Severe Wealth Inequality Is Destroying The World's Great Cities

Last weekend we noted in, post about the galloping inequality inherent in urbanization that Richard Florida was warning that "Young, affluent, highly educated people have flowed back to downtown cores in cities like London, New York, San Francisco and Vancouver. Good jobs, better restaurants, higher tax revenues and even high-tech startups have followed. But this dramatic back-to-the-city movement also has its dark side, giving rise to what I call the new urban crisis, which registers itself in increasingly unaffordable housing and a growing divide between rich and poor." Since then, Florida was on NPR with Steve Innskeep (above), discussing his new book, The New Urban Crisis. He explained to the NPR listeners that "the middle-class neighborhoods, those platforms for the American dream, have been decimated" and that blue-collar service workers "are being pushed out of these metropolitan areas entirely." He blames Democratic politicians in the big cities and says flatly that they have "abandoned progressive policies" and he blames how power (and taxes) have flowed to the federal government and away from local governments.

We have to make a commitment to building affordable housing because what's getting built in New York and in Los Angeles and San Francisco and what is causing the backlash is luxury towers and luxury lofts for the wealthy. Number two, we've got to build more transit. We've got to build transit that connects parts of our cities and parts of our communities-- and actually those lagging areas-- that connects them to employment centers near the urban core, which is where the best jobs are being created. But the third thing we have to do that's absolutely critical and that very few people are talking about-- we have nearly 70 million jobs now in the blue-collar service economy-- food preparation, food service, office work, personal care services-- the fastest growing jobs in our country.

So I talk in the book about the need to massively increase the minimum wage to take into account the cost of living. So that minimum wage would be higher in New York and San Francisco than it would be in Buffalo or Pittsburgh, of course. As a country, we really spend time and money making manufacturing jobs good jobs. We increase the wages so that people who work in factories could buy the cars and consumer durables coming off the assembly lines. The only way we're going to build a middle class today is to make sure the service workers-- 70 million strong, more than roughly half of our workforce-- that they have jobs that are middle class jobs. And right now, they're sinking further and further behind.

...I had hoped that our federal government would lead here. But now with the Trump election and Republicans in control of both houses, that's impossible. So I think the default for the United States is this progressive group of cities and mayors and urban leaders and philanthropy. And let's hope progressive businesses-- the tech companies, the knowledge companies, progressive real estate developers-- will get on board with this because we are in such deep trouble with this overblown nation-state and really out of sync with the times. Dysfunctional, imperial presidency-- we see that with Trump in office, but it's been there all along. I really do see cities and local empowerment as probably the only way out of this new urban crisis.

There's an excerpt from his book in the new issue of The Atlantic, The Roots of the New Uran Crisis. In his 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class, he laid out the basis for urban success-- attracting and retaining talent, not just companies. "The knowledge workers, techies, and artists and other cultural creatives who made up the creative class were locating in places that had lots of high-paying jobs-- or a thick labor market. They also had what I called a thick mating market-- other people to meet and date-- and a vibrant quality of place, with great restaurants and cafés, a music scene, and an abundance of things to do."

In time, my work generated a considerable following among mayors, arts and cultural leaders, urbanists, and even some enlightened real estate developers who were looking for a better way to spur urban development in their communities. But my message also generated a backlash on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Some conservatives questioned the connection I drew between diversity and urban economic growth, countering that it was companies and jobs, not the creative class, that moved the economy forward. Others, mainly on the left, blamed the creative class and me personally for everything from rising rents and gentrification to the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Although some of the more personal attacks stung, this criticism provoked my thinking in ways I could never have anticipated, causing me to reframe my ideas about cities and the forces that act on them.

Slowly but surely, my understanding of cities started to evolve. I realized I had been overly optimistic to believe that cities and the creative class could, by themselves, bring forth a better and more inclusive kind of urbanism. Even before the economic crisis of 2008, the gap between rich and poor was surging in the cities that were experiencing the greatest revivals. As techies, professionals, and the rich flowed back into urban cores, the less advantaged members of the working and service classes, as well as some artists and musicians, were being priced out. In New York’s SoHo, the artistic and creative ferment I had observed as a student was giving way to a new kind of homogeneity of wealthy people, high-end restaurants, and luxury shops.

