“…there were massive government efforts…” - that makes it sound as if there was some secret program hatched from the top.But that is just a way to blame shift from those who created the decline of inner cities: the people who wanted to move.
— freetoken fights fecking fascists (@freetoken) June 7, 2019
Blame shifting is how we avoid accepting something that is outside of our control.
In this case the discussion is about the decline of inner cities, urban sprawl, etc.
I rant here about flippers and their evil ways, but I acknowledge that flippers can only do their thing if there is a mass of people who buy their cheapness.
This is not just limited to academic discussions of urban planning.
Blame shifting is why Hitler is such an obsessive target of cheap entertainment and commentators. The idea is to blame shift onto a single person, failing to acknowledge that is was fascist Germany which created Hitler, not the reverse. Sure, leaders are called such because they are influencers, but that is what they are - influencers.
America created Trump and his presidency. We may be uncomfortable that there are tens of millions of our fellow Americans who are ignorant bigots, but that is what we have here in the 21st century.
Getting back to urban planning: it’s an easy thing to blame oil companies or General Motors for urban sprawl and the (often racist) hollowing out of cities, but that ignores that the Americans who moved did so because they wanted to do such.