[Tetto]

Originally Posted by mkiv808

Far from offended. I don't even understand the act of being offended. And I don't like the video either. I just can't stand the isolationist mentality, because cities have a lot to offer - not just rap and violence.

I dont get what you mean by isolated, I live in Eastern CT, not Baffin Island...We spend tons of time in New London, thats a city!

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by Tetto

I dont get what you mean by isolated, I live in Eastern CT, not Baffin Island...We spend tons of time in New London, thats a city!

New London is barely a city. You're glad you don't live near New Haven. I assume you feel the same way about Hartford, New York City, etc.? Boogeymen don't escape the 'hood and terrorize the museums, performing arts spaces, and restaurants of great cities. Or the nice suburbs around them.

[Tetto]

Originally Posted by mkiv808

New London is barely a city. You're glad you don't live near New Haven. I assume you feel the same way about Hartford, New York City, etc.? Boogeymen don't escape the 'hood and terrorize the museums, performing arts spaces, and restaurants of great cities. Or the nice suburbs around them.

You're so insightful...I work at Longwharf; so I spend LOTS of time in New Haven. Go Back to the hood you love so well. Over and out.

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by Tetto

You're so insightful...I work at Longwharf; so I spend LOTS of time in New Haven. Go Back to the hood you love so well. Over and out.

Where did I say I love the hood? You're totally missing my point.

[fannibal]

Hey guys, I have a little anectode for you all about this whole crime in inner cities thing.

I grew up in the USA so in my worldview, poverty breeds crime. Why wouldn't it?

However, that worldview was challenged recently. I visited my uncle in Taiwan, and we drove by a bunch of assisted housing which was built right next to expensive high rises. I asked him whether the assisted housing projects would breed crime and lower the property value of the high rises next to them. My uncle responded, "they are poor, not stupid, why would they commit crime?"

This is my uncle who has lived in Taiwan his whole life. apparently over there, poor people are poor and uneducated, but not stupid. In his worldview, poor people are poor, but not stupid. Therefore, they have no reason to commit petty crime. I thought it was a fascinating viewpoint.

Just wanted to throw this story out there. Does anyone else who has traveled to another country seen similar views? That poor people don't commit more crime than the rich?

[JViello]

Originally Posted by Tetto

Such a melodius, uplifting little diddy. You just reminded me why I live in Eastern CT...

Contrasted to a recent (and somewhat regular) trip to Rockland Maine (Mid-coast) that I just got back from, Eastern CT seems to be an island surrounded these days.

*This close* to heading out to Owls Head or Port Clyde Maine or the Seacoast of NH. I've just had it on many fronts with this state (Got home to a nice property tax bill) and coming to the conclusion that even a small oasis such as Lebanon or East Lyme etc is probably a temporary fix and one still has to deal with state government.

Northwest CT has gone to the NY'rs, SW CT is just...well, SW CT and out of reach for most people. Central CT while still having some nice middle class burbs such as Cromwell, Rocky Hill is plagued by burnt out cities all along the I91 corridor. Eastern CT seems to be holding on as well, but these enclaves of normalcy are being squeezed tight.

All of our cities suck. (With the exception of Stamford) They are dirty run down, and full of ghetto and crime. I can see it in a major city such as Boston or NYC but New London? Meriden? Seriously? Compare New London to Rockland ME or Dover NH.

Compare New Haven to Manchester NH. Similar population, similar per capita income, worlds apart in crime.

Originally Posted by fannibal

Hey guys, I have a little anectode for you all about this whole crime in inner cities thing.

I grew up in the USA so in my worldview, poverty breeds crime. Why wouldn't it?

However, that worldview was challenged recently. I visited my uncle in Taiwan, and we drove by a bunch of assisted housing which was built right next to expensive high rises. I asked him whether the assisted housing projects would breed crime and lower the property value of the high rises next to them. My uncle responded, "they are poor, not stupid, why would they commit crime?"

This is my uncle who has lived in Taiwan his whole life. apparently over there, poor people are poor and uneducated, but not stupid. In his worldview, poor people are poor, but not stupid. Therefore, they have no reason to commit petty crime. I thought it was a fascinating viewpoint.

Just wanted to throw this story out there. Does anyone else who has traveled to another country seen similar views? That poor people don't commit more crime than the rich?

