Urban Blight

When it feels like the world is on your shoulders
And all of the madness has got you going crazy
It's time to get out, step out onto the street
Where all of the action is right there at your feet
--DeBarge

Good thoughts on what could be done right now to reduce urban blight and poverty.

1) Remove all minimum wage laws and licensing requirements and other forms of compulsory unemployment from blighted areas. This would create immediate competitive advantage for workers in blighted areas.

2) Eliminate taxes. Remove sales, property and other taxes from blighted areas. Moreover, allow any person under the poverty line to opt out of Social Security to further reduce the tax burden on them and prospective employers.

3) Eliminate mandatory education. Allow urban students to opt out of their last three years of high school if they work at least 32 hrs per week. Allow students in grades 7-9 to opt out of afternoon classes if they pass a basic competency test and maintain a part time job.

4) Remove gun restrictions from urban areas to allow citizens living in urban areas to carry guns and defend themselves.

5) Legalize marijuana. I would expand this to ending the war on drugs. Legalizing drugs removes a lucrative violent alternative to inner city youth seeking to build wealth.

6) Sell off city property. By privatizing land and facilities, people who own it determine how to make their property productive.

7) Phase out welfare. Welfare remains a primary cause of family and social disintegration. It creates perverse incentives and dependency that hollow out poor neighborhoods.

Blight is an artifact of the State. It can be reversed by increasing economic liberty.