What do most of the 30 Brokest Cities in America have in Common?

Remember that town in Alabama that couldn't pay retired city employees their pensions anymore? We do. It was Prichard, Alabama, a once thriving white community that was overwhelmed by the Black Undertow.

A sign commemorating the victory of BRA in one of the worst cities in America, Macon, GA

As Black people became the majority of the town's population, businesses shuttered and the tax base dried up; thus, no new revenue to pay the pension of retired white city employees who worked their entire lives to help build a city, only to see the Black Undertow Effect undermine it all.

The phenomenon of the Black Undertow Effect is readily observable in the ruins of Detroit and Birmingham, two formerly world-class cities now both teetering on the verge of complete financial ruin. Odd that the suburbs of both dying metropolises (Detroit's suburbs are 82 percent white, compared to the core of the city being only 8 percent white) are some of the most desirable in all the country.

CNBC did a hilarious story on 20 Cities You Don't Want to Live in... Yet, which included both Detroit and Birmingham. Presumably when the Black Undertow is forcibly moved into the white suburbs via Section 8 Housing and removed from prime real estate in the core of these cities, then and only then will you want to live in these cities. 

All across the country, Black people - who have been a significant population of failing major cities - are moving to the white suburbs. White people are moving into the cities.

The dream of owning your own home - and the relaxed lending standards introduced to help facilitate this for primarily non-white buyers - has ravaged formerly prosperous counties, especially in the Metro Atlanta area. Clayton County, once one of the top places to live in Atlanta -  almost all of the founder of Chick-fil-A's entire family still lives there - is now the prime example of what happens when the Black Undertow takes over.

Though Atlanta has the highest income inequality in the nation (yes, this is largely a Black-white issue), it does not rank as one of America's 30 Top Brokest Cities. According to The Daily Beast,  four other Georgia cities rank in that dubious list:

To find the most struggling cities in the country, we used three data points  weighted equally: the most recently available unemployment rate (August 2011), median household income, and average debt. Data is from a recent report by Experian and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average credit score for each city is included in the gallery, though not taken into account to determine the final ranking. If this data is any indication, the cities struggling the most right now—the ones that may take the longest to recover—are clustered in the South and along the Pacific Coast.

And only here at SBPDL, will you learn that those four cities (and the majority of the 30 Brokest Cities) are overwhelmed in the Black Undertow, with many boasting some of the largest percentages of overall Black population in the nation.

Savannah, Macon, Augusta, and, the No. 1 brokest city in America, Columbus, Georgia comprise four spots on that illustrious list. And with Georgia adding the most Black people to its overall population then any other state over the past 10 years, how long until Atlanta nudges onto that list?:

The state added 1.5 million people over the past decade for a total of 9,687,653, according to new Census data. Georgia's black population growth — 579,335 — was greater than either the Hispanic (418,462) or white (285,259) population growth, says William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution. "Georgia is just a major magnet for African Americans, both high-skilled and low-skilled," he says. "For cultural reasons and for economic reasons, the black migration to the state is significant."

Let's see: Savannah is 55 percent Black; Augusta 54 percent Black; Macon 62 percent Black; and Columbus is 44 percent Black. Gosh, what do each of these have in common?

What about the other 26 brokest cities in America? It reads like a who's who of the cities with the greatest percentage of Black people in America:

Beaumont is 45 percent Black; Greenville, NC is 32 percent Black; Mobile is 50 percent Black; Tampa is 26 percent Black; Toledo is 24 percent Black; Waco is 23 percent Black; Greensboro is 40 percent Black;  Wilmington is 26 percent Black; Detroit is 83 percent Black; Montgomery is 56 percent Black;Tyler is 25 percent Black; Charleston is 26 percent Black; Birmingham is 73 percent Black; Fort Myers is 34 percent Black; Flint is 57 percent Black; Jacksonville is 30 percent Black; Miami is 19 percent Black; and Orlando is 28 percent Black. 

These cities also have extreme levels of segregation, with predominately Black areas completely distressed and reliant on federal funds (welfare, EBT/SNAP, free lunches at school, Section 8/Public Housing) to subsist. Just like Silicon Valley, there aren't many Black entrepreneurs in these cities either. Businesses can't stay open in the majority Black portions of these cities, because your  Black person has no purchasing power.

Know this: Savannah, Miami, Augusta, Orlando and the other cities listed have very nice areas where people can live, work, and play. But they also have incredibly scary areas, with one common denominator that you'll soon learn the answer.

Notice that a good portion of the brokest cities are in the south, where 54 percent of Black people in America reside; other cities include those dying Rust Belt cities (Detroit, Flint, Toledo) where Black people went to escape the "discrimination" of the the Jim Crow South, only to leave these towns in horrible condition, with low property values, crumbling infrastructure, high crime rates and low Trick-or-Treating rates.

That is the lasting Black footprint on America (the same goes for Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton, New Orleans, Jackson, Memphis, Philadelphia, Hartford, Harrisburg, Kansas City, Newark, Camden, etc.) and one that must be addressed moving forward.

Consult this list of the whitest big cities (Portland, Seattle Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Boston, etc.) and realize that the old "Republican vs. Democrat" debate has no merit in what makes a great city. It isn't liberal politics; it isn't conservative politics. It has everything to do with the type of community - the kind Robert Putnam discussed - that can be created.

Those brokest cities? No social trust, because white families are constantly having to move from one suburb to the next to avoid the encroaching Black Undertow. And as we have learned, the Blacker the city, the lower the social trust and the greater the inability for complete community breakdown.

Just look at Detroit and Birmingham.

And such is life in the dying days of Black-Run America (BRA), when two Black men are seriously being considered to represent the Republican and Democrat parties in a bid for the POTUS in 2012.

So what do most of the 30 Brokest Cities in America have in common? If your answer was the Black Undertow makes owning and operating a business (plus remains a huge burden on tax revenue, with a small percentage collected from Black people and a much greater percentage going to policing and protecting citizens from them), then you are today's winner.

Moving forward, remember this: anytime you see a list that purports to delineate the worst cities in America for (crime, property value, standard of living, schools, raising a family, living, staying in shape) instinctively know it will be a run-down of those places hit hardest by the Black Undertow.

The worst cities in America might be dominated by Democrats (because Black people vote that way), but some of the best cities in America are as well. What's the difference?