Cities

Wednesday

Roger Kimball

How to destroy civilization

Yogi Berra was right: it’s déjà vu all over again. Just turn on the evening news. If you are old enough, you might blink twice and wonder whether you are not back in 1968. The looting and mayhem, the promiscuous invocations of universal 'racism' and 'non-negotiable demands.' Haven’t we been there, done that? 'We must recognize that justice is a higher social goal than law and order.' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to some eager CNN reporter? No, that was William Sloane Coffin, Jr., chaplain of Yale University, in 1972. Remember Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers?

civilization

Monday

The Spectator

The haunting beauty of empty cities

COVID-19 has a horrid ability to turn fiction into fact. Deserted modern cities are usually the realm of post-apocalyptic sci-fi movies. Now, many of us live in them. The world's greatest streets are dramatically empty; suspended suddenly in a dream-like quiet. It's eerie and also very beautiful. We usually often don't notice how remarkable our cities are the commotion. We are distracted by the crowds, the commotion and the congestion. Now it is hard for urbanites to notice anything else. The Spectator has looked around the world, and asked various writers in various places to describe where they live in lockdown.

empty cities london

Monday

Chadwick Moore

Trump vs the cities

Update June 2, 2020: There’s something very wrong with our cities, as the devastating riots this week show. Last year, in the the Spectator's Christmas US edition, I wrote about how in a few short years the liberal city rapidly became the progressive city under an organized insurgency of far-left activists embedding themselves in municipal governments. The results have been devastating, as our once beautiful cities marinate in dirt, disease and strife. Now, they are burning. Failed progressive policies have never been more evident than they are today. With the election five months away, Trump now has an opportunity to pitch himself as the leader who will fight against the degradation of the inner cities.

manhattan

Tuesday

Chadwick Moore

Do progressive municipal leaders want their cities to fail?

In 2017, Seattleites nearly elected a slam poet as mayor. The 31-year-old biracial, queer, poetry artist and community organizer named Nikkita Oliver came in a close third to be the city’s top executive. While on the campaign trail at a slam poetry club, Oliver said the best way to push back against the Trump administration and to achieve a ‘real sanctuary city that is about equity,’ voters in Seattle must cast their ballot for her genitalia. ‘When you go into a community that is struggling and you put the money in a woman’s hands it’s more likely to benefit the community as a whole. This is science, y’all,’ she said being interviewed on a dimly-lit stage by a Gargantua of indeterminate sex or ethnicity sporting a bowtie and trucker hat.

seattle cities