I don't profess to have a PhD or have been a member of some s**thole foundation....but I've traveled enough to note general circumstances. This is how to recognize your community, city or county has fallen, and can't get up:
1. A large segment of the local population think that the overall leadership is corrupted. Maybe not fifty-percent or more....but to the idea that one out of every three people think the authority in charge can't make ethical decisions anymore.
2. To accomplish s**thouse status, you really need a news media which refuses to address the problems. This usually means that murders are on page six...that no one ever discusses or writes a story about white-flight where folks leave a city or region....or that some corrupted city or state official was arrested on bribery charges.
3. Jobs tend to disappear. Companies start to add up the cost on security, or the problems in recruiting employees, or the decaying neighborhood around their headquarters or production center. Unemployment jumps above ten-percent, and stays above ten-percent.
4. Drug usage escales. People are disconnected from society and hope for the future. They need something to tranquilize them, and a couple hours of some decent high will help alleviate the frustration of living in a s**thole.
5. Robbery increases. It might be nickle-and-dime situations....some guy breaking into your garage. Some kid stealing your co-worker's car at the gas station. Maybe even some dynamic duo breaking into your business one night and just spray-painting the whole interior with some special theme-message.
6. Cops don't care. Rather than work on crime....they focus on public events, traffic tickets, and speeders. They know that the prosecution folks won't do much of anything, and the judges would prefer not to handle public cases.
7. Murders ramp up. Maybe your 150,000 residence city went through two decades with just a dozen murders a year, and that was the norm. Then something 'clicks', and you wake up to see the 20th murder by August, and the mayor talking about more cops.
8. You start to notice either in city parks or along the streets themselves....more folks just hanging out, and drinking from 10 AM on. It's not just twenty-odd folks anymore....but a hundred or two-hundred hanging out and sipping booze all day long.
9. You start to notice more graffiti on public streets.
10. People start talking about massive renovation to upgrade away from s**thole status, but then the money cost comes up and you realize that the tax base is no longer existing to fix the problems and you are simply climbing deeper into debt.
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