No stop, you are destroying the liberal argument that it's because they are poor they steal and kill...and we should give them the rich people money to fix it.

Again to continue the theme above. Murders in Manchester NH in 2009? 2.

Crime index for New Haven 772. Manchester 332.

Per capita income Rockland ME? $16,600. Not a run down part of the city, not a thug in site, downtown vibrant (very much so), services in tact, nice place.




Money doesn't buy decency, nor morality.

[Angelic_Avalon]

poverty people are not always criminal and I believe the biggest criminals are the wealthy ones like the Mafians and so on

[jane_sm1th73]

Yes.

[jane_sm1th73]

Originally Posted by ctcoldplay11

I'd disagree. New Haven, for its size, is a very dangerous city. Like we've said on this forum time and time again, if the city of New Haven included the burbs like East Haven, Branford, North Haven, Wallingford, Hamden, etc. New Haven WOULD be a utopia. However, the city of New Haven is currently sequestered with crime because of its isolation from the suburbs. Also, New Haven is far seedier than Hartford; I feel much safer in downtown Hartford (but its outskirts, I believe, are more dangerous).

All in all, it's not hard to believe these statistics. But I can't believe Connecticut allows its once-beautiful cities to flounder in poverty and crime (Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, Waterbury, Norwich, New London, New Britain, etc.) It's almost criminal.

Ummm...it's not some nameless, faceless "CT" that is allowing this. It is the deliberate execution of a policy created by a cynical group of union hacks, whose members understand only one thing: PLEASE LORD DON'T EVER LET ME SINK TO BE LOW MAN ON THE TOTEM POLE. The play only works when you create new members with less seniority, fast, who will keep pushing YOU up by comparison.

It's funny watching it happen in real time. Notionally, here's how it works. Less than a month ago some young woman was simpering on the front page of the Courant, politicking for a new underprivileged children's bureau with herself as the head. Thank heavens the union leadership got to her and told her to cut it out until after the contract vote. She vamoosed abruptly like a good girl. My money sez there'll be a new underprivileged children's bureau created after the contract vote that we will not hear about until it is slipped in as a line item in next year's budget. The simpering woman, of course, will head it up. She must have scratched somebody's back.

Touching, actually, to see them all in bed together. One for you, one for me, one for my buddy, one for my sis, one for my uncle, one for you, one for me.....

Next up will be some friend of Dannel's. The friend will own the land under the New Britain - Hartford bus road, and Dannel will approve the state purchase for - oh, say - $3 Billion initially. He will sweat bullets and posture for months, bringing that land price down to $1 Billion, $50K at a time, while receiving accolades. The Democrats will cheer him as a hero for containing the bus road overrun to a mere $1 Billion bucks.

The whitewash for the hanky-panky and bloated membership: THIS PROGRAM IS FOR THE POOR AND DOWNTRODDEN and WE NEED A NEW DEPARTMENT TO EXERCISE OVERSIGHT!! Thereby, new unionized headcount is authorized, new networks of backscratching between union hacks, town fathers, developers, and Planning and Zoning commissions are created. Of course, now that there is a critical mass of the poor and downtrodden, they will increase their numbers exponentially, thus justifying further increases in the unionized headcount. The sanctuary thing was insurance, a stroke of brilliance. If 800,000 people on welfare is good, 1.5 million will be much, much better. They'll need a lot more administrative departments, more jobs, more avenues for backscratching.

See how it works? Very neat, very tidy, all plausibly deniable. Even the watchers, and the watchers watching the watchers are on the take! Same way Brookfield was strip mined. By the time the party's over, all pockets will have been filled, and the pols, groaning, off to the Caymans, where they will laugh while watching those they left behind shooting one another on the streets for entertainment, sort of like Rollerball. A Hobbesian war of all against all.

It's no wonder state employees are terrified of being bumped. If I could pull it off, doing so little for so many for so long, and with such a cocksure air, I SURELY WOULDN'T WANT TO BE OUT IN A REGULAR WORKPLACE EITHER!!!

So, coldy - button it. You've been outed.

[jane_sm1th73]

With all due respect - even with its faults, this is still a free country. We can live where we want to live, and do what we want to do with our free time. As long as our preferences are legal, they are not subject to question or disparagement. "You say tomato, and I say to-mah-to", and all that. Or is it not that way where you come from?