I entered into a period of rethinking and introspection, of personal and intellectual transformation. I began to see the back-to-the-city movement as something that conferred a disproportionate share of its benefits on a small group of places and people. I found myself confronting the dark side of the urban revival I had once championed and celebrated.

As I pored over the data, I could see that only a limited number of cities and metro areas, maybe a couple of dozen, were really making it in the knowledge economy; many more were failing to keep pace or falling further behind. Tens of millions of Americans remain locked in persistent poverty. And virtually all our cities suffer from growing economic divides. As the middle class and its neighborhoods fade, our geography is splintering into small areas of affluence and concentrated advantage, and much larger areas of poverty and concentrated disadvantage.

It became increasingly clear to me that the same clustering of talent and economic assets generates a lopsided, unequal urbanism in which a relative handful of superstar cities, and a few elite neighborhoods within them, benefit while many other places stagnate or fall behind. Ultimately, the very same force that drives the growth of our cities and economy broadly also generates the divides that separate us and the contradictions that hold us back.

My perspective on cities and urbanism was also deeply affected by what I saw happening in my adopted hometown of Toronto. I had moved there in 2007 to head up a new institute on urban prosperity at the University of Toronto. For me, the city was a bastion of the very best of progressive urbanism. Toronto had as diverse a population as can be found anywhere in North America; a thriving economy that was barely dented by the economic crisis of 2008; safe streets, great public schools, and a cohesive social fabric. Yet, somehow, this progressive, diverse city chose Rob Ford as its mayor.

While his personal foibles and dysfunctions may have endeared him to his Ford Nation of supporters, he was, to me, perhaps the most anti-urban mayor ever to preside over a major city. Once elected, Ford went about tearing down just about everything that urbanists believe make for great cities. He ripped out bike lanes, and developed plans to turn a prime stretch of the city’s downtown lakefront into a garish mall, complete with a giant Ferris wheel.

Ford’s rise was the product of the city’s burgeoning class divide. As Toronto’s once sizable middle class declined and its old middle-class neighborhoods faded, the city was splitting into a small set of affluent, educated areas packed in and around the urban core and along the major subway and transit lines and a much larger expanse of disadvantaged neighborhoods located far from the city center and transit. Ford’s message resonated powerfully with his constituency of working people and new immigrants, who felt that the benefits of the city’s revitalization were being captured by a downtown elite and passing them by.

I came to see this mounting class divide as a ticking time bomb. If a city as progressive, diverse, and prosperous as Toronto could fall prey to such a populist backlash, then it could happen anywhere.

At the time, I said Ford was just the first signal of this brewing backlash: more and worse would follow. It did. In short order came England’s stunning and wholly unexpected decision to leave the European Union with the Brexit. Vehemently opposed by affluent, cosmopolitan London, it was backed by the struggling residents of working-class cities, suburbs, and rural areas who were being left behind by the twin forces of globalization and re-urbanization.

But what came next was even more unanticipated-- and even more frightening: the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the most powerful country on the planet. Trump rose to power by mobilizing anxious, angry voters in the left-behind places of America. Hillary Clinton took the dense, affluent, knowledge- based cities and close-in suburbs that are the epicenters of the new economy, winning the popular vote by a substantial margin. But Trump took everywhere else-- the farther-out exurbs and rural areas-- which provided his decisive victory in the Electoral College. All three-- Trump, Ford, and Brexit—reflect the deepening fault lines of class and location that define and divide us today.

These political cleavages ultimately stem from the far deeper economic and geographic structures of the New Urban Crisis. They are the product of our new age of winner-take-all urbanism, in which the talented and the advantaged cluster and colonize a small, select group of superstar cities, leaving everybody and everywhere else behind. Much more than a crisis of cities, the New Urban Crisis is the central crisis of our time.

The stakes could not be higher. How we come to grips with the New Urban Crisis will determine whether we become more divided and slide backward into economic stagnation, or forge ahead to a new era of more sustainable and inclusive prosperity.

Do You Agree That When Injustice Becomes Law, Resistance Becomes Duty

Deceitful, dissimulating Republicans, led by Paul Ryan ("this is not a religious test and it is not a ban on people of any religion") are insisting that we're not really seeing the Muslim ban that we see unfolding at America's airports, but egomaniac, Rudy "Loose-lips" Giuliani admitted to a Fox News "judge" that Trump had tasked him with coming up with a way to ban Muslims "legally" and that the nationality ploy was the result. In the first day of implementation 4 federal judges struck it down as unconstitutional. The judge in Boston didn't just strike down removal but also detention, finding there are violations of due process and equal protection rights.

