I was heading to a furniture store on MLK Sunday, and as it turns out I took the Washington exit from the I-15 southbound...this brought me to the intersection of D Street and Washington, which has to be one of the most depressing intersections in metropolitan Las Vegas. The corner is a symbol of that whole, blighted area. It has ruined or nonexistent landscaping, run down housing with bars on the windows, trash in the yards...and an aura of hopelessness. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, people were just not there. It got me thinking...

Every large city has these blighted landscapes - places where hope doesn't grow; places the residents just want out of, or if they don't want out it is because they are far gone either on welfare dependency or on the various crime networks which emanate out of such areas. But these places are in my United States of America, and it breaks my heart to see it. We need to end this sort of thing in the United States.

As a conservative, my first step is on the matter of private property. These crumbling houses are usually not owned by the residents - they are owned by absentee landlords who rent out the places. Owners have an obligation - to use their property in a manner that does not harm adjacent property. An owner who persistently allows his property to deteriorate to the point where it adversely affects the property value around his property is being derelict in his duty - derelict property is rightly condemned and transferred to owners who will commit to maintaining it in proper order. So, I would put the owners of these properties on notice that they have to fix them up, or lose them - if they fix them up, fine; if they don't, they'll be sold at auction (no setting property aside for "redevelopment" schemes which always favor those most closely connected to the local government) to owners who will take ownership, and do the right thing.

Once the neighborhoods are looking presentable, then it is a matter of providing tax incentives to businessness to come in and provide that economic vivacity necessary for any successful urban setting. But we must also not neglect the actual people - I've had cause to be in such residences in the past; I've seen the way some of these people live, and it is clear that a very large proportion of them (far more than a majority) simply don't know basic housekeeping. Consigned to such urban deserts, these people lack the education and the spirit to make the best of what they have. A poor house doesn't have to be a disreputable house - and we should set up volunteer programs to show the residents how to clean and maintain their homes.

We have a moral obligation to our fellow citizens to do the best we can by them - this will cost money, but mostly it will require some common sense. No more pie-in-the-sky liberal schemes which allege they'll make everything better if we'll just shower money on various bureaucratic entties...no, this will require us actually getting in there and doing things. Sure, money will be necessary, but what will be mostly necessary is people willing to set themselves aside and put others first. We can do this, if we want.

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Tracked on October 29, 2007 4:00 AM