The exodus of affluent tax-payers from Democrat-run cities (e.g. Chicago) is a trend worth monitoring in other blue cities. Ten years ago, a baby-boom vanguard fled tax-and-spend cities, seeking lower taxes and fewer hassles. Now, a millennial vanguard follows because of COVID shut-downs and lawlessness. Because labor is portable and knowledge is digital, it is likely new ghost cities will pop up wherever identity politics undermines the American Dream. After all, migration is as old as Noah’s ark.
A bifurcated media clouds a developing economic crisis. On one day, the New York Times chronicled law and order one way (“in Portland’s so-called war zone, it’s the troop’s who provide the menace”) and the Wall Street Journal another (“two groups of police beaten bloody on the Brooklyn Bridge”). Yet, I observe young go-getters, who create wealth and pay taxes, expressing more concern for their employment than for what offends Antifa and Black Bloc.
Mayoral orders to close businesses and schools, along with city councils that neutered police forces, have knocked big cities from their economic perches. Young urban workers (many now working from a parent’s home) and entrepreneurs (many with dreams down-sized indefinitely) are not too old to re-locate elsewhere. Yelp estimates half the shuttered shops and eateries won’t re-open – and customers in riot-torn cities now tell me they cannot get property and casualty insurance.
The Oregonian reports hotel occupancy in central Portland is down 73%, public-transport into downtown is off 75% and “half the businesses” in the main shopping district “have opted not to reopen.” New York and other cities are suffering the same fate. Spike Wilner describes Greenwich Village at night: “If you leave your apartment after 9:00 p.m. it’s a complete ghost town inhabited by wraiths and zombies, dangerous people” (source: WSJ).
Urban elites forget cities are just mileposts – not destinations – on the timeline of man’s economic evolution. Hunter-gatherers exchanged self-regulated independence in forests for other-regulated dependence in cities, only because humans value support (stores) and predictability (steady income). However, closures and anarchy spur go-getters to find happy hunting away from dysfunctional cities. At least the primitives didn’t burn their forest homes after an unjust death: sorry about Running Deer but I need to feed my family.
It’s just common sense that millennials re-think the benefit of remaining in Chicago, New York and Portland. Once “liberal” mayors proclaim no personal property is worth a (criminal) life, Antifa and Black Bloc burn and loot at will, and fire-and-police responders cannot do their jobs, only the insane stick around. The go-getters have had enough of Bill De Blasio, Lori Lightfoot and Ted Wheeler to know know what comes next.
Is there no hope for these cities? Hard to say for sure, but the guess here is New York is in trouble. Wealthy boomers and productive millennials leave, killing tax revenues and economic dynamism. Welfare recipients and low-skill millennials remain, requiring more government assistance. Absent tax revenue, progressive leaders cut the number of active cops, firemen and teachers. A death spiral ensues and a ghost city is born.