On Bannon's order, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement Sunday morning that gave contradictory directions to airport staff. On the one it, it says that Trump's orders will remain in force and on the other hand it stated that the Regime will obey judicial orders. Keep in mind that the Federal District Court in Boston issued a nationwide order barring detention or deportation of refugees, which the Trump Regime is already trampling. There is confusion‎ at airports and small minded, low-level little fascist-types, like the ones who worked in the concentration camps, will take advantage of the situation to behave with seemingly unaccountable brutality. Hitler didn't do it by himself; he needed plenty of enablers and conspirators.

The ACLU celebrated it's legal victories against the Trumpist Regime. Their political director, Faiz Shakir said that "I hope Trump enjoys losing. He’s going to lose so much we’re going to get sick and tired of his losing."

The American Civil Liberties Union announced Saturday evening that a federal court in New York had issued an emergency stay on President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The court’s decision, which will affect people who have been detained in airports, came after the ACLU and other activist groups filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of two Iraqis who were held at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as a result of the order.

...The class action lawsuit sought an immediate injunction barring the Trump administration from blocking immigrants based on the executive order. It argued that the order violates a 1965 law that banned discrimination in immigration based on national origin. According to a copy of the court decision from Judge Ann Donnelly, it will stop officials  from removing individuals with approved refugee applications, holders of valid visas and people from the affected countries who have been authorized to enter-- pending completion of a hearing on the matter in court. Donnelly also wrote that the lawsuit would have a “strong likelihood of success.”

  “There is imminent danger that, absent the stay of removal, there will be substantial and irreparable injury to refugees, visa holders, and other individuals from nations subject to the January 27, 2017 executive order,” Donnelly said.

Sunday morning, urbanologist Richard Florida, in a tweet storm, outlined how Trump was destroying America's brand-- and economic future-- in his first raucous week in the White House. "Trump's immigration insanity," he explained, "threatens the very core of America's innovative edge-- the ability to attract global talent. Even if the ban is lifted, the system has been shocked and global talent put on alert. The first place the impact will show up is our universities, where global talent fills our engineering and computer science departments. That talent will now choose to go elsewhere. Graduate students first, but senior faculty will begin to relocate as well. This was less of a threat a decade or two ago when global competitors were less established. The US could rest on its 'talent laurels.' But today, there are a handful of countries and dozens of global cities with great universities that can effectively compete for talent. London, Paris, Hong Kong, Toronto, Vancouver, Stockholm Sydney, Melbourne, Dublin, Copenhagen, I could go on ... I expect Canada and Toronto will gain substantially-- the combination of great university, great city, proximity to US market. I also expect that Canada and Toronto will act strategically to capitalize by upping efforts to reinforce tolerance and attract talent and tech. We will see this first in ability of Toronto/ Canada to attract global students, faculty and researchers to universities ... We will see it next in Canadian entrepreneurs and innovators who decide to stay put and not to migrate to the US, adding to local clusters. If Trump's insanity lasts for a year or so, we will see major tech US companies relocate substantial capabilities in Toronto and Vancouver. Trumpism represents the first substantial threat to America's innovative edge in my life ... Trump may believe he is putting America 1st by blocking immigrants and boosting manufacturing but he is undermining its real economic edge."

And, sure enough, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to the orange fascist's favorite medium of communication and let him have it...

Mayor John Tory said Toronto is the most diverse city in the world-- and will not keep newcomers out. "Our citizens come from every part of the globe, and arrived here looking for opportunity, equality and, often, safe harbour. While there is still work to be done, I am proud of our city’s legacy of acceptance and inclusion, and the fact that our economy relies on the hard work and expertise of people of all backgrounds. Our city’s motto is ‘diversity our strength.' We understand that as Canadians we are almost all immigrants, and that no one should be excluded on the basis of their ethnicity or nationality.”

And speaking of our friends up north, the Globe And Mail ran a piece by British journalist Shaista Aziz, branding Trump's executive orders hate crimes. "We’ve just witnessed the first full week of a Donald Trump presidency that has set the tone for what is to come," she wrote. "True to form, Mr. Trump’s arrival in the White House has been every bit as hateful, shameful and unconscionable, as we should’ve expected it to be based on his rhetoric during the election campaign. And this is just the start."

