Your Headcanons?

[FaxModem1]

Bruce spent months in Congress petitioning for federal funding and getting stonewalled.

So, the alternative is that Bruce is incompetent compared to Luthor?

[CharlesPhipps]

Bruce spent months in Congress petitioning for federal funding and getting stonewalled.

So, the alternative is that Bruce is incompetent compared to Luthor?

It actually was established Batman had outsmarted himself (which is the only way he can be defeated). In this case, Bruce Wayne had established his public persona as such an incompetent goober despite his vast donations to charity that he was considered the equivalent of Paris Hilton addressing Congress on the hundreds of issues that needed to be dealt with to save the city.

Mind you, a lot of fans thought the idea of an American city being abandoned by the Federal government was ridiculous and that it was a stupid plot.

Then Katrina happened...

Then Puerto Rico...

It also helps that Lex Luthor outright "solved" the issue by sending in Bane to steal all the deeds and housing elements as well as bribed Congressmen....which is one way to get the wheels of justice going.

[FaxModem1]

It still shows that Bruce's 'war on crime' could have been solved with actual reform in Gotham, as opposed to chasing people at night, and acting the idiot by day. He might have taken out organized crime, but he didn't seem to really give Gotham a future.

[Yukaphile]

Anyone remember Batman Begins? Da hell how does building a public transportation system help the poor and financially vulnerable in Gotham? That's not how the economy works.

[FaxModem1]

Anyone remember Batman Begins? Da hell how does building a public transportation system help the poor and financially vulnerable in Gotham? That's not how the economy works.

Construction jobs in the immediate term, public transportation as opposed to having to rely on car ownership in the long term, and jobs in the transportation industry created by the new rail lines.

Plus, this also opens up new avenues of commerce and enterprise to be built at Rail stations.

Same way that rebuilding the infrastructure did the US a lot of good during the New Deal. It helped deal with all the homeless and unemployed by giving them a paycheck while improving the nation.

[Yukaphile]

Well, they could have expanded on that in the movie, because as is, it's presented a bit vaguely.

[Deledrius]

Anyone remember Batman Begins? Da hell how does building a public transportation system help the poor and financially vulnerable in Gotham? That's not how the economy works.

Having access to jobs and a reliable, safe, and clean way to get to those jobs makes a much bigger difference for the poor than it does for the rich.

[Yukaphile]

The way it's written, within the film's context, makes it sound as if having cheap transportation helped the people, rather than the actual jobs project. Again, it should have been worded better. Did you not see what I wrote up above?

[FaxModem1]

Well, they could have expanded on that in the movie, because as is, it's presented a bit vaguely.

It's Keynesian Economic Theory. Essentially, during lean years, you have to spend money in order to bounce back the economy, even though the gut instinct by those who believe in the free market is to save and wait for the economy to bounce back via it's own forces.

This is kind of heavy, maybe even dry, stuff for a Batman film, or for a Batman comic. But if Bruce Wayne/Batman really wanted to improve Gotham, it's how he would have to do it. Being Batman would probably still be necessary due to the level of corruption in the city, but investing in urban renewal projects would go a long way as well.

[cilantro]

They could also just put Joker in space.

There's other options if Gotham State doesn't have the death penalty.

Like what Superman did to Zod in his original movie? Place the Joker in the Phantom Zone?

Edit:

When I first typed this I was thinking about the Negative Zone and then realized it was the Phantom Zone.