My county's website proudly proclaims that this county has the
lowest percentage of people living under the poverty level in
the state. At first glance, this seems like harmless boasting,
reminiscent of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, where all the
children are above average. But what if the fictional Lake Wobegon
achieved its above-average status because it systematically excluded anyone who was below average? Would it be so funny then?

And, what if my county, and other areas similarly aspiring to
affluence, systematically excluded people who are poor? Not by
blatant approaches, such as signs at the border saying "Poor People Keep Out," of course, but by making it impossible for poor people to live there.

The main victims of this approach are not newcomers, as it is unlikely that a poor person will choose to move into a community with a high cost of living, but the people who were there originally, before the developers and their handmaiden politicians decided to make a targeted area the playground of the wealthy. The victims are farmers, homesteaders, senior
citizens, widows, the disabled, and others on low or fixed incomes who have been there for years and bought their property when values were low.

These victims will be forced out when the taxes and assessments on their fraudulently over-valued property make it impossible for them to live there any longer. What is happening is essentially economic cleansing.

This is the Urban Dictionary's definition of economic cleansing:

The methods used by government or those in power to make those pesky poorer people get up and move from the geographic place they live. It could be higher property assessments, highways through poor neighborhoods, higher costs for food, shelter, and even water. If poor people can't live in a certain area then economic cleansing has occurred. It is often subtle and no one ever admits to doing it. It is the final market solution to poverty in any growth oriented prosperous community.

Example: The city of Leander engaged in economic cleansing when it raised city water rates so high that poor residents couldn't afford the water bill. The Health Dept. said they can't live in a trailer, where they lived for 30 years, without their city water hookup. They must move. They have been economically cleansed by the city council.

It's not just an urban problem. Often the yuppies will move to a rural or suburban area and build a McMansion next to a "hillbilly house" that has been there for 50 years. And then the yuppies will complain about the "hillbillies" and their run-down place lowering their property values, and use the force of government to harass or remove the people who were there first.

Compare the definition of economic cleansing, above, with the Encyclopedia Brittannica's definition of ethnic cleansing:

The attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups.

Replace "ethnic" with "economic" and the effect is the same. Ethnic cleansing is considered a crime against humanity. But no one seems to care about economic cleansing.

For those who would argue that forcible displacement isn't involved in economic cleansing, stop paying your property taxes and see what happens. The government will sell your house out from under you for the amount of the back taxes. If you refuse to leave your home, you will be evicted by the sheriff. If you resist, they will shoot and kill you.

Ironically, health or safety is sometimes used as an excuse for economic cleansing, as in the example given in the Urban Dictionary, but the result is decidedly unhealthy for the victims. When my mother was a youngster in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, she knew a man called Pumphouse John.
He was called that because he lived in a pumphouse. Today, of course, he would be called a homeless person. And he would not be allowed to live in a pumphouse, as that would violate zoning and building codes and health department regulations. So he would have to live outdoors totally exposed to the elements. Which is certainly less safe or healthy than living in a pumphouse.

The powers that be do not care about the health, safety or welfare of the poor. In fact, they would probably prefer that the poor die from exposure. That gets rid of the "problem," doesn't it? Economic cleansing is a much more elegant final solution than that of the Third Reich. Just drive people into poverty and off their property and let Mother Nature do the
killing. No need to build concentration camps and gas chambers. And if anyone complains, they can always blame their victims for being poor. Hey, it's like Darwin said, survival of the fittest. If they can't make it in this world, they are not fit to live. Never mind that those in power have made it more expensive to live than ever before.

Diversity is a buzzword these days. We are supposed to embrace diversity, which loosely translated, means acceptance of people of different races, ethnic backgrounds, nationalities, or sexual preferences. But sorely missing is the acceptance of poor people. Most Americans value economic diversity in their communities today about as much as Hitler valued ethnic diversity.

Want proof? Visit the website rottenneighbor.com and browse through the listings of allegedly bad neighbors. You will find that the most frequent complaint about neighbors is that they are poor. The posters often characterize people as white trash, trailer trash, hillbillies, or rednecks. If they used racial or ethnic slurs against others, the site would be widely condemned as hate speech. But as long as they despise people because
they are poor, that seems to be acceptable.

Several years ago an apologist for the government schools wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper saying that people who can't afford the property taxes should move to trailer parks. That's right, he essentially said white trash belongs in the trailer park. And no one complained about this blatant display of bigotry. If he had said that blacks belong in the ghetto or should go back to Africa the outcry would have been deafening.

Jim Goad's "The Redneck Manifesto" hit the nail on the head. He claimed the real dividing line in America is not race, it's class. And that poor people, especially poor whites, are the last acceptable targets for hatred, ridicule, prejudice and bigotry.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous speech, hoped for a world where people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Now that we have a black president, maybe we are at that point. But there is still injustice of another kind.

I too, have a dream, of a world where people are judged by the content of their character instead of the contents of their wallets. And where economic cleansing, instead of being considered a community development tool, is considered as odious as ethnic cleansing, is considered a hate crime against
humanity, and is prosecuted as a civil rights violation.

I doubt that I will ever see such a world. After all, America was
settled through ethnic and economic cleansing against the Native
American population. But at least the Indians got reservations to live on. Can I get a reservation to live on when I can't pay the property taxes any more?