The president of Baltimore’s City Council – who is hoping to become mayor – recently said something very foolish:  “We must ensure the safety of Baltimoreans at all costs.”

This is the kind of bla-bla nonsense that often makes heads nod sympathetically (“ooh, he cares”) and attracts votes, but if taken seriously it will take us down a policy road that leads to disaster.  Of course, Baltimore has been following a bad policy road map for a long time, resulting in seven consecutive decades of population flight and rising poverty and crime – all while demographically similar cities have reversed declines and boomed.