The walls are caving in, but you wouldn’t know it by listening to Duluth’s ruling class. They’re too busy nodding along to the hum of their direct-deposit paychecks, congratulating themselves on another week of “steady leadership.”
Renters are bleeding, seniors are rationing pills, and the city’s pocket protectors stand at the trough, heads down, slurping. As long as their check clears on Friday, it’s not a problem. Not their problem.
You can smell the denial in every meeting. The spreadsheets, the charts, the hollow promises of “holding the line” while levies climb higher than potholes on Mesaba. The folks drawing the lines on those budgets don’t live in the reality they’ve engineered. Their mortgage was paid off in the Reagan years. Their pensions are bulletproof. Their insurance premiums are covered by the same taxpayers they’re squeezing. To them, the crisis is theoretical.
But step outside the marble chambers and the panic is everywhere. Seniors are trying to figure out if they can stretch a Social Security check far enough to cover groceries and the gas bill. Renters are staring at lease renewals that read like ransom notes. Families are skipping hockey sign-ups, cutting corners on medicine, and praying the car doesn’t need another $700 repair. And still, the same chorus from City Hall: “Things look good.”
Good for who? Good for the managers who’ve never missed a meal? Good for the department heads who treat levy increases like a rounding error? Good for the city’s army of “consultants,” billing by the hour to explain why raising taxes on broke people is actually “equitable”?
Meanwhile, the sacred cows keep grazing. Spirit Mountain gets fatter on tourism taxes while its chairlifts squeal like bad brakes. “Destination marketing” still pockets millions to tell the world Duluth is open for business, even as locals pack up U-Hauls to move somewhere affordable. And the city dreams of shiny new capital projects — parks, playgrounds, and plaques with politicians’ names on them — while renters live one missed paycheck away from the curb.
Duluth's latest tourism tax receipts? Down. Visitors and locals watching their nickels.
Silence is the danger here. We’ve become a city where speaking the truth gets you branded an alarmist, a crank, a naysayer. The polite thing is to shut up, smile, and nod along while your neighbors drown. That’s how the people in power like it. No fuss. No noise. Just the steady rhythm of their Friday checks clearing while the walls cave in around everyone else.
Here’s the reality: fear is real. Seniors aren’t just worried — they’re scared stiff. Renters aren’t just stretched — they’re gasping. And the longer we pretend it’s all fine, the closer we get to watching Duluth hollow out from the inside.
So, go ahead and shoot the messenger. Call it negative. Call it cynical. But don’t you dare say nobody told you. The sirens are blaring. And if we can’t find the guts to cut the fat, hold the line on taxes, and admit we’ve built a system that works only for the well-fed at the trough, then we’ve already signed the eviction notice for the rest of us.
It’s not “a problem” until it’s your problem. That’s the Duluth motto now. Just keep cashing the Friday checks, boys. The walls can wait.
HowieHanson@gmail.com