For those politicians and commentators who urged those of us not down with Mr. Trump’s doctrine to suspend reality and “give him the benefit of the doubt” to see what he does when he’s finally president, you now have your answer.

The president of the United States of America, a man endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, has fully mainstreamed Islamophobia and bigotry in his first week in the White House.

Rob Ford-- Four More Years?

When Richard Nixon was narrowly elected president in 1968-- beating war-tainted Herbert Humphrey by seven tenths of a percentage point, 43.4 to 42.7%-- I decided to move to another country. I travelled around the world and finally settled down in Amsterdam. By the summer of 1972 it was obvious to me that Nixon couldn't possibly win another term and I started thinking about moving back to America. When the votes were counted on November, Nixon-- who we later found out stole the election through a criminal fraud that later forced him to resign in disgrace-- had 47,168,710 votes (60.1%) to George McGovern's 29,173,222 (37.5%), a rout. Nixon won every state but Massachusetts (and DC). By the time he resigned on August 9, 1974, I wasn't that eager to return to the country that had reelected him so overwhelmingly.

Nixon? How could anyone vote for that cesspool to begin with-- let alone after 4 years confirmed everyone's worst fears about him. Apparently not quite everyone's. A couple decades later I was living in the U.S. and it happened all over again. Canadians may have been looking on in horror and wondering how America could reelect George W. Bush… but they did. Really-- and he beat John Kerry 62,040,610 (50.7%) to 59,028,444 (48.3%). Well, the shoe is on the other foot finally, Canada. We may have reelected a collection of bizarre political characters and criminals like Jesse Helms (NC), David "Diapers" Vitter (LA), Mark Sanford (SC) and, just 2 weeks ago, Scott DesJarlais (TN) but most of the jokesters are from the backward parts of the Old Confederacy where people are expected to be especially dumb. Canada may be about to reelect Rob Ford in Toronto, their 3rd smartest city (behind Vancouver and Montreal).

Rob Ford’s support appears to be rising as the gap between him and frontrunner John Tory narrows with two months left in Toronto’s mayoral race, according to a new poll.

The Forum Research opinion survey also found that Olivia Chow’s momentum continues to slip.

The poll, which was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, put support for Mr. Tory at 34 per cent, 31 per cent for Mr. Ford and 23 per cent for Ms. Chow – the three leading candidates.

...The poll suggests Mr. Ford is enjoying support levels not seen since March.

In addition to his rising popularity, fewer poll respondents want Mr. Ford to step down than did in previous Forum Research surveys. Half of Toronto voters said they want the mayor to resign, down from 58 per cent two weeks ago and 63 per cent in early June.

The poll found that Mr. Ford’s support was highest among men, those aged 18-34, residents of Etobicoke and Scarborough, people with a household income between $60,000 and $80,000 and those with a high school education or less.

By contrast, support for Mr. Tory was highest among senior citizens, North York residents, voters with household incomes over $250,000 and those who have gone to graduate school. His support is almost evenly split between men and women.

Right Wing Crack Addicts Trey Radel And Rob Ford Believe They're Above The Law

Right wing slobs Rob Ford and Trey Radel

Manmohan Singh has been Prime Minister of India for a decade. This morning, he announced he would not run again in order to make way for young blood. I understand the feeling and it was certainly the way I felt when I decided to leave Warner Bros. The only way for people to move up is for people at the top to move on. Singh is backing Rahul Gandhi (age 43, son of Rajiv Gandhi) for the job. There is fear in India that the far right has a chance of taking over with neo-fascist bigot Narendra Modi becoming the next Prime Minister. Modi is comparable to Ted Cruz, maybe worse.

You probably read already that delusional Republican Party crack addict Trey Radel, a former Hate Talk Radio host from Fort Myers, Florida, is running for Congress again. It was widely assumed he would have a strong primary challenge, and Florida Governor Rick Scott has asked him to resign, as has the Florida Republican Party. That he'll have a primary is no longer an assumption. With his phony-baloney "rehab" ending just in time for the congressional session starting up again Tuesday, he's already drawn one heavily financed challenger. The so-called Values are Vital PAC has two donors-- Ronald Firman, who ponied up $525,000, and Las Vegas lawyer Martin Burns, who contributed $485,000. They're backing ex-state Rep. Paige Kreegel, who Radel beat in the 2012 primary. Paige is a male. So is Connie Mack, the former congressman from the district who left the job to run a disastrous Senate race against Bill Nelson. Connie Mack will probably run again this year too, in which case he would be the heavy favorite.

