With cities growing ever safer, more sanitized, more well behaved by the day, the financial hurdles of being able to afford these swelling citadels for the rich spiral ever upwards. American crime, or at least the violent type you hear about on the McNews, has been declining for decades since leaded gasoline was banned. In its place is a new lawlessness: land theft, rent gouging, corporate mortgage fraud, foreclosures, water shutoffs, and criminal bankers always getting away with it, every fucking time.
What makes the middle class turn a blind eye to this kind of white collar urban crime? It benefits them, of course.
If you’re the type with a secure career who wants to raise a family, you aim for the up-and-coming respectable part of town. Never mind it used to be a heroin den of strippers and steel workers – they’re long gone. So are the artists, the graffiti, the low wage baristas, the food carts. Now glass and concrete condos reflect affluence to all still around to give a shit.