>>12925619There’s many issues why they allowed it to happen. Here are a few:
White flight. Most people who actually had any wealth were leaving the cities en masse. With leaving, they also took their taxable incomes with them. What was left were minorities who were poor, and surrounded by rampant drug use, and rocketing crime. The police didn’t crack down on the drug use for example because there was no incentive in New York, unless they could get a cut. The true story of Serpico highlights how ravaged from within the NYPD was during that era.
Corruption was a major issue in the 70s, notably in large cities such as New York.
When large institutions such as the police force and local/state government is compromised, those in power are only after self-interests and don’t care about the blight of their own cities. Basic services fall apart, and any trust the citizen may have in their institutions vanishes. New York in particular was hard hit; they were pretty much bankrupt. Federally, there was no incentive to bailout the city because they (the gov) largely saw the issue being endemic, and any money that was granted for relief would’ve been most likely funnelled away into the hands of the corrupt or criminal. That’s where the famous headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead” comes from.
Going back to services and money, New York again is a prime example of how without the two, things fall apart quickly. The burning of the Bronx is notorious. New York had no money— worse they had a ballooning deficit. Regardless, the FDNY was still responsible for fire management in the 5 boroughs. They tried using technology to figure out what the response times would be to various fires in the city (and due to lack of money in their services) allocated resources where they thought it would work best. They fucked up. Arsonists burned shit down because it was easy money to collect the insurance, and the FDNY quickly got overwhelmed.
The 70s should be a cautionary tale.
