Milwaukee's impoverished inner city is a regional problem, says Mayor Tom Barrett.Well, bravo for them.
Of course it's a regional problem. How could it not be? No region can be strong with a troubled city at its heart.
And that's what U.S. census figures last week revealed Milwaukee to be. Despite its many charms and strengths, our city is a troubled one, with nearly a third of our neighbors officially considered poor, including four in 10 children under the age of 18.
The problem is broader than the central city. Median income in Wisconsin has crashed since 2000, falling 9% from $56,269 to $51,318 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
This is no longer news, of course, which makes the new figures all the more troubling.
It's one thing to see the stark statistics on the impoverished in the black-and-white pages of a newspaper. It's quite another thing to see the human embodiment of those statistics in people who more often die younger, are more often victims of crime, are more often unhealthy, are more often addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Spend some time in the soup kitchens or the shelters or on the streets, and you'll see the sorrow. As columnist James E. Causey noted last Sunday, we can blame those who are struggling — or we can ensure they have opportunities to rise.
"You have politicians who say that it's a Milwaukee problem," Barrett said. "The problem is we have focused and concentrated the vast majority of low-income people in the city of Milwaukee and then we say it's a Milwaukee problem."
Barrett is right to call for a regional approach to Milwaukee's biggest problems, nearly all of which are rooted in a chronic poverty that most people cannot imagine.
Now maybe they might want to explain to their readers why they have been promoting the very things that add to the poverty problem of which they complain. They have come out for Act 10, which has taken hundreds of millions of dollars out of the economy. They balk at people being paid living wages. They have supported politicians like Scott Walker and Chris Abele who openly push agendas of austerity which do nothing but deepen the poverty problem.
When they stop trying to ram their corporate agenda down our collective throats, they might - just might - be taken seriously and they might actually see their circulation go up. But I would advise that no one hold their breath for that to happen.
My guess is they've come to the realization because they've been shamed into it. Milwaukee was covered by the BBC in this video. t's shocking and shudderingly sad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af_MoxTjaT4
ReplyDeleteI don't think Journal Communications has much gas left in the tank and I assume that if they'd ever lose the Packers, they're finished completely. Most media properties are reinventing themselves around audience needs and preferences, yet they instead decided to pacify who they consider to be prominent newsmakers. The marketplace will make them pay - especially after 2014 when we can assume they'll go all in for one side. Anyone with a half decent brand is really questioning why they should pair themselves with such a tired and out of touch company.
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, why are the socialistic Packers allowing their play-by- play guy to be on Sykes's hate radio show. Kinda puts the "independence" of the sports programming on WGOP in a quandary.
DeleteSame goes for WIVA in Madison. Anti-Badger screecher Icki McKenna would see her ratings go through the floor if she wasn't on the station that had UW games. It's time for sports teams to use their power to get these scummy corporate stations in line. Before a bad Walker economy tanks both of them