The Ruins of Detroit - Click Pic for Slideshow
Forbes magazine has published a list of the 10 fastest dying American cities. These ten cities:
… face fleeing populations, painful waves of unemployment and barely growing economies. By our measure, they’ve struggled the worst of any areas in the nation in the 21st century. And they face even bleaker futures.
What Forbes fails to mention is the political inclination of these cities. Do a little research and you find the predictable – all but one is run by Democrats.
Here’s the list:
Canton, Ohio
Democrat
Major William J. Healey
Youngstown, Ohio
Ran as an ‘Independent’ but self described “lifelong Democrat“
Jay Williams
Flint, Michigan (America’s 10th most liberal city)
Democrat
Donald J. Williamson
Scranton, Pa
Democrat
Christopher A. Doherty
Dayton, Ohio
Democrat
Rhine Lana McLin
Cleveland, Ohio
Democrat
Frank George Jackson
Springfield Mass.
Democrat
Domenic J Sarno
Buffalo, NY
Democrat
Byron Brown
Detroit, Michigan
Democrat
Kwame Malik Kilpatrick
Charleston, W.VA
Republican
Danny Jones
Any conclusions to draw from that?
Related: Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson says he, Barack Obama share vision for cities.
Filed under: Politics , Cities, Democrats, Obama, Politics, Republicans, USA
Yeah, limit the sample, and you can produce any result you want. What are the mayors of the 10 least dying cities? 20?
Why do people always do that? You make a point, and then they ignore the point and say – ‘but you didn’t consider these other facts’ which aren’t actually covered in anything we’re talking about …
Argument: Peanut butter is sticky.
Reply: Yeah sure, you just talk about peanut butter, but what about mayonnaise! You’re totally misrepresenting spreadable edibles.
You’re not making any point at all though! For all we know the most prosperous 10 cities are also run by Democrats. It could simply be that both the best, and the worst mayors are Democrats. It could also be that you’re ignoring the overriding factor about those cities, and that’s that they exist mostly in the rust belt, and it wouldn’t matter who was mayor, because their economies are based on old, dirty technologies and they need an economic revolution to save them.
Another interesting tidbit would be to see who the mayors were 20 and 10 years ago, to see who set up those cities for the mess they are in now.
I see what you’re saying SB, but these points you’re making are ‘academic’ they’re not relevant to the article being discussed. Though if you must look into it, you’ll see that these cities have had Democrat administrations stretching back until the 20’s. Then again, laws are different in every state and cities are more or less powerful in each state and frankly, I’m not going to calculate the ‘r’ squared for each fact introduced into a blog post.
What matters for this post is that we have an article that introduces a fact – these are the 10 most rapidly declining cities in the USA. I introduce another fact 9/10 of these are run by Democrats. Now from what I know of politics – which is surprisingly a lot – you don’t win debates by introducing facts not in evidence (i.e. changing the subject). That makes you look weak, and like you have something to hide. You win debates by attacking – and attacking your opponent at their strongest point.
My strongest point [which is actually a very weak point] is a correlation. You don’t win a debate that relies on correlation by introducing more correlation – it’s just as weak as the main argument and may inadvertently bolster your opponents logical fallacy. You win the fight, by attacking the axiom on which my argument is based (that correlation = causation) and then conducting a reductio ad absurdum which makes me look like an ass.
Have you never done this before?
Interesting, but Saskboy actually has the better point here, Robert. In your post, from what I could see, you didn’t really make an argument, but simply asked, at the end, if there were “any conclusions to be drawn from [the fact that 9 out of 10 of the fastest declining cities in the US were run by Democrats]“. (Perhaps you meant to imply that the Democratic administrations caused the decline (”correlation = causation”], but you didn’t say that.) The problem here, though, is that there may not even be a real correlation, which is where additional facts, rather than changing the subject, might help. E.g., if it turned out that 9 out of 10 American cities in general were run by Democrats, then the fact that they also run 9 out of 10 of the fastest decliners wouldn’t mean much; certainly not as much as it would if the correlation between Democrats and cities were largely limited to declining ones. And the only way to know that is with additional facts.
Let’s guess at some: it’s probably safe to assert that there’s a correlation between urban areas in the US particularly and areas in decline; and likely a correlation between American cities and Democratic control. If that’s actually the case, then without even getting into causation, we could say, at the least, that Democratic administrations seem helpless to stem the decline, and it might be time to try a different political approach.
“My strongest point [which is actually a very weak point] is a correlation. You don’t win a debate that relies on correlation by introducing more correlation – it’s just as weak as the main argument and may inadvertently bolster your opponents logical fallacy. You win the fight, by attacking the axiom on which my argument is based (that correlation = causation) and then conducting a reductio ad absurdum which makes me look like an ass.
Have you never done this before?”
Sometimes I just like to have my ‘opponent’ realize that.
I saw the story about America’s 10 Fastest-Dying cities posted to the Baltimore Sun Talk Forums. As soon as I read the story and saw which cities were on the list, and where they were located, I instantly developed a suspicion: That after doing some research I would find that all of the cities listed, with possibly the exception of the Charleston, WV, would have Democrat Mayors.
I was doing the research, but by the time I have made it to the 7th city out of 10, I came across this blog – where someone else had the same suspicion as had I and had already done the research; research that justified my suspicion – imagine that!
To “pay you back” for saving me just a little time, allow me to offer you this tidbit that you may have overlooked: The Mayor of Dayton, OH – Mayor Rhine McLin – is also a Democrat (Super Delegate).
Just thought you’d like to know…
:)
Stop by and check out my blog from time to time!
America: With a Clockwise Twist
http://clockwiseamerica.blogspot.com/
AmericaWAT, did you also realize like I did that yours and Robert’s suspicions, while interesting trivia, really doesn’t say much about the capability of most Democratic mayors in America?
Nope…
It just tells me that in 9 of the fastest dying cities in America the Mayors are Democrats. In doing my research I read a few things that I found to be alarming about most those guys, but that is about it.
You can draw your own conclusions.
I know I have drawn mine…
P.S. That is with a CLOCKWISE twist! That is the most impoetant part! :)
Dammit! “important” :P
[...] is a little unfair, like the summation highlighted by Robert here about Democrat mayors (mostly in the Rust Belt) of the [...]