Even more bizarre is sometimes snowbird and all-the-time crackhead Rob Ford, another far right kook, this one mayor of Toronto. He filed for reelection Thursday. There are no reports that he was in a drunken and/or coked-up stupor when he showed up at City Hall and filed. Calling himself "the best mayor this city has ever had," he also promised "Ford more years." Progressives are backing MP Olivia Chow. Bizarrely, polling shows Ford with stable approval numbers just north of 40%. (Chow's numbers, though, approach 60%.)

What’s represented in the chart below is the percentage of people who have heard of the individual candidate who would vote for him or her. If all candidates were equally known, this would add up to 100 per cent. However, since name recognition is unequal, and that’s what we’re correcting for, it makes the totals in the below charts are greater than 100.) On November 14 Ipsos released a poll in which they asked people who they would vote for if the election were held tomorrow, and also measured how familiar people were with each candidate. If we run the numbers, we wind up with this:

Right-Wing Mayor Rob Ford Isn't Just A Hopeless And Delusional Drug Addict Of The Steve Stockman Variety

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It's a shame that most media covers Toronto Mayor as a clownish crackhead instead of what he actually is-- Canada's most prominent right-wing politician… and a clownish crackhead. Chris Christie is basically one crackpipe incident from being America's Rob Ford.

The rest of Canada's right-wing politicians are afraid of being tarnished by Ford's outrageous behavior, though not by his vehemently anti-family agenda. Today, when he finally admitted he had used crack-- after denying it for months and months-- he denied lying and just said to reporters "You didn't ask the correct questions." As of publication time, Ford still hasn't been taken into custody. He also says he has no reason to resign.

I just watched his re-elect speech! I live-tweeted it:

Inside the private Tory caucus room on the third floor of the legislature, Ford celebrated the victory of his loyal political lieutenant and longtime deputy mayor, Doug Holyday: By joining forces, the pair enabled the provincial Tories to claim their first Toronto election victory in 14 years.

At the campaign launch, Ford had warmly endorsed Holyday alongside PC Leader Tim Hudak; at an all-candidates' debate, Holyday gave him a grateful shout-out; and with the byelection triumph Ford swung by to give his blessings. So when Holyday was sworn in as the new MPP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ford was the centre of attention at a reception inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Progressive Conservatives.

A polarizing force at city hall, Ford has cast a long shadow over Queen's Park since becoming mayor in 2010. That's because all politics is local-- especially provincial politics.

The opposition Tories embraced Ford as a godsend, a harbinger of a hard-right wave that could sweep Hudak to power by making inroads in Liberal-friendly Toronto.

The governing Liberals tiptoed around him, wary of a populist streak that could wreak havoc with their centrist, consensus-oriented premiers-- first Dalton McGuinty and then Kathleen Wynne.

Across the political divide, Ford was either revered as a demigod or reviled as a demagogue.

Hudak cozied up to Ford conspicuously, attending the mayor's annual barbeque in Etobicoke (though he missed the last one). Quite apart from their personal bond, however, Hudak has consciously appropriated Ford's political vision and vocabulary.

He spouts the same "gravy train" slogan made famous by Ford. And he has embraced the mayor's aversion to LRTs, insisting subways are the only form of mass transit worthy of a big city.

But the Tory leader isn't the only politician to fall under Ford's sway. McGuinty also acquiesced to the mayor's muddled thinking on subways by agreeing to bury, belatedly, the entire crosstown Eglinton LRT (until he and city council subsequently came to their senses). Wynne also buckled, opportunistically, to Ford's anti-LRT mindset by opting for a subway through low-density Scarborough.

For the Tories, the optics and politics of their close association with Ford will be hard to live down. When police chief Bill Blair confirmed that an incriminating video was in hand last Thursday, the Tories swiftly shifted into damage control:

As reporters sought comment from the normally voluble Holyday, Hudak's press aides literally tugged at the rookie MPP to leave, cutting off further questions. Again on Monday, when Holyday wandered over to chat, Tory communications aides scurried over to run interference-- until the MPP reassured them he was making small talk with me about a recent pickup hockey game.

