The United States is, if nothing else, BIG. The population density in the United States is mere 31 per square kilometer, whereas that in Israel is 335 (cf. <http://copernicus.subdomain.de/population_density>). It's way roomier than Israel, for sure.
American cities have a lot of vacant land and abandoned structures:
<blockquote>On average, cities had 12,367 acres of usable vacant land, although the figures varied considerably (due to a subset of cities with large amounts of vacant land: Phoenix reported approximately 128,000 acres of vacant land, Fort Worth 83,000 acres, and Nashville 82,000 acres.) The median amount of usable vacant land was a more modest 4,499 acres.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . The 60 responding cities averaged over two abandoned structures per 1000 inhabitants (2.63). (<http://www.brookings.org/dybdocroot/es/urban/pagano/paganofinal.pdf>, pp. 3, 6)</blockquote>
Vacant land and abandoned structures bring down property values:
<blockquote>* In a 2001 study, researchers from Philadelphia found that houses within 150 feet of a neglected vacant property experienced a net loss of value of $7,627. Those within 150 to 300 feet experience a loss in value of $6,819 and those within 300 to 450 feet of such a property depreciated by $3,542.
* The Philadelphia researchers also found that all else being equal, houses on blocks with abandonment sold for $6,715 less than houses on blocks with no abandonment.
* In 1995, there were nearly 11,000 vacant and abandoned properties in Central Falls, Newport, Pawtucket, Providence and Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Experts estimate that this represents a $1.3 billion loss in property value for these five cities. (National Vacant Properties Campaign, "Facts and Figures: How Do Vacant Properties Hurt Communities?" <http://www.vacantproperties.org/facts.html>)</blockquote>
In addition, abandoned properties are fire hazards and attract crimes: "over 12,200 fires are reported in vacant structures every year, resulting in $73 million in property damage annually"; and "[c]rime rates on blocks with open abandoned buildings were twice as high as rates on matched blocks without open buildings" (National Vacant Properties Campaign, "Facts and Figures: How Do Vacant Properties Hurt Communities?" <http://www.vacantproperties.org/facts.html>).
Moreover, a big problem of inner cities is the loss of tax bases due to white flight. Take a look at "Table 2: Means for Total Population and Percent of Population by Race/Ethnicity for the 100 Largest Cities and Their Suburbs, by Region, 1990-2000," and observe the shrinking proportions of non-Hispanic whites in cities (Dennis P. Andrulis, Lisa M. Duchon, and Hailey M. Reid, "Dynamics of Race, Culture and Key Indicators of Health in the Nation's 100 Largest Cities and Their Suburbs,"<http://www.downstate.edu/urbansoc_healthdata/Urban%20Center%20Website/web%20design2/pdf%20files/urbanreport2003final.pdf>, February 2003, p. 26).
Therefore, existing residents -- especially home owners -- in inner cities would have a very good reason to welcome new model Zionists who help raise property values, infuse tax dollars, and decrease crimes and fire hazards.
Abandoned properties are available for municipal acquisition by eminent domain and tax foreclosure: "Property Acquisition and Disposition Strategies: An Overview of Issues for the August 15 Roundtable" (<http://policy.rutgers.edu/cupr/cdi/pdf/overviewpaper%20final.pdf>). Municipal governments should acquire abandoned properties and give them away to new model Zionists who pledge to rehabilitate them.
As a matter of fact, there is no reason why only Jews would want to avail themselves of such a good deal. Black nationalists might start Black Zionism, too, in order to bring back home higher-income Blacks who have scattered in suburban Black diaspora. Come to think of it, anyone who wants affordable housing ought to get together with other like-minded individuals and get their own Zionism going, claiming the Right of Return, whether or not they have ever lived in the cities they want to live in.
>joanna 123hop at comcast.net, Mon May 30 10:06:28 PDT 2005
<snip>
>If it were a way to dampen ultranationalistic feeling it might be a
>good thing, unfortunately it seems to do just the opposite, since
>the looser and more virtual the identity, the more fervently it has
>to be asserted.
Israel makes Jews into a race who are superior to a race of Arabs. In contrast, Jewish Americans intermarry at an increasingly higher rate ("The National Jewish Population Survey determined that 47 percent of American Jews who married between 1995 and 2000 wed non-Jews. This was up from 43 percent in the late 1980s" [David O'Reilly, "Intermarriage Rate Rises for U.S. Jews," <http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/6741330.htm>, 11 Sep. 2003]); they are much more secular than any other group in the United States except perhaps Asian Americans; and, despite their high average household income, they are still far to the left of all other whites, probably because Jewish Americans have remembered their own history and maintained their own cultural identity to a higher degree than other non-WASP whites like Irish, Italians, Polish, and so on, rather than just assimilating into generic whiteness, which is the main source of chauvinism and nationalism in America. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>