By: Kevin Boyle

Forty-five years ago the great civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph called on the federal government to launch a Marshall Plan for American cities. He asked for a $185 billion in federal spending over ten years' time. With that investment, he argued, the unemployment could be put to work, crumbling neighborhoods rebuilt, schools improved, the lives of the poor transformed.

Of course conditions were better then. The unemployment rate was far lower, city schools weren't as devastated, neighborhoods not as blighted, the gap between rich and poor not as great. So the cost would be higher now. But let's just go with Randolph's figure. Adjusted for inflation, $185 billion translates into $1.3 trillion today. According to government estimates, the war in Iraq -- America's erstwhile response to the terror of 9/11 -- will cost the county at least $4 trillion once all the bills are paid. For a third of that sum -- a third -- the country could finally put Randolph's plan into place.

It's an easy idea to dismiss. The federal government is itself on an austerity binge, at least when it comes to social spending. And we know that government programs don't work, that they only make problems worse, that it's best to let the free market works it magic, that the poor we will always with us. It's ludicrous to imagine that the county might want to save cities like Detroit.
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