Tory strategists say their current hypersensitivity is understandable. Many MPPs are mortified by the mayor's behaviour and want Hudak to keep his distance. Ford on his way up was assumed to be a net positive for the party; but a big city mayor on his way down is seen as a potential drag on Hudak.

The mayor's maverick brother, Doug, could also cause trouble for the Tories. He keeps musing publicly about running in the next provincial election in Etobicoke North-- a prospect Hudak has publicly welcomed but privately dreads. The mayor, however, is relishing his brother's provincial ambitions:

"Doug will be provincial, he will be premier one day," Ford boasted to a radio host Monday.

Realistically, the Ford factor may yet fizzle out by the time of the next election, just as it waned before the last one in 2011. After all, the Liberals' Fortress Toronto did not fall to Ford Nation two years ago.

So is Ford Nation an exaggeration? It would be a mistake to understate the impact of the Ford brothers, for they have coarsened our political discourse. Skewed policymaking and populist rhetoric will be their enduring legacy at Queen's Park, long after the Fords lose their grip at city hall.

Apparently two more Rob Ford videos are now in police custody and they are "bombshells," though not necessarily relevant to his crack cocaine addiction per se. There's stuff about rampant criminal activities and all the usual sick conservative obsessions with homophobia and racism. It all harkens back to Ford's Mussolini-like mayoral campaign. His right-wing populism and clownishness made him a hero among lo-info voters who distrust government and distrust elites. His blatant corruption is typical of conservative politicians in the U.S. but way beyond the pale for Canadians… and difficult for many Canadians to come to terms with.

Ford has taunted the police to arrest him and says he's not resigning. On Kiss 92.5FM he said, "If I did something illegal, then arrest me. Obviously I haven’t." It's just a matter of time before the police do release the video and do arrest Ford, hopefully this evening. I'm not sure why it's taking so long. Politicians always get special treatment, especially white ones.

Rob Ford: Chris Christie/Steve Stockman Meets Benito Mussolini

Rob Ford, The Canadian Chris Christie

Rob Ford is certainly a "fat fuck," but-- much worse-- he's a disgusting bigot, a thug and a quintessential conservative. But what's interesting about the "fat fuck" episode (just before the 3 minute mark on the video above) is that the reporter didn't call Ford a "fat fuck." It was the goon bodyguard who came up with the accusation that the reporter called him a "fat fuck" to change the subject and rattle the reporter. He and Ford then went on the attack, like two vicious overtly threatening hoodlums, chasing the reporter out of the room and ending the embarrassing interview. Watch Ford in action. It was the pathological behavior shown on this clip, rather than his obesity, that has caused people to call him the Chris Christie of Canada.

Watching his loutish, thuggish behavior, makes it hard to believe Ford was born into great wealth and to a politician dad to boot. Daddy tried to buy him a spot on a football team-- and Ford did get on his college squad, where he warmed the bench for the whole time he was on the team... and then dropping out when he realized he would never play a game. He also never got a college degree. He's also never had a real job in his life, having "worked" for the family firm until he started running for office, as an American style right-wing extremist and overt racist, over a dozen years ago. When called out for an anti-Italian racist comment, Ford shrugged it off: "I'm a conservative and the majority of people are left-wing and cannot stand my politics."

Ford is, needless to say, a virulently anti-gay bigot-- so much so that one has to wonder why he's so obsessed with homosexuality... and when he might be caught trying to have sex with an underage boy.

He managed to slip into Toronto's mayoralty in 2010 because it was a three-way race. He won 47% of the vote. He's the most corrupt mayor in recorded history and was found guilty of conflicts of interest and enough related crap to have a judge declare the mayor's seat empty. He's appealing and is allowed to keep the seat while the appeal works its way through the courts. But that isn't why he turned to drugs. He's been a drug abuser (as well as a belligerent alcoholic) for many years and, in fact, was arrested for driving under the influence of drugs in Miami. The Florida police who pulled him over found marijuana and he was convicted of possession, something he denied while running for mayor. Being a conservative, lying comes very naturally to Ford, not just when there are court records of drug possession, but even when he denied being at a hockey game, getting drunk and abusing people and being kicked out of the stadium by the police-- with hundreds of witnesses. When he says something-- anything-- he's as likely to be lying as telling the truth. And almost no one believes his current denials about having smoked crack. Last March, when he groped Sarah Thomson, a former mayoral candidate and publisher of the Women's Post. Thomson said he was either on coke or something like it, describing him as "talking quickly, out of it, arrogant... he was definitely out of it.”

