If you still believe we live in a free and open economic system where ability is more important than access, please take a few moments to consider the following scenario.

Two Cleveland men serve their country well in WWII.  Both return young, unscathed and ready to reap the economic windfalls bestowed on the winner. Markets are free to exploit and everybody in the world needs everything.  Outside of a few bumps in the road, prosperity reigns supreme for the country and for Cleveland.  

    One thing does separates our heroes, one is black and one is white. Around 1950, when the first thrusts into suburbia occur, the white guy takes off for new houses built in Rocky River.  Our black friend wants to move but the 1950's being what they are...  he settles in the Glenville area.  Both used the GI bill to purchase their first home. Coincidentally, both houses cost around $ 12,500.  Neither of the men attend college, both choosing to make a good living working with their hands.

    The years fly quickly by and before you know it, both have families.  It is the middle of the sixties and they want more for their families. Rocky River puts his house on the market and it quickly sells for 3 times what it cost.  He purchases a few acres in Westlake and builds a good size home by taking on a small mortgage.  Life is sweet.  Now Glenville, he also wants to move, but when he tries to sell his house he discovers  his home has actually declined in value. Even though the house is free and clear, he can't afford to sell.  

    Zoom ahead a few more years and Westlake has accumulated quite a large chunk of wealth.  As the town becomes ripe for development, the value of his house and lot has skyrocketed.  His initial $ 12,500 investment had grown to over $ 200,000.  Even though he is occasionally laid off from his job, he is able to afford a small summer cottage, a boat and to give his kids a chance at a good future by sending all four of them to college. All of this curtesy of the equity in the family home.  

    Westlake worked hard his whole life and looks out at what he has accomplished and says to anyone who will listen,  "What a country!  A guy like me with nothin' but the sweat off his back can work hard and live like a king.  If I can do it, anyone can.  I pulled myself up by my bootstraps.  Why can't these Sons-of-Bitches takin' my hard-earned tax dollars just get off their asses and work hard?"  (Of such is the stuff republican majorities are made.)

    Glenville, on the other hand,  continues to work hard, but his neighborhood is deteriorating fast.  The once great Cleveland schools are falling behind both academically and physically.  Whole neighborhoods are now abandoned as white people flock to the suburbs.  Blacks try to follow (remember Jim Brown's aborted attempt to move into Rocky River?), but clearly they are not welcome. To top it off, after 20 years of faithful employment, his shop closes and he is left without a job.  Times are indeed tough.  He has no equity to tap into to send his children to college.  He had no wealth to help get him through tough times.

    One could say luck and circumstance is all that separates the two men, but that would be simplistic. Opportunities to develop and accumulate wealth are supposedly equal under federal law but remain in reality, restricted.  Economic, political, geographic and racial patterns are the dominant determining factors in the rationing of opportunity.

    Lest we forget, the development of suburbia and the phenomena of wealth accumulation through rapid appreciation of property is made possible in large part due to tax policy.  The highway and interstate system that created and now sustains the suburban land bonanza are primarily financed with the gas tax. This tax, although levied disproportionately on those earning  lower income, is used to open even more land for development. In Cleveland, the sprawling nature of development has largely resulted in a zero sum situation. Those left behind continue to pay the gas tax as inner city property devalues and roads deteriorate.  

    The flow of dollars from the city to the suburbs doesn't stop with transportation.  Expensive utility infrastructure, subsidized through higher rates to all customers, are stretched to the suburbs while water mains and gas lines deteriorate in the city. Water pressure in some inner city neighborhoods is so low fire hydrants can't be used. On the federal level, tax write-offs for equity loans help inflate the value of eligible properties. As property values continue to increase, lower tax rates are needed to fund schools. Conversely, as property values decrease, higher tax rates are needed.  

    Whose children are better off?  In the US, everyone still has a theoretical chance at the brass ring. But those who prosper by circumstance, like Westlake, are much further ahead in the race than those who flounder by situation, like Glenville.  Let's face it, opportunity is going to knock longer and harder for the offspring of Westlake than it will for the sons and daughters of Glenville.