the child has a certain attendance and has a certain grade average, the household gets further financial incentive. This is to encourage involvement in the home and build a system that rewards hard work and accountability.
That's it! There would need to be scaling back generation after generation, but when you allow economic incentives directly related to a more positive culture, the market can heal faster than any government. These steps will never be taken, probably not a single one. Instead, Chicago will pay to bring more homeless in from countries south of the border, and will instill policies like government grocery stores to further create a two tiered system of quality vs poverty. Chicago will fall further into ruin. The wake up call is now, but it falls on deaf ears.
