The second is good government. Urban expert Fred Siegel says that many cities are "like a pressure cooker — if you don't manage it right, it will blow up." In New York City, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg has preserved the intense policing practices of Rudy Giuliani, violent crime has continued to decline. The rise in murders is taking place in poorly governed urban areas like Milwaukee, St. Louis and Prince George's County, Md., outside of Washington, D.C.
The backdrop to all of this is the spectacular irrelevance of the civil-rights movement. The coverage of Coretta Scott King's funeral focused on whether it was seemly for the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil-rights pioneer, to take shots at President Bush over his Iraq policy. The real story is the failure of the civil-rights movement to create a new generation of leaders willing to address today's threats to urban America.
Cities beset by broken families, rage-killings and corrupt, ineffectual governance suffer a mini-Katrina every day. Yet where are the uncompromising calls for the restoration of the black family and a new wave of vigorous, reformist urban government? Asked on "Fox News Sunday" what his solutions are to the problems of black America, the Rev. Lowery emphasized 30-year-old bromides. "Let's have more [government] programs," he suggested lamely.
The opposite of honor — a perverse version of which is driving the increase in murders — is shame. We should feel more of it when surveying our cities.