And then the biggest scandal broke-- Ford palling around with some Somali drug dealers and smoking crack... which wound up on a cellphone video.

It appears to show Ford in a room, sitting in a chair, wearing a white shirt, top buttons open, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. Ford is incoherent, trading jibes with an off-camera speaker who goads the clearly impaired mayor by raising topics including Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and the Don Bosco high school football team Ford coaches.

“I’m fucking right-wing,” Ford appears to mutter at one point. “Everyone expects me to be right-wing. I’m just supposed to be this great.…” and his voice trails off. At another point he is heard calling Trudeau a “fag.” Later in the 90-second video he is asked about the football team and he appears to say (though he is mumbling), “they are just fucking minorities.”

And now the cover-up, which seems to include the murder of one of the men trying to peddle the video-- has Ford's staffers resigning and running for their lives. All this promoted the national broadcasting company, the CBC, to publish a story yesterday about the outstanding questions in this case:

Where is the video?

For all the controversy that has been swirling, one crucial question remains: Where is the video?

The Star and Gawker have stood by their reports about the video. Ford has said it doesn't exist.

The Star's Doolittle has said she and Donovan were told there was more than one copy of the video. Gawker has said it has raised the $200,000 asking price, through crowd-sourcing, but has not been able to make contact with those who have the alleged video. It said Tuesday that it will give the sellers about a month to respond before it decides what else to do with the money; donating it to charities was the alternative.

According to published reports on May 28, someone on Ford's staff was told days ago about the potential location of the video, and passed that information along to police.

Has Rob Ford ever smoked crack cocaine?

Ford said on May 17 that he does not "use crack cocaine” and that he is not a crack cocaine addict. Questions remain as to whether he has used drugs in the past. Ford has yet to provide additional clarification.

What is the connection to Anthony Smith?

The people shopping the alleged Ford video would not provide a screen grab of what they had. But the alleged go-between did give the Toronto Star and Gawker a photo of the mayor with his arm around someone said to be Anthony Smith, a 21-year-old who was shot and killed outside a downtown nightclub in March.

CBC News has spoken to people who know the men in the picture, and confirmed they believe that the men in the photo are Smith and Muhammad Khattak, who was injured in that same shooting and whose face was pixellated in the original photo.

The mayor, who has a practice of coaching and working with young people, has simply said he gets his picture taken with many people.

The Toronto Star is now suggesting the cellphone with the alleged video may have belonged to Smith. Police haven't confirmed that is the case.

It's hard to imagine a nice city like Toronto could have ever elected a sociopath like Ford-- even if more people did vote against him than for him. The latest polling, though, shows him supremely unpopular and likely to be beaten by his old adversary Olivia Chow, currently clobbering him 56-36%. And that was even before this morning's new broke that he admits to knowing where the crack video is!

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford told senior aides not to worry about a video appearing to show him smoking crack cocaine because he knew where it was, sources told the Star.

Ford then blurted out the address of two 17th-floor units-- 1701 and 1703-- at a Dixon Rd. apartment complex, to the shock of staffers at a city hall meeting almost two weeks ago, the sources said.

The mayor cited “our contacts” as the source of his information, according to insiders familiar with the unusual May 17 session in his office.

Staffers were alarmed by the implication of hearing so precise a location, sources said.

Now, I hope no one misinterpreted what I said about conservatives to mean that all conservatives smoke crack. That's crazy! I just meant that all conservatives are liars and sociopaths and corrupt. That's all.

UPDATE: Has Ford's Whole Staff Walked Out On Him?

These crazy conservatives! Now the Star is reporting that two more staffers have resigned as of today-- so five so far this week. One was his executive assistant, Kia Nejatian, which probably means he might as well resign now and save Toronto any further agony over his mayoralty. Ford's brother, Doug, who has been an adjunct of his career, is now being shunned by Ontario Conservatives, who are hoping he disappears along with big brother asap. They used to call him a superstar... but that was almost a whole month ago. The Conservative leader in the provincial legislature, Jim Wilson, said that Doug Ford "is not our candidate. I don’t even know the guy... personally I’ve never even met